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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1937 Social Credit backbenchers' revolt/archive1

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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 22:23, 20 January 2010 [1].

1937 Social Credit backbenchers' revolt

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Nominator(s): Steve Smith (talk) 07:04, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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This is the next step in my featured topic drive for Category:Obscure incidents from Alberta's political history that nobody really cares about. It's undergone a peer review from Brianboulton and a good article review from Hamiltonstone, both of which were very helpful. Steve Smith (talk) 07:04, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Fixed the sole dab link. No dead externals either.
  • Alts look good.
  • The few ref dates are ISO style. Prose dates are (at least mostly) Month Day, Year. I'm slightly disturbed by all the paragraphs that start with dates, especially at "Manoeuvring and negotiation". At least they're not one-liners.

--an odd name 19:42, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image Comments (man, am I the only one who finds Canadian politics incredibly dry?)
    • File:William Abrehart and his Cabinet.jpg and all the rest of the images are clearly public domain in Canada, but I'm not sure the PD-US tags apply; there's no evidence that these were published in the United States without the required notices, and also note the template says that "there must be verifiable information about previous publications of the work", which is not found on the image description page. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 19:13, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • While technically that is the case, I have been told by a couple of Commons administrators that no one over there enforces that rule. But I would be fine with going along with whatever you suggest. NW (Talk) 20:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • None of the images in this article have been published in the United States prior to 1996 (as far as I or the archive folks are aware), which means that they entered the public domain in the United States January 1, 1996. Steve Smith (talk) 21:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Then can you append that the archives are not aware of any previous publication in the US? And if the Commons chaps aren't going to enforce that (which seems foolish, considering its a matter of legality like anything else) they should just strip it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 15:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • Done (added standard numbers for a few that were missing them, too). Steve Smith (talk) 04:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I gave this a detailed peer review at which numerous minor issues were resolved. The backwaters of Canadian provincial politics is not an eye-catching topic; if Steve had added the words "shock! horror!" to the title the article might have got more attention here. Nevertheless, this is a solid, well-written piece of work, the kind of stuff unlikely to be available anywhere else but Wikipedia, genuinely expanding knowledge of an esoteric area. Brianboulton (talk) 10:06, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with comments. It's really good. There are significant gaps in our coverage of such historical events, so I'm glad to see it here. Just a couple fit and finish items I couldn't correct myself:
    • Name redlinks... are many of them actually likely to become articles?
    • Check MoS... you have several instances of longer quotations that appear to end in periods; however, you have the period outside the closing quotation mark. Ex. "and 'if anyone gets in our way, he's going to get into trouble ... we must choose between principles and party, between Social Credit and Premier Aberhart'." In this case, if the quotation actually ends on "Aberhart" in the source, the period would be placed inside the closing quotation mark.
--Andy Walsh (talk) 16:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Andy. To your questions, the answer to the first is "Give me an infinite amount of time, and they will. And even if you don't, I suspect Þadius (talk · contribs) will get around to them. On the MOS issue, I'll give that a look - thanks again. To clarify, this applies only where (as above) I'm quoting a quote from a source, rather than just quoting the source? Steve Smith (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right on the quoting a quote. It's a small item I would normally just fix but sometimes it requires access to the source to verify that the quotation actually ended there. Thanks! --Andy Walsh (talk) 18:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I reviewed this article at GA a couple of months ago. I have re-read it. i don't know why everyone says its so dull. For political nerds in Westminster system countries this is a wild ride, an extraordinary tale of our system of government being pushed to the limit and then beyond. It's one of my favourite wikipedia entries. I was not familiar with some of the book publishers and checked them out - they look sound. I can't access these books, so i'm not commenting further on WP:V. But I don't think one makes this stuff up... The prose is excellent, and well-crafted to tell a story that is quite complicated. Linking looks about right. Facts are closely referenced where required. Steve, can you comment on why Schultz's article, which is perhaps the only academic journal article specifically about the subject of this WP entry, is only cited once? Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 00:14, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for your support, your earlier GA review, and your extraordinarily kind words. In response to your question, I started off by writing the article from the books, all of which are in my personal library. It was only after I had written the article from those that I searched for outside sources, including the Schultz paper; the vast majority of what was in there, while excellent, duplicated material that I had already found. I could certainly sprinkle Schultz references more liberally around the article, since most of what's in the article is found in Schultz's paper, but current citations generally reflect where I first located the material. Steve Smith (talk) 18:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support A well-written, comprehensive article for all I can see. Great work! Ucucha 10:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC) Comment. I actually liked reading this article, and don't know why it'd be considered dull. The subject is interesting, as hamilstonstone said, and the prose is engaging. The reason I'm not supporting yet is that I've a couple of picky comments; I'm not even sure I've identified a genuine problem with the article in every case. I also found the article suffered a little for overlinking, and deleted some links.[reply]

  • Have you considered explaining, as opposed to just linking, "backbench" in the lead? It's a somewhat obscure term, and the lead should be understandable without reference to other articles.
    • My thinking is that while the term may be unknown to much of the English speaking world (I'm not sure it's a majority, but certainly a substantial minority), it's likely to be familiar to a large majority of the article's readers, since they're likely to be disproportionately i. Canadian, and ii. interested in Westminster politics. It's a commonly used term in Canada (and I think other Westminster jurisdictions as well, though I could be mistaken), and I'm afraid that explaining it would disrupt the paragraph to little good effect.
  • Yes, it is familiar to readers in other Westminster countries, but i still lean toward Ucucha's suggestion that an explanation be squeezed in somewhere and somehow. I nearly suggested this on my reading and decided against it, but think it worth trying. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:46, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've done this, but am not crazy about it; I'd welcome suggestions for improvement (or BOLDness, for that matter). Steve Smith (talk) 04:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hamiltonstone started a discussion on the article's talk; I'll respond further there.
  • It might be more informative to have as the lead image one of revolting backbenchers, instead of the government they were revolting against. However, from a glance over the article, it appears no such image exists.
    • I've been unable to find any of the ringleaders, and the rebels as individuals just seem to loom less large in thie story (both in my telling and the sources') than Aberhart & Co.
  • "Genesis of a revolt" - why not just "Genesis", as this article is about the revolt?
    • Changed.
  • "While disowned by Douglas" - wikt:disown seems an odd word to use here. I suppose he had been in confict with Douglas; perhaps using another word would be better?
    • Quite possibly. "Disavowed" is the first one I thought of, but I'm not sure Hargreave would properly be the object of that verb.
      • The more I think about this, the more I think "disowned" is the best word, though I'm certainly open to specific suggestions. Steve Smith (talk) 10:11, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Let's just keep it then--the meaning is clear anyway. Ucucha 10:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Knight-errant - is this link really relevant, or is it just an attempt to make this article sound interesting? ;)
    • The latter.
  • "ill-afford" - is that one word?
    • Probably not.
  • "such commission to be responsible to the Board" - perhaps overly formal or "legalese".
    • Not sure I catch your meaning here.
      • The full sentence is "The Board was empowered to appoint a commission of between three and five experts to implement social credit, such commission to be responsible to the Board." I believe the addition of the phrase after the comma is common only in registers too formal for this article, but (of course) may be wrong.
  • Is there a reason for not spacing the ellipsis in one place and spacing it in another?
  • Are you implying that public relations are not real work? Perhaps change "real work" into "substantive work".
    • Done
  • "the Social Credit League's sworn enemy" - perhaps it's better to make this point at one of the earlier places where banking is mentioned, such as the "banker's budget"?
    • I've added a mention elsewhere, but have preserved this one for now.
      • Thanks. Not sure whether preserving the other is needed.
  • I believe your not providing citations for image captions is justified by the fact that they provide summaries of information that is also cited in the text. However, in the image of Hugill, the piece about Aberhart viewing Hugill's action as insubordination is not explicitly in the text and should therefore perhaps be cited here, or included in the text.
    • Added a citation to the caption.
  • I changed the name of Aberhart's riding to include an en dash. You might prefer a spaced en dash in this context; there's a current discussion at WT:MOS on this topic.
    • I have no thoughts on the subject at all.
      • Ah, perhaps I shouldn't assume everyone has an opinion on obscure MOS trifles. :) But it doesn't really matter.

Ucucha 19:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also do technical comments (although others have also done this before):

  • File:William_Abrehart_and_his_Cabinet.jpg and all others, as the situation seems to be similar for all. The copyright situation appears complex (cf. Wikipedia:PD#Canadian_images:_Yousuf_Karsh). I believe all images should have evidence that they were out of copyright in Canada in 1996, so as to be PD in the US as required. The template says it should be under Crown copyright or the author should have died before 1949. The author of File:William_Aberhart2.jpg is an Alberta government department, so this may be Crown copyright, but this should be on the image page. For the others, the author is either "unknown" or a studio; the image description pages do not give evidence that this means they were out of copyright by 1996.
  • Alt text is okay (looked over this in my previous review, but had no comments).
  • Sources look okay.
  • Still no dab or dead links. Ucucha
You're misreading the template - it says that the image must have been taken before 1949, and be Canadian in origin, because the Canadian copyright rule for photos used to be fifty years from date of creation. Thus, any photo taken pre-1946 was in the public domain by 1996. Steve Smith (talk) 08:49, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, mixed up some of the "ands" and dates there. I do think the image descriptions should explain that the image was PD in Canada in 1996. Ucucha 08:54, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It does: "...and it was in the public domain in its home country on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 for most countries)." (from the second template). Steve Smith (talk) 08:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now, I may be overly picky here, but I think there's a difference between asserting and explaining. Ucucha 15:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, yes, fine. I'll leave a note at the relevant template talk page on Commons suggesting that things be explained there. Steve Smith (talk) 10:11, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I'll assume things will get resolved at Commons and am supporting now. Ucucha 10:17, 18 January 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.
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