Talk:George Washington/GA4

GA Review

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Reviewer: 12george1 (talk) 02:37, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Throughout the article, I am seeing both "Britain" and "Great Britain"; remain consistent with how that it used, preferably, stick with "Great Britain". Done
• "Historical scholars consistently rank him as one of the two or three greatest presidents." - Seems awkward reading it, especially at the end; it that supposed to mean the "second or third greatest president" or the "top two or three greatest presidents"? Done Shearonink (talk) 14:58, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• "Gregorian calendar with the start of the year on January 1, he was born on February 22, 1732." - I think that comma after January 1 should be a semi-colon, since it was kind of a different idea.  Fixed
• "initial attack and then was killed...whether tomahawked by Tanacharison" - I wouldn't do that three thing ("..."), instead, replace it with either a semi-colon or a dash (if you choose that, use the HTML code "& ndash;").  Fixed
• Some of the references are not in Cite Web format. Citation templates need not be used, they are just there for convenience and nothing else, as long as they contain enough information about the reference (publication date, author etc.)

Unsourced statements

• "The newly wed couple moved to Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, where he took up the life of a planter and political figure." - Unsourced  Fixed
• "Like most Virginia planters, he imported luxuries and other goods from England and paid for them by exporting his tobacco crop. Extravagant spending and the unpredictability of the tobacco market meant that many Virginia planters of Washington's day were losing money. (Thomas Jefferson, for example, would die deeply in debt.)"  Fixed Text has been altered, statements sourced. Shearonink (talk) 15:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• "Washington had three roles during the war. In 1775-77, and again in 1781 he led his men against the main British forces. Although he lost many of his battles, he never surrendered his army during the war, and he continued to fight the British relentlessly until the war's end. He plotted the overall strategy of the war, in cooperation with Congress."  Fixed
• "His achievements were mixed, as some of his favorites (like John Sullivan) never mastered the art of command. Eventually he found capable officers, like General Nathaniel Greene, and his chief-of-staff Alexander Hamilton. The American officers never equaled their opponents in tactics and maneuver, and consequently they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes, at Boston (1776), Saratoga (1777) and Yorktown (1781), came from trapping the British far from base with much larger numbers of troops."  Fixed
• "Washington reorganized the army during the long standoff, and forced the British to withdraw by putting artillery on Dorchester Heights overlooking the city. The British evacuated Boston in March 1776 and Washington moved his army to New York City."  Fixed
• "The next spring, however, the army emerged from Valley Forge in good order, thanks in part to a full-scale training program supervised by Baron von Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff. The British evacuated Philadelphia to New York in 1778, shadowed by Washington. Washington attacked them at Monmouth, fighting to an effective draw in one of the war's largest battles. Afterwards, the British continued to head towards New York, and Washington moved his army outside of New York."  Fixed Shearonink (talk) 17:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• "John Adams, who received the next highest vote total, was elected Vice President. At his inauguration, Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States of America on April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City."  Fixed
• "Washington reluctantly served a second term. He refused to run for a third, establishing the customary policy of a maximum of two terms for a president."  Fixed
• "To protect their privacy, Martha Washington burned the correspondence between her husband and herself following his death. Only three letters between the couple have survived." Fixed

Two sources found and text adjusted to reflect the fact that (even though they are few in number) it is five letters between the two that are known to still be in existence.Shearonink (talk) 05:21, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• "This restored Washington's position as the highest-ranking military officer in U.S. history."  Fixed Shearonink (talk) 19:41, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
• "Countless American cities and towns feature a Washington Street among their thoroughfares."  Fixed Shearonink (talk) 03:00, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I will let you know if I find any more issues involving the article.--12george1 (talk) 02:37, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I fixed more issues and struck those that have been fixed. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 4:59pm • 06:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Also there's no requirement for the references to use citation templates as long as they meet WP:REF. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 5:00pm • 07:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I will pass this article after a citation is found for "Countless American cities and towns feature a Washington Street among their thoroughfares."--12george1 (talk) 23:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

(Outsider comment:) Ref 70 (after "Washington had the major voice in selecting generals for command, and in planning their basic strategy.") has an "unreliable source" tag after it. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed Shearonink (talk) 04:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Gee, I would have missed that. After reading what "Truth-It!" is about, it seemed like a smaller version of Wikipedia, and so I would agree with it being an unreliable source. Ok, so the those that are fixing the issues from this GA should also fix that.--12george1 (talk) 02:07, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm the one who took at look at "Truth-It!" and thought it deserved an 'unreliable ' tag. The 'selecting generals for command' statement is like the "Washington Street" statement... everyone kind of knows it's 'true' but finding the proof could be difficult. Shearonink (talk) 03:00, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

What you need is a middle school textbook, or a middle school teacher who knows American history. That'll get you the information on the generals. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Good idea Sven,,,I'll try to find something in that vein tomorrow. Shearonink (talk) 04:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Credo is helpful but only in sourcing the above statements, encyclopedias generally tend to avoid trivia and Google is also helpful but only to a certain degree as Google Scholar searches can get clogged with junk... I'll go to my local library and search the catalogue for any reference books that have useful information. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 8:43pm • 10:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Hm, I found some possibly helpful information from World Book Encyclopedia:

Extended content

From the time Washington took command to the end of the war, he had to put up with many incompetent officers. Congress sometimes appointed the generals without asking Washington's advice. The states appointed the lower-ranking officers in the Continental Army and all of the militia officers. Most officers were chosen for political reasons. Some generals, such as Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, believed they should have been commander in chief. They sometimes ignored Washington's orders. In the winter of 1777-1778, a few army officers and members of Congress hoped that Washington might be replaced by Gates. This group became known as the Conway cabal. It was named for the foreign-born general Thomas Conway, who had criticized Washington sharply. But there was no organized movement against Washington. Congress continued to support him. — Chase, Philander D. "Washington, George." World Book Advanced. World Book, 2011. Web. 3 June 2011.

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 17:36, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed Shearonink (talk) 04:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

With the issues now addressed, is there anything else that can be done to improve the article? Just as a note, 12george1 has not been editing for ~2 days, Shearonink has left him a note asking for further input. I'd say the article's come a long way and that we have a fighting chance of making this a GA :) —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 1:02pm • 03:02, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

We probably should browse through the article to make sure it's WP:MOS compliant, the ref dates should all be in DD MMM, YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD format, I'd suggest the latter for continuity, however, given that's the only correct format that is predominantly used. Aside from that I'll fix other MOS issues. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 1:07pm • 03:07, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I have no particular affinity for one date-style over another, just so long as the date/month/year is clear - I'm sure from all the different editing that the date-styles in the references are all over the place. Taking care of any other MOS issues sounds great too. Is there any kind of script or bot that would fix all the dates into one style? Shearonink (talk) 03:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

There is but it applies for the whole article :S if not we could do it manually, I almost achieved this myself until IE crashed on me... —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 8:53pm • 10:53, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed Did a find-and-replace on Word, then fixed up the other tidbits with Advisor.js, also I converted the table from raw HTML to wikimarkup. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 9:46pm • 11:46, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I am satisfied with the state of the article. Therefore, I will now be passing this article. Congratulations,--12george1 (talk) 20:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

That's good news, a lot of people have worked on improving the article over the past couple of months. It was a U.S. Collaboration of the Month for March 2011. Shearonink (talk) 22:07, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I guess what they say is true, "3rd time lucky" ;) (this being the third time I nominated the article for GA), each time the article was 1 step closer and coupled with the contributions between each nom the article has come a long, long way since then. Well done everyone, let's now pull our resources and make this an FA. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 6:11pm • 08:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)