Talk:Absaroka (proposed state)/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Wasted Time R (talk · contribs) 22:37, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I have begun reviewing this nomination. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:37, 4 January 2023 (UTC)


 * GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

An interesting subject, but have concerns about some aspects
 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * See items listed below
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):  d (copyvio and plagiarism):
 * See items listed below
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * See items listed below
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * See items listed below
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Am placing nomination on hold
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Am placing nomination on hold

Re 1a prose issues:

The three states listed in the first sentence of the lede are repeated again in the very next sentence. This seems kind of awkward - I read it over a couple of times to make sure the states weren't slightly different.

A.R. Swickard served as a leader ... – maybe id him as a local official

declared himself governor – the link should be to Governor (United States)

Main articles: New Deal and 1934 Wyoming state elections – I think should be a 'see also' not a 'main' cross-ref

emulating the Miss America beauty pageant. – needs clarification that the Miss America pageant involves a winner from each state, e.g. Miss Kansas etc.

In these meetings, complainants would claim “All of the state money and attention goes to the southern part of the state” – this quote sounds like it's from a Wyoming meeting and wouldn't apply to meetings in Montana or South Dakota? Would suggest breaking the long sentence this is part of into separate pieces, with individual citations instead of the clump of three cites at the end.
 * ✅ Broke up the sourcing and turned into a compound sentence.

Residents of Wyoming were particularly upset by the Democratic control of the state legislature, believing that their needs were being ignored, and the state was too focused on the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. This discontent led to rural Republicans calling for secession from Wyoming.[3][6][4] – is this really a Republican versus Democrat thing, or a geographic thing? This needs clarification and more granular citing.


 * ✅ So, honestly, it's a mixture of both. If you want to be very specific, there was a political dimension. The region is overwhelmingly Republican and there was political tension between the Democratic legislature and the Republican farmers. I have tried to avoid calling too much attention to it, because otherwise the section would degrade to WP:POV and ultimately be very reductive to the actual event. I made a minor clarification but would prefer not to get too deep into the topic.

The name "Absaroka" is derived from ... – This merits starting a separate paragraph.

on May 12th, 1939 – should be 12, not 12th per MOS:BADDATE

and it's criticisms of the state government – should be 'its'

the Bighorn Mountains – 'the' should be out of the link, 'Mountains' in it

was a 'tall-tale". – has both a single quote and a double quote, I don't think it needs either

during the 1930's – no apostrophe per MOS:DECADE

Re 1b layout issues:

I don't like the large amount of purported descriptions in the infobox, as I think it gives the impression that this proposal was more material than it actually was. For unrecognized states that actually existed as some kind of entity for a while, such as State of Franklin or State of Deseret, those level of infobox details may be appropriate. But for a proposed state that didn't get that far, I don't think those details belong. Especially since, as the article says, the boundaries of the proposed state would change a number of times. With both area and population uncertain, how can density figures be computed out to two decimal points? It's really too much. An infobox like that of State of Westmoreland would be more appropriate.
 * ✅ I cut most of it, replaced the 'state infobox' with a 'former state infobox' This cleaned up all the error messages that show up when you leave certain parameters blank

Re 2a and 2b reference issues:

fn 1 – what makes the Battleground blog on substack a reliable source?
 * ✅ Cut when I redid the infobox

fn 3 doesn't say who the publisher actually is – apparently some course material at the University of Wyoming?

fn 5 needs page number(s)

fn 7 – what is SweetwaterNOW? A hyperlocal news source?
 * It's a local news source but it does appear to have editorial standards

fn 8 – what is Big Think? A collection of blogs? Is this just reiterating the NYT and South Dakota magaine pieces?
 * ✅ cut, I agree that it's redundant

fn 12 needs page number(s)

Re 3a coverage issues:

It has been widely debated if ... and been widely debated to – is this 'widely' an overstatement? Seems to me the subject is too obscure to have been widely anything. The overall effects of the New Deal, now that's something where the 'widely' would be merited.
 * ✅ Cut.

The chief record of its existence comes from a 1941 publication by the Federal Writers' Project – really? There were a number of newspaper stories written at the time, that we can access now via Newspapers.com. I'm surprised that the article doesn't use any of them. For example, this search shows an AP story from March 1935 ran in papers all over the country. And this search shows a number of stories in from 1939 about Absaroka and Swickard. That's just two searches I did, I'm sure more can be uncovered.
 * Wonderful. I actually don't have a subscription. Hold on while I rectify that, the page might change a bit.

alongside state automobile license plates and state coins for Absaroka were issued soon after. – did anyone actually try to drive with only Absaroka plates on their car? Did anyone try to use Absaroka coins as legal tender?
 * Nothing I could find would indicate this.

In the "Reception and legacy" section, you should mention that a fictional political entity based on the same name is well known, that being the Absaroka County in Wyoming found in the Walt Longmire western mystery novels and six-season television series. The connection between the state that never was and the county of the novels/series is directly made by the author of the novels, Craig Johnson, in this July 2014 piece he wrote for Cowboys & Indians magazine: "the Absaroka movement fell along the wayside, but the allure of escape still permeates the region today. Which may be why I base my novels in the fictitious county of Absaroka rather than a real county in northern Wyoming".

Re 6b image issues:

I see the old photograph of the proposed state flag. But that is in black-and-white. And I see that the history of the File:Flag of Absaroka.svg file has the flag being red and white. But how do we know it was this particular shade of red? In other words, this particular svg seems a little too much of a current-day invention to me. Maybe the caption in the infobox could say "color approximate"?

Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time seeing where the proposed boundaries are with the map in the infobox. Ideally, it would be combined with a closer-up map, like say is done for states like Maryland. Maybe the contemporary map currently in the Gallery could be moved into the infobox?
 * ✅ I just replaced it with the contemporary map. The boarders are very ambiguous to begin with.

Anyway, that's what I have for an initial review, I may add some other things. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:50, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * @Wasted Time R Apologies for taking a bit to get to this, I had IRL obligations. I believe I've addressed your concerns. Also, I added some information from Newspapers.com. Most of the 1935 coverage is just repeats of the same half dozen columns. Ping me if there's anything else that needs to be done. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 03:30, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

No worries on the delay, this is a volunteer activity! Some follow-up comments:

First sentence removed the duplicated list of names, but it doesn't read right. I think the and statehood can be removed.

wherein a winner is declared from each state. – potentially confusing – add 'on way to the national competition' or something like that.

complainants would claim “All of the state money and attention goes to the southern part of the state”, – this text has still got to be made state-specific. Also see MOS:CURLY.

the A&E film adaptation – Longmire was a television series, not a film, and it should be credited to A&E/Netflix since half of its seasons were produced by the latter.

... Republican leaning ... – should be hyphenated. But I agree with you about not emphasizing this aspect unduly.

Teton Mountains – should have a 'the' in front of it

The formation of Absaroka has been debated to have been "half serious" – doesn't read right – and both sources you give are saying it was only half serious, so I think you should replace 'debated to have been' with 'assessed to have been only'

to be serious or started as a joke[7], ... - the cite goes after the comma, not before

fn 1 – why is 'HISTORY' in all upper case? And the 'Oct 5, 2021' date should be redone in YYYY-MM-DD form like you are using everywhere else in cites.
 * Changed to '5 Oct 2021' This is a bit outside of GA criteria.

fn 2 – specifying 'web.archive.org' is unnecessary as it is implied by the 'archived by' part of the cite. However it would be good to indicate what kind of document from the university it is, in this case teaching materials.

several footnotes and Further reading section – page numbers should be 'p. nnn', not 'pnnn' or 'Pg.' or whatever. Use 'page=nnn' or 'pages=mmm–nnn' in the cite template for uniform appearance.

several footnotes and Further reading section – book titles should be in italics

several footnotes – use the 'via=Newspapers.com' option in the cite template and be sure to give the newspaper it was actually in
 * ✅ I think I got them all

See also section – the entry for Jefferson should be removed, as they are all included in the list entry above that and there is no reason to call out Jefferson in particular.

That's all for now. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:45, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Finished, I cleaned up most of this. We're beginning to get outside of GA criteria but figured the edits are still an improvement. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 05:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Every GA reviewer has a slightly different threshold for such things. In any case, I have made some direct edits to the article for some of the cite formatting issues that I raised as well as for a few other copyedits. And here are a few additional comments on more substantive matters:

I think it would be good to add a paragraph break before Increasing tourism to the region was another motivation ... That way there will be a paragraph for each of the topics in the "Geography and attractions" section heading.

... takes place in the fictional Absaroka county. – need to add 'of Wyoming', because otherwise where the county was imagined to be is unclear.

Following the Miss Absaroka pageant, A.R. Swickard appointed himself "governor" and held a series of grievance hearings covering the perceived wrongs committed by the state of Wyoming. These hearings led to increased media attention on the secessionist movement and its criticisms of the state government, prompting Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana to spread state revenues more broadly to rural communities. This effort, ultimately, rendered the secessionist movement largely defunct by the end of 1939.[2][3][10] – This is another case where multiple sentences are supported by a clump of cites at the end. It would be better to break up the clump and footnote each sentence with the cite(s) supporting it.
 * ✅ Not GA criteria, there have been extensive discussions about this at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations that citations do not need to be this granular. I did it anyway for simplicity's sake, since there was something else that I added to this section

If you want to cite a contemporary account of the May 12, 1939 meeting between the two 'governors', there is this AP story run in the Casper Tribune-Herald on Newspapers.com that you can use.

This March 5, 1939, AP story carried by the San Francisco Examiner that's on Newspapers.com says that part of what led to the 1939 movement was people in Sheridan County in Wyoming being upset that not enough political patronage jobs were coming their way. That adds a useful, specific perspective to the narrative and is worth adding to the article.
 * ✅, changed it a bit

There is no need for the Deadwood: The Golden Years book to be a "Further reading" entry, as it is fully available at Open Library. The text on pp. 220–221 connects the 1930s Absaroka idea to early pushes in the late 1870s for a Black Hills or Lincoln territory in roughly the same area. That's worth adding to the article. (However, this proposed 'Lincoln' seems to be different from the ones described by our Lincoln (proposed Northwestern state) article.) Then on pp. 262–263n7, it says that Professor C. M. Rowe of the South Dakota School of Mines was one of the leaders of the Absaroka movement. That's worth adding to the article as well.
 * ❌ The 1870's movement is interesting but not connected to the Absaroka movement itself, just that there was another state that tried to found itself in a generally similar location 60 years prior. There is no link I can see and trying to force one in would violate WP:OR. I also don't have access to this archive so I cannot confirm the latter point made. For that reason, I am leaving it in the Further Reading section.

These should be the last of my comments. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2023 (UTC)


 * issues have been resolved. I'd recommend a read of What the Good article criteria are not whenever you can, since my prior concern about getting outside GA criteria is still salient here. In particular, reference formats aren't particularly strong criteria and there isn't a particularly strict standard format for GA criteria. (see criteria 2). This is GA, not FA after all!!! I could go on but my point is made. This isn't to chastise you, see this as friendly advice. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 03:43, 30 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing any of your most recent batches of changes in the article. Did your 'Publish changes' not go through?  I hope what you did is not lost ...   Will respond to your other concerns once this is resolved.  Wasted Time R (talk) 11:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Wasted Time R Well, that was embarrassing. Edits should be up now. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 11:56, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

My feelings regarding review levels:
 * If another editor takes the time and effort to suggest things that would improve an article that I wrote, I always welcome that, regardless of the level of review. But I realize that not everyone shares that perspective, so yes I should hew a little more closely to review level requirements.
 * That said, no one fully subscribes to WP:GACRNOT. Taken literally, you could have an article with paragraph after paragraph containing no inline citations at all, as long as those paragraphs have no quotes/stats/contentious statements in them and there are general sources listed at the end. No GA reviewer is going to pass that!  Indeed, regular articles that look like that often end up getting tagged at the top with No footnotes or More footnotes needed.
 * Regardless of what GACR/GACRNOT say, I think multiple sentences followed by a cite clump is a bad idea. What is the advantage?  When you are writing an article, it takes no more time to write, say, "Sentence.[cite] Sentence.[cite] Sentence.[cite]" than it does to write "Sentence. Sentence. Sentence.[cite][cite][cite]."
 * My perspective may be somewhat skewed by the ongoing Doug Coldwell fiasco. There are over 200 GAs of his that are going to be demoted and stubified, and 3 of those were ones I reviewed.  I spent a lot of time and effort on those reviews – he wasn't easy to make content suggestions to – and I think the ones I passed are worthy of the mark, but it may all be for naught because some other reviewers passed his GAs with inadequate levels of checking.
 * Regarding cite formatting, yes in many cases it's probably better for reviewers to make the changes themselves, as I ended up doing here.
 * And finally, this isn't in any guideline at all, but when a Wikipedia article is written on an obscure subject such as this one, it usually becomes the only account of that subject that everyone will see from that point on. In such cases it is my belief that the Wikipedia authors should make an extra effort to make the article as comprehensive and polished as possible.

Regarding the state of this review, I am passing it.

After doing that, I will add in the material from the Deadwood book myself (and regarding your concern, it isn't OR, since the author himself directly connects the 1870s and 1930s movements in terms of both geography and motivation).

Anyway, good job bringing a very interesting subject up to GA level. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:55, 31 January 2023 (UTC)