Wikipedia:Featured article review/James I of England/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 06:11, 28 April 2007.

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James I of England

Messages left at Emsworth, Bio, Royalty, UK notice board, Ireland, Scotland, England, LGBT, and Calvinism. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

An old (2004) featured article on a King of England. Compared to other Kings of England featured articles I've read, this one is badly organised and flabby. Lots of the information in different sections (templates, infoboxes, ancestors, successors, predecessors, dynasty) overlaps and is not presented in context (compare the succession boxes with the paragraph I wrote here). Possibly the article has expanded in an untidy and uncontrolled manner since it was promoted and just needs tightening up again. The summary and lead section should be merged and expanded. The painting gallery of descendents is nice, but probably excessive. Many of the sections are single paragraphs and need to be expanded. Oh, and inline citations, of course... Carcharoth 02:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that descendants gallery is nice at all. See my comment on talk. It's quite a recent addition, I suspect. This article has really become a mess. I could reference most of it from books on my shelf, but it needs a total rewrite and I'm just too committed on other articles at the moment. However, I'll try to do a little bit here and there because we mustn't allow this important king not to have a featured article. qp10qp 04:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The lead is short and doesn't summarize the article. The summary section shouldn't exist because the lead is supposed to summarize the article. There are lots of stubby sections, including a one sentence section. There are vast amounts of text uncited, including quotations. Jay32183 04:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the bibliography to "Further Reading" because we don't know which books provided which info. I've started a ref section and will add three standard biogs there and then chuck in some notes based on them. The existing notes are largely ramshackle internet ephemera, which I'll kick out for something better when I come to them. I'm going to start reffing from the top, so that other people can join in in an orderly fashion. If several of us get stuck in, we can sort this blighter pretty quickly. qp10qp 15:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks to be improving nicely, in my opinion. I hope you don't mind if I just watch from the sidelines and make the odd contribution here or there, as I don't have the books you are referring to. I might try and expand the context using material from other articles (eg. He was x years old when such and such an event took place, etc), and making clear his relationships to Elizabeth, Mary, and the other people in his life. He does seem like an interesting king, and I agree with Qp10qp that we should try and bring this article up to scratch. Carcharoth 19:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You could copy edit in my wake. The prose is not very good. On the whole, I am leaving that as it is for the time being, because if I copy edit and ref at the same time, I'll get bogged down. At the moment I'm only changing the text where I feel it drifts away from historical accuracy. I'm somewhat over-noting at the moment, just to give other editors an idea of what I'm up to. (Basically, to judge by its assumptions, this article could have been written thirty years ago, so I am adding a layer of recent scholarship, which has tended to revise James's reputation considerably.) qp10qp 21:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You're doing fine as it is. I'm going to stand back and watch in awe! :-) Carcharoth 02:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I seem to have slipped from just reffing into reffing and rewriting, because a more complex text is required once we get into parliaments and Catholicism. I'm about half through now, which doesn't mean all is satisfactory in the first half (the politics of James's last fifteen years in Scotland aren't much mentioned, for example; I'll go back to that after I've finished my bulldozing and ref-abrication spree). I thought there'd be loads of us rushing to the aid of England's most interesting monarch (I wouldn't say Britain's—his mum takes that biscuit), but still. qp10qp 12:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

No rushing to his aid, as that would disturb you. :-) I have put a few questions on the talk page. As for his poor ol' Mam, she isn't featured... Carcharoth 13:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - shall we close this FAR now? The article is nearly completely referenced except for the birth and death dates of the children, and the ancestor table. One question I have is how to mark this massive improvement and citation labour in the article milestones template. Is there a way to note there that it went to FAR, was improved, and remains a featured article? Plus linking to the new and updated version for any future releases? Carcharoth 13:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The bot that updates FAC closures also updates FAR/FARC closures. If people are still working on the article based on concerns raised here then we should leave the review open. Articles don't get removed when this much work is being done. When those editors feel they are finished, they should leave a note here and request that reviewers judge the new state of the article. Jay32183 18:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through the article and, with Carcharoth, addressed the issues:

An old (2004) featured article on a King of England. Compared to other Kings of England featured articles I've read, this one is badly organised and flabby.

• Reorganised. Flab cut. The article is now longer but with strong material added.

Update: I have been shipping parts of the article out into Wikipedia: Summary style articles. For the purpose, I created James I of England and the English Parliament and James I of England and religious issues, and I have substantially added to Spanish Match and Thomas Overbury as well as decanting some material into Gunpowder Plot. I still have some more bits and pieces to farm out, though nothing major. I would point out that though the article stands at about 60 kb, compared to about 44kb when this FAR was called, the readable prose is now about the same (I just counted the surface prose [not counting notes, booklists etc. but including infobox and side words] at 4,562 words, compared to 4,627 words on April 10. So the basic article is somewhat the same in length. qp10qp 04:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Lots of the information in different sections (templates, infoboxes, ancestors, successors, predecessors, dynasty) overlaps and is not presented in context.

• Lots of this cut. Other parts rationalised, for example the Stuart dynasty box and repetitions.

Possibly the article has expanded in an untidy and uncontrolled manner since it was promoted and just needs tightening up again.

• Tightened up. Random additions cut.

The summary and lead section should be merged and expanded.

• Done.

The painting gallery of descendents is nice, but probably excessive.

• Removed.

Many of the sections are single paragraphs and need to be expanded.

• Addressed. Paragraphs are now carefully focussed and relate to the overall structure of the article.

Oh, and inline citations, of course...

• Article now fully referenced, with inline citations.

Please add any further points and they will be addressed in short order.

I will continue to edit the article in order to rectify minor omissions and nuance the referencing using more specialist sources. I intend to move some material to daughter articles to make it shorter. But please don't mistake these edits for continuing work on the FAR. I now believe this article is worthy again of its FA status, but I leave that decision to the reviewers. qp10qp 10:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment If you haven't restored FA status, then you're really close. The article would pass a GAC quite quickly, and definitely make A-class if the relevant projects had reviews for that. If I were a primary editor of this article, I'd say "Nitpickers welcome!" Jay32183 17:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Status: So people are happy here? At a glance, I'd actually suggest the lead is a bit over-cited... Marskell 10:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Possibly note 7 and 8 could be removed because the points they reference aren't very controversial. But the other seven notes in the lead address thorny questions that are by no means as straightforward as they look (the usual principle of leaving notes until the main body is unhelpful here because people have tended to edit the statements in the lead the most). My reading of the labyrinthine archives is that most of these points have been the subject of long, ill-informed debates (but read the comments of user:JKenney which are spot on throughout—whether he's a professional, I don't know, but he speaks like a historian). For this reason, I felt it necessary to nail these statements in place; otherwise the potential for renewed deterioration in this article is enormous. qp10qp 14:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

If the things being cited in the lead have a history of being contraversial on Wikipedia, then I would leave them cited. Preventing edit wars is one of the listed reasons to cite sources. Jay32183 16:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

What happens, and we've even had a little of this since the FAR began, is that people edit on the basis of their own POVs. So, for example, they may change wording to give pre-eminence to one of James's kingdoms over another, or they may fuss over words like "union". And these matters are indeed complex. For example, James proclaimed himself "King of Great Britain", and so some people think that therefore he was King of Great Britain, and that a so-called "union of the crowns" took place not only by proclamation but by statute in 1603. In fact, the term "union of the crowns" is problematic (our article on the subject is, in effect, a sustained explanation of why such a union did not take place). The technical term for what took place is a "personal union", and that is now referenced and will help repel those who think that might be the same thing as the union of crowns, which was only a royal policy. One king wore three crowns, but despite his own proclamations, those three crowns remained separate.

The mere mention of the fact that James succeeded Elizabeth invites messy explanations of how he came to inherit, almost certain to be misleading. Tight referencing will now refer that question to good sources. The sentence on majority took ages to research and word craftily, because that was a gradual and often contradictory process. There has been a tendency also for editors to assume that James's problems with Parliament led to those of Charles, and this is a long-established and acceptable view: but it has been repeatedly modified by historians in the last fifteen years, so now both views are set out in the lead antithetically, with references. Editors have also wanted the "wisest fool in Christendom" in as a strong and famous one-liner for the lead; but there's much more to that than meets the eye, too, which the careful wording and referencing of it now indicates. All the references are intended to hold the present balanced and informed interpretations in place against any future editor who arrives, armed with a "little knowledge" but without references, seeking, perhaps in all good faith, to tilt the article back into one-sided interpretations. qp10qp 22:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Understood, thanks all. So people don't feel we need FARC then? Marskell 08:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't look like anyone's very bothered, to be honest. A FARC might at least winkle a vote or two out, and maybe some objections, but colleague Carcharoth and I are pretty determined to meet all objections and prevent this beast from losing its FA status, so there's only ever going to be one result. qp10qp 16:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is that the article is now fully cited, there are no image problems, and the new sub-articles have improved the focus and flow of the article. Prose looks great to me, but it is not my forte. I don't think we really need an FARC this time. Jay32183 18:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

For the record, my initial concerns, stated at the start of this Featured Article review process, have been more than adequately addressed. I agree that nothing further is needed here. Carcharoth 23:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.