User talk:Cleveland Todd/Archive 2

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Goldsztajn in topic James Hood Wright
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Hello, I noticed you left a comment on another Wikipedian's talk page regarding Nanotherapeutics, Inc., and have moved the article. The article could use some cleanup now, if you are still interested in the topic. - Indefensible (talk) 08:17, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

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Thank you

For stepping in at James Hood Wright, very much appreciated (and needed!). Kind regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 21:13, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited James Hood Wright, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Republican Party.

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James Hood Wright

As you may have noticed I have been trying to get this article to Good Article status. It finally failed the review today after 8 months in the process. One of the suggestions for improvement by the reviewer is a professional copy edit. I notice you are a member of GOCE. You have 8.3% authorship into the article as the number two editor. Here is a proposal - copy edit the article and get your authorship up to 20%, THEN nominate GAN as the nominator. When the review happens, you answer the easy issues and I will handle the difficult issues. THEN we both can earn a green icon credit for Good Article, you as the nominator and me as the creator of the article. Let me know here, as I have a watch here.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

  • Doug, happy to help - James Hood is an interesting character. I am a little jammed up right now, doing lots of writing for things other than Wikipedia, but I'll attempt to get to it when I can. Do you have a time frame? Cleveland Todd (talk) 15:58, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Doug. I had a project cancelled, so I got a lot done, adding particularly to the career section, trying to explain the sources of his wealth. The will/estate section seems overly crowded with spurious guesses on the size of his assets. I'd suggest:

  • Upon his death, Wright’s reputation as a prominent financier, railroad reorganizer, and confidant of the country’s wealthy (including Thomas Edison) set off a media frenzy speculating on the size of his estate. Newspapers around the United States from New York City to Silver City, New Mexico published hypothetical stories describing his considerable legacy. (Citation) In 1895 his nephews contested his will. At that time the NY Surrogate Court estimated Wright’s fortune was $5 million ($147 million in 2019) in liquid assets and $300,000 ($8.8 million in 2019) in property. (Citation) In March 1895, probate court agreed and set the final determination of the estate at $5 million in liquid assets and $300,000 in property, the majority of which went to his wife, sister and stepchildren. (citation)
  • I'm working on a Good Article review answering issues right now, but at first glance at what you wrote above looks good to me. You are doing an outstanding copy edit job. I'll fill in any needed references later in a day or two, when I get a break. Thanks again for your work on the article improvements.--Doug Coldwell (talk)
  • Sounds good. I'll be doing some more copy editing to the rest of the article in the next few days. When you've added the citations, I'll finish.Cleveland Todd (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Doug, I'm done with Mr. Wright. Please review and correct any errors. I recommend using the photo of the actual Knickerbocker Hospital. Also, on that site, is a photo of Wright's home. Can you get that and replace the 1800's electric light in the proper section? Better visual.

Also, should we go back to user:Goldsztajn and ask him to re-review? I added a lot to where Wright made his fortune, the very thing both he and I thought was so important, also reverted some of the stuff on the flowers at Wright's wedding. Or should we just wait a bit and re-apply for GA status? You're far more experienced at this than I. Cleveland Todd (talk) 16:01, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

  • O.K. I'll look things over this afternoon (after my nap). At first glance it's looking real good. I'll get those pictures. I would say to wait a bit and re-nominate.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 16:26, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Put in Wright house picture and J Hood Memorial Hospital picture. Let's wait until after February 19 and then just renominate as a new GAN under whatever topic you feel is best. If the reviewer feels it should go under a different topic they will change it when it gets promoted. Waiting for another reviewer will be shorter in the long run, as user:Goldsztajn took eight months and was then told to close the nomination. He failed it. A fresh start with a new reviewer is better. You did an excellent job on improvements, so I don't see any problem in it getting promoted.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:28, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Doug - really enjoyed working with you on this project. I was going through other articles requesting copy edits from the GOCE, chose a couple and realized they had been your creations. You seem (lately) to focus on Americans of what I'll call the second rank - not Lincoln, Grant or Roosevelt, but the people who made them notable. I find that fascinating. Once I got into Wright's life, I couldn't stop learning about him. How many Wrights are there?

I do have a couple of questions to put to you, an editor of significant seniority.

  • Yes, I'll be glad to answer your questions

These are not criticisms, only questions:

At times, you add two or more citations to a simple statement of fact. Is this considered a sound practice?
  • Yes. It is considered sound practice, up to THREE references. No more than 3 however should ever be done.

It does make it hard to edit, because the citations take more space than the content.

  • Interesting note, however there are ways around that.
1) Book cites are just the short {sfn|Author|year|page=}} template with the book itself in the Sources section.
2) Cite news and Cite journal and Cite mag and Cite web can be made much shorter by using the format method I used in Louise Boursier. Look under the section References and you will see how I placed those types of Cites. Now if you place inline (where the reference should be) just the first part of <ref Name= "Any dreamed name"/ > with the backslash, then it picks it up there inline where you placed the shortened version.

user:Goldsztajn accused you of "refbombing," an interesting uniquely Wikipedia concept. I wonder if multiple citations are ever worthwhile?

  • The term "refbombing" is more correctly that of having more than 3 inline references, so that is why 3 is the limit. If you will notice in the article, I NEVER had more than 3 inline references anywhere. I may have had otherwise more inline references behind most sentences and that is what he didn't like. I was just covering my "assets" to make sure I had enough. Generally speaking, and inline reference at the end of a sentence is all that is necessary - where in the heat of the battle I put some inline references in the middle of a sentence also (usually a comma). Usually all that is necessary (and what you should aim for) is just 1, 2, or 3 inline references at the end of the paragraph.
I've never nominated an article for GA status and hope I can count on your help in this?
  • Yes, I would be glad to help you through the process. I am most familiar with it and it is easy for me.
Here is how to approach it: In Google type "Wiki Good Article nom" It will display then "Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions" <---click here to bring that up. See "Step2:Nominating the article" and follow the first instruction. Paste that template at the very very very top of Editing Talk:James Hood Wright by moving down a space the existing text to make room for your template you are dropping in. Now go back to Step 2 and copy the subtopic "Culture, sociology and psychology" and paste that into the space in the template in the place subtopic= . In the future if you do this again, it turns out that you can pick any of the 30 subtopics and paste in your new template on the Article Talk page. The reviewer will automatically put it into the correct topic (if they feel it is the wrong one) when they promote the article to Good Article status. It is part of the reviewer's final paperwork.
Don't worry to much about any of this above - just make an attempt at my instructions and notify me prior to when you are about to do this and I will correct any mistakes you might make. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
You included all the stuff about the flowers at Wright's wedding. Was this just to add more detail to his bio? Or to add more heft to the article? As it turned out, when we both added more data on his wealth, this wasn't needed.

The flowers I put in to just add more wording - however it is not necessary, and I think looks better without it.

user:Goldsztajn did a word count analysis on Wright's article. Is there a simple way to do this on Wikipedia? Do reviewers think this is a valid means of evaluating content? It is misleading. E.g., reporting on a hypothetical philanthropist, we could say, "Doug Coldwell won a billion dollars in the Powerball lottery." Ten words would suffice for all wealth generation questions.
  • The word count analysis was unnecessary and I have never seen this before in some 100 Good Articles and 500 Did You Know articles. It is not normally done and proves nothing. I think the wording in Estate is now perfect and sums up the story as to what it is all about. I would leave it the way it is now - looks good to me! The use of the inflation templates is correct, as they show the figures to the most current data base used - which happens to be 2019. My understanding is that when a more current data base is used (i.e. 2020) then it automatically updates itself.

Anyway, thanks for including me in promulgating J. Hood Wright; it's been a delight. Cleveland Todd (talk) 17:39, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  • The article, the way it is now, is a Good Article if I have ever seen a Good Article. I have seen over 100 so I should know. If the article is not a Good Article, then I don't know what a Good Article is. Let's set up an appointment when you want to do the GAN nomination and I will step you through and make any corrections right on the spot. I happen to be free the next few days (because it's snowing here) and can make myself available most anytime. I'm in Michigan on Eastern Time. I turn on my 3 PCs at 6 A.M. and turn them off at 6 P.M. It will take 4 - 8 weeks before we will see a GA reviewer and can "tweak" the article meanwhile if we want.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Did I explain clear enough how to nominate a GAN. The main idea is to start with a Google search of "wiki good article nom" to get the instructions. Then just drop in the nomination template onto the very very very top of the article Talk Page and then use Education as the subtopic. Does that make sense to you? --Doug Coldwell (talk) 15:37, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm pretty sure I understand but there's many a slip twixt cup and lip. You had originally written to wait to nominate the article until after 2/19. I'm going to be busy until this weekend anyway and still have you as backup should anything go wrong. Cleveland Todd (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, after 2/19 is fine. Then meanwhile either of us can tweak the article. Let me know when you are ready to try to submit the GAN nomination and I will be nearby to fix anything, if needed. I'm sure however, nothing will go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong. oopppss.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 22:20, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Doug - I added the template "subst:GAN|subtopic=education" at the top of the talk page per instructions, right over the closed discussion on the first GAN. When I attempted to show preview, nothing happened. So I placed it under the original closed discussion and it appears to work. I haven't published yet. Also, should I say something about all the work you and I have done to upgrade?Cleveland Todd (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Sounds like it will work the way you say, so I recommend you Publish and see what happens. I'll check it. No, I don't think we should say anything about the work we have done. Just nominating is all that is necessary and we will see what the reviewer has to say - someday!Doug Coldwell (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Where it says {{FailedGA make on top of that a couple of line breaks, THEN drop in the GAN template (as then you will have room). The template SOULD BE at the very very top of the page, because that is the way the Bot picks it up and automatically puts it into the queue under that subtopic. Any subtopic will work!--Doug Coldwell (talk) 16:34, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
  • It worked with the added line breaks. Thanks, I'm off to Saturday chores.Cleveland Todd (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Cleveland Todd, I just noticed your GA renomination of J H Wright ― looks like you've done a lot of work addressing the problems with the article, thanks for your efforts. A few drive-by comments having glanced at the above discussion. I won't do another review of the article, in my mind it's best to let fresh eyes look at this. I think your instinct about the article's over-referencing is correct; there's no rule that every single fact must be referenced to multiple sources; where similar sources provide the same information, ideally one would point to the most reliable and/or the most accessible for ease of verification. In my experience the point of multiple referencing is where there might be controversy or divergence of opinion around a point of view, which is not really a problem with the subject here as far as I can see. Regarding the word count analysis I did in the final part of the review ― this was done using the word count tool in Microsoft Word, I just cut and pasted the text. I used this approach to illustrate the problem we had both noticed with the article (ie the lack of information about his career) and that none of the expansions during the review had addressed the problem. Looking over where the article stands at present, I would suggest reworking the lead as I can see a few areas where it fails WP:MOSLEAD:

  • use of the terms "railroad man" seems to credit him with more than he actually was and even if one was to keep it, the link itself to Rail in the US does not convey what is meant by that term
  • "He worked with Thomas Edison in electrical technology and helped finance his enterprises." -> "He facilitated investments in Thomas Edison's electrical enterprises."
  • "Wright became wealthy in his business operations and was celebrated as a philanthropist." -> "Through his role in the leading finance firm of the age, Wright amassed a substantial fortune by the time of his death." There's no text in the article that indicates that he was actually celebrated for his role as a philanthropist and it seems a relatively minor part of his life.

Finally, the article has been nominated in the education subtopic, was that deliberate? I would have thought he should be in economics and business. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 02:37, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

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