Wikipedia:Peer review/Jacob Little/archive1

Jacob Little edit

This peer review discussion has been closed.

A forgotten 19th century investor with patchy referential coverage. He's outside of my typical area of expertise, so I guess my question is, is this developed enough to pass a GAN? Comments (obviously) welcome, ResMar 02:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: It took me a little while, but here are some suggestions for improvement.

  • I found his obituary in The New York Times, which gave his birth date and death date, pall bearers, date and location of funeral. I added this to the article - the obit also has the names of all the pall-bearers, funeral organist, and that he lived in Union Square at the time of his death. I have the obit as a PDF - email me if you want it.
I'm good. ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would split the lead into two paragraphs.
  • Direct quote in the lead ("Great Bear of Wall Street") needs a ref per WP:LEAD and WP:MOSQUOTE. Ditto with "bearing the market"
Done. ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The language is rough in spots - not sure if you eventually want to go for FA, but if you do it will need work on the prose. A few examples:
    • in the lead I would not use "migrated" (makes him sound like a bird - use "moved" or something similar),
    • Awkward sentence Although he exerted great influence on the stock market in the immediate aftermath of his death, he was quickly forgotten and today has been relegated to relative obscurity. I think it means he exerted influence on the markets (in his life), but was soon forgotten after his death, but it reads that he exerted market influence right after he died, then was forgotten and still is today.
    • It also seems a bit odd to have in the lead BOTH that he is ...remembered today as the Great Bear of Wall Street" and then later in the lead that ...he was quickly forgotten and today has been relegated to relative obscurity.
    • Plural (banking and stock-brokerage) vs singular (its) Little entered the stock market at a time when banking and stock-brokerage was coming in of its own.
I've addressed the first three here, not sure about this last one. I don't really intend to take this to FA, so I think it's fine for a GA. ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would make it clearer what his own business in 1822 was (as opposed to his later brokerage)
-> business. ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The infobox says his name is "Jacob Allison Dove" but that name is not used anywhere else in the article - not sure what this means - is it a typo? If his name changed, then this needs to be sourced, mentioned in the text and explained.
This was in the article from before I got around to it; I assumed it was accurate and left the vetting for later (and forgot about it haha). It probably is but, whatever, I'll just hide it. ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would follow the example of the Tammany Hall article and use "Democratic Party political machine" (with links)
Mmm. ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources could be better. A quick Google Books search on "Jacob Little" Wall Street returns several modern books on Wall Street etc. which are not cited here.
Rehashes of earlier sound bites, most of them. ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Similarly, current refs 12 and 13 are to dealers that sell stock certificates, which seem a bit sketchy for WP:RS
As far as I can see, they're used to back up fairly noncontroversial statements (a quote, a second reference for a sentence, etc.). ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:57, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've put things to PR before sending it to GAN, but this the first time the opposite operation has happened! ResMar 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You had mentioned this on the PR talk page so I reviewed it - just took me a while. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 23:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]