Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gregor MacGregor/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 06:56, 12 December 2015.

Gregor MacGregor

 * Nominator(s): —  Cliftonian   (talk)  12:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

This article is about Gregor I, Sovereign Cazique of the Principality of Poyais, who came out of the Highlands of Scotland and became a king by his own hand. That is not to say he conquered anywhere—while Conan the Barbarian took "by his own hand" to mean that, Gregor MacGregor of the Clan Gregor figured out that in 1820s Europe it was feasible for men with a certain military bearing to return home from exotic faraway adventures and simply claim to have become prince of some made-up country. Why did our hero do this? To con gullible investors out of their savings, of course. But the con went much further than that. The so-called Cazique persuaded hundreds of people, mostly his fellow Scots, to emigrate to what was really an untouched jungle. He persuaded the Bank of Scotland's official printer to produce Poyaisian "dollars" for him, which his victims happily accepted in exchange for their real British money. And about 250 actually made the journey to where Poyais was supposed to be (five more ships followed, but were turned back by the Royal Navy). Of the aforementioned 250, over half died and fewer than 50 ever came back. A 2012 analysis in The Economist suggested that in terms of sheer audacity, MacGregor's con trick outdoes anything modern charlatans have been able to muster, and I'm not inclined to disagree.

This article has received a successful GA review and a very thorough peer review from a pantheon of staid FAC regulars. The GA reviewer, Maile66, gave a thorough source review at the GAN stage, including spot-checks and checks for close paraphrasing. The peer reviewers called the article a "disgraceful tale, [told] in masterly fashion", a "fascinating read", and "an amazing story". I hope you enjoy reading it as much as they did, and I look forward to any new input on it. All comments welcome. Cheers, —  Cliftonian   (talk)  12:36, 21 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Support - It was with some degree of fascination that I did the GA review on this unrepentant Scottish scoundrel. Since that review, I have been very closely monitoring the article changes and the Peer Review. Filmmakers have missed a beat by not telling this story. There is nothing left for me to add, except to say this is a tale well told. It is my pleasure to add my support. — Maile  (talk) 13:41, 21 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Support – One feels guilty for so enjoying this deplorable tale all over again at a second, post-PR, reading. The article meets all the FA criteria, and I gladly support its promotion. –  Tim riley  talk    13:57, 21 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for the support and the extremely kind words. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  21:14, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Image review
 * File:MacGregor_(R._R._McIan).jpg needs a US PD tag, as does File:1827-07-02_Poyaisian-Stock-Certificate.jpg. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this Nikkimaria. I think these are sorted now. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  14:20, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. Excellent storytelling. - Dank (push to talk) 14:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much Dan for the help with the prose, the support and the kind words. Hope you're well as we approach the festive season. Cheers, —  Cliftonian   (talk)  14:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Support: I am still at a loss to know why, before I did the peer review, I had never heard of this outrageous character. I have a track record in bringing various crooks, mountebanks and suspicious types to the FAC page (Bottomley, the Tichborne Claiment, Tom Driberg etc), and I am cross that I didn't find and write about this monster – I would have really enjoyed the research. But there we are; all credit too you for providing us with one of the most entertaining articles of the year. Brianboulton (talk) 20:22, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you Brian for all your help here, and for your support and the kind words. Hope you're well, —  Cliftonian   (talk)  14:39, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Concerned: I can't see a reason why the entire "Poyais scheme" section isn't its own article, Poyais. It's about 1/2 of the body, and while MacGregor is mentioned conspicuously, its not about him. I don't think I can support it in this form, it's like writing the main history of Chain Home in an article on Watt. MacGregor is more than Poyais and Poyais is more than MacGregor, and conflating the two in this fashion strikes me as a very bad idea. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:36, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree. The Poyais scheme was the most outstanding and enduring of MacGregor's chicaneries, and it is right that it should have due prominence within this article. I  think that all aspects of his life have been proportionately covered, and don't think a split is justified. If it was split, the Poyais article would require a considerable amount of background and contextual material to be added; likewise a summary of the Poyais scheme would have to remain in the biographical article. So we would end up with a few thousand more words, inconveniently spread spread over two articles. I see no advantage in this. Brianboulton (talk) 14:25, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Maury: I take your point, but as Brian says the Poyais scheme is the main thing MacGregor is remembered for and it was entirely down to him. I don't agree that the present layout is like a history of Chain Home in an article on Watt. The narrative here stays firmly on MacGregor apart from one five-paragraph section, "Disappointment", where MacGregor isn't around to be mentioned. I'm also a bit dubious about the idea that "Poyais is more than MacGregor"—if it was, it was not by much as Poyais was nothing apart from something MacGregor made claims about. As Brian says, splitting the article as you describe would save only a few paragraphs here, while necessitating the adaptation of a large chunk of this article to provide proper context in the Poyais article. I'm sorry the article does not receive your support. I hope you enjoyed the article apart from this and that you're well. Cheers, —  Cliftonian   (talk)  14:38, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * "Poyais scheme was the most outstanding and enduring of MacGregor's chicaneries", sure, and Chain Home was Watt's most enduring legacy. The parallel seems very strong. Someone looking for a history of Chain Home might be confused by ending up on an article about Watt, but I can say that I was very much confused to end up in an article on MacGregor. Poyais is clearly notable enough for its own article, MacGregor is not a one trick pony, and that has always been the bar to meet when considering issues like these. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:43, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Many, many people worked on Chain Home; and more to the point, it actually existed and has its own history. Poyais was something one guy made up. The cases are not the same at all. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  16:29, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Fine, how about the great salad oil swindle? Or the oil sniffer hoax. Or better yet, the Ponzi scheme. All of these are "something one guy made up", but are covered in articles on that topic, not buried in the bios of the guy that did it. Or consider Credit Mobilier, solely the creation of Union Pacific, but it gets its own article too. I don't see anyone arguing there shouldn't be an article on Credit Mobilier because there is an article on UP already. If the topic is notable, it's notable. Generally speaking, if there is an event of historical importance, we write that article, and then argue whether the people involved did anything else interesting enough to warrant an article on them. In this case it seems you are arguing for the reverse of this, which strikes me as odd. This isn't simply because we're afraid, as Brianboulton seems to suggest, of a little work?! Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have in fact put a great deal of time and effort into this article and 20 existing FAs. Brian has contributed even more FAs than I have to this project. I think for you to apparently accuse us of laziness is obscene. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  06:19, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I also disagree with the assertion that Poyais is "buried" in the biography here. About two thirds of the lead here is about Poyais. One looking up "Poyais", "Poyais scheme" or any variant thereon will be redirected here and learn at a glance what Poyais supposedly was, who made it up, when, how, etc. I note that the article Ponzi scheme is about Ponzi schemes in general, as it is an extremely common scam merely named after one of its pioneers (see List of Ponzi schemes for many, many examples). For the story of Ponzi's own scheme one needs to look at the article Charles Ponzi. The oil sniffer hoax had multiple protagonists and involved a major oil corporation. The salad oil swindle is a better comparison, but even here we seem to have more information on the scam itself in the article on its protagonist, Tino De Angelis. The article Salad Oil Scandal seems to deal more with the corporate fall-out from the scam's discovery, and the article The Great Salad Oil Swindle is about a book on the scam. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  07:35, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Maury has chosen to personalise the issue with his silly and uncalled-for comment. Let it rest there, I say. Mr Tan's remarks, below, provide in my view a much more reasoned judgement. Brianboulton (talk) 10:58, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Ummm, what? Oh well, I've said my bit, I'll leave it at that. Maury Markowitz (talk) 03:40, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks Maury. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  06:47, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Support: A work well done, arguably exemplary.

Concerning the debate about the Poyais scheme, I think that so long as the content is skewed towards MacGregor's role and involvement in it, we should not reject the article's nomination based on (perceived) content irrelevance. We have to think that this is a biographical article on MacGregor. On the other hand, I do not see any reason opposing Maury's proposal to start a new article on the Poyais scheme. If you guys decide to do so, then the focus would be on the "Poyais scheme", and the protagonists involved would become the supporting roles, including MacGregor.

The current article as it stands has a section dedicated to MacGregor's creation and involvement in the Poyais scheme, but as I see it, it conforms to discussing and outlining his involvement in the scheme. Sure, by all means start a new article on the Poyais Scheme if you think that you have sufficient material on it, but I think let us not deviate the discussion on whether we should, or should not start a new article about that. Let's us just focus the discussion to the confines of appraising the quality of this article (ie: Gregor MacGregor) instead. Mr Tan (talk) 05:39, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the kind words and the support, Mr Tan. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  06:19, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Note -- have we had a source review? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:25, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Maile66 looked at the sources at the GAN stage. —  Cliftonian   (talk)  05:51, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Tks, looks pretty thorough (spotcheck as well). In fact you mentioned it at the top here but I missed it somehow... :-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:54, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 06:56, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.