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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Romney Classical Institute/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 archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 22:10, 15 February 2018 [1].

Romney Classical Institute edit

Nominator(s): West Virginian (talk) 05:49, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article is the most complete and comprehensive history written about the Romney Classical Institute. I feel this article meets the criteria for a Featured Article, and I would appreciate any guidance and feedback you may have to further improve it! Thank you in advance for taking the time to review this article. -- West Virginian (talk) 05:49, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review edit

  • Several sources require subscriptions for access, and the (subscription required) template should be added: 18, 25, 26, 40, 50
  • Ref 44: Harvard error

Otherwise, sources are in good order and of appropriate quality/reliability. Brianboulton (talk) 12:51, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Brianboulton, Happy New Year and thank you so much for taking time to perform this source review and provide your guidance above. I've added (subscription required) to all the sources that require it, and also fixed the Atkinson source. Please let me know if there is anything else outstanding, or if you have any further guidance to improve this article. Thanks again! -- West Virginian (talk) 14:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Brianboulton, if time allows, please take another look and let me know if there is anything else you could provide guidance or feedback on. I always value your subject matter expertise. -- West Virginian (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nothing else as far as I'm concerned. My silence generally means I'm happy with what you've done. Brianboulton (talk) 16:35, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Brianboulton, thank you for your guidance up to this point. I just wanted to make sure you had no further concerns. Thanks again! -- West Virginian (talk) 16:45, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose by Deckiller edit

The article does not satisfy criterion 1a; the prose is somewhat flabby, as evidenced by these changes in the lead. It's certainly not a bad article, but it needs a copy-edit by someone unfamiliar with the text. Emphasis should be placed on eliminating redundancy. One could also argue that the article does not pass criterion 1b due to some gaps in the timeline, but it's fine as long as you conducted a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" (1c) to ensure that these gaps can't be filled.

Here are a couple examples of the larger issue. I'd give the whole thing a massage myself but I'm kind of busy.

  • "Prior to the establishment of the Romney Classical Institute in 1846, Romney and its environs had been served by a school as early as 1752, and by Romney Academy incorporated by the Virginia General Assembly on January 11, 1814.[1][2]" — this sentence is flabby and the last clause is a little lazy and unclear.
  • "By 1831, Romney Academy had outgrown its educational facilities in an old stone building just north of the Hampshire County Courthouse in Romney." — the sentence is a little unclear; "outgrown its educational facilities in an old stone building" could be interpreted several ways, especially if the reader is skimming.
  • "Also at this time, several academies in present-day West Virginia were aspiring to collegiate status, as there were few colleges operating in the region before the American Civil War." — "operating" is redundant, and "aspiring to collegiate status" could probably be tweaked due to vagueness.
  • Thank you for these catches. I've removed "operating". I also re-rendered the sentence mentioned above: "Also at this time, several academies in present-day West Virginia were aspiring to provide college-level courses, as there were few post-secondary institutions in the region before the American Civil War." Please let me know if you have any further suggestions on how to make this less vague. The sources lead me to believe that these institutions didn't aspire to be colleges outright, but wanted to provide a college-level education given the lack of available colleges. -- West Virginian (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "As stated above, West Virginia's first Democratic governor, John Jeremiah Jacob, was educated at the institute, and later served as an assistant principal, and finally principal." — that's a lot of commas/clauses for one sentence. I recommend breaking it down into two sections separated by a semicolon. You can probably prune this sentence a bit, too, since you already establish Jacob earlier in the article.
  • I've re-rendered this sentence as thus: "As stated above, John Jeremiah Jacob was educated at the institute and served as its assistant principal and principal. He was later elected West Virginia's first Democratic governor." Please let me know if this requires any additional tweaking. I knowingly have a habit of being too wordy, so I can always use assistance in being more succinct. -- West Virginian (talk) 16:05, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The society was successful in raising the necessary funds by 1845." — "successful in raising" -> "raised".
  • I've modified this to "The society raised the necessary funds by 1845." -- West Virginian (talk) 20:30, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Bids were called for contractors to build the new school and library facility by April 4, 1845, and were to be submitted to the society by May 24." — a little confusing as worded. Are the bids due by April 4 or is the school's completion due by April 4? It makes the reader pause to parse the information.
  • Modified sentence to "On April 4, 1845, the society solicited for contractor bids, which were to be submitted by May 24." Please let me know if this works better. -- West Virginian (talk) 16:16, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A Mr. Dinwiddie was also a teacher at the school after the war.[15]" is this really relevant information, or just a bit of trivia?
  • As I stated above, this article incorporates all the available information that I was able to find about the institute--both online and in person at the local library in Romney. In an effort to be as comprehensive as possible, I did include some trivia like all the available names of teachers. Especially since there was so little information about the institute post-war, I decided to include Mr. Dinwiddie. I would be fine with omitting his name, but because information on its post-war activities is so scant, perhaps I could provide some context for him. Let me know how best to proceed. -- West Virginian (talk) 16:11, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind opened for their first term on September 29, 1870" — "for their first term" is somewhat redundant due to context.
  • Snake sentences, including: "The society discovered that to make good on its promise, it had to raise more than $1,000, presumably for repairs, a close to impossible task during the Reconstruction Era in Romney." Snakes—long sentences with a ton of dependent clauses separated by commas— can confuse readers or make them pause to think. In this case, one could assume the repairs are the impossible task, not the fundraising.
  • Modified several snake sentences like this:
  • Modified to: "By 1869, the state of West Virginia considered the establishment of a school for deaf and blind students. The newly reorganized Romney Literary Society sought to secure this school for Romney as part of its Reconstruction development efforts."
  • And modified to: "During this process, the society discovered that the campus required additional repairs in order to satisfy the state's requirements. The society had to raise over $1,000 to adequately address these repairs, which was a difficult task during the Reconstruction Era." -- West Virginian (talk) 16:23, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Jacob was West Virginia's first Democratic governor, who had attended both the institute and its predecessor, Romney Academy." — in this context, this sentence implies that Jacob had already served his term before becoming an assistant principal.

—Deckiller (t-c-l) 18:56, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Reworded to: "Jacob had attended both the institute and its predecessor, Romney Academy, and later served as West Virginia's first Democratic governor." -- West Virginian (talk) 16:27, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deckiller, first and foremost, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to engage in this thorough review of the article, and for providing me with your guidance above. In the meantime, I will work to address the comments above and hope that you'll be able to provide further guidance so that I may improve this article as you see fit. The article does pass criterion 1b because I have indeed performed a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" to ensure that these gaps can't be filled. Not only did I exhaust online sources, but I also exhausted hardcopy sources in the Hampshire County Public Library near the former Romney Classical Institute. I am committed to improving this article, and I thank you for your feedback and attention thus far! -- West Virginian (talk) 19:40, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Deckiller, I've finished addressing your comments above. Please take another look and let me know if you have any further suggestions to improve this article. Again, I truly appreciate and value your time and guidance! -- West Virginian (talk) 16:27, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Neutralhomer edit

Sources edit

I ran all through CheckLinks and found no deadlinks, but I found that all of the newspapers.com and loc.gov links that have an Internet Archive address on attached to them are unnecessary. Simply remove that Internet Archive address and the newspapers.com and loc.gov links are still active underneath. I also found no source links that were out of sequence (ie: 2,1 instead of 1,2).

  • Neutralhomer, thank you so much for this catch! I've removed the unnecessary archive links to the newspapers.com and loc.gov references. -- West Virginian (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Lede edit

Wiki-linking Virginia in the lede, even though we already know that it's a state, is useful to the reader.

Rest of Article edit

I see no other problems as Deckiller seems to knocked out any of what would have been my issues as well.

Final edit

@West Virginian: Since the issues raised by Deckiller are gone, make the above changes I raised and I'll show my official support this article for Featured Article status. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:39 on February 12, 2018 (UTC)

  • Neutralhomer, thank you for taking the time to review this article and provide your suggestions, comments, and feedback above. Please let me know if you identify anything else outstanding in the article in the meantime! As always, I value your guidance! -- West Virginian (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@West Virginian: All looks good with those changes. With that, I officially support this article for Featured Article status. As always, a well-written article with plenty of sources, excellent photographs and tons of information. Well done as always. Keep up the great work! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:29 on February 12, 2018 (UTC)

Closing comment: This FAC has been open for over six weeks, and despite the support from Neutralhomer, there is no consensus to promote. I note that we are currently waiting for Deckiller to return to the article, but even if the oppose was struck I think we are still at the point where a fresh start may be better for the article. Therefore I will be archiving this shortly and it can be renominated after the usual 2 week waiting period. Sarastro (talk) 22:09, 15 February 2018 (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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