Wikipedia:Peer review/Socrates Nelson/archive1

Socrates Nelson


I've listed this article for peer review because I am planning to make it my first nomination at FAC. The article has already been assessed as a good article with very few suggestions for changes. However, I want to make sure the article is robust enough to be nominated at FAC. For context, I randomly found this article one day, and at the time, it was quite short, and so I decided to expand it. Despite having never heard of the subject before this, it then became a passion project that went way farther than I'd expected it would.

For reasons I can explain in more detail, I'd prefer to keep the overall structure of the article intact, as existing sources leave little room for a major restructure of the article's chronology. Broadly, I'm looking for advice on small details I may have overlooked, things that could be touched up or added to make the article better, edges that could be rounded out, etc. Of course, however, if there are major issues that would mean a rejection at FAC, I'm all-ears as well.

The other reason I brought this to peer review is just to make the article better. It's little-viewed (~5 page views per day), and it therefore doesn't get a lot of editorial attention. I want the article to be the best it can be, even if it doesn't pass muster at FAC. In fact, should there not be any major issues brought up here, I may run this peer review concurrent to an FAC review.

All the best,  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  17:22, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Comments from Kavyansh.Singh
I reviewed this for GA, and am glad to hear that this is being considered for FA! I'll try to do a prose review as well, but from a quick look at the sources and the overall structure, I have few suggestions, feel free to ignore any which you don't find helpful:
 * By any means, can we get a free image of Socrates Nelson, for the infobox?
 * Goodness, did I try for this one. I emailed the Minnesota Historical Society, the Washington County Historical Society... Frankly, if there's an image of this man, I don't know of it. Even the City of Stillwater doesn't seem to know of an image.
 * Going to call this a, solely because I've searched as exhaustively as I can short of going to Stillwater personally (not feasible for me based on distance), and even then, I don't think I'd find one there.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:53, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I do want to mention, however, that I've contacted Brent Peterson of the Washington County Historical Society to hopefully clear this up.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  16:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * No issues if it is not possible/isn't clear whether an image exists or not. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I heard back from Mr. Peterson; he stated:
 * "Hello [redacted],


 * As far as I know there is no photograph of Socrates Nelson. There are photos of his house, or at least a sketch in the 1874 Andrea's [sic] Atlas of Minnesota. I am not sure if there is even a photo of his wife Betsy......


 * Good luck.....


 * Brent Peterson
 * WCHS"

In that case, we are definitely fine without any image. Rest, I see all the images appropriately licenced. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 18:00, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Rename "Later life" section to "Later life and death"
 * Good idea; done. ✅


 * The inline citations should be in acending order at the end of every sentence. For instance:
 * He moved to Illinois in 1839 on a prospecting tour at age 25 and then to St. Louis, Missouri in 1840 to sell goods and collect furs. — Ref#3 should be before Ref#11.
 * known as Nelson's Landing or Nelson's Point. — same as above, the order should be 6,12, and then 13.
 * from the General Land Office in 1849. — same
 * but Ella later died in infancy on October 23, 1849. — same
 * with Nelson made one of the incorporators. — same
 * for the mill. — same
 * equivalent to $1,850,000 in 2020. — same
 * along with Republican William McKusick. — same
 * Stillwater to co-found a firm. — same
 * having been ill for two months prior. — same
 * I think I tried to order them in the order of importance to the sentence (or maybe based on the order of how they're used in the sentence), but I can't remember for sure. Either way, given there are only a handful of instances of this, I can go ahead and do that soon, since my way isn't really that intuitive anyway.
 * Update: Done ✅. Probably for the best this way.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  04:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * From my recent experience, FAs should be comprehensive for readers without needing to consult footnotes. Consider merging any of those 8 footnotes to the prose.
 * I think I'm fine with keeping the footnotes, since the reader can understand the article totally without the footnotes. However, I did notice I could incorporate the "torn down for lumber" part of the footnote into the 'Legacy' section.
 * Moved that aforementioned part into the 'Legacy' section. I think the best candidate for full merging into the prose would be [f], since that's just a few names.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  04:42, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Upto you; the footnotes are fine as long as they don't compromise with reader's flow of understanding. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Not asking you to change anything, but I quite don't get how you are citing the sources. For instance, various books are listed in the 'Bibliography' section (which I'll suggest renaming to 'Works cited'), and are cited as short footnotes in the prose. But, few journals are directly cited in the prose. What criteria do you use to decide which works should be cited as short footnotes, and which shouldn't be? Its upto you how to cite sources, as long as it is consistent.
 * What I did was to add any sources that required two or more different pages to 'Bibliography' while adding all other sources to 'References'. So for example, if a book requires "page 6" somewhere and "page 10" somewhere else, I'll put it in the biblio and use SFNs. If a book or journal just requires one page or range thereof, I put it in 'References'. In this sense, it's internally consistent.
 * I see ... this is acceptable, as long as it is consistent. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * I noticed inconsistency in listing page numbers as 'p.' (for single page number) or 'pp.' (for multiple page numbers or ranges). Some sources list pp. for ranges, while others don't:
 * Ref#7 — "p. 18, 25." — shouldn't this be 'pp.'?
 * Ref#11 — "p. 58–59." — same as above
 * Ref#17 — "p. 590–591." — same
 * Ref#25 — "p. 10–11." — same
 * Ref#28 — "p. 115, 323." — same
 * Ref#32 — "p. 80–81." — same
 * Ref#49 — "p. 13–15." — same
 * Ref#50 — "p. 15–17." — same
 * Ref#56 — "p. 18, 26." — same
 * Ref#59 — "p. 25–26, 54–55." — same
 * Ref#72 — "p. 23, 593." — same
 * Ref#76 — "p. 450–451." — same
 * Ref#79 — "p. 370–371." — same
 * Ref#83 — "p. 599–601." — same
 * Interesting; I didn't notice this, but this definitely should be fixed. I'll get to that, since I thought I used 'pages=' for multiple pages.
 * Update: Done ✅ It turns out that I was previously under the impression that 'sfn' automatically did 'pp.' if you entered multiple pages, but – unsurprisingly – there's a separate 'pp=' parameter.


 * There is inconsistency in listing the location for sources. See 'Saint Paul, MN' v. just 'St. Paul'. In which cases is the state mentioned, in which cases it isn't? Few places have just the city mentioned (like "Chicago", "Baton Rouge", etc.), but few have city as well as the state (like "Mankato, MN", "Boston, MA", etc.). Check for all sources.
 * Yeah, I did notice this. I'm not sure how I'll go about this, but I'll just go ahead and have all sources list the state to avoid any confusion.


 * A few references including Ref#64 lack the URL access date.
 * I'll go ahead and add those either based on when they were added or – if I go back and read them again – today.
 * ✅ And I found two interesting things to fix in the process. One was a missing page and one was an altogether missing URL.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:51, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * The Newspaper.com referenced can be clipped for verifiability.
 * Can do; I'm not too familiar with newspapers.com. Will continue as well.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  03:37, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ Feels good to eliminate the final hard paywall in the article.  TheTechnician27   (Talk page)  05:38, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Will continue. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:11, 30 October 2021 (UTC) Continuing with the prose. Again, these are just suggestions, feel free to ignore any which you don't find useful.
 * He was heavily involved — I'd remove 'heavily'
 * True enough. I would contend that he was heavily involved, but "heavily" is pretty amorphous, and we can let readers decide for themselves to what extent he was involved. ✅  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:29, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Born in Conway, Massachusetts on — add a comma after Massachusetts. See MOS:GEOCOMMA
 * ✅ Didn't know about GEOCOMMA before this.


 * He moved to Illinois in 1839 on a prospecting tour at age 25 — you mention the year, as well as the age.
 * While it's true that the age is basically deducible by subtracting 39 from 14, I do think the fact that he moved out to Illinois at such a young age is interesting and noteworthy enough for readers that it warrants the tautology.


 * to St. Louis, Missouri in 1840 — MOS:GEOCOMMA


 * and collect furs — Linking Fur appears like MOS:OVERLINK
 * Yeah, I wrongly assumed there was more about hunting furs and their use in clothing in that article. I could link to the appropriate section, but I'm sure enough people know about their use in clothing that it's not relevant here. ✅


 * There, he would meet future business partner — I'm not particularly good at tense, so I'm not sure for this one, but I think this should be "There, he met his future business partner", or something like that.
 * Yeah, I'm bad about sprinkling "[X] would [Y]" in my past-tense narration. ✅  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:28, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * in the Wisconsin Territory and — add a comma after 'Territory'; its a natural pause.
 * It'd be grammatically incorrect to add it here since "and opened a trading site known as [...]" isn't a complete sentence. However, if I added one between "Chippewa River" and "Wisconsin Territory", it would make grammatical sense, but I feel it's an awkward pause. Your thoughts?  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Better leave it as it is... Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * That same fall, he took a — At the beginning of each new paragraph, you'll need to replace 'he' with 'Nelson'
 * ✅ Except for the second paragraph of 'Legacy', for obvious reasons.


 * opened its first general store, — do we need a link to the general store? Appears over-linking everyday word.
 * This one I'm unsure about since, on the one hand, it's a word one can look up in the dictionary, but on the other, a) it's one of Nelson's careers, and b) every Wikipedia article is targeted toward a general audience who may not be familiar with something so broadly obsolete in the modern age.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Will continue. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 06:54, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I seriously wanted to take this break point to thank you for not only doing the GA review but peer reviewing as well. Having seen that James A. Doonan is a featured article and is about the length of Socrates Nelson, I'm encouraged even more to keep going and get the article in ship shape.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  05:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * @ May I suggest you to request the Guild of Copy-editors for giving this article a read. It is always advisable to do so, as they really help fix many minor issues which might otherwise be overlooked. If you submit this to GOCE today, it would take approximately 1 month. Its upto you whether you feel its worth waiting a month. Will continue with my review soon. Also, may I request if you could take a look at Harry S. Truman 1948 presidential campaign, a FAC nominated my me...  Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd love to give it a look. It may take me a while to look over it as thoroughly as need-be for a FAC, as I'm unfortunately suffering from attention span issues due to a temporary cognitive disability (that also means I might miss things). Plus I'm really interested in the article's contents anyway. I can start today, so where should I leave my nitpicks should I find them?  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  17:16, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * @ Feel free to leave any comments on Featured article candidates/Harry S. Truman 1948 presidential campaign/archive1, whenever you feel free to do so.  Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I've decided that I'm going to simply nominate this for FA as it is (once I make sure everything here is fixed, after I add alt text, and potentially after I hear back from Mr. Peterson). There's nothing here that I believe would cause the nomination to be rejected outright, and I can't imagine I would be inundated with issues to fix or quirks to explain were I to nominate it. Arguably the largest one would be the chronological flow of the article, but I already have a copy-pastable explanation for that.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  03:01, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * @ Its upto you. I have added my comments below, which likely concludes my review. I don't think that there is anything major which would likely cause it to be quickly opposed. The article is well researched, with a great breadth of sourcing, and the prose looks fine. I a not very experienced for giving any "pre-FAC" suggestions, but in my opinion, you can proceed towards FAC. A thing to note: reviewers may question article's comprehensiveness. I don't see any issues with the article's comprehensiveness, but make sure that it cites all major sources available, and more importantly, doesn't neglect anything major.  Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 12:01, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I tried to be as comprehensive as possible with this article. It may be the case that a smidgeon more information exists somewhere within the depths of the Stillwater Public Library, the Washington County Library, or the Washington County Historical Society (none of which I can visit), but other than that, there's nothing I can think of that I haven't tried. So right now, I'm operating under the assumption that the article isn't just comprehensive by Wikipedia's standards, but is in fact the most comprehensive biography of Nelson that exists, period.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  16:13, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Great! Ping me or leave a message at my talk page whenever you take this to FAC! Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 18:04, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Continuing...
 * Nelson entered the lumber business in earnest on February 7, 1851, when the Minnesota Territorial Legislature organized the St. Croix Boom Company, with Nelson made one of the incorporators. — 'with Nelson made' looks odd grammatically, as well as it is a repetition of Nelson in the sentence. I'll suggest to rephrase somewhat as "Nelson entered the lumber business as one of the incorporators of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature organized at the St. Croix Boom Companyon on February 7, 1851."
 * Hooooly crap. I remember trying to figure out how to get the cadence of this sentence down, and you just nailed it. I'll look at all your other suggestions here in a moment.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  16:13, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I do want to keep the "in earnest" part, however, as Nelson was already shipping pine down the Mississippi before this; this is just the first time he was part of an official, incorporated business.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  16:15, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I swapped a couple things around just to follow the cadence I was looking for.


 * constructed a lumber mill in what is now Bayport, called the S. Nelson Lumber Compan — 'in what is now Bayport' could be better written as 'present day Bayport', and accordingly, the sentence can be rephrased.
 * I actually had to clean this up for factual misinformation. I originally had it right, then I misread it and went back to "correct" myself, and now I fixed it again. It now reads "platted what is now Bayport". The reason I say "what is now" instead of "present-day" is that it actually had two name changes: "Baytown" and then "South Stillwater"


 * The steam-powered .......... as the St. Croix Lumber Company — too long sentence.
 * ✅ Somebody should put me through to a hotline for semicolon abuse.


 * Footnote '[E]' requires a citation
 * ✅ I fell into the classic trap of letting a wikilink act as a citation.


 * plummeted to practical worthlessness — do the sources discuss how much the exact value was?
 * Empson (2002), which is far and away the best source I can find for this, doesn not discuss this exactly. Thomas Newsom described wrote (ostensibly post-depression) that "land depreciated from fifty to seventy-five per cent", but a) that was describing St. Paul, and b) Empson, a highly reliable, modern-day source, described "city lots" as "virtually worthless". Thus, I can't use Newsom's words to describe what Nelson's property values were, but I feel I can use Empson's, since he's writing in the context specifically of Stillwater and more specifically these lots.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  17:03, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Fine then. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 18:04, 9 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Do the sources discuss who did Nelson vote in the 1864 DNC?
 * That's a very good question which I'll look into. My guess is "no", but I'll try to look up the delegate votes from Minnesota.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  16:54, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Update: Turns out I was very, very dumb and forgot about the possibility that all delegates from Minnesota voted unanimously for someone, which was the case. See: 1864_Democratic_National_Convention I'll get to adding it as soon as I can find a proper source.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  21:05, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention on page number 43 states that all 4 of 4 delegates from Minnesota voted for George B. McClellan. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:51, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I actually just found and added that without seeing this. Haha ✅  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  21:13, 9 November 2021 (UTC)


 * in Stillwater, Minnesota — MOS:GEOCOMMA


 * Four years later in 1871, — I think here, we can remove either 'Four years later' or '1871'


 * of what was described as — who described it?

That's it! Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 12:01, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your replies and edits. That's it from me here. If you take this to FAC, feel free to let me know by pinging me. I'll attempt to do a first time nomination spot-check there. I hope that this peer review helped you. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 11:14, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It helped quite a bit; in fact, it helped me spot a couple (what I would consider) moderate-size errors, so I'm happy I did it and that you were the one to help.  TheTechnician27  (Talk page)  00:57, 11 November 2021 (UTC)