GA Review

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Touch the Clouds is a strong article in terms of content in the area of Lakota history which is otherwise not covered very well in Wikipedia. The Good Article Nomination has been fairly messy, but it has not reached the level of an edit war. Rather it has developed rapidly along a rocky road, so we can in good faith call it “stable.” Wikipedia should be glad of the interest in Lakota history from User:Great Gall – we need more good articles like this – but it’s fair to say that he has been over-enthusiastic. I’ll recommend that he watch this article, with participation in consensus building, and then take this experience and build similar articles.

The prose needs some work. Concepts like “ chief of the Minneconjou Teton Lakota “ combined with “the Wakpokinyan band” can be confusing to people not familiar with the topic, so need to be carefully laid out. And I haven’t even mentioned “Sioux” yet! Parenthetical comments (e.g. “The Wakpokinyan appear to have split, with part of the band (including Touch the Clouds)) should be eliminated by rewriting.

The last two sections get bogged down in detail, so it’s easy to lose the main points. Please keep most of the details, but lay out the main points very clearly – perhaps at the start of each section and then briefly repeat them as you go through chronologically. Place names need to be better identified – a few links might help, e.g. to Cheyenne River Agency or Great Sioux Reservation – or include a map such as “Image:Siouxreservationmap.png”. Some of the text appears to be a summary of academic work. I suggest rewriting those paragraphs from the beginning.

Some examples:
"When the Wakpokinyan band (which included Touch the Clouds) split in the mid 1870s, the band traveled to the Cheyenne River Agency. Touch the Clouds assumed the leadership of his band in 1875 upon the death of his father, and under his leadership they remained during the initial period of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. However, after the events of Little Bighorn he took..."
might be better as:
"Touch the Clouds's Wakpokinyan band split in the mid 1870s and traveled to the Cheyenne River Agency. Following the death of his father in 1875, Touch the Clouds took over leadership of his band through the period of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. After the battle of Little Bighorn he took.."
"not long after being present at the death of Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds transferred with his band back to the Cheyenne River Agency."
might be better as:
"soon after he watched the bayoneting of Crazy Horse and cared for his dying cousin, Touch the Clouds and his band returned to the Cheyenne River Agency."
"As the Great Sioux War of 1876-77 commenced," to
"At the start of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77"


The content is the strength of the article – as it should be. It does appear to be quite dependent on one reference [^ a b c Hardorff, Richard G. (2001). The Death of Crazy Horse: A Tragic Episode in Lakota History. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. pp. p. 48. ISBN 0803273258. 4 reference total] for many of the main points. I’d use Harvard referencing here so that page numbers can be easily included, and include the link to Google Books, so that people can easily check the references (example below)[1]. I’d also search Google Books for other references since Western history seems to be best covered in books by small academic presses.

Minor points

1. Well-written: (a) almost passing – a little work will go a long way to improving the article (b) passing

2. Factually accurate and verifiable: (a)(b) good – better references and links would help (c) passing – doesn’t contain original research.

3. Broad in its coverage: (a) (b) passing – last two sections should make the main points clearer

4. Neutral passing

5. Stable: passing – as above

6. Illustrated, if possible, by images: (a) no copyright problems, a map would help (b) images are relevant

I’ll recommend putting this “On Hold” for a week or two.

Smallbones (talk) 17:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ Hardorf 2001, p. 48 Other comments here. Just copy this reference and the last 4 lines at the bottom for your 1st Harvard style reference

Sources

I would like to urge people checking this article to be extra careful. The probvlem is that this article is infested by a sockfarm (see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Kermanshahi which have combined good edits with vandalism and (most worryingly) sneaky vandalism, and that these people are pushing the hardest for GA on this article. I am afraid that they will have introduced sneaky vandalism in this one as well, which may be hard to spot. If the people doing the GA review are convinced that the contents are correct, I have no objections, but in this case one should not assume good faith too much and doublecheck everything. (For all clarity, editors not named in those sockpuppet reports are not involved in this vandalism, this message is only about these few sockpuppets). Fram (talk) 09:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a real shame. If it wasn't clear above, I really liked this article. I'm even inclined to think that the sockpuppet watchers might be biting some newbies. On the other hand, this review has been sitting here for 10 days without any serious work being done on the article. So the authors are not as serious as they ought to be - i.e. facts need to be check carefully and fully documented - and there is some additional question on stability. I'll fail the article for GA if nothing is done within 4 days. Smallbones (talk) 16:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll see what I can do with it - 4 days is a tad tight (although certainly more than fair), given that this isn't really my area, but it deserves a real shot. :) In relation to the sock issue - while that editor nominated the article and did some editing, most of the work has been by Ephriam3, who (judging by his user page) certainly knows what he's talking about, so I suspect there will be few (if any) significant problems with the sourced material. - Bilby (talk) 11:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for taking so long to look back at this article. I am new to Wikipedia and so don't check all the references every night! The original article which was nominated so hard for GA was just one paragraph long and inaccurate. I was asked by a reviewer who had read my other postings to take a look at this one. In the end, I just started from scratch and rewrote the entire article, including adding a better copy of the photograph. I just rechecked the article and I can find no hidden vandalisms (do some folks have nothing better to do?! Is there a way to limit edits?). I will have to read some more about the proper way to do footnotes within Wikipedia. It is inaccurate to have several links back to Footnote 1 for example since all of the information is not on that cited page. Once I understand how to, I will correct that. Also, the reviewer above is correct in noting that Hardorff's book is cited several times, however, please note that this book is actually a compendium of primary source material. In several of the footnotes, I cited the original source and then where it was found in Hardorff's book, since that reference will be the one most accessible to most readers. In my opinion, the article is still very light in the last part of his life and needs to be expanded. We do not yet say what his role was in the important debate about reducing the size of the reservations in 1888-89 during the commissions; or his reaction to the rise of the Ghost Dance. Will add additional information as I can find it and have time. I am hoping to write similiar biographical entries for other prominent Lakota leaders of the nineteenth century (one of my research interests). Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Ephriam3
FWIW, I don't think that User:Jouke_Bersma ended up causing any damage - I've been watching this page for a while now, and really the only thing he tried to add a few times was the bit about Touch The Clouds being 7 foot tall and 400 pounds, which luckily didn't stick. CosmicPenguin (Talk) 04:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's good news! If that's the case, then I have no opinion on this GA, but no fundamental objections. Fram (talk) 15:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's good to see this getting back on track. I'll be gone until New Year's as I suspect others will as well. I'll leave this open at least until Jan. 10, but might not have much time for it after that. Happy Holidays to everybody!
2 minor comments footnote 14 "I'll try hard to be a Chief" just sounds odd; footnote 15 begs the question of why we don't download the photo and display it here. The Omaha Public Library has a recent copyright notice, but they can't copyright the 1898 image, if the image was PUBLISHED before 1923 we can definitely download it. Smallbones (talk) 15:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry that nobody ever got back to do the required work on this, so I was forced to fail this. As soon as a reasonable amount of good work is done, I predict it will pass GA. Good luck and Happy editing. Smallbones (talk) 02:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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