Wikipedia:Peer review/List of founding Fellows, Scholars and Commissioners of Jesus College, Oxford/archive1

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List of founding Fellows, Scholars and Commissioners of Jesus College, Oxford

This peer review discussion has been closed.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to run it through WP:FL soon, and I'd appreciate some comments first. The last time I went to WP:FL (with Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Principals and Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford), many of the comments were minor MOS points that I think I've managed to avoid this time round. I should be turning the remaining redlinks to blue in the next few days. The unlinked names are people about whom nothing is known, or about whom nothing can really be said to show notability.

Thanks, BencherliteTalk 23:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


PR #1[edit]

Here are some suggestions. Best of luck! --Eustress (talk) 01:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your suggestions, very helpful. My replies are below. Silence = action! BencherliteTalk 07:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead needs some text in bold referring to the list's title per WP:LEAD.
  • The list's lead jumps right into history. I feel like an explanation of what the list is and entails would be a more helpful and appropriate first sentence.
    • Have added in some extra text, and some bold, to address these first two comments, without using the deprecated "This is a list of...". How does it look now?
      • It's a bit comma-spliced...but I think the bigger issue was raised by the editor below--this sentence needs to establish the notability of this list. Wikipedia is not an all-encompassing catalog of names, genealogies, and lists; so, the reason why a list of founding Fellows, Scholars and Commissioners of a college in England is important needs to be stated; I think the editor below gave a good suggestion. --Eustress (talk) 12:58, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Might as well take care of the red-linked names now, before FLC, or not link them at all (see red-links).
    • As I said above, I'm doing this - I have already written seven articles for people on this list, just three to go!
  • Some phrases you begin without an article (e.g., "Principal from 1586 to 1602) and some you begin with one (e.g., "A Commissioner under the 1571 charter")--needs to be consistent.
    • This is correct: there is only one Principal at a time, hence "Principal", but there was always more than one Commissioner, so "Commissioner" would be wrong.
      • Gotcha. Is this explained anywhere? --Eustress (talk) 12:58, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • You capitalize "Scholars" in the lead but not sometimes in the body of the list.
  • Don't capitalize "university" in "Chancellor of the University"
  • Inconsistent date formats: "A Fellow from 1622 to 1637" vs. "Principal of Hart Hall, Oxford (1604–1622)" -- parentheses
  • Why does section The 1589 charter have one less column that other two tables? If it's because they were all commissioners, then why does is that information repeated for William Aubrey?
    • Yes, only commissioners were appointed in 1589, and I've now made that clearer. In fact, there are two fewer columns, as I didn't see the point of one saying "Commissioner" in each box and another giving reference 17 in each box. Not sure what you mean by Aubrey - I'm noting that he had previously been a Commissioner, rather than being a brand new appointment like some of the others. I've reworded the boxes for him, Burghley and Gerard, along the lines of the equivalent phrases for the "old names" in the 1622 charter (don't know why I didn't think of this earlier) - is this better?
  • Some people had two positions, but their tenure is only shown grouped together (e.g., from 1800-1883)--did the persons occupy both offices simultaneously? If no, should the different tenures be more clearly shown?
    • Which people are you referring to?
      • I suppose only William Aubrey and Theodore Price. --Eustress (talk) 12:58, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would link the names in the picture captions as well

Comments by qp10qp[edit]

  • I don't feel the lead establishes the subject's notability. Something might be said about the significance of this college.
    • Some further explanation: first Protestant college at Oxford, only Oxford college founded during Elizabeth's reign, etc.
  • What is the significance of the Welsh connection, which is clearly strong? I presume there must be a good reason for founding a new college, so on what basis was Elizabeth "instigated" to charter one? Was it to have special provision for scholars from Wales?
    • Schools had been founded in Wales in the previous decades, leading to more Welsh students at Oxford; it seems that provision for the Welsh at Oxford was behind the request from Hugh Price, even if it wasn't the reason Elizabeth agreed (no restriction to Welshmen in her charter)
  • What was the context of the charters? Do we know why the college was called "Jesus"? One senses that this may have something to do with the Elizabethan protestant settlement and a wish to change the balance of religion in the university. Were other colleges and schools founded at about the same time, making this foundation part of a national policy?
    • Unclear why it's called Jesus, although the wording of the charter states a clear religious purpose, and at least one source refers to the protestant settlement as being behind things. I don't know about a more general Elizabethan educational policy, though.
  • The lead lacks mention of the state of the college beyond the charters. In other words, was this just a paper college, or were buildings, students, etc. in place from 1571? Was the college established in its present position? The expression "came into being" is rather too vague, I feel. (I can find the information by following links, but should it not be mentioned here?)
    • Added.
  • It is not clear to me whether the second charter was necessary because the old commisioners had died or because they had failed to draw up the statutes. Were these required by the first charter?Strike-through text
    • Charter 1 requires statutes to be drawn up; commissioners don't, then die off so they can't; Charter 2 for attempt 2 (which also fails, leading to attempt 3 and success, finally!) I've tried to make this a bit clearer.
  • The question occurs, why weren't new commissioners appointed to replace the previous ones? Later that clearly happens.
    • You mean, why not on an ad-hoc basis as each commissioner died? That hadn't been provided for in the charter - I don't know why not, nor do the sources say why the commissioners themselves weren't proactive in getting the job done. Perhaps the "political heavyweights" had more important things to worry about!
  • There is a tantalising sense that the drawing up of statutes was being systematically resisted. The lead says that a couple of the principals were not "keen on" statutes, but there must have been more to it than that. Reading between the lines, it seems that the more central powers were keen and most college people not: was there then some kind of central control to be established through the statutes, or taxes, or something? Why the resistance? I note that this chap Powell who urged the statutes ends up as principal, so I wonder if the powers that be appointed him because of his commitment to their position.
    • Added a quote from Powell about Principals and statutes. I'm not aware of any central university control that college statutes would provide - if anything, statutes meant that matters such as appointed the principal were in the hands of the college fellows, not the university chancellor. Unclear why Powell was appointed - whether it was seniority or his campaign for statutes.
  • The ShareAlike licence for the Elizabeth portrait is redundant and should be cut, because every aspect of the page must be reusable, without any need to attribute photography.
    • A Commons photo, and not one that I uploaded; not sure what you want me to do about this.
I'll do it. Certainly at FAC there's been a move towards making the image information as accountable as the article information, which does make sense to me. Basically, the image has an inappropriate attribution requirement, which I will remove. qp10qp (talk) 08:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. qp10qp (talk) 09:08, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Need to establish consistency whether "scholars" is capitalised.
    • Will attempt to make this consistent.
It's still inconsistent. I can see the difficulty, though. qp10qp (talk) 08:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "changed hands": rather colloquial way of describing these appointments? Do we know of any reason for the swift turnover of university chancellors?
    • Will try and think of a better term. Not sure why there was this frequency; not sure it matters for this article anyway.
  • "Presumed to be a relative of Sir Eubule Thelwall, but not found in the college records": awkward wording?
    • Will try and reword.
Yes, the reversal of clauses makes the "but" fit. qp10qp (talk) 08:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It might be worth attributing the Muytens portrait in the caption.
    • Done
I'm dubious that the Elizabeth one is Hilliard, though. Looks facially unlike his work (and she sat for him personally) and more like a version of the Armada portrait pattern. Strong says that Hilliard only did miniatures of her after his 1580 portrait, which like his earlier "Pelican" and "Pheonix" portrait, do not resemble the Jesus painting at all. The face pattern for his miniatures is nothing like this either, though the Hilliard workshop "Hardwick" portrait does have a similarity in the pose and the skirt profile. However, this just quibbling, since the label is given in the image info, so don't mind me. qp10qp (talk) 08:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assume that the William Cecil caption should say that he was a commissioner in 1571 and 1589, not 1571 and 1622.
    • Done, spotted that myself!

Well done for compiling this thorough list—it must have taken ages checking out all those names. Best of luck for featured list. qp10qp (talk) 09:21, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for a very detailed, and thought-provoking, review. I'm not sure that I can answer everything, or that all these points would necessarily belong in this article, but I'll see what I can do - after the weekend - to find some more sources / milk some more juice out of what I've used already. BencherliteTalk 19:18, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've expanded the lead further to address some of these points, although it's becoming more of an article on the first 50 years of the college with a list attached than a list with a lead section. Not sure whether this is a good idea or not! When I get the chance, I might add a bit about the physical charters themselves - the Bell article has some pictures which I'll try and think of a decent fair-use rationale to include. BencherliteTalk 02:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I daresay you may be asked to trim (I don't know what prevails at FC), but I expect that could be done without too much informational damage. Please drop me a note when you put this up for FL, as I don't watchlist the page. Well done again. qp10qp (talk) 08:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Struway2 (talk · contribs)[edit]

  • a few very minor things:
    • Not sure WP:LEAD does want you to put odd bits in bold type.
    • Perhaps after the first mention of Elizabeth I, refer to her just as Elizabeth.
    • Notes for the 1571 charter don't wikilink matriculated at all, where those for the 1622 charter link each occurrence of matriculation; consistency is good.
    • Bennet (1622): if Prerogative Court is a proper noun, Court should be capitalised, or if not, prerogative shouldn't be.

cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:44, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I think I've addressed #2-4, and #1 will in part sort itself out depending on the scope/title. I agree that bold text doesn't have to be forced. BencherliteTalk 08:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further thoughts by Bencherlite[edit]

The introduction has been expanded significantly now. I'm wondering whether it makes more sense to have the "list" sections interspersed with the history in chronological order, rather than all the history then all the lists. Further or alternatively, notwithstanding my preference for writing lists over articles (!), I'm now wondering whether the amount of historical information in the lead means that I've actually written the first draft of "The history of Jesus College, Oxford 1571–16??". There's certainly the material for it; the main Jesus College, Oxford article would be overwhelmed with detail if all the history went in there. Thoughts? BencherliteTalk 08:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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