Talk:Thomas Penn/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 20:40, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy to review this article.

Lead section/infobox

 * Link mercer (Mercery).
 * Use a close-up portrait instead? (see image on right) Thomas Penn Esqr.tif
 * Unlink London (see MOS:OVERLINK).
 * William's last will and testament – can be simplified to ‘his will’.
 * including Penn – consider amending to ‘including Thomas’ (as all three boys were Penns).
 * to the Province of Pennsylvania – I think it’s worth amending to ‘to the Province of Pennsylvania, a British colony’ (even though it was called a province) for the sake of clarity.
 * the deputy governor - ‘the deputy governor of Pennsylvania’?
 * When his brother John died in 1746, his will and testament passed control over John's share of the family proprietorship to Penn – ‘His brother John’s death 1746 resulted in Penn gaining a still greater control over the colony,’ sounds better imo.
 * who he went on to have seven children with – ‘with whom he had seven children’.
 * Penn eventually died – ‘Penn died’.

More comments to follow. Amitchell125 (talk) 20:09, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

1 Early life

 * Unlink London.
 * It's perhaps worth noting that Kensington was then surrounded by fields (see here), as it’s usually assumed that it was always a built-up part of central London.
 * and coloniser – seems redundant.
 * who married her husband on March 5, 1696 – the date Penn’s parents were married is not needed.
 * the Penn family only derived a small amount of income from the colony – ‘the Penn family was financially insecure’?
 * The sentence beginning In order to provide his family… will seem strange to some readers, as young apprentices were not paid enough to support their families. I think the ODNB is implying that Penn was expected to support his family once he had finished his apprenticeship, and this needs to be clarified in this section.
 * who was part of the Worshipful Company of Mercers is unnecessary detail and can be omitted.
 * William being the proprietors – ‘Penn’s father being a proprietor’?
 * "the proprietorship was still no guarantee of wealth." - why does the text need to be quoted—presumably Charles didn’t say these words, although the sentence makes it sound as if he did.

2 Management of Pennsylvania

 * who had by this point – what is the text referring to here?
 * since William - ‘since his father’. I understand the difficulties involved when family members with the surname are discussed in an article, but first names are generally only given when the person is introduced, and this part of the MOS (MOS:SURNAME and MOS:SAMESURNAME) has to be worked round.
 * by Indians tribes needs to be corrected.
 * 8,000 pounds - '£8,000'. This needs an equivalent value (perhaps using https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukgdp/).
 * Penn also took a leading role – why also?
 * installed to manage the affairs of Pennsylvania on a permanent basis - ‘permanently installed to manage its affairs’?
 * he took several steps – it isn’t clear here who ‘he’ is.
 * I would split the sentence starting Though Penn was technically governor, which seems to be on the long side.
 * his reputation – whose?
 * he was thought of – who thought this way?

3 Later life and death

 * Link Postmaster (Postmaster).
 * John died – who was John?
 * Amend % (see MOS:%).
 * an employee of the Penn family in Pennsylvania named Richard Peters - ‘Richard Peters, a Penn employee’ sounds better imo
 * personal residence – ‘home’.
 * will and testament – ‘will’.
 * Penn left his share – ‘he left his share’.
 * Why is the portrait of Penn's wife placed here?

4 Personal life, family and legacy

 * This section is made up of several parts that are not connected enough to belong together in this section. There are episodes in Penn’s life mentioned here, but his biography appears to end with his death, earlier in the article.	We have: 1. his marriage and family; 2. His apparently poor reputation when alive, as evidenced by a letter of 1757; 3. His behaviour towards the Pennsylvnia General Assembly; 4. A 2004 lawsuit. This section needs to be redistributed to become a Legacy section. Amitchell125 (talk) 21:33, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * https://www.archives.gov/nhprc/projects/catalog/thomas-penn touches on the importance of the papers of Thomas Penn, not mentioned in this article.

A few more comments to follow. AM

5.1 Notes
The note is lacking a citation.

5.3 Bibliography

 * See https://www.jstor.org/stable/20085751 for a full biography of Penn not mentioned or used.
 * Treese has a url available (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Storm_Gathering/asMkGCOUghoC?hl=en&gbpv=0) (not GA)
 * See https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofamer14amer/page/432/mode/2up?view=theater 	for information about Penn’s religious views, that he never returned to Pennsylvania after 1741 and his children that died young,

On hold
This article has enough issue for me to consider failing it at this point, as it needs to have quite a lot of work put into it to improve the prose, and parts need to be expanded to cover areas of Penn's life and legacy in more detail.

However, I'm putting the article on hold for a week until 14 December to allow time for the issues raised to be addressed. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 22:19, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry to have to do this, but could you just fail the article? I'm aware it has a lot of issues, but so far I don't have the time to address them all within the allotted time. Again, it's a shame it had to be this way, as we've had fruitful collaborations in the past. Regards, Dabberoni15 (talk) 22:51, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * No worries, I can do that. Let me know when you get around to dealing with the issues and re-nominating the article, and I'll review it for you. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 08:04, 11 December 2022 (UTC)