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 Ian Rose 21:24, 13 March 2012 [1].

Golding Bird[edit]

Golding Bird (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Toolbox
Nominator(s): SpinningSpark 00:59, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article has been through GA, PR and GOCE. It is about an important figure in the history of medicine. I believe it is now ready for FA. SpinningSpark 00:59, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In general, citation/referencing format should be more consistent. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have gone through putting ref elements in a consistent order. SpinningSpark 01:40, 21 January 2012 (UTC) to 13:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
and was advanced enough to deliver lectures to his fellow pupils at school. - I'd change "advanced" to "precocious" as it has a more specific meaning which I think is what you're trying to get at here.
I did mean "advanced" and this is my understanding of the sources, in the sense that Bird was knowledgable through his own self-study. It was certainly also precocious of course.
.. at a private school that was not very interested in science - hmm, "interested" one usually thinks of students not schools, I'd go with " at a private school that did not promote (or teach?) science"
"promote" is acceptable, "teach" is not, afair the sources do not directly state science was not taught. Science is not included in the classics so this is implied, but it would by synthesis to say so.
This must be a record - nine (9) consecutive paragraphs in the Life and career section begin with "Bird...". I will change a few.....
It was only eight before it was copyedited but that still leaves me 83% to blame! SpinningSpark 13:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, oops! I've never seen this problem before, and completely overlooked it. Thanks for dealing with it, Casliber. --Stfg (talk) 08:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have now incorporated Casliber's second suggestion in the article. SpinningSpark 10:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am wondering whether the first 3 sentences in the The electric moxa section (which are a bit repetitive) can be somehow folded in together. If you can't do it, I'll take a look later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've tried something. The flow seems better now, in that one sentence deals with the name alone before we return to the main business. I'm not quite happy about the position of the "roughly two decades ..." clause yet. What do you think? --Stfg (talk) 10:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) I am struggling to identify what you think is being repeated. The three sentences are addressing very different points: the date of invention, etymology of moxa, and link to electroacupuncture. The second sentence is about just the element moxa and needs to distinguish its subject from the whole phrase electric moxa. The cleanest way to do this is to start a new sentence, admittedly leaving a very short first sentence. The third sentence is already quite long, would become difficult if merged with the second sentence, and needs to disambiguate that the whole phrase rather than just moxa is being discussed. Sentence one and three could be run together, and may even read better, but with the disadvantage that the reader now has to wait for the next sentence before understanding why acupuncture is being discussed at all. SpinningSpark 10:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Stfg. If you would prefer the exact date of the introduction of electroacupuncture, it is 1823 (Simpson, already cited). SpinningSpark 10:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reads better now. It wasn't strict repetition per se, I just thought it could be more economical with wording when I read it and I feel it reads better now...now where was I....Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You were right:) --Stfg (talk) 19:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
...for which Bird carried out an analysis of the milk of the porpoise and a dog bitch - I was going to suggest "...of the milk of the female porpoise and a dog", but then I think it is obvious it'd have to be female so maybe female is redundant. Either way, I think it is better than the current wording, which (oddly) specifies the sex of one animal and not the other....(?)
It is "bitch" because strictly speaking "dog" refers to the male of the species but I am happy for bitch to be deleted if others think that "dog" is acceptable. SpinningSpark 19:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's acceptable: "bitch" has a gender but "dog" is the whole species. How about "... analysis of porpoise and dog's milk"? Hmm ... now why do I want dog to have 's but not porpoise? --Stfg (talk) 19:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting grammatical question - am tempted to shift the animals from possessive to adjectival - "dog and porpoise milk"? Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that works. (Interestinger and interestinger :)) I've gone ahead and put it in. Is that OK, Spinningspark? --Stfg (talk) 22:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not familiar with the term "Collateral sciences" - and google searches seem to bring up Bird alot of the time. Did he come up with the term? If it is more of a historical one, then it needs to be noted as the way it reads now it gives it as a term in current use....
I don't think he coined it, references to it go back to 1800, if he did he would have had to have had an influence on the great many journals that used it in their title from a very early age. However, I am not surprised his name comes up often, it was very much his thing. At least one of my main modern sources (Coley) uses the phrase as if it were current, and gbooks has a lot of hits from books published in recent years. SpinningSpark 19:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Aaah, typing it in the singular seems to change what has come up. Hmmm, ok. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Pulvermacher's main market for these devices was the very quack practitioners that Bird so detested, but it did actually work as a generator. - plural to singular subject (can be remedied by these type of devices if that is what is meant, or making it singular "The main market for this device..." (note I think the first word is repetitive and unneeded too.
Done as suggested. A clear improvement. --Stfg (talk) 19:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Snow had previously investigated arsenic poisoning when he and several fellow students were taken badly ill after a new process for preserving cadavers was introduced by Snow at the suggestion of lecturer Hunter Lane. -two snows in the one sentence, try and remove one if possible.
Done. It only needed turning into the active voice and the second Snow could become a he. Can't think how I let it pass last month. --Stfg (talk) 19:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Noleander

End Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 19:33, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for reviewing, responses are above SpinningSpark 20:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC) to 21:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is looking pretty good. My only concern is the "multiple sources bundled into one footnote at the end of the paragraph" issue. The purpose of the WP:INTEGRITY guideline is to help readers (and future validators) correlate the sources to the material in the article. WP:INTEGRITY and WP:CITEBUNDLE suggest that it is better to either: (a) have the cites per-sentence; Or, (b) use a single footnote at the end of the paragraph, and the multiple sources (in that single footnote) should have parenthetical comments identifying which source goes to which fact. For instance, if you have a 6 sentence paragraph, with a single footnote at the end containing six separate sources: how is the reader/validator to know which source corresponds to which sentence? What is the harm of adding small (one word per source) notes into the footnote to establish that association? --Noleander (talk) 22:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the benefits of this system, but it is much more than a trivial amount of work to carry out. I am not able to comply at this time. If that is a deal breaker, then so be it. SpinningSpark 21:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here are two scenarios illustrating why WP:INTEGRITY is so important: (1) imagine in the future that another editor edits Golding Bird and splits one of your paragraphs into two. How will that editor know which of the six sources in the original footnote go to each of the two new paragraphs? (2) Imagine that the same editor moves a sentence from paragraph A to (a more appropriate) paragraph B. How will that editor know which source (in the original footnote) to carry with the sentence? You, now, are in the best position to help that future editor by correlating the sources with the sentences. You have all the sources at your fingertips. If it is not done now, it will never get done. No other editor is going to fetch all the sources, read them, and update the footnotes. I'm not saying this is an obstacle to FA status, but why don't we see what other reviewers say? --Noleander (talk) 21:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Only made it through Electricity—will return shortly. --Laser brain (talk) 19:35, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with a couple additional comments. This is quite good—thanks for the opportunity to read and review it. It's an interesting portrait of a man of whom I was previously completely ignorant.

  • Thanks for the support and I'm glad you enjoyed it. changed "skin eruptions" to "blistering the skin". On menstruation, the first case is meant - added a link to the condition, amenorrhoea. SpinningSpark 19:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support [following comments and discussions below from 23:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)] Carcharoth (talk) 22:26, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm coming in rather late to this review, but I saw that it hadn't had a lot of comments, and the article caught my attention when it arrived at FAC, though I didn't have time to review it then. I'm going to leave some initial comments, and then try and return to this at or before the weekend and say some more depending on the responses. Carcharoth (talk) 23:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those are my initial comments, having read up to the end of the 'Life and career' section. I've skimmed the rest, and my concern here is that there may be too much material being presented here. The question I'd want to see answered before going any further is whether this article is summarising Bird's life and work, or whether it is aggregating various sources to expand on the shorter accounts provided elsewhere, but falling into the trap of providing too much detail? Could you say which of your sources gives the longest account of Bird's life and works, and whether this article is of comparable length or not? Carcharoth (talk) 23:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Downloading the article as pdf it amounts to 12 pages not including refs etc. My main modern source is Coley at 14 pages. Payne is 2 pages. Of the contemporary sources Balfour is 67 pages (although it has to be said there are frequent sermon-like digressions), the relevant chapter of Steel is 9 pages and Wilks (chapter) is 6 pages. I would also point out that a good deal of material has already been moved to the spin-off articles interrupter and Pulvermacher's chain because of length or excessive detail concerns. The current length seems to me to be a reasonable match to the sources. SpinningSpark 09:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Carcharoth, just to offer a third opinion as someone who as read through it: I thought the level of detail was appropriate and pursuant to summary style. There were several places where I actually wanted to read more detail, but it would have become too much if added. I get the impression that Bird's contributions to more than one field were quite significant, and the article is appropriately sized. --Laser brain (talk) 14:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that, and having now had time to read through the rest of the article more closely I tend to agree. But I am looking for more than just an 'impression' regarding Bird's contributions. I think an article aspiring to FA level, with these sort of sources, should be able to say clearly what Bird's status was during his lifetime and how he is seen now by modern historians of medicine. I'm not yet seeing the clarity and definitive statements that I would expect. This FAC was introduced with the statement that Bird is "an important figure in the history of medicine". The question I would ask is how important? Compared to figures like Thomas Addison and Astley Cooper for instance? The article covers the medal that was founded in his honour, but there is nothing on contemporary reaction to his death. Were there obituaries? Did his colleagues lament his death as a great loss? And how did views change over time (i.e. what is the modern view by historians)? I would at the least expect some direct quotes covering these points.

And to give more of an idea of where I'm coming from on the issue of level of detail, I recently wrote the article on Victor Negus (another medical practitioner from a few generations later), and have been considering expanding that to go into more detail, but it's a balancing act between on the one hand a succinct and readable account of someone's life and career, and a more in-depth look at the work they did. Probably at some point you have to chose to go one way or the other with the article. My concern here was that things may have gone too far towards the in-depth approach, but I'm reassured somewhat upon reading through the article again and from what Spinningspark has said about some of the material being spun off to other articles. I do have a few more specific comments from when I read through it again today, so I'll jot those down now. Carcharoth (talk) 04:00, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not in favour of any major restructuring or additions to the article during the course of the FAC. To do so would only lead to confusion and probably result in the FAC being restarted anyway. If it is a cause for failure it would be better to let it fail now and bring it back later. But pass or fail, if you wish it, I am willing to collaborate with you on the issue after the FAC has concluded. SpinningSpark 13:27, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is a very valid point. Practically all the minor points have been struck, and this is my only major point left. I'm not sure I can quite support yet, but I'm not going to oppose as it is a very good article. I would be happier supporting if you could give some indication within this FAC of what contemporary reaction was (why, for instance, did Balfour write a biography of him, was the Christian society connection the motivation there?) and the most definitive quote from a modern historian of medicine that you have available. With that reassurance that there is material there to work on the contemporary status (e.g. the article says at one point that he is famous, without really expanding on that point) and reputation after death (right up to the present day). I'd then be happy to support and leave any further work for after the FAC. Carcharoth (talk) 08:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Both Balfour and Steel write from a religious pov and sing his praises. The article already mentions Bird's connection to Balfour. However, somewhere in Balfour (can't give page numbers off the top of my head) he also talks about Bird being repeatedly accosted in the street for medical advice due to his fame while he is on holiday. I think the obituaries already cited in the article could well be said to "lament his death as a great loss" and their are probably others (list in a footnote in Coley). Coley (modern source) is perhaps too scholarly to use "famous" but does describe him as a "well-known physician". SpinningSpark 16:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Let me take another look at the way in which the sources are handled here. I'm sure the use of the sources (both modern and contemporary) are fine, but I need to check before I can properly support. I am slightly concerned that, not having clicked on the Coley source link before now, I was taken to what is clearly the wrong article: Molecular cloning and sequence analysis of human Na,K-ATPase beta-subunit from 1986? Is that the wrong article ID or something? Carcharoth (talk) 19:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Weird, even putting in the correct article id to that rendering url does not go to the right page any more. I cannot even find a link to that rendering on the pubmed site (clicking the scan or pdf render links gives a similar rendering but with a different url), I can only assume that the ids used by the rendering are temporary and have changed since the article bibliography was written. I have now put in what should be a more stable link to the article full text. Sorry I did not notice it earlier, I have been working from an offline copy - actually, I had even forgotten it was available online it has been so long. SpinningSpark 22:00, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've now read through the whole Coley article, and the balance and mix seems to have been got right between summarising what Coley said, bringing in other sources, and rephrasing things in your own words where needed, so I'm happy to support. Thanks for taking the time to respond to some of my comments during the review. Carcharoth (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Couple more comments:

FWIW, the above from Cyril onwards all found by searches within Wikipedia and using "what links here" (apologies if you knew of most of those already). As I said above, I'll return to this tomorrow and strike what has been addressed, and I may have a few more comments on the latter parts of the article (which I read today), such as pointing out that named people are at times not properly introduced, leaving the reader with little idea who these named people are. Overall, the more I read the article, the more I like it, though it was a bit hard to get into at first. Carcharoth (talk) 06:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All my comments and objections either struck or responded to above. I am close to supporting, but am waiting on a few more replies. I doubt I will have much more to add, as the article looks in good condition. On the CITEBUNDLE issue, I too found it moderately difficult to work out which bits were from which source, and that will make it hard for future editors to make changes and retain text-source integrity. If I ever have reason to consult some of the sources used here that I wasn't able to access during this FAC, I may try and unpack things a bit on the talk page or somewhere helpful (with a link to the version that is being deconstructed). Carcharoth (talk) 08:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Additional note: Have just tidied up some source documents at wikisource and created the page Bird, Golding (DNB00). That is the 1885 entry for Golding Bird in the DNB, which is what formed the basis for the updated entry in the ODNB in 2004 (updated again in May 2008). That ODNB entry is referred to in this article as 'Payne and McConnell'. Payne is Joseph Frank Payne. His wikisource author page is at Joseph Frank Payne and there are more details on him here (providing this so it is clear what Payne's credentials are). I've added a wikisource box to the Golding Bird article, so the DNB entry can be accessed that way (it is also available from the ODNB site as well). Carcharoth (talk) 14:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Has there been an image review yet? Ucucha (talk) 16:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images:

Notes

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:06, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem perverse to remove refs having done the work of establishing they cover the cited fact. Many of the book sources also have overlapping coverage, but have been bundled into a single inline ref so are not so visible. SpinningSpark 02:56, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The references appearing at the end of the burial place sentence puzzle me. It seems to be a consequence of bundling references at the end of paragraphs, because the three online references there don't give his burial place at all, so presumably the burial place is from one of the book references and the three online references I'm looking at are in fact being used to cite material that appears earlier in the paragraph, but what, I don't know. There are problems with those three references anyway: (i) The obituary from the St Louis medical and surgical journal is all of six lines long. It is not really an obituary, more a death notice. I would strongly urge dropping this as a reference, as from what I can see it provides nothing that is not covered in other sources. (ii) The other two online references are archive records where the archivists have compiled biographical information using biographical sources. It would be preferable (almost required in my view) to use the proper sources here, rather than piggybacking on the summary provided by archives. The archive records should, in my view, only be used to source statements about the archives (that they exist, where they are located, when they were deposited, and what they contain). They shouldn't be used to source biographical details. Both archive records (the Kings College London archives and the AIM25 record of the archives at the Royal College of Surgeons of England) give the biographical sources they have used: "Dictionary of National Biography CD-ROM (Oxford University Press, 1995)" and "Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, Volume 4, 1826-1925, p39 and The Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Volume 3, Page 332". The former (the DNB entry of 1885) has already been dealt with by linking the wikisource transcription and using the ODNB entry (initially published 2004) as a source. The latter two, the entries in the volumes of Lives from the RCP (written by the same person who wrote the 1885 DNB entry) and the RCS (this likely refers to Bird's son, not Bird himself), should be used directly as sources, as relying on summaries produced by archivists is not ideal. The archival records should really be external links, not sources, and I'm going to add the second one (the AIM25 record) in the external links. What is needed in terms of the article is to be clear what those archival records are being used to cite in this article that can't be cited using other sources. Carcharoth (talk) 11:50, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. The archive summaries were actually used in the early construction of the article, but are now largely duplicated by other refs. The only thing I spotted was the dates for Cuthbert which I have now replaced with a more acceptable ref. SpinningSpark 18:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. As far as spot-checks of the sources go, I don't have time to do that right now, but several are online so I hope someone manages to get to that at some point. I didn't see any issues in the sources I looked at, though I only looked at a few in any great detail. Carcharoth (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Tks Carcharoth. We now have single footnotes for the two statements I noted above, yet the burial footnote still cites three different sources (one of which covers nine pages) for one apparently simple fact. It also concerns me that you (Carcharoth) appear to have found an instance where three citations didn't reference the fact they were supposedly supporting, i.e. the burial place. If I've interpreted you correctly there, we will need a further spotcheck of sources before this gets promoted, in which case I'll be requesting one at WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:51, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As Carcharoth rightly surmised, those references are not specifically for the place of burial, but for the paragraph as a whole and is a consequence of bundling citations. SpinningSpark 00:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mea culpa; in the previous version you had three citations that appeared to be only for the final sentence (burial place) because there was another citation immediately before that sentence -- I can see now that's no longer the case, tks. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:22, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 3, OK:
  • Article text: "He had four younger siblings, of whom his brother Frederic also became a physician and published on botany."
  • Source text: Page range given is a botanical article published by Frederic.
  • Ref 24, OK:
  • Article text: "This name did not stick, however, and the compound became known as uroerythrin from the work of Franz Simon."
  • Source text: "The name of uroerythrin, assigned to this colouring matter by Franz Simon in 1840, has since been generally adopted"
  • Ref 70, OK:
  • Article text: "The book was well received and was praised by reviewers for its clarity. The Literary Gazette, for instance, thought that it 'teaches us the elements of the entire circle of natural philosophy in the clearest and most perspicuous manner'. The reviewer recommended it as suitable not just for students and not just for the young, saying that it 'ought to be in the hands of every individual who desires to taste the pleasures of divine philosophy, and obtain a competent knowledge of that creation in which they live'."
  • Source text: Supports the quotations given and that the book was praised and recommended as such.
Hope this helps. --Laser brain (talk) 16:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It does, tks Andy! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
More