Talk:Thomas Hall (mechanic)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Johannes Schade (talk · contribs) 13:17, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Welcome Good day User:Doug Coldwell: I propose to review your GA nomination of the article Thomas Hall (mechanic). Admittedly, I am an apprentice-reviewer and my English is second language. Also consider that I have no prior knowledge of the subject. Please tell me when I go wrong or even tell me to go away if you think you might be able to attract a better reviewer. I will understand. Please interpret whatever I say as suggestions, even if sometimes I might omit the "I suggest that" and speak in imperative for short. I am of course in no position to give you orders.

I start a first traverse.


 * General remark - The article seems to be written in American English. It should declare this by adding . See TEMPLATE:USE AMERICAN ENGLISH.

Lead

 * General remark. Your lead consists of a single paragraph as is adequate for articles with fewer than 15,000 characters. The way you talk about Hall inventing sewing machines makes the reader wonder whether Hall is the inventor of the sewing machine. The article Sewing machine explains that inventing the sewing machines was in fact a long and process to which many people in the 18th and 19th centuroes made key contributions. So formulate carefully and link to the "sewing machine article". Mutatis mutandis this also applies to the typewriter.


 * 1st paragraph, 2nd sentence: His first mechanical engineering was that of inventing sewing machines ... - I suggest something like: In the field of mechanical engineering he first turned to inventing improved and specialized sewing machines ...


 * 1st paragraph, 3rd sentence: This lead him to inventing typewriters ... - Link "typewriter".


 * 1st paragraph, 4th sentence: Although he started putting them together in the 1860s ... - Perhaps: Although he built prototypes in the 1860s, it wasn't until 1881 that he was ready to manufacture and market the Hall Typewriter.

Thanks and Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 13:17, 8 June 2022 (UTC)


 * These above issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 14:17, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Infobox

 * |image_size   = 150px - We should not fix the size of the infobox image to a number of pixels. See MOS:IMGSIZE. I propose to use "|image_upright    = 0.75" which has about the same effect.


 * |known_for    =mechanical engineering -> |known_for     = mechanical engineering - add space after the equal sign


 * I looked at the copyright of the image and it seems to have been published before 1927 and hence to be in the public domain. Fine.

Lead (revisited)

 * 1st paragraph, 3rd sentence: ... typewriters, especially portable ones. - Use "ones" rather than repeating typewriters.


 * 1st paragraph, 4th sentence: ... it wasn't until 1881 when he ... - Sorry, I had not picked this up earlier : The MOS tells us not to use contractions like "wasn't". Use "was not" instead. See MOS:CONTRACTION.


 * 1st paragraph, 4th sentence: ... it was not until 1881 when he ... - My English is 2nd language but I am quite convinced that it is "that" and not "when": ... it was not until 1881 that he ... Dont you agree?


 * 1st paragraph, 4th sentence: ... that he was ready to manufacture the Hall Typewriter, put it on the market, and sell it to the public... - added commas and "and" in the enumeration.

Early life and education

 * 1st paragraph, 4th sentence: After graduating from high school he entered the Academy of the University ... - I do not understand why you say "... entered the Academy of ...". I would simply say "... studied at the ...".

Mid life and career

 * 1st paragraph, 6th sentence: This contained a finger lever for mode of keyboard operation and an individual type bar for a lever and its connecting link. - This sentence is difficult to understand. From the images and the short video found under "External links" it is clear that Hall's typewriters (probably all models) were of the type "index typewriter". These machines do not have a keyboard with keys for different characters but a simple character selection device that allows to point to a character on an index or "tableau" that showed the available characters. This type of a typewriter is shortly discussed in the article "typewriter". The AEG Mignon was a late example of an index typewriter. Hall's typewriter seems to have been one of the earliest. An even simpler variant is the Simplex typewriter, mostly only a toy, where the character is chosen on a wheel that is turned by hand. Index typewriters were mechanically simpler and lighter and therefore cheaper to make and well adapted for portable machines, but the speed of typing was much lower. The formulation "individual type bar" in the sentence discussed above seems to be quite misleading. I find the discussion and description of the principles on which Hall's typewriter was based lacks much detail. I am not sure how this should be fixed. I feel an explanation of the differences between keyboard and index machines would probably be needed. Are such descriptions available in the sources?
 * ✅ Copy edited accordingly and wiki-linked accordingly to typewriter that explains the principles that has the appropriate references.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)


 * All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Best regards and friendly greetings, Johannes Schade (talk) 20:36, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

—Dear Doug. I have finally looked up the article about Hall in the Dictionary of American Biography (DAB). I would have done this earlier had your bibliography provided a URL. URLs in the biography are of course in no way prescribed for GA purposes, but they are very helpful for the reviewer who is supposed to make spot-checks on the references and the general reader who wants to see which sources he can read on the Internet. Just as an example find below how I just added the DAB article about Hall to mey general-purpose bibliographic list:

"*"

Reading the DAB article, I realized that Hall invented two very different typewriters: the first, which was the object of his 1867 patent, was a keyboard machine, whereas the second, object of his 1881 patent, was an indicator machine. Perhaps I have have read your article more carefully or concentrated too much on correcting the English. But nevertheless, if I missed such a basic fact, it should perhaps have been more strongly emphasized. I think you should organise two sections that specificall treat the 1st and the 2nd typewriter. Both sections should include short characterizations or principles of the basic operation of these typewriters. These sections might be created by reorganising the quite longish section "Midlife and career".

Besides, the article Sholes and Glidden typewriter has a picture of a patent of 1868 that looks remarkably similar to the image of Halls 1867 patent. Both have a central ring on which the radially strinking typebars are mounted.

The article William Austin Burt shows a indicator typewriter patented in 1829.


 * Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 12:05, 10 June 2022 (UTC)


 * --Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:48, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * - Major copy edit done for improvements. Can you take another look. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:18, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

1867 typewriter

 * Image and header position - I feel that it is awkward to have the header appearing on top of the image rather than on top of the block of text. Just swap the places of the image and the header so that the image is above the header as you have it at the top of the "Midlife and career" section with the difference of course that the image is on the left this time. I also feel that the image of Hall's rough drawing should be used here. I found the description of the "Thomas Hall's Keyed Typewriter of 1865" at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwxwgb&view=1up&seq=274&skin=2021 It seems that the ring in Hall's 1865 typewriter is just a stop ring and does not carry the typebars or levers as in the Sholes. The image "Sholesdisk.png" is therefore misleading and should better be removed. It seems that none of the 1865 typewriters has been preserved. I find the main image from the patent difficult to understand and cannot read the lettering on it except the R for Ring. We mudst surely be quite careful with what we say about it.


 * 1st paragraph, 1st sentence: ... 72 letters in both capital letters and small sizes. - Don't we normally call this "uppercase" and "lowercase"? I read up in the source and see you just put what the source says, supposedly to make sure you cannot be wrong; but how should the poor reader understand? Your source is more than a 100 years old and the English sometimes needs a bit of modernizing. Generally we should paraphrase. If we give text from the source word-by-word we should acknowledge through an attribution (see Template:Source-attribution) or quote.


 * 1st paragraph, 2nd sentence: It had type-bars that struck downward ... - I think modern English prefers "typebar", as is used e.g. in the article Typewriter.
 * The reason I used "type-bar" was because my 3 PCs red lined the spelling "typebars" (indicating a misspelling) because it was not in the dictionary. Researching this out, apparently either spelling is proper. I changed to your suggestion of "typebars" and then added this spelling into my PC dictionaries as being proper.


 * 1st paragraph, 2nd sentence: ... surface of a flat platform which slid into the bottom of the machine and worked from side to side to provide for spacing the letters when printed on paper. - Modernize the description. I think a modern description would call this "platform" the "carriage". This one seems to differ from most modern ones by having no roller, the page lying flat and horizontally at the bottom of the machine, while modern carriages are usually on top. If you feel you absolutely cannot modernize the text, quote it, but use quotations sparsely in the text.


 * 1st paragraph, 3rd sentence: That was accomplished by a device which varied space between letters according to the width of the letter printed. - This is remarkable. The machine seems to have had a proportional font, whereas most modern typewriters use monospace with fonts similar to the Courier font. The Typewriter article states that the 1884 Hammond Ideal also had proportional spacing.

End-of-paragraph citation. You cite the article Typewriters in the Universal Cyclopaedia. This is not written by Adams, who was editor-in-chief of this encyclopedia but not the author of the article. Please cite it correctly with something like - "*"


 * 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence: One of these type writing machines was ... - Why do you call them "type writing machines" in this place? I feel this is confusing. Is this a different device or are you still talking about the 1867 typewriter? —Or does this again come directly word-by-word from the source?


 * 2nd paragraph, 5th sentence: He demonstrated his printing typewriter in 1866 ... - As above "printing typewriter", why? be consistent.


 * 2nd paragraph, last sentence: Hall took his patented typewriter to the 1867 Paris World's Fair which received ... - I think you meant "where it received".

1881 typewriter

 * 1st paragraph, 2nd sentence: He studied mechanics in shops at Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg for several years. - Sounds funny. A shop is not a university.


 * 1st paragraph, 4th sentence: He was the pioneer inventor and builder of this style of typewriter. - This sounds a bit too much like publicity for me. Other index typewriter have been built before his, e.g. William Austin Burt's 1829. If nevertheless you want to keep this sentence, it needs commas "He was the pioneer, inventor, and builder of this style of typewriter."


 * 1st paragraph, 5th sentence: ... select on a handle ... - Is it not rather "select on an index plate by pointing with a handle" or something like this? Don't you agree that the handle moves over the index plate? This is clearly visible on the video.


 * 1st paragraph, 6th sentence: Then a rubber plate with all the characters moves into position and that letter or character printed on the paper through the inked plate. - Does it really? I believe the index plate is directly the type plate and is moved by pressing the "carriage" (handle-index plate assemblage) down on the paper. They say you can change the font by replacing the plate by unscrewing and fastening two screws. Besides you do not need to say "letter or character" "character" is good enough as characters include letters, digits, and other typographic signs.


 * 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence: It used the pantograph principle and was manipulated with the index finger on a selector that pushed a stylus on the letter to be printed. - The sentence glues together two disparate parts. The 1st about the pantograph principle needs to be explained (is there a URL for the source?). Link "Pantograph". The 2nd mentions a stylus. I do not believe there is a stylus on the 1881 typewriter. Where have you seen that? or which part to you call a "stylus"?


 * 2nd paragraph, 3rd sentence: Hall's typewriter was the first of this style typewriting and was a commercial success. - Again two completely different statements glued together by an "and". The 1st part "Hall's typewriter was the first of this style typewriting" does not sound right. Do you mean "style of typewriting"? What type are you referring to? the index machine. I do not believe it was the first. For the second part "commercial success" probably belong into the section "Marketing".

—I am getting tired. The problems are so many. I wonder whether I should not fail this GA nomination for now and you resubmit it later again. Perhaps you gain a better reviewer. But if we can both still muster some patience perhaps it can get through. What do you think? Do you still want to go on with me? Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 17:02, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You can fail the nomination. I'll work on it and then resubmit later. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:35, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Dear Doug. I fail this nomination. There are still too many improvements to make. You have been very polite, attentive, and responsive, and it was a pleasure to work with you. I hope to meet you again. Please don't give up. This is a very interesting article and I am sure that with a bit more work it will pass. Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 05:13, 13 June 2022 (UTC)