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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Peter Jones (missionary)

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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 Raul654 04:11, 19 February 2009 [1].

Peter Jones (missionary) edit

Nominator(s): User:WilyD
previous FAC (03:54, 24 September 2008)

A few months ago, this ran through a very lacklustre FAC which resulted in no promotion, essentially over concerns about the writing, especially towards the end of the article. Since that time, I've undertaken some re-arranging and clarifications in the text, moved things about a bit and so forth. The article was already fairly close, I think, with most of the bits in place - it passed GAC without any objections, for instance. Figured I'd give this another run through the meatgrinder. WilyD 14:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image review as follows:

These should be simple to rectify. Jappalang (talk) 08:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In good faith, all images are okay. Jappalang (talk) 06:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. The prose is much improved from the last FAC. Excellent work! Karanacs (talk) 15:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

  • The second paragraph of the lead dances around the question of Jones' ethnic identity without actually addressing it. It speaks of learning farming from his father, of being "bilingual and bicultural", but it seems to dance around the question of what his father's ethnicity was. (It's resolved in the "Early life" section, but the second para still reads like an attempt to avoid saying something). Simply identifying his father as a Welsh-born Loyalist (or something of the sort) would avoid this problem.
  • In the Raised by his father section, it says that Jones worked "as a brickmaker working for his brother-in-law Archibald Russell". It's unclear where he gets a brother-in-law from...is it the spouse of a half-sister? Clarification would be helpful
    • For someone living in Canada, the only way to acquire a brother-in-law was for someone to marry your sister until ~2004 (after which they can also marry your brother). Archibald is Catherine's husband, for what it's worth, and Catherine is Augustus Jones' daughter, but I'm not sure how this is unclear (it's unclear to me how this is unclear). WilyD
      • Well, there was a second way - you could marry their sister. It was probably just carelessness on my part, but when I got to the statement about Jones working for his brother-in-law, I still had an image of him as a child. It just left me a bit confused..."was he married?"..."was one of his siblings married?"..."was there also a full sister that wasn't mentioned?" Guettarda (talk) 15:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oh, yeah, I completely failed to realise that. He would've been at least nomainally old enough to marry then - he went to live with his father when he was 14, and so forth. Re-reading, he was 19 or 20 when he was brickmaking, so he certainly could've been married (but I'd hope I'd have mentioned that). Maybe I should change "step-mother and step-siblings" to "step-mother and half-siblings" earlier up in that paragraph? WilyD 16:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Funny how your mind edits things - I just looked over the para, and saw "step-siblings" and automatically corrected it to "half-siblings" as I read it. So yeah, it would be worth fixing that. In an ideal setting, the fix to my "problem" would be to give a bit more of a sense of his family life at his father's farm. There's a vague sense of the personality of Jones senior, but not of Sarah and her children. Of course, I don't know if there are any sources that would shed light on that, and I wouldn't consider it a requirement for this article. Guettarda (talk) 16:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • I changed the phrase. The issue is that his life before age 22 or so is essentially from his own recounting, and he really glosses over the whole polygamous father deal. Consequently, we get very little impression of his stepmother. WilyD 16:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The phrase "bilingual and bicultural" is OK in the intro, a little forced in the Raised by his father section, and just clumsy when it's repeated a third time in the Conversion section.
    • It's probably least needed in "raised by his father". It is an important part of why William Case took such an interest in him. So I dropped it in "raised by his father". WilyD 23:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The image File:PeterJones1845InScotlad.jpg is described as "the oldest surviving photograph of a North American Indian." In the Augustus Jones article, the image File:OjibwaMissionaryPeterJonesInScotland.png is described as "the oldest surviving photograph of a North American Indian". Both of these statements are supported by a reference to Hoxie's "Encyclopedia of North American Indians" (which actually makes that assertion about the latter image); the Peter Jones article also cites a second reference, from Ira Jacknis, to which I don't have access. The National Portrait Gallery website provides a partial answer, when it refers to pboth of these photographs as part of a set of three taken on August 4, 1845.

    As it stands, Hoxie cannot be used to support calling File:PeterJones1845InScotlad.jpg "the oldest" photograph. Since there are at least three photographs of Jones taken by David Octavius Hill on Aug. 4, 1845, and since one of them has been called "the oldest" photo of a North American Indian, how about calling it "part of a group of photographs" which are the oldest...

Guettarda (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks. It's a really interesting read. Good job putting it together. Support. Guettarda (talk) 15:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, everything has been addressed or answered. Thanks! --Laser brain (talk) 22:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC) Comments, leaning toward support. This is very good, and I only have minor quibbles listed below. There's a bit of consistency work and I'd appreciate your addressing or at least arguing your case on the matter of the headings.[reply]
    • "In 1825, he wrote the Indian Department ..." Can we get a link or some context? What is the Indian Department?
    • I really think headings that contain subheading should have some introductory "mini-lead" before proceeding to the first subheading. This may be a subjective matter, but it improves readability and gives the reader an idea of what the subheadings contain.
    • "His father worked as a surveyor in the land unsettled by the British" Suggest "... in the land the British had not settled"
      • Okay, I see how this can be taken to mean "the British caused it to become unsettled" in an anthropomorphising way, so I changed it to "... the land the British planned to settle upon; ..." - it removes the ambiguity in the meaning of "settle" and makes less implicit why he's surveying the land (to prep for settlement, not merely to know what's there). WilyD 13:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "... as was common among the European men who worked far from European settlements he adopted the Indian custom of polygamy." Here and in other places, there is a bit of a comma scarcity. If you would pause between "settlements" and "he", it's best to include a comma for readability.
      • There a comma is needed, so I added it [4]. I'll search for further instances (okay, there are actually a bunch) WilyD 14:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • You have a mixture of single quotes ('Captain Jim') and double quotes ("[sacred] waving feathers") around terms—please make consistent.
      • The Captain Jim bit is the only instance of single quotes I can find. It's probably not needed there (in other bits, the double quotes are used to identify either quotations or translations of names, while Captain Jim is neither - it's just an "English name". Probably a scare quote, because the name feels kind of silly in a modern context, but I think that's not preferable and I'll just remove them. WilyD 13:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "... travelling west to the Thames valley or Grand valley which were more isolated from white settlers." Please check this, but I think when you are using "valley" as part of the proper name, it should be capitalized.
    • "Sarah Tekarihogan's Iroquois tribe had settled in the Grand River valley ..." Why "Grand River valley" here and "Grand valley" above?
      • Err, yes, this was inconsistant. I moved to "X River valley", mostly on personal preference. I think either "X River valley" or "X Valley" would be correct, but "X River valley" is probably less confusing to readers, and X River in both cases has an article so named, while X Valley does not. WilyD 14:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Inconsistency in comma use for phrases like "In 1816" and "In June 1823". Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't—please make consistent.
      • For all the sentences that Open "In year" or "In month year", it's now "In year," or "In month year,". In those cases in the middle of a sentence, it depends on the sentence and flow. WilyD 14:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Out of curiosity, what made you choose the style of references you did? I've not seen it done this way before. I'm used to following a note to "Smith (1987), 79" and being able to find Smith easily in a list of references. As it stands, I have to visually scan through a non-alpha list of notes to find the first mention of Smith 1987? Not very intuitive. This is the value of having a separate Notes and References.
      • It evolved from initially being in the habit of using full references every time, and realising a host of full refs for the same book again was dumb and me being lazy. You're probably right about Notes/References, and I'll make the switch. WilyD 14:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
--Laser brain (talk) 04:26, 11 February 2009 (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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