Talk:William A. Robson/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 05:52, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Happy to review the article.

Thanks very much for undertaking the review!

Review

Lead section

• Link public administration;

Done.

• A fair use image can be made available – do you want me to put it into the article?

Sure, that would be most helpful.

Done. AM

• Why Indeed?

As a means of indicating emphasis and transition from the previous statement – see discussion here for example.

Thanks, happy to concur. AM

• I would amend as a viable topic for academic study to ‘as an academic subject’.

Done.

• Apart from Robson's connections with the Fabians, a mention of his career at the LSE, and the day he died, the lead section contains very little information from the main article.
• There is information not included in the main article.
• The lead has two direct quotes from different obituaries. Are both needed? Perhaps one could be moved into the main article.

For short articles like this (1500 words), I have found that the usual practice of having the lede contain only material that's in the body of the article results in the reader, when they get to the body text, feeling like they are seeing a repeat of what they have just read seconds ago in the lede. Therefore for articles like this I take a different approach. I still have the lede summarize the meaning of the article, but I do so by using some different facts than are in the body and by introducing quotations used only in the lede that capture the importance of the subject. In addition, quotations can be a bit more lively than WP writing is allowed to be, and hopefully their presence intrigues the reader into continuing on to the article text. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:10, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Wasted Time R: No matter what the length of the article, the Manual of Style is clear about how the lede section should be (see MOS:INTRO for what I use for guidance), and to be promoted to GA, a nominated article does need to comply. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 16:51, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

More comments to follow. Amitchell125 (talk) 10:18, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

1 Early life, military service, and education

• Link middle-class; clerk; polemicist.

Done on the first two. Not done on the third because it is merely an identifier for Shaw and to avoid MOS:SEAOFBLUE.

Understood. AM

• would later become part of the Parliamentary constituency of Finchley – that he came from North Finchley is sufficient—British constituencies have no significance other than they send MPs to Parliament.

Would agree normally, but is of significance here given Robson's later involvement in determining London's boundaries, form of government, etc, and the source makes a point of it.

I cannot access the source, but the information is out of place here, as its significance isn't clear to readers at this point in the article. Perhaps a note could be added for the sake of clarification. Amitchell125 (talk) 06:50, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

• due to his father's death leaving – as the death of his father left’ sounds better imo.

So changed.

• Why considerable?

Removed.

• the aerodrome itself – why itself?

A bit of emphasis but now removed.

• Link Fabians (optional as it is linked in the lead already).
• In a positive review at the time – sounds editorial, (MOS:OP-ED) and so shouldn’t be included.

Removed.

• aloft sounds a bit archaic – ‘airborne’?

I disagree with it being archaic. In fact, there's a popular chain of boutique hotels in the U.S., Aloft Hotels, that are located near airports; I stayed in one a few years ago.

OK with me as well then. AM

• He served in both France and in defence of home country needs copy editing to improve the prose.

Now reworded.

• He left the service, by this time known as the Royal Air Force, in 1919 As most the armed forces went back home after the war - I’m not sure this sentence is required.

I think articles should always give beginning and ending dates of military service –it's standard biographical information. I really wanted to find out more information – what specific aircraft did he fly, what squadron was he in, etc, but so far have been unable to.

Understood. AM

• The link to taking examinations does not lead to where readers might expect it to.

I've changed the link, although I'm not sure if any WP article accurately reflects the English education system circa 1910.

• Is famed needed?

For readers who may not know who George Bernard Shaw was, yes. This was the connection that changed his life and so the magnitude of the connection should be made clear.

Understood. AM

• B.Sc.; Ph.D.; LL.M. - should be in full, and linked.

I've reluctantly linked them, although I'm not sure any of these WP articles accurately describe how the degrees were earned, or what they meant, a hundred years ago.

• He then earned - ‘He earned’?

So changed.

• Amend to LSE – to ‘to the LSE’. This error occurs regularly throughout the text.

I've changed all the instances. But in my defense, the school itself uses the "at LSE" formulation all the time, see this web search for examples from the LSE web pages. There are also a lot of examples from their web pages where they use "at the LSE", so they are not consistent. From this discussion, the general rules in this area often have exceptions. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:17, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

2 Career

• Consider linking cellist; The Times.

Done on the first. The second is a repeat from the lede, but okay with me to link it again.

• the French native – I would edit this out, and called her a 'French cellist'.

She became a British citizen in the same year that she married Robson, and I'm not sure which happened first, so that's why I worded it like I did.

Understood. AM

• in a variety of roles - could be reduced to ‘as’.

Sentences restructured.

• a short stint – a rather vague colloquialism?

Reworded.

• civilian positions became demobilised – I thought demobilisation could only happen to the military, but I may be wrong.

Source is unclear. I have reworded it and linked to the British demobilisation article.

• Unlink World War II (MOS:OL).

Done.

• I would amend Academic Ken Young to something more specific, e.g. ‘The political scientist Ken Young’.

Done.

• persuasion was not his forte – I’m not sure what is meant here, could it perhaps be rephrased to make its relevance clearer?

Now reworded.

• officially retired – ‘retired’ is fine here.

So changed.

3 Awards and honours

• Link dissertation.

Done.

• The first sentence needs to be copy edited so that it makes more sense.

Now simplified. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:58, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

4 References

• Consider linking The Guardian; The London Gazette; Flight (Flight International).

I'm not a fan of linking publishers in cites. To me it just adds to visual clutter and it's hard to avoid lots of repeat cites if the same publisher is used often. If who the publisher is is significant, I try to mention and link it in the text, which the first and third of these are.

Understood. AM

• Consider adding {{subscription required}} templates for Refs 3, 5, 15, 16 and 18.

For 3, 15, and 16, the Newspapers.com sources that I found with my WP Library account, I often create clips in there that can be accessed without needing a Newspapers.com account. But for these I neglected to at the time, and when I went to do so just now, I discovered that my Newspapers.com account has just expired. I've put in for a renewal and tagged these as an item to do once my account is back. For 5 and 18, two journal articles, I've actually only used information from the openly visible first page of each of these. I've now made this clear by adding a url for one and an 'at page n' note for the other.

• Ref 19 (‘Research’} seems to be a dead link.

Now fixed.

• Ref 1 - consider adding {{subscription required}}, or perhaps use this.
• Ref 14 - consider adding {{subscription required}}, or perhaps use this.

Have changed both of these to your URLs. Where did those links come from? I haven't seen how to produce openly accessible clips like these from Gale, at least not using the WP Library account I have.

Another editor showed me: "With Gale's newspaper databases, I've had some luck with right clicking on the papers, opening the images in a new tab, and then playing with the URLs to cut the page to size. It's a process, but can work. See ref #2 at George Sidney Herbert, for instance." Amitchell125 (talk) 17:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

• Ref 12 is a submitted thesis, and I can’t tell that it was approved by the university. Is it a reliable source?

I don't know why I thought I needed that cite, as everything in that sentence is covered by the two Times obits. I've removed it. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:41, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

On hold

Not too many problems here. I'm putting the article on hold for a week until 15 July to allow time for the issues raised to be addressed. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 10:38, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Wasted Time R, everything looks great other than the lead section, which still needs to be sorted. You'll notice there's now an image of Robson, which can only be used in this article under the terms of fair use. Amitchell125 (talk) 18:09, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the fair use image, it definitely improves the article. Thanks also for the explanation for clips out of Gale, at least I didn't miss anything obvious. As for the lede issue, I will concede that MOS:INTRO states that "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." But I read a lot of articles on WP and I'm always bugged when a short article has material in the body that repeats what I just read in the lede. So as stated earlier, I sometimes like to put some things in the lede that are still summarizing in nature but are different from what will be presented in the body. Call it my little bit of WP:IAR. If this is a deal breaker for you on the GA nomination, I fully understand. You can fail the nomination, no hard feelings (and I will not nominate the article again hoping to get a reviewer with a different viewpoint). Regardless of the outcome, the article has been improved by your comments so the review process has been worthwhile. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:50, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

• OK, I was asked for a third opinion on this so here I am. I think either passing or failing could be justifiable, but my inclination is that if there's a fairly minor issue to pass the article anyway as GA is supposed to be a lightweight process. (Interestingly, I would be inclined to put quotes in the body and not the lead—although I don't think that's relevant to the GA criteria).
• I did see one other issue with the lead, the sentence "Indeed, Robson can fairly be said to have established public administration as an academic subject" I think that the idea that is coming across would be possible to convey in an impartial way, but the wording here (especially "fairly") makes it sound opinion based. I would consider rewriting the sentence to something like, "According to X, Robson established public administration as an academic subject" or "Robson played a key role in establishing public administration as an academic subject". (t · c) buidhe 07:28, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that Buidhe, now passing. Wasted Time R, if you could take a look at tweaking the lead as per Buidhe's suggestion, I think we have then reached a successful conclusion. Many thanks for you efforts. Amitchell125 (talk) 08:36, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much Amitchell125, and Buidhe as well. I have reworded the sentence in the lede to take out 'fairly'. I also realized I hadn't acted on the earlier issue about 'parliamentary constituency', so I have reworded that to include the more essential point that the source stressed as important (that where he was born ended up being part of London). Wasted Time R (talk) 10:27, 13 July 2021 (UTC)