Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tarrare/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 02:08, 15 July 2010 [1].

Tarrare edit

Featured article candidates/Tarrare/archive1

Nominator(s): – iride scent 15:09, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Probably as close as it's possible to come to Grand Guignol within the NPOV format, this reads like the script for a really bad 1930s movie but to the best of my knowledge is accurate, comprehensive and covers everything that's been written about this singularly odd character. Tarrare was an 18th century soldier with some distinctly unsavoury habits (cat lovers may want to give this one a miss); while not quite forgotten today, he tends to be relegated to a footnote with little or no background context. This one sounds more implausible than most, and is this cited far more heavily than usual despite the inevitable WP:CLUTTER issues, as pretty much every statement is open to question. For any particularly dubious sounding statement I've used double referencing, to both the relevant page of the original London Medical and Physical Journal paper (to show "this is what was thought then") and to Jan Bondeson's 2004 and 2006 books (to show "this is still what's thought now"). Consequently, Bondeson (the only significant modern treatment of the man) looks like he's cited very heavily if one just goes by a reference-count, but I've tried to verify every claim he makes to contemporary sources. (Don't be put off by the sensationalist-sounding book titles; Bondeson's a perfectly respectable medical historian and senior lecturer in rheumatology at Cardiff. Cornell University Press have to pay the bills, and The Two Headed Boy & Other Medical Marvels shifts more copies as a title than A reexamination of 18th and 19th century teratological case studies.)

To pre-empt Obvious Question #1, no, we don't know the cause. From the symptoms he sounds like he was suffering from hyperthyroidism (the Rhône-Alpes region has always had a high level of thyroid disorders owing to iodine-poor soil), although Bondeson speculates that it may have been a damaged amygdala. To pre-empt Obvious Question #2 (as eloquently raised by a cartoon dinosaur), yes, it is true, as far as Wikipedia's concerned. The case was reported by various medical journals, all of which accepted it as accurate, and I'm not aware of any source that doesn't accept its veracity. While I've avoided citing Percy's original paper—as the article is as much about Percy's paper as it is about Tarrare himself, it seems uncomfortably close to being a primary source in this context—Paris Descartes University have made the original available online, and (while my French is admittedly barely adequate) I can't find any discrepancy between what Percy recorded at the time and what was was subsequently reported. – iride scent 15:09, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment—no dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 15:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment-A paragraph is defined as having three or more sentences; right now the article contains several "micro-graphs" with one or two sentences (for example, "The fork was never found" and "After some time, a 14-month old child disappeared from the hospital, and Tarrare was immediately suspected. Percy was unable or unwilling to defend him, and the hospital staff chased Tarrare from the hospital, to which he never returned"). This makes the writing look rather choppy, although it's an easily fixable problem. Stonemason89 (talk) 15:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Defined by who? A paragraph is any self-contained section within a work which deals with a particular point. I don't know where you've got "a paragraph must have three or more sentences" from. – iride scent 15:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- All that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (layout) (love it or hate it) says is "The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized, since they can inhibit the flow of the text". It does not say that they are forbidden, or that all paragraphs should contain at least three sentences. Actually, I quite liked "The fork was never found" as the final paragraph; it rounded the article off very nicely, I thought. Not every article will work best with a one-sentence finale, but this one I think does, given the quirky subject-matter. The other short paragraph to which you draw attention deals with a distinct topic, could not easily fit in the preceding paragraph or elsewhere, presumably cannot be expanded without unnecessary verbiage, and would be significantly less easily flowing if chopped up into a number of shorter sentences to satisfy an arbitrary three-sentence minimum. Bencherlite ^Talk 16:00, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The quotation from the London Medical and Physical Journal (1819) does not match up: the article has "stinking to such a degree that he could not be endured at twenty paces"; the actual text is "He often stank to such a degree, that he could not be endured within the distance of twenty paces." Sasata (talk) 18:16, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Fixed it (although obviously, it doesn't affect the meaning). – iride scent 18:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comment: all sources look OK, no outstanding issues. Brianboulton (talk) 18:17, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support
No dabs, no broken external links.
No images to review; while I understand that there won't be any of Tarrare, could an image of some sort be added to break up the prose? E.g. this file of General Beauharnais in uniform(although a source would be needed), or this one of him out of uniform?
High-quality prose, well-structured etc. Another fine piece of work. TFA 1 April 2011? Bencherlite ^Talk 11:37, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I considered adding images, but it's hard to know what would be appropriate. I'm very reluctant to add a portrait of Beauharnais or Percy—people skimming articles don't read captions, and I think the potential to mislead people by including a picture of someone who's not the article subject is too great. I considered adding contemporary images of Paris or Soultz, to break the monotony, but there's nothing that really seems appropriate; there's no building that's particularly associated with the man.
Not so sure about the idea of it as April 1 TFA, although I can see the thinking; this is a man who either suffered a debilitating disability all his life, or who was seriously mentally ill, and there's something a bit mean-spirited about running it as a joke. I have done my best to show glimpses of the humanity behind the cannibal lunatic which peeps through in the sources (the man who'd been rejected all his life, and signed up to fight for Liberté, égalité, fraternité; the man who finally found someone in Beauharnais who saw him as useful, not a hopeless freak; the man who—possibly—ate his own turds rather than betray his country to the Prussians), but by definition there's a "freak show" element, since what made him different is what made him notable. – iride scent 13:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support—as far as I can see, comprehensive, well-written, and interesting. Ucucha 16:31, 29 June 2010 (UTC) ;Comments[reply]

"before becoming the warm-up act ... in which" sounds odd; perhaps just split the sentence.
Why do you put the one explanation for his name in the text and the other in a footnote?
Perhaps add something about his internal condition into the lead? And is there no modern medical speculation on what may have caused his condition?

Ucucha 19:14, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see an obvious way to split it, without something clumsy like "… before becoming the warm-up act. In this act, he would…" or similar. If you can think of a way, please do. – iride scent 20:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I tried a rewording; please tweak or revert at will. Ucucha 06:37, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The "flatulence" explanation is the only one which actually has a source (Bondeson). I personally think that this theory is an absolute crock—if I were giving a nickname to someone whose distinctive characteristics were 1) rips live cats open with his teeth, 2) smells so bad he "can not be endured at a distance of twenty paces", 3) fights stray dogs for carrion or 4) has unusually loud farts, I very much doubt it would be 4 which would spring to mind. However, the "farts" theory is the only one with a source. The footnote that there's a town called Tarare, in the area he's known to have come from, is my personal theory and I've intentionally not given it any prominence, as it's pure OR. I think it's legitimate to mention the fact and allow readers to draw conclusions, though. – iride scent 20:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps 4 was the one that developed first, so it was more prominent in his early life. But regardless of which theory is more likely, the mention of the town is to me a textbook case of original synthesis—you're combining two sourced facts to reach a conclusion that is not in either source. Whether it's a good idea to apply SYN so strictly here is another question; I'm not sure. Ucucha 06:37, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I'm well aware it's synthesis; that's why it's buried in a footnote rather than the text. I really doubt the "farts" theory—the earliest mention of it I can find of this as a theory is the 2001 source cited, and it seems ridiculously unlikely to me. (The "Tarrare/Tarare" names for him come from Percy's paper. I can imagine a research scientist using the subject's real name in a case study, and I can imagine a research scientist anonymising the subject by referring to them by their home town. I find it a very implausible stretch that a research scientist would refer to their subject as "farts-a-lot".) I'd rather take both the footnote and Bondeson's speculation out altogether, and just leave "it is not known if Tarrare was his real name or nickname", than leave Bondeson's speculation in as the only source for the name, which I think gives undue weight to the theory. I've taken the offending sentence and footnote out; I don't think it detracts from the topic at all. – iride scent 09:23, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think original synthesis is any better or worse in a footnote. I am fine with just leaving the theories out. Ucucha 17:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure there's anything appropriate about his internal workings for the lead; all there really is, is what came from his autopsy, and it's impossible to know whether these were changes he'd had all his life, or caused by his overeating. (Did eating so much stretch his throat and stomach, or did he eat so much because he had a variant throat and stomach?)
On causes, there's lots of vague speculation on websites about what might have caused it (almost certainly a thyroid disorder IMO), but nothing I consider usable other than Bondeson's speculation that he had a defective amygdala. Eighteenth-century teratology isn't a very high-profile field; the only significant modern writers on it with a legitimate biology/medicine background (as opposed to "freak show" sensationalism) are Bondeson and Armand Marie Leroi, and Leroi focuses on genetics and doesn't cover Tarrare. Whatever he suffered from wasn't unique—Charles Domery is a contemporary case to him—but hasn't appeared recently; a society which would neither execute, exorcise or imprison someone like this, and had an advanced enough medical system to be publishing academic research on them, is a rare thing, so there are no modern cases to analyse. Polyphagia is a recognised and well-documented eating disorder, but most sufferers put on weight as they eat, not retain normal proportions as Tarrare and Domery (and Antoine Langulet, whom I haven't included in this mini-series) did. – iride scent 20:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the amygdala should be mentioned in the article? As for the lead, I do think there is some material in the article (also from the "Appearance and behaviour" section) that can be included there; at this moment, it only covers his (for lack of a better word) career. Ucucha 06:37, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added this, which is about as far as I think one can go without veering into OR. (That he had symptoms consistent with hyperthyroidism or a damaged amygdala is as far as it's possible to go; the autopsy didn't examine the thyroid or amygdala—unsurprisingly, as neither had yet had their function discovered—and he may have just been mentally ill with no underlying physical cause.) – iride scent 09:38, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good, thanks. What about adding a little information about his appearance and behaviour to the lead? Ucucha 17:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about that; he was famous for his eating habits, not his looks, and the lead already covers the compulsive eating behaviour. Unless the article is on a model, actor etc where looks are important (or someone whose race is particularly significant) we don't generally describe the subject's appearance in the lead. – iride scent 13:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Something about his apathy or his smell might still be interesting for the lead, I feel, but it's not worth arguing about. Switching to support. Ucucha 16:31, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, convinced on the "add it to the lead" thing, as Malleus is now saying the same. Added. – iride scent 16:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support ~~Comments~~ Very nice. Well-written prose tells the story nicely. Fulfills all FA criteria. The only issues I noted were very minor.

Reference 14 ends with a (151). Is that a page number? If so, why isn't it the same format as the page numbers in the other references?

A few of the references don't end in periods. I don't think that's intentional and it would be better to be consistent unless there is a reason for those without. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No; "unbolded number in brackets" in a Wikipedia citation means issue number (i.e., that the original of this article appeared in the 151st issue of the print magazine); that's correct.

The references end in periods if they include a page number, and don't if they don't. I agree it's ugly as anything, but it's what the {{citation}} template produces, and getting any change to that enacted is tilting at windmills. Besides, on the rare occasions Template:Citation/core is amended, it tends to have all kinds of unintended consequences that affect (literally) millions of pages. – iride scent 19:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All the more reason to avoid the templates, and just do them manually. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:51, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then I see no further issues with the article. My comments are amended above to "support". --Airborne84 (talk) 02:29, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Fascinating, disgusting, sad story. Well written (I made a few small copyedits) and well cited; it relies pretty heavily on a very small number of sources, but that likely cannot be helped. Meets FA criteria. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:51, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.