Talk:Marguerite Gautier-van Berchem/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Eritha (talk · contribs) 13:56, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I plan to review this article for GA nomination Eritha (talk) 13:56, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

This review is in progress. See below for specific reasons given for failures on GA criteria. I have not yet had a chance to check cited sources. Eritha (talk) 15:37, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I have now completed my initial review (apologise for the slight delay) - please see summary and specific comments below. At the moment, there are several criteria on which this article cannot pass GA. I have not yet marked it as 'failed', because (as this is my first GA review) I have asked The_Rambling_Man to look at it as a GA reviewing mentor, and because I wish to give the nominator (RomanDeckert) the chance to clarify/fix the identified issues. Eritha (talk) 17:02, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Dear Eritha, many thanks for taking the time and meticulous effort! Only very recently I submitted a couple of articles for the first time to GA Reviews, so this is a new experience for me and I have already learnt a lot from reading your comments. I shall work through your suggestions point by point in the next days, so please grant me some patience! Best regards, RomanDeckert (talk) 07:54, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello all, I'm now working on 's suggestions, so will comment in turn on the points below.Lajmmoore (talk) 16:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)


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


 * It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):  d (copyvio and plagiarism):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 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 fair use rationales): . b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): . b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Pass/Fail:

Specific comments:

1) Helpful use of headings/subheadings; appropriate use of lists in publications and external links sections. In the lead, citations for basic facts such as DoB, profession should be moved to relevant sections of the article; however, citations should be included at some point for description of subject as 'groundbreaking' and 'paving the way for gender equality', cf. comment below on editorialising. [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]

Copy-editing comments:
 * "his new wife became Alice Naville who was ten years younger than him" > "his new wife, Alice Naville, was ten years younger than him".
 * "girls college" > "girls' college" [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "Marguerite was the only one of his seven children though, who he distinctly mentioned" > "Marguerite was the only one of his seven children whom he distinctly mentioned" [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "«she received and excellent education in Modern languages, music and archaeology and was attracted to the East.»" - presumably should be "... an excellent education..." [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "In early 1921, barely two years after the war, Marguerite van Berchem suffered a heavy blow of fate when her father, with whom she had an especially close relationship after the untimely death of her mother, died at the age of just 58. Subsequently, she continued in his footsteps, on the one hand side continuing his works and on the other finding her own way:" - this is not very encyclopedic/factual in style. Suggest removing 'suffered a heavy blow of fate' and replacing with factual reference to father's death (and citation for their close relationship), and removing second sentence. [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "The archivist palaeographer" - clarify that this refers (presumably) to Clouzot? [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "In the second half of the 1920s, the architectural historian Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell entrusted her.... As an Inspector of Monuments in the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) – the joint British, French and Arab military administration over parts of the Levant and Mesopotamia (1917–1920) – he had entertained..." - replace pronouns with surnames for clarity. [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "Until the start of the Second World War she was reportedly based in Rome for altogether fourteen years." - why "reportedly"? if there is doubt over this, clarify; if not, delete 'reportedly'. Consider also combining this fact with reference above to "study trips" to Italy, which implies that she did not live there. Also, "a total of fourteen years" or "fourteen years altogether". [removed Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "In 1948, van Berchem returned to Rome, where she served as the de facto founding director of the Istituto Svizzero di Roma (ISR) fungierte" - delete last word (German!) [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "she had the means of aerial archaeology used to examine the extent of the site with its streets and channels" > "she used aerial archaeology to examine..." or "the extent of the site... was examined by means of aerial archaeology". [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * "A comprehensive list of her publications containing 31 titles can be found in the catalogue of the Max van Berchem Foundation's library (PDF)" - this should be moved to the 'external links' section and a link to the PDF added [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]

1b) and 4) (MoS/neutral POV): there are several instances of editorialising/puffery: "In the same year, the ICRC was awarded its first Nobel Peace Prize to which van Berchem arguably made her own contribution as well."; "it may be argued that van Berchem made her distinct contribution to what the Norwegian Nobel Committee credited the ICRC with, i.e. «the great work it has performed during the war on behalf of Humanity.»"; "In 1963, the ICRC received its third Nobel Peace Prize after 1917 and 1944, making it the only organisation to be honoured thrice. It may be argued that van Berchem contributed to this award as well." In all cases, either details and citations should be added to show the subject's specific contribution, or these statements should be deleted. [removed Lajmmoore (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]

2) Copyvio/plagiarism: checked with Earwig, no significant issues found: most overlaps are due to direct quotation or to common phrases. Two exceptions which should perhaps be rephrased and cited: "the architectural historian Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell entrusted her with the study of the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and of the Great Mosque of Damascus" is almost a direct quote from this source, and "When the contact between the colonial service and its French partner organisations was cut off in autumn of 1944, van Berchem pleaded in a letter on 23. October of that year to the ICRC member Albert Lombard, who hailed from an old Geneva-family of Bankers, for permission to undertake a mission to Paris to achieve continuity of the department's work." from this source. [done Lajmmoore (talk) 16:44, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]

Citations: many of the citations are either geneaological research (whose reliability I am uncertain of) or links to archival documents suggesting original research, hence the queries on both of those entries above. Given this issue, I have not thoroughly checked these or the more clearly reliable citations to ensure they support the statements. If the nominator is able to fix these and the other issues, I will perform a more thorough review of the citations in re-reviewing the article.

3) This article is very informative about the subject's life and work (both humanitiarian and archaeological), but contains a large amount of information related only tangentially to the subject, which should be moved to relevant other pages where these exist, or deleted/shortened. In particular:
 * Much of the information under 'family background and education' relating to her father belongs on her father's page: since this is linked to, only the most important information relating to the subject herself is needed here. Likewise the information about her distant family background should be summarised more briefly here; if the family as a whole is notable, then this genealogical information would belong on a separate page. [pruned - perhaps more could be done? Lajmmoore (talk) 16:52, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * World War I: as above re the general information on the ICRC [pruned Lajmmoore (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * World War II: Relevance of letter being sent to ICRC member "who hailed from an old Geneva-family of Bankers"? and of more general information about the ICRC in the final paragraph of this section. [pruned Lajmmoore (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * Post-WW II: "In the same year, the banker Marcel Naville – a grandson of the ICRC's former vice-president Edouard Naville, whose daughter was married to Gautier-van Berchem's uncle Victor van Berchem – was elected president of the ICRC." - again, only tangentially relevant to subject. [pruned Lajmmoore (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2022 (UTC)]
 * Legacy: information on foundation's honouring of subject's father again belongs on his page, not hers. [prunedLajmmoore (talk) 08:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)]

6) Portrait image of subject has US public domain on Commons page, but no copyright tag for source country (Switzerland). The image could be used as an illustration under fair-use guidelines if no public domain image is available Images 3 (subject at 3 months), 8 (Max van Berchem), and 9 (frontispiece) are similarly not tagged for copyright status in source country, but are not necessary for the page. The article contains a very large number of images, and it might be better to remove those not relating directly to the subject (e.g. graves of her grandparents, book written by her father). [pruned but I'm not sure about the copyright status - I don't think the US one applies as the images are from a Swiss archive? I'm going to ask for advice at Wiki Women in Red. Lajmmoore (talk) 08:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)]

Status query
Eritha, RomanDeckert, where does this review stand? It seems as though there were a significant number of issues, yet RomanDeckert has made only two minor edits that I can see, one of which left a sentence fragment at the very top of the article before the beginning of the intro. Also pinging Eritha's reviewing mentor The Rambling Man for any thoughts. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The review was incredibly detailed, and probably beyond GA, but nonetheless the comments appear to have gone unaddressed. Suggest this is closed. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:05, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Dear Eritha, The Rambling Man & BlueMoonset, apologies for leaving the comments unaddressed so far. I moved to another place in the meantime, participated in a number of Wikimedia workshops, conducted one myself in Lebanon, and I guess in addition I was a bit overwhelmed by the suggestions. Please consider not closing this, but give me some more time to work this out. As this procedure is still a new experience to me I would be all the more grateful for you continued patience! Best regards, RomanDeckert (talk) 10:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I am happy to leave the review open while RomanDeckert addresses the comments, but if that's not likely to happy any time soon, then it might be best for this review to be closed and for another one to be sought (with explanations of how my comments were addressed to help the next reviewer) when the page is ready for another GA review? Eritha (talk) 13:52, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * alternatively/additionally, the subject of this page would be of interest to the WikiProjects I am involved in (WP:WCC, WP:Archaeology), other members of which might be able to help out with the editing. I'd do some myself if that wouldn't mean it would still need another GA review! Eritha (talk) 13:55, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Eritha, given how long it has been since your originally posted your comments, and that there haven't been any edits to the article in the past few weeks, unless RomanDeckert can commit to doing some significant work on the article in the next week or so it probably makes sense to close the review. RomanDeckert can always renominate the article once they have had time to work on all the issues you've raised in the review. You can also, once the review has concluded, do as much work on the article as you'd like. (Before then, anything more than grammatical and other minor changes would indeed disqualify you from completing a favorable review.) BlueMoonset (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * ok thanks BlueMoonset, I've made some enquiries amongst the wiki projects I mentioned above to see if anyone else can take on some editing, if I don't hear from them or from RomanDeckert in the next few days I will close this review Eritha (talk) 10:16, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello all! I saw this posted in WP:Archaeology and would be happy to step in and work on the changes needed. I'm new to GA (but have done one via Women in Green), so this will be good practice for me, if that's OK with, &  Lajmmoore (talk) 22:09, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Fantastic, thank you, in that case I will leave the nomination open for a while longer to let you have a go at the edits - please let me know if any of my comments above are not clear! Eritha (talk) 09:30, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm so sorry - this totally slipped my mind, but I'm going to work on it this weekend, starting now. Lajmmoore (talk) 16:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I've worked my way through the suggested changes now, I hope they are satisfactory. Lajmmoore (talk) 09:01, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * , fantastic - I'll review your edits next week! Eritha (talk) 10:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Review of edits
I've now reviewed 's edits and can confirm that almost my comments have been addressed. I have done some more minor copy-editing, and (since the extraneous information has been removed) have been able to properly review the citations. A few citation issues remain:

Family background section: citation 10 contains some references to letters by MvB but is not chiefly about them/him. presumably [6] which is cited for more specific details is enough evidence of the existence of his letters (this is an offline source so I cannot check it). Suggest removing this citation.

Between the World Wars section: citation 11 says that she lived in Italy for 14 years, leaving on the outbreak of WW2, not just that she made study trips there

Post WW2 section: reference 11 should also be added as a citation for para beginning 'Following this episode' "and was thus a pioneer for gender equality in the ICRC governing body": editorialising, remove unless this can be cited.

In addition, citation issues which may require removal of information if no other sources support them: Information not found in cited sources: 1b, 1c, 30, 33 Not a reliable source: 3, 4, 9, 26, 29 (Geneanet) Original research: 13-15 (links to archival photos which do not necessarily support claims be made; 14 and 15 are actually the same photograph)

If these issues can be addressed then I will be happy to approve the GA nomination! Eritha (talk) 14:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Adding a note that I've addressed most issues, I just need to return for "Not a reliable source: 3, 4, 9, 26, 29 (Geneanet)" - will address those this week Lajmmoore (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello - I've now completed making the changes you suggested, I think there is only one aspect of the page outstanding, which is a reliable citation for the death of Bernard Gautier -  do you have a reference that isn't from Geneanet ([|which is not considered reliable])? It is marked as  in the article, in the death section. If you have different advice  or  then please let me know. Lajmmoore (talk) 12:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * fantastic, thanks ! I just found this geneaological site which is run by the University of Lausanne so should qualify as reliable, and confirms the year of death, at least: https://www2.unil.ch/elitessuisses/personne.php?id=74146 Eritha (talk) 14:36, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * done! Lajmmoore (talk) 14:41, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Review completion
Following edits by I can confirm the article now meets all GA criteria:


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


 * It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):  d (copyvio and plagiarism):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 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 fair use rationales): . b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): . b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Pass/Fail: