Talk:James Temple/GA1

GA Review
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Hi there, I have reviewed this article against the good article criteria and I am not prepared to pass the article for GA immediately, as I think it requires quite substantial work. To assit with this, I have listed below the principle problems which prevent this article from achieving GA status. The article now has seven days to address these issues, and should the contributors disagree with my comments then please indicate below why you disagree and suggest a solution, compromise or explanation. Further time will be granted if a concerted effort is being made to address the problems, and as long as somebody is genuinely trying to deal with the issues raised then I will not fail the article. I am aware that my standards are quite high, but I feel that an article deserves as thorough a review as possible when applying for GA and that a tough review process here is an important stepping stone to future FAC attempts. Please do not take offence at anything I have said, nothing is meant personally and maliciously and if anyone feels aggrieved then please notify me at once and I will attempt to clarify the comments in question. Finally, should anyone disagree with my review or eventual decision then please take the article to WP:GAR to allow a wider selection of editors to comment on the issues discussed here. Well done on the work so far.--Jackyd101 (talk) 02:36, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Issues preventing promotion

 * It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
 * It is stable.
 * It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
 * a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
 * Overall:
 * a Pass/Fail:
 * a Pass/Fail:

There are a number of problems with the lead:
 * Firstly it is too short, failing to provide a useful overview of the article's subject - Give more detail of Temple's life and role in the Civil War. I would particularly focus on his role at the trial of Charles I. I recommend not less than two decent paragraphs for an article of this length, indicating who he was, why he was notable and what were his most important activities.
 * Capitalise Civil War and make it clear from the very start which Civil War is being referred to in the text.
 * Remember that Wikipedia is for international readers, thus link things like Charles I, Parliament and Jersey (obviously make sure the links go to the correct person or institution).
 * This is good, but could be better. Be alert for this issue throughout the text.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Link places in the infobox and give his full date of death.

Main text:
 * Who was Sir Alexander Temple: what did he do, why had he been knighted and what was his social standing?
 * Make sure all references come after punctuation without spaces.
 * "the court case between the two regicides in the 1650s" - you are getting way ahead of yourself. At this stage of the text the reader doesn't know who was a regicide or even why, either give more context or save this information for further down the article.
 * Why did he participate in the attack on the Ile de Rhe? You have given no indication that he was a military man up until this point.
 * "during which his brother was killed" - Temple's or the Duke's?
 * It isn't explained how or why he joined the Parliamentarian cause.
 * I think Parliament should always be capitalised in this context.
 * Briefly explain in the text what Pride's Purge was.
 * Don't use euphamisms like "feathering his own nest" unless they are part of a direct quote. They don't make sense to many foreign readers.
 * Although its not something that will fail the article alone, I don't get any real sense of what James Temple was like as a person - the facts are quite dry. Are there any additional anectdotes or quotes that would allow a reader to get a better sense of the kind of man he was?
 * The article as a whole is severely undercited - for an article of this size I would expect as a barest minimum to have at least one reference per paragraph.

The references as presented are a mess:
 * Give the full Oxford Dictionary of National Biography reference, including title, author and weblink if possible.
 * Please explain how the following source conforms to WP:RS and if it does not then please replace it with a source that does. www.british-civil-wars.co.uk
 * Still not clear - how is this source compliant with WP:RS?
 * Nothing in the current article is sourced to www.british-civil-wars.co.uk. I have revised the text for which the copyright might belong to David Plant. My understanding is that he does not claim copyright to the expansions to the article. I believe that the reference to the CC license can now be removed, however I have been asked not to remove it yet and I am abiding by that. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 08:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If that is the case, why not simply remove it from the bibliograhy, especially if it is of questionable reliability - a note can be left on the talk page instead.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was under the impression that the ban on removing it had been lifted - is this not the case?--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Mention of David Plant's site now moved to the talk page as suggested above. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 06:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Give full and correctly formatted bibliographic information for all of the sources used in the article, as laid out at Citing sources

Further comments
I'm working my way through, but I have a few additional concerns. I will finish this re-review soon.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, finished my rereview and there are still a number of issues to look at, although the article as a whole is much improved. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:17, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I really don't believe that his profession was "regicide", can we have his actual profession - soldier, lawyer etc. in that space?
 * I'm not sure that he had a profession - I suspect he was a "gentleman". Anyway, for the time being, I've simply removed the occupation from the info box. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 07:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * When writing numbers, those below ten should be written in full, while those over that amount should be written in numerals.
 * "gave both regicides more important things to worry about." - this is a bit informal, can you rephrase it please?
 * A big problem here: all the book references must have page numbers so that the fact that is being referenced can be found in that source.

Copyleft problem
This can not be a good article at the moment as it has a copyleft problem. The article was created 15:08, 17 October 2006 with a copyleft restriction imposed by British Civil Wars & Commonwealth website the link to the licence there is Creative Commons License which includes restrictions:
 * Non-Commercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
 * Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one.

Which means it is more restrictive than the Wikipedia licence.

I am currently looking at two options. Either delete it and recreate it with copyright expired text (See Wikisource:user:Philip Baird Shearer/Sand Box), or to get the author David Plant, to change his licence for this article: See User_talk:Rjm at sleepers and User talk:Digweed --PBS (talk) 20:59, 26 July 2009 (UTC)


 * See also Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems -- PBS (talk) 12:01, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe this issue has now been resolved. I plan to remove the reference to the CC license. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 16:17, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * For the record and to help people understand what is happening please see this. Please leave the current licence in place until we get an OTRS ticket (I have sent David Plant an email with a reply email address to use to initiate the OTRS ticket process). In meantime there is no reason why the article can not be worked on to become a good article. --PBS (talk) 17:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)