Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Brooke-Little/archive1

John Brooke-Little
With the recent passing of John Brooke-Little, the world of heraldry as lost and important voice. Mr Brooke-Little was responsible for founding The Heraldry Society which has had a profound impact on heraldry over the half century. I think that this article does a good job of explaining who Brooke-Little was and why he was important to heraldry. Though it is a topic that many may not be familiar with, I feel that it deserves to be a featured article on the wikipedia.--Evadb 09:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Sorry, but this article doesn't have any citations, inline or otherwise. It's well-written and matches many of the criteria, but information on Wikipedia must be verifiable. Add some references, and maybe do a peer review. Good luck! The Disco King 15:04, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input, King. I'm unsure of how to add citations and also of which facts need to be cited.  I'm pretty deeply immersed in heraldry, so I'm unsure what things aren't common knowledge.  Any ideas?  Thanks again.--Evadb 15:46, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It has four references - the obituaries in each of the four UK broadsheet newspapers that I mined some few weeks ago to expand the article. However, the article has expanded greatly since then, so much of the new information must come from elsewhere, and the sources of the new information should be added to the "References" section.  In addition, it would help to indicate explicitly the source of any particularly interesting or controversial facts - see Cite/Cite.php for the current favoured method for adding citations (using the and tags). -- ALoan (Talk) 18:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Object:I have read this article, but apart from forming the view he was probably the greatest social climber since Cinderella (reading between the lines). The need for, or indeed achievements of his life have not been explained. He seems to have been to an obscure school (is Claysmore School a proper public school?), and studied obscure honours and titles. we are told he achieved many honours "He was appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (4th class) in 1969." I think HM's lawn mower achieves higher. Then we have "Many believed that he should have been considered for knighthood, but that honor was never given to him" I smell a story here - but again we are not to be told it. Firstly, who exactly is many? and more interestingly why was not given the honour; like so much in this page we are not told the details. What exactly does "Due to his convivial life style, though, Brooke-Little was not adequately suited to the managerial responsibilities of the office of Garter." mean? - was he an alcoholic? womaniser? What exactly - and why can't we be told? Then we have statements like " the science of heraldry and armory" What exactly is scientific about heraldry, surely if it is anything it is an art. As a biography I think this is a toadying page that tells us nothing about the subject. Giano | talk 22:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. The Cinderella quip is good.  However, Giano, you cannot seriously contend that this man has no place in Wikipedia, when he held one of the most senior and ancient heraldic offices in the world, was a widely read author and academic writer, and had his life obituarised in all the English national newspapers that carry obituaries?  Your objections are pretty snobbish ("is Claysmore School a proper public school?" and "HM's lawn mower achieves higher") and seems to focus more on the man than on the article.  As to your criticisms of the article, they aren't very constructive and make it hard for editors to address them other than by deleting the article, which isn't what the featured article process is designed to encourage.  On your two concrete points:  (1) Noone can say why he was not knighted and speculation wouldn't be encyclopedic; however, it is correct that long serving heraldic officers with a track record of publication and scholarship to boot (like Sir Antony Wagner, who was also a twentieth century King of Arms) would at least be in the running for knighthoods.  (2) A convivial life style can obviously interfere with serious management responsibility, without it being necessary to assume a person is an alcoholic or a womaniser or anything more than the article states.  Evadb is a relatively new editor (Feb 2006, by the looks of it) who has done a lot of work on this and other heraldry related articles - so tack a bit more towards WP:CIV, eh?  Cheers! Chelseaboy 16:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you "Chelseaboy", Have you wandered into Articles for deletion by mistake? This is the FAC page. Nowhere have I said this person is not worthy of a place in wikipedia.  I say this article is not worthy of being a FA.  I am not particularly; fussed by lack of inline cites (though many are)  but it would be interesting to know who declared his lifestyle "convivial" and what exactly was meant by it - to me it means a "bed-hopping drunk" - perhaps I move in strange circles, but I'm sure it means various things to various people, so lets know why he was  "not adequately suited to the managerial responsibilities of the office of Garter" - because if his conviviality.   If my objections seem patronising to the man, that's a pity, they are meant to accentuate the shortcomings of the page, which seems always to insinuate but never quite tell the truth about the subject.  I'm sure in time Evadb will produce very good FAs, because the FAC page, in my experience,  is a very tough, and consequently very good place to learn the art. Giano | talk 18:34, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I think I misunderstood you when you said "The need for, or indeed achievements of his life have not been explained.  He seems to have been to an obscure school (is Claysmore School a proper public school?), and studied obscure honours and titles."  I thought you meant he wasn't notable, and that this was a reason in itself for refusing FA status.  Of course, the things that make JB-L notable (his offices, and his publications) are already in this article.  My mistake, however.  If I can be allowed to carry on barking up the wrong tree for a moment, I rather like the idea of a FA on an obscurish topic - it's the sort of thing you find on Wikipedia that you might not find in a paper encyclopedia, and if it's done well to boot, well, hooray.  Chelseaboy 19:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)  P.S.  There are bed-hopping drunks in my circle as well, is it possible that you and I know each other IRL? ;-)
 * Convivial as I'm sure we would both like to be, I doubt it's the same circle - unless your idea of conviviality is the local fund-raiser's cheese and wine! - However, I seem to have made a career here on writing pages on "obscurish topics", and sadly obscure or not they quite rightly have to conform to the same standards as the other pages and FAs. Giano | talk 21:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose, this is a nice article in several ways, obviously written with love and care, but I'd advise the nominator to take it round to  Peer review  first for more eyeballs, and then return to FAC.  I second Giano's complaint about the tantalizing, unexplained hints — "convivial lifestyle", as mentioned, appears to be a euphemism (though for what?), and euphemisms are not encyclopedic. More teasing still are the improper lions, a notion that boggles my mind. Please unpack these riddles. Please also try to make the short paragraph about the White Lion Society more layman-friendly, I'm quite baffled by it. (What's a "notional name"?) The Lead is too short and does not adequately summarize the article, see WP:LEAD. Please make only links relevant to the context. Example: stroke good, speech bad. Btw, I don't believe that Brooke-Little was widely known as "JBL" when he was born. Bishonen | talk 02:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC).