Talk:John G. McCaskey

Major re-write needed
I'm inclined to believe that the subject matter in this article is notable and worthy of keeping, assuming what has been written is true, he appears to be a historically notable entrepreneur. This article, however, needs a major overhaul in order to be encyclopedic or it quite simply needs to be deleted. Here are my thoughts:


 * As it is currently, it reads like an essay written for course credit and not an article written for an encyclopedia. I've made a few minor stylistic changes, taking out phrases like "sadly died" and "remarkable achievements" as these are effusive, sympathetic views injected by the original editor that are not  NPOV.
 * I don't know the slightest thing about John G. McCaskey, so I don't feel comfortable making the major changes that need to be done. Remember, don't tell a story as one would in an editorial essay about someone's life; just tell us the vital facts: When he lived and died, what he did, how he did it and why that's important.
 * Also, as this is someone whom most people have likely never heard of, tell us what experts, scholars and/or authors think he is important and why. For instance, it's asserted in the second sentence of the article that "He was an essential factor in opening up the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas" -- who thinks that? Is that just the personal assessment of the editor or is it a widely agreed upon opinion amongst historians?
 * As it is currently written, the "who" of John McCaskey is intertwined with "what" he did. This needs to be broken down into wikified sections, such as "Early life", "Oil Business Ventures", "Death", and whatever other topics that are important to establish the basics of who McCaskey was and why he is a notable figure.
 * Direct sources needed. The article needs more than just a bibliography at the end, especially since none of this information can seemingly be verified online. Many of the assertions of fact need to be directly sourced to the reference used, if possible with the page number the information can be found.

I don't mean to be overly critical as I feel that this could be the start of a good and notable article, but if notability is not properly established and the style of the article is not encyclopedic, it will likely be deleted. JGardner 17:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that the article style suggests this may have been originally written for a historical society, or other "essay publisher", but most of the bibliography provided IS a set of direct sources with page numbers. True, it isn't presented in footnote style, but them not being online doesn't make them any less direct sources.  Further, it is improper to delete articles about notable subjects based on tone and style; the correct action is editing, which I see you've already started doing.   Un  focused  18:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I was babbling a bit, so it's no surprise reading back over my comments that I was unclear what I meant by the references. What I meant by direct sourcing is that after an assertion of fact is made, such as "By 1910 however, the company was on the verge of failure having run out of money and only having found natural gas." there should be a footnote to the reference used so that I know from where that information came. As it is right now, there's 8 sources and quite a few assertions of fact, so it's impossible to know what facts came from what source. I see this as particularly important for this article because none of the references can be easily accessed online.
 * You're correct about tone and style not being criteria for deletion, I suppose I got so caught up in my haughty little spiel that I was a bit careless. :D I still feel, however, that notability needs to be more strongly established and that is a criteria for deletion. Let's be serious: Hardly anyone is likely to know who this guy is and that makes notability an especially more pressing issue.  JGardner 18:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

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