Talk:Rutherford B. Hayes/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Nikkimaria (talk) 13:47, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing this article for potential GA status. My review should be posted shortly. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 13:47, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I'm opting to decline to list this article as GA at this time, as I feel the article's problems are too numerous to warrant promotion. Feel free to renominate whenever the below comments have been addressed. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:56, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Writing and formatting

 * Don't use contractions in article text ✅
 * Can the governorships in the infobox be in chronological order? ✅
 * "congress" should be capitalized (and possibly linked) ✅
 * Check capitalizations - a lot of words are capitalized that shouldn't be
 * The paragraph about his family in "Early life" partially duplicates and partially contradicts the "Family" section ✅
 * You say he was wounded 5 times, but the surrounding text only accounts for 4 times - which is correct? ✅
 * Avoid one-sentence paragraphs and one-paragraph subsections ✅
 * You must include a comma between day and year in month day, year dates
 * This article could use a general copy-edit for clarity, flow, and grammar/typo fixes ✅
 * Be consistent in the use of African Americans vs African-Americans, white vs White, southerners vs Southerners, etc ✅
 * Don't wikilink the same term more than once. Do link terms that non-American readers will likely be unfamiliar with. Link terms on first occurrence. ✅
 * Be consistent in referring to Arthur as Chester or Chester A. ✅
 * Per WP:CAT, don't include both parent and daughter categories

Accuracy and verifiability

 * Ref 5 is a dead link ✅
 * Refs should appear immediately after punctuation marks, not before ✅
 * Citations needed for the following:
 * Following early election results, Hayes actually believed he had lost the election to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden ✅
 * By removing federal troops, Hayes gave White Southerners the power to systematically disenfranchise African Americans, creating the Jim Crow South ✅- was reworded
 * Close to Hayes throughout his life, Birchard became a father figure to him ✅
 * He was an honorary member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity ✅
 * Hayes provided political support for his fellow Republican and Ohioan during McKinley's bid for congressional election ✅
 * had planned to retire from public life, but was drafted by the Republican convention in 1875 ✅
 * Hayes received national notice for leading a Republican sweep of a previously Democratic Ohio government. ✅
 * A dark horse nominee (James G. Blaine had led the previous six ballots) by his convention, Hayes became president after the tumultuous, scandal-ridden years of the Grant administration. He had a reputation for honesty dating back to his Civil War years ✅
 * Additionally, historians note, the election was not fair because of the fraud and intimidation perpetrated from both sides. A popular phrase of the day called it an election without "a free ballot and a fair count." For the next four years, Democrats would refer to Hayes as "Rutherfraud B. Hayes" for his allegedly illegitimate election, as he had lost the popular vote by roughly 250,000 votes. ✅
 * Bradley was a Republican and the commission voted 8 to 7 – along party lines – to award Hayes all the contested electoral votes. ✅
 * This agreement restored local control of the Southern states and ended national control over the state and local governments in former Confederate states ✅-reworded
 * Hayes' best known quotation, "He serves his party best who serves his country best," ✅
 * Hayes also could not turn to Northern voters for support; most Northerners were concerned with the economy, not Reconstruction. Under such circumstances "the question Hayes faced was not whether the troops should be removed but when they would be removed," points out Gerald Bahles of the Miller Center of Public Affairs. ✅
 * Hayes honestly believed in a kind of paternalistic code where Southern whites would protect the rights of African-Americans if given back control of state governments. Hayes wanted to assimilate African Americans into White society with paternalistic protection by encouraging the growth of Republican Reconstruction ideals in states that were reluctant to enforce civil rights ✅
 * closing the book on racial equality for another 100 years
 * ✅- but do I have to source the 100 years part b/c you can look at Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson to see the 100 years inequality terminated by Brown v. Board of Education
 * However, his subsequent attempts to reconcile with his Southern Democrat opposition by handing them prestigious civil service appointments alienated fellow Republicans and undermined his own previous attempts at civil service reform. ✅- was removed
 * The stunning victory for the President was made more remarkable by the political climate of the time. Since Andrew Johnson's presidency Congress had asserted more and more power. By standing up to Conkling and his political machine, Hayes had expanded the power of the presidency and paved the way for the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 (ironically Chester Arthur would sign the Act into law just 5 years after being sacked). ✅
 * Workers feared that the federal government had turned permanently against them, while industrialists feared that such brutal action would spark revolution similar to the European Revolutions of 1848. ✅ - was removed
 * The economic boom that followed the Panic of 1873 is credited to the return to the Gold standard along with good fortune. ✅
 * The Democrats could not overcome Hayes' vetoes and eventually gave up the fight. Their efforts also backfired because Hayes' tenacity had united the Republicans heading into the 1880 elections ✅
 * The Argentines hoped that Hayes would give the Gran Chaco region to them; however, he decided in favor of the Paraguayans. His decision made him a hero in Paraguay ✅
 * Hayes was suspicious about the French project ✅
 * Such action earned Hayes the consternation of many white Americans living on the West Coast ✅- see this site
 * Hayes' actions on the border betray a more active presidency than many historians and most Americans realize. Hayes' "police" actions on the border also set a precedent of American intervention along the border and in Mexico ✅- reworded to explain precedent
 * his pledge that he would not run for a second term ✅
 * Hayes became a model for the post-presidency ✅
 * His last words were "I know that I'm going where Lucy is." ✅
 * July, 1856. My dear only sister, my beloved Fanny, is dead! The dearest friend of childhood, the affectionate adviser, the confidante of all my life, the one I loved best, is gone; alas! never again to be seen on earth. ✅
 * Normally you could do shortened citations (as described at WP:CITEX), but in this case I notice that most if not all of the subpages of ref 4 have different URLs than the main page. Thus, though I realize it will likely involve quite a bit of work, I'd suggest that you cite the relevant subpage instead of citing the site as a whole. ✅


 * What makes ref 1 a reliable source? ✅
 * Per WP:REFNAME, identical refs should be combined (ex: 2 and 7) ✅
 * Ref 24 (answers.com) is not a reliable source ✅
 * Ref 33: use "pp" for multiple pages ✅
 * Ref 34 (about.com) is not a reliable source ✅
 * Despite his credentials, I would still argue against using this source


 * Ref 40: date? Also, journal name (?) should be italicized ✅
 * Don't duplicate cited source in External links (NYTimes obit) ✅

Broad
This section is ✅ I'm not an expert on US history of that period, but I don't see anything obviously missing. However, note the concern above about duplicated material re: family.

Neutrality

 * Multiple phrasings that should be reworded to be more neutral. Some examples (representative, not exhaustive):
 * Hayes became a model for the post-presidency ✅
 * Hayes' actions on the border betray a more active presidency than many historians and most Americans realize ✅
 * posturing as a moderate ✅
 * The phrase's connotations make it not as neutrally worded as it should be - "posturing" usually indicates an exaggerated attitude or "posing", not advocating
 * Hayes honestly believed in a kind of paternalistic code ✅


 * Look at Wp:W2W and WP:ASF - avoid editorial bias
 * Maintain an encyclopedic tone at all times

Stability
Lots of vandalism, but no edit-warring or similar concerns

Images
This section is ✅
 * Avoid sandwiching text between two images ✅
 * Puck cartoon - what does "left" refer to in the caption? Put the image below the heading to avoid compressing the edit link. The licensing tag for that image is incorrect - the author died in 1937, which is considerably less than 100 years ago ✅
 * Uh, well since this was published in the US and public domain for US is life + 70 years, this picture is in the public domain. Right? If its published here why does it matter what other countries copyright laws require. It was published HERE. --Schwindtd (talk) 00:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's fine, you can use the picture, you just have to change the licensing tag to reflect its US PD status. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I uploaded the new one with the different PD tag, but it just shows the old one. What do I do? --Schwindtd (talk) 01:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks fine to me - did you try reloading the page? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, that post was from a while ago. I put the pic up on Wikimedia commons, then marked the one uploaded here as a duplicate. It was deleted a few days ago. --Schwindtd (talk) 21:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * File:RutherfordLucyHayes.jpg - source link is dead ✅