Wikipedia:Featured article review/Grace Sherwood/archive1


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

The article was removed by Dana boomer 02:03, 12 December 2010.

Review commentary

 * Notified: Risker, Virginia WikiProject, Occult WikiProject, 

I am nominating this featured article for review because see the talk page of this article and Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page, original nominator retired because of this unfortunate incident. Fails unstability as this mess is being sorted out. Secret account 03:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * FAR recently changed its rules regarding pre-discussion of article issues on article talk pages before listing here: "1. Prior to nomination, raise issues at talk page of the article. Attempt to directly resolve issues with the existing community of article editors, and to informally improve the article. Articles in this step are not listed on this page." I have no strong opinion in relation to this article, but other editors may wish to consider this.  Fifelfoo (talk) 03:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, as a procedural note, this was a TFA yesterday (for a shorter time than usual, but still) and was promoted to FA less than 3 months ago - circumstances which would normally preclude its eligibility for FAR. Given the circumstances, I can see an argument for IAR, but I'll leave that to the delegates to decide. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That part of the procedure (relating to TFA) is long-standing, but Raul, Dana and YM may want to waive it in this case. It is as yet unclear how the article can be fixed, but because of the copyvio issue, it doesn't look good. See here. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yea I knew about the rule about TFA, but this is a special case that should be waived, three sections of the article with copyright concerns? That's clearly worriesome, even though I don't think the article writer did it on purpose, because he is experienced and knew a copyright violation wouldn't go past FAC. Secret account 04:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Back on topic: having a FAR page open may allow for a place to consolidate the work needed and get feedback from the copyvio people on how to proceed, and either 1) assure that we end up with a still-FA quality article if it can be salvaged, or 2) delist it if not. We have FA quality material with a copyvio problem: we need guidance on how to fix it, and time to do that. This could be the place. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 04:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll be willing to rewrite the article as long as I have guidance from the copyright experts, I don't think every source was checked so that also needs to be done. Secret account 04:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I have proposed a general solution for situations like this here which may be applicable in this case. Realistically, I think that we could probably find a copyvio in the history of a good 80% of FAs, so finding another path rather than considering all versions subsequent to a copyvio contaminated is probably essential to the continuation of the FA program. Most FACs have hundreds, if not thousands, of edits. Risker (talk) 04:51, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The copyvio people wish you wouldn't ask that kind of question. Okey if you really want to do the right thing you have a couple of options. You can start with deleting back to the pre copyvio content. You can then rebuild the article from the non copyvio content. However you need to credit the authors of that content. There are two ways of doing this.
 * 1)A strict reading of the terms of use would allow you to forget about crediting the authors in any meaningful manner simply by including the article's own URL in an edit summery. I don't like this any more than you do and I will not be impressed if anyone actualy tries this.
 * 2)A prefered option would be to copy and past the authors of all the deleted edits to a sub page of the talk page and link to that in an edit summery.
 * It seems to me that some separation of attribution from article history, perhaps along those lines, ought to be implemented and automated anyway, saving all of this navel gazing about copyvios in the article history, which could then easily be deleted as necessary in cases like this. Malleus Fatuorum 22:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Is the copyright issue not a bit of a red herring now? Key parts of the article are based on an Associated Press article that was referenced 29 times, and it based its article on a local woman who was trying to raise money. Shouldn't we use Uncle G's academic sources to rewrite it, for reasons unrelated to copyright? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 17:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC) For what it's worth, what I've gotten from the historians for User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood is subtly different to what is in Grace Sherwood. She wasn't tried three times. She was tried once. The other two (actually four &mdash; another difference) actions involving the Sherwoods were where they brought suit against someone else. She wasn't forgotten until Louisa Venable Kyle wrote a children's book about her, but in fact was remembered in folklore for three centuries. Her "good name" wasn't "restored" because she didn't have a bad one, even in the first place. At least one historian concludes that Virginians of the time didn't actually widely condemn witchcraft, or Sherwood in particular. And all of this "Before the day be through" stuff appears, since I've yet to find it anywhere else, to come from the re-enactors. Uncle G (talk) 11:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Alturnativly you can remove the copyvio content and anything derrived from it then delete everything between the adition of the content and the removal then follow the crediting instructions above.
 * has to be said in an awful lot of cases we just remove the copyvio content from the current revision and try not to think about it.©Geni 05:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Rlevse‎ gave me the offline sources of the article, let me see if I could work something out. Secret account 22:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I removed the section that had the copyvio notice on it.  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 22:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll research the removed section soon, and read the sources Rlevse gave me. I'm already started to trim some of the copyvio parts, and excess sources, looking at some of the sources. Secret account 22:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Remember: Everything in  that came from USA Today or the Old Donation Episcopal Church, and everything in, however they may have been copyedited, adjusted, or moved around since, has to go.  My estimation, more of the details of which are on User talk:Moonriddengirl, was that there are at least three sections of the article that are going to be subject to large scale removal of content.  And Hans Adler, Moonriddengirl, and I only checked two of the sources.  There may be yet more edits introducing non-free content that we're not allowed to copy, let alone modify and republish.  To be strict and safe about this, you really should be starting from , per our standard guidelines for this sort of thing, with  subject to revision deletion.  Yes, I know.  It's enough to make one weep.  Uncle G (talk) 02:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There may be issues besides copyright violations. A lot of the article seems to be sourced to the Associated Press article in USA Today. The AP source (and the source of a few of the other newspapers cited in the article) is a local woman, Belinda Nash, who engages in reenactments and fund raisers. It's not clear how much of what Belinda Nash says is historically accurate, and the single primary source I've found so far is scant on details (see George Lincoln Burr, p. 242ff; search for "whereas Grace Sherwood being suspected of witchcraft ...). Does anyone know of primary sources or scholarly secondary sources that offer the details Nash offers?  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 03:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * . I even told you that the society's journal was a better place to look.  And indeed in you'll find an article there:
 * Other scholarly sources, unused by the problem article, include this one by a history professor:
 * The "ancient and knowing women" part, also originally taken from USA Today, but which is now cross-linked to something else, is actually better attributed to the court records themselves. James is apparently one source for those.  Another is .  It is a lightly edited collection of court records, with an introduction that discusses James, that is in fact cited by :
 * That phrase doesn't occur in earlier collections of court records:
 * For the folklore surrounding Sherwood, see the journal of the North Carolina Folklore Society:
 * There's a condensed, Readers' Digest, version of James in that, being so, is an ideal source for an introduction section or a stub:
 * But the basic problem here is that you really cannot start from what you have now, in repairing this. See User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood for a restart from the last known good version, which you are welcome to have at to your hearts' contents.  Uncle G (talk) 14:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Uncle G, the theory you are putting forward is that the article, from the point of that edit, is "fruit from a poisoned tree" and thus everything subsequent to it must be deleted. Well, if that is your point of view, the same can be said of hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, of the articles on this project, and we need to go back and rewrite the entire encyclopedia from scratch, ensuring that every phrase and fact is sourced. I disagree with this point of view; I do not see the difference between unattributed non-free text additions and non-free images. We do not automatically delete unattributed non-free images immediately; we provide for a period for them to be attributed, and only after there is no attribution do we consider deleting them. There should be no difference in the way that we treat non-free text. Once it is attributed, the situation is resolved. Seriously though....either delete the whole article or permit proper attribution of the concerning text. The article may well not include all the information that one expects of an FA, but that has nothing to do with the way that we manage unattributed text. Risker (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not a lawyer and have never been anywhere near California, but I think according to current risk assessment there is probably no legal risk involved in starting with a copyvio, turning that into a text that mostly plagiarises the choice of ideas but uses completely different words and sentence structure and somewhat different order of presentation, and then removing the copyvio from the page history. (Even without the last step there is only little risk.) But this assessment may change in the future, as new case law comes out and lawyers invent new ways of making money from nuisance suits. If that happens, it is quite likely that copyvios that we didn't notice are much less of a problem than those which we were aware of, but addressed inadequately according to the latest legal theory that hasn't been shot down by a sufficiently high court yet. Apart from that I think it's a good general principle to deal with copyvios as Uncle G proposes. Otherwise those who introduce them can continue to think of the copyvios as positive content contributions of a type for which there is basically no alternative. But we need an environment in which competent editing is encouraged, even if it means we lose some incompetent editors who can do hardly more than copy and paste. We used to have a deficit in terms of verifiability. Now the pendulum is on the other side. Truþ has become a four-letter word and is routinely used that way when an editor audaciously proposes to base our editorial judgement on something that is unanimously agreed to be true but for which there is no reliable source. (Note I am not talking about saying something explicitly without source.) Editors who distil all applicable reliable sources into an original encyclopedic article risk being accused of improper synthesis if any of the sentences properly combines information from two different sources. And I have seen plenty of tendentious editors get away with demanding categorically, with appeal to verifiability, that a specific formulation be used just because it happens to occur in a reliable source, or avoided because a reliable source avoids it. (E.g. calling Northern Ireland a country, or not calling the Genesis creation story a creation myth.) Thorough removal of copyvios and treatment of it to the point that all traces even of plagiarism are removed may not be strictly necessary, but I see it as a way to swing the pendulum back towards the middle. Hans Adler 16:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, and you're wrong (and plucking statistics from thin air, by the way). It's very simple:
 * and are someone else's text, that isn't free content.  There are probably more such edits.  Those are just the two that we found.
 * We aren't permitted to copy, let alone to modify and republish, such things. They are subject to copyright and not licensed for such copying and modification.
 * is where, however, we modified and republished that content. It got shuffled around a bit, copy edited, and interspersed with other content.  But much of it is still there even now, in both modified and original forms, now spread across three (one blanked) sections of the article.  The other, interspersed, content may itself be a problem, too.  We haven't really looked at it.
 * We have a derived work, containing other people's stuff, copied, modified, and republished in a way that we&#39;re not allowed to do. We cannot compound the error by building on it further.  Wikipedia editors lack the expertise to deal with the problem by carefully excising the problematic prose, checking whence everything originated and how it has been modified since.  It's a hard thing to do and get right. We know that there's this lack of expertise and ability.  It's why our standard instructions are to re-start from the last non-infringing version, and have been for the better part of a decade.  Picking apart a derived work to retain the non-infringing bits is a job for an expert.  In this case, we haven't even determined the extents of the non-infringing bits.  It's unlikely that it's just those two instances. You don't correctly understand why we don't automatically delete non-free images, either.  Part of that is because we accept a very limited and heavily circumscribed set of non-free images.  But our primary purpose here is the generation of free content that we can give to the world.  It's not the copying of multiple sentences of USA Today and then passing it off as free content because "it's attributed".  Our mandate is the making of a free content encyclopaedia.  The non-free stuff is constrained to be the part that simply cannot be regenerated as free.  It doesn't extend to ordinary article prose giving the story of a historical figure.  We can make free content prose to do that. No amount of "But we can just attribute it!" overcomes the basics.  This was stuff that wasn't available to be copied, modified, and republished.  It has been copied, modified, and republished. This argument that it's all alright, and copyright concerns go away, if we just attribute stuff that is copied when it's not permitted to copy it, is entirely bogus. You're in numerous (but not good) company in your belief of this copyright myth.  A lot of people believe it.  Wikipedia suffers so much from that belief that we had MediaWiki:copyrightwarning and now have MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning.  But it's a myth nonetheless.  I'm relieved of my duty to now go and write Project:Copyright guide for Arbitrators by the fact that Oregon State University debunks this myth, attorney Kathy Biehl debunks this myth, and Norbert F. Kugele (of Warner Norcross & Judd) debunks this myth and I can point to them (and a fair number of others) instead. ☺  Please learn that this myth is bunkum. Uncle G (talk) 16:34, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Uncle G, I agree with you, but I also think that one of Risker's points was valid: If derivative work is correct and I am reading the article correctly, then the status of a text as a derivative work depends only on a comparison with the original, not on the process in which it was produced, even if that process was public and it went through stages that were derivative works. The problem is, it may not be fun to defend this theory against an expensive lawyer. Hans Adler 17:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You can't copyright the facts. Every single article on Wikipedia is a derivative work, based on many sources.  We extract the relevant facts and present them in an original way.  Now, in this case, the final output may not be original enough (although Talk:Grace_Sherwood doesn't exactly show a lot), but that doesn't mean the method is any different from every other single article on Wikipedia.  We start from point A and derive point B, the mistake made was to do this in on live Wikipedia, and not doing it offline - but that doesn't make point B a copyright violation.  Point A may be a copyright violation, and is still being presented in our archives as free use, which is an issue, but there is no need to rewrite the article entirely. - hahnch e n 22:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Coincidentally, there was a recent case in which 8 sentences was ruled fair use. Our policies on attributing text were not followed, but the "copyvio - nuke from orbit" view is way out of proportion. - hahnch e n 22:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course, that is, as you say, coincidental. We can't extrapolate an "8 sentences is okay" generalization, since each case is decided individually on its own merits. As Stim noted, "[a]n infringement may be found based on several paraphrased passages of a few hundred words each, or just 20 words copied verbatim." Since we cannot predict what a court of law will find, we really can't afford to push any envelopes. Eight sentences constitutes a "copyright problem" in that non-free content has not been handled according to policies, and our copyright policy is clear on this: "Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt Wikipedia. If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble." (And, of course, attribution does not efface infringement: "Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.") That said, the question is what to do when content has been placed without authorization but subsequently modified into a form that would have been acceptable, had it only appeared that way to begin with. Technically, this could get us into trouble, if the original use of material is found to infringe. As Uncle G notes, we are creating a derivative work (by revising, annotating, elaborating or modifying the content). Ideally, we should rewrite such problem content from scratch. That said, many former copyright problems on Wikipedia are treated in exactly this way. IOW, I recognize the question, but I don't have the answer. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't see any way round deleting most of the article. The copyvio was introduced during its five-fold expansion for DYK. Now we're intelligent mammals with opposable thumbs and all that, we could just take the chunk of text that was introduced here, work with it on a private text editor and repost was remains once the infringing material has been removed. Except we can't, because that would infringe the copyright of the original editor: only he can make that sort of an adjustment to put back some of what must be removed. So it's an all or nothing situation, sorry. Physchim62 (talk) 16:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We have a derived work, containing other people's stuff, copied, modified, and republished in a way that we&#39;re not allowed to do. We cannot compound the error by building on it further.  Wikipedia editors lack the expertise to deal with the problem by carefully excising the problematic prose, checking whence everything originated and how it has been modified since.  It's a hard thing to do and get right. We know that there's this lack of expertise and ability.  It's why our standard instructions are to re-start from the last non-infringing version, and have been for the better part of a decade.  Picking apart a derived work to retain the non-infringing bits is a job for an expert.  In this case, we haven't even determined the extents of the non-infringing bits.  It's unlikely that it's just those two instances. You don't correctly understand why we don't automatically delete non-free images, either.  Part of that is because we accept a very limited and heavily circumscribed set of non-free images.  But our primary purpose here is the generation of free content that we can give to the world.  It's not the copying of multiple sentences of USA Today and then passing it off as free content because "it's attributed".  Our mandate is the making of a free content encyclopaedia.  The non-free stuff is constrained to be the part that simply cannot be regenerated as free.  It doesn't extend to ordinary article prose giving the story of a historical figure.  We can make free content prose to do that. No amount of "But we can just attribute it!" overcomes the basics.  This was stuff that wasn't available to be copied, modified, and republished.  It has been copied, modified, and republished. This argument that it's all alright, and copyright concerns go away, if we just attribute stuff that is copied when it's not permitted to copy it, is entirely bogus. You're in numerous (but not good) company in your belief of this copyright myth.  A lot of people believe it.  Wikipedia suffers so much from that belief that we had MediaWiki:copyrightwarning and now have MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning.  But it's a myth nonetheless.  I'm relieved of my duty to now go and write Project:Copyright guide for Arbitrators by the fact that Oregon State University debunks this myth, attorney Kathy Biehl debunks this myth, and Norbert F. Kugele (of Warner Norcross & Judd) debunks this myth and I can point to them (and a fair number of others) instead. ☺  Please learn that this myth is bunkum. Uncle G (talk) 16:34, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Uncle G, I agree with you, but I also think that one of Risker's points was valid: If derivative work is correct and I am reading the article correctly, then the status of a text as a derivative work depends only on a comparison with the original, not on the process in which it was produced, even if that process was public and it went through stages that were derivative works. The problem is, it may not be fun to defend this theory against an expensive lawyer. Hans Adler 17:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You can't copyright the facts. Every single article on Wikipedia is a derivative work, based on many sources.  We extract the relevant facts and present them in an original way.  Now, in this case, the final output may not be original enough (although Talk:Grace_Sherwood doesn't exactly show a lot), but that doesn't mean the method is any different from every other single article on Wikipedia.  We start from point A and derive point B, the mistake made was to do this in on live Wikipedia, and not doing it offline - but that doesn't make point B a copyright violation.  Point A may be a copyright violation, and is still being presented in our archives as free use, which is an issue, but there is no need to rewrite the article entirely. - hahnch e n 22:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Coincidentally, there was a recent case in which 8 sentences was ruled fair use. Our policies on attributing text were not followed, but the "copyvio - nuke from orbit" view is way out of proportion. - hahnch e n 22:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course, that is, as you say, coincidental. We can't extrapolate an "8 sentences is okay" generalization, since each case is decided individually on its own merits. As Stim noted, "[a]n infringement may be found based on several paraphrased passages of a few hundred words each, or just 20 words copied verbatim." Since we cannot predict what a court of law will find, we really can't afford to push any envelopes. Eight sentences constitutes a "copyright problem" in that non-free content has not been handled according to policies, and our copyright policy is clear on this: "Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt Wikipedia. If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble." (And, of course, attribution does not efface infringement: "Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.") That said, the question is what to do when content has been placed without authorization but subsequently modified into a form that would have been acceptable, had it only appeared that way to begin with. Technically, this could get us into trouble, if the original use of material is found to infringe. As Uncle G notes, we are creating a derivative work (by revising, annotating, elaborating or modifying the content). Ideally, we should rewrite such problem content from scratch. That said, many former copyright problems on Wikipedia are treated in exactly this way. IOW, I recognize the question, but I don't have the answer. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't see any way round deleting most of the article. The copyvio was introduced during its five-fold expansion for DYK. Now we're intelligent mammals with opposable thumbs and all that, we could just take the chunk of text that was introduced here, work with it on a private text editor and repost was remains once the infringing material has been removed. Except we can't, because that would infringe the copyright of the original editor: only he can make that sort of an adjustment to put back some of what must be removed. So it's an all or nothing situation, sorry. Physchim62 (talk) 16:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree there. Secret account 17:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I just emailed Old Donation Episcopal Church for permission to use their content, if they say yes I would place a OTRS ticket on it, if they say no delete the article and start from scratch. Secret account 16:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * WOW. Hans Adler 11:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I have restored the section Grace Sherwood – after removing the alleged plagiarism and claimed copyright violations. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note:


 * Thanks for working on it, Petri, but it's still problematic. For example, the sentence: "Unlike Massachusetts, made infamous by the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, Virginia never experienced a "witch craze"" is sourced to four separate sources, none of them really appropriate:


 * 2006 Associated Press story in USA Today, which does say it, but they are not historians: "Virginia never had a witch craze like that in Massachusetts, where 19 colonists were hanged for witchcraft in Salem Town in 1692."
 * 1934 Richmond Times Dispatch story, not online.
 * Something from the cellar by Ivor Noël Hume, Colonial Williamsburg, 2005, pp. 86–89, and I can't see where it says that.
 * Someone's MA thesis, no page number, so it's hard to check; and is an MA thesis a reliable source?


 * The MA thesis is actually a source for the next sentence, rather than the source that's there, and it uses identical wording without in-text attribution:


 * MA thesis: "To protect the social fragility of their colony, Virginia’s political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion of the colony, such as fornication, gossip, and slander, and dismissed those, such as witchcraft, that threatened to tear it apart."


 * Wikipedia: "Virginia’s political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion of the colony, such as fornication, gossip, and slander, and dismissed those, such as witchcraft, that threatened to tear it apart."


 * The latter is sourced not to the MA thesis, but to Bond, Edward (2000). Damned Souls in a Tobacco Colony: Religion in Seventeenth-Century Virginia. Mercer University Press, pp. 53, 91, 125 (but which page?).


 * SlimVirgin talk| contribs 22:35, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The original claim was that it was plagiarism or copyvio of USA Today, I have worked on that only. The two statement that still are sourced to the article are, I believe, proper use of sources. I take no position on the unfree-by-origin thesis, nor on any of the other sourcing problems brought forward in this discussion.
 * You are right about the misplaced reference. It was misplaced already in the version I started working on – which incidentally also had the USA Today reference placed before the statement it was used to source. I have corrected the placement. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Checking Bond 2000, he says nothing like "To protect the social fragility of their colony, Virginia’s political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion ..." etc on pages 53, 91, or 125. Petri, I think it would be better to remove that section for now, until it's clearer who said what. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 23:36, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I moved the article half an hour ago into the FARC stage of the discussion, but Nikkimaria has informed me that only FAR delegates should do that, so I apologize for jumping ahead, and I've reverted myself. This was the edit I made. I do think it would be helpful to move quickly to a delisting, given the multiple issues, but I'll wait to hear from the delegates. SlimVirgin talk| contribs 23:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Some other material from the MA thesis:
 * MA thesis, p. 48: "[Sherwood] had a longstanding reputation in the community for malefic behavior and ill will. Her trial demonstrates how members of seventeenth-century society considered untrustworthy could quickly become scapegoats for social and economic tensions."


 * Wikipedia: "Sherwood had a longstanding reputation for malefic behavior and ill will. Her trial demonstrates how those considered to be untrustworthy could quickly become scapegoats for social and economic tensions ..."


 * The sentence cites the thesis in footnote 16. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 00:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Image. There's also a problem with the lead image, File:GraceSherwoodCloseB.jpg, for which we claim fair use. It names no source other than Rlevse. If he really is the source in the sense of author, then it should be released. If he's not the author, we need a source, and without that we can't claim fair use. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 01:18, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Even if the photograph is freely-licensed, the sculpture itself is still copyrighted, if I understand correctly, and that may be why it has to be used as a fair use exemption. The first of the license tags on the image page covers it.   Will Beback    talk    01:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks, that makes sense. We should probably check that Rlevse is the author, and make that clear on the image page. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 02:17, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that rather than mucking about with unblanking parts of Grace Sherwood and finding yet more problems with text that matches the sources, you would be better off looking at whether Secret, who volunteered for rewriting duty above, is able to take User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood and run with it. (I can give a few pointers as to what more is needed. It's mainly on the folkloric Sherwood.  I've concentrated on the historic.) There's an artist's impression of Sherwood's court appearance in a source somewhere, by the way. So there's possibly more than just that statue to be had (dependent from who the artist is). I haven't really been thinking about illustrations, and I've lost track of where I saw it. I do think, however, that it's possibly a bit misleading to use images of the Salem trials in an article whose subject the experts say wasn't quite the same. Uncle G (talk) 04:22, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Images Having three fair use images of essentially the same thing is a bit much, and it probably breaks FU policy. A maximum of two, I think, is acceptable, but preferably one. I don't know if there are any other images of something connected to Sherwood we could replace them with, but I'll have a look around.  wacky wace  08:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty much a de facto de-listing at this point, as observed a while back. The article itself no-longer has the little star, for starters. Uncle G (talk) 14:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I've restored the template; any article listed at WP:FA by the FA director or FAC delegates is an FA until/unless it is removed by the FA director or a FAR delegate. The article has been at FAR for ten days now; at 14 days, FAR delegates will evaluate whether it should move to the FARC phase for "Remove" or "Keep" declarations. I'll also note that "process" to be observed at FAR was established during and after the Intelligent Design FAR, the FARC phase also lasts two weeks, only the FAR delegates or Raul654 move FARs to FARC or close FARs and delist articles, and should the delegates choose to IAR in a case like this, I suggest asking for Raul's view ASAP, since he has announced travel plans from the 13th until after Thanksgiving.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You mean that you've added the template afresh. It was never actually in this edit history in the first place.  I should thank you for marking this as featured article worthy, but it really isn't, you know.  ☺  It's just a good stub, for Secret et al. to work on.  Uncle G (talk) 15:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Whether the article has or not the template isn't what determines its FA status (those things go missing all the time, even in "normal" cases); being listed at WP:FA is what determines its FA status. I know it's a stub :)  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I 'spose I should make it clear why I'm concerned about "process" in this case. This is a precedent-setting FAR.  It has been stated elsewhere (no idea if that's accurate) that 80% of Wiki articles contain copyvios.  Let's suppose the ZOMG hypothetical scenario that 80% of Wiki's FAs also contain copyvios.  If that were found to be true, we would need a carefully deliberative process to deal with that scenario, based upon consensus, and I would not think it helpful for an IAR precedent to be set in the absence of Raul's feedback considering he has announced travel plans.  In fact, I'm going to ping him now, because ... I don't want this to land in my lap, or the other delegates laps :)   Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Move to FARC, it is not apparent that enough work has been done to retain FA status. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 14:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Move to FARC, agree with this comment by . -- Cirt (talk) 15:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Move to FARC. UncleG has done a tremendous job on this, but given that it's a very different article now, the best thing is to renominate it as an FAC. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 16:01, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I see most of the article work is being done by Slim and Uncle G, and both of them opine that it can't be salvaged. For the FAR delegates to be able to decide whether to move this to FARC a wee bit sooner than the usual 14 days, it would be helpful to know if anyone reasonably thinks they can salvage FA status here or need more time.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:22, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Featured article criteria of concern noted in the review commentary include copyright violations, plagiarism, sourcing and images. This is being moved slightly early due to the discussion above, with the agreement of Raul as Featured Article Director. Dana boomer (talk) 13:46, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I reviewed the article tonight, and although there were some minor MOS issues, what is there looks to be in good shape. Are the remaining concerns that a survey of the relevant literature and high quality sources need to be incorporated, that is, the sources now listed in Further reading? Before editors opine whether the article should be Kept or Delisted, is anyone willing and able to do that work? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 04:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My remaining concerns are as above, on Talk:Grace Sherwood, and elsewhere. Whilst I have addressed the historic Sherwood in depth, and haven't found anything major to add from &mdash; say &mdash; Bruce1910, and don't expect much extra to be in Laulainen-Schein2006; I haven't concentrated as much on the folkloric Sherwood.  That's where the completeness of the coverage, at least as far as I am aware, is lacking.  I suspect that there's material in Tucker1969 that extends this some way.  But I don't know because I don't have access to it.  The same for Betty1962.  Turner1984 is on the face of it about the historic Sherwood, but I suspect (but again without access) that it might cover the folkloric as well.  Summary: I think that there's more to be said of the folkloric Sherwood.  Logically there should be.  But I don't know that. And whilst Yarsinske2002 is based upon Syer1959, I'd like to know whether Syer1959 is based upon what everyone else turns out, directly or indirectly, to be based upon, namely the transcripts of the court records.  If so, I don't expect Syer1959 to have much that is not already covered. I actually rather liked SlimVirgin's demotion of the external links section. ☺  I'm of the school that holds that if an external link is pointing to a WWW page with further reading material on it, then it's really further reading and should be properly listed (and cited) as such.  (The two now there were both already there when I started.  The first external link was originally a cited source for now removed content.  I didn't even look at the second.) Uncle G (talk) 09:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That's part of why I asked-- my impression there is that the "Further reading" comprises sources that should be consulted for the article to be comprehensive, while External links are not (and that's why I prefer the typical layout). Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 12:41, 13 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey ya'll, are there any more thoughts here? There was a lot of heat/light at the beginning of this review, as well as a push to get it moved to FARC early, and then it just died... As it is at the two week mark for FARC and no comments have been made here since the day it was moved some updates would be helpful. Dana boomer (talk) 00:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Dana, you asked me to comment here. I feel the same as I did when I first suggested on November 6 that it be delisted. My view is that it has changed so much it should be prepared and nominated for FAC, assuming anyone wants to do that, and reviewed in the normal way. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 19:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I feel the same way as SlimVirgin, Remove Secret account 20:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Per lack of additional work and UncleG's comments above, looks like a Delist. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.