Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/February 2023

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February 2023
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Intent to open an independent GAR[edit]

Please keep this section as a list only; commentary can be added in a separate section.

If you intend to open a GAR independent from the mass processing of one of these GAs after the planned merger of individual and community GA reassessment processes is completed, please add the article name and sign. Those articles listed here will be removed from the list the bot will use for the mass delisting.

If independent GARs are not opened within two weeks of the GAR process merge, another bot run may be used to delist those remaining GAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:21, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there will be no more individual GARs after the merge. For the near-ready instructions see User:Premeditated Chaos/GAR proposal. Femke (alt) (talk) 08:30, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  1. SweeTango, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 22:26, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/SweeTango/1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Delisted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Demarest Building, Epicgenius (talk) 19:44, 2 February 2023 (UTC) (Note that I may not be able to get around to an independent GAR in a timely manner.)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Demarest Building/1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Delisted, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Clam Lake Canal. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:27, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Clam Lake Canal/1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:12, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Delisted (Novem Linguae, note this will show up then on the Petscan query). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:31, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Ramsdell Theatre, Shearonink (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Not a DC nomination so not on Master list, although most content is DC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Ramsdell Theatre/1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Kept at GAR, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:55, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Joseph Dart, Bungle (talk • contribs) 17:33, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joseph Dart/1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Kept at GAR, PD attribution check still needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:44, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Thomas Johnston (engraver), Shearonink (talk) 20:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Thomas Johnston (engraver)/1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:36, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Kept at GAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  7. William Bradford (printer, born 1663), Wil540 art (talk) 22:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Almost two months, opened the GAR myself: Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/William Bradford (printer, born 1663)/1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:25, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Delisted, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Automatic scorer. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:48, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Automatic scorer/1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:50, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Kept at GAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:22, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  9. William Rath. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:13, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/William Rath/1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 1 March 2023 (UTC)a[reply]
    Kept at GAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:13, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Lee Vilenski, Wasted Time R, and Wil540 art: reminder to open the GARs listed above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:14, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia: Now filed at WP:Good article reassessment/Automatic scorer/1 and WP:Good article reassessment/William Rath/1. I don't see them showing up on the main WP:GAR list, though. I used the GAR helper tool. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:54, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I recall from a different nom, they take some time to show up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:52, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SweeTango at least still has copyvio that should be dealt with sooner rather than later. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of invalid DYKs and other surprising things[edit]

Found during CCI and GAR:

  1. Benjamin D. Wood: DYK hook (2016) ... that Benjamin D. Wood produced the first multiple choice test?
    Dubious at best, more likely outright false. See article talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:23, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Modern Gothic cabinet: DYK hook (2017) ... that the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Modern Gothic cabinet (pictured) is considered one of the finest American examples of the style?
    Misrepresentation of source [1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:23, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Cone Mills Corporation, stunning POV at four-time GAN fail, the opposite of what the source is saying. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    PS, Indy beetle you might enjoy fixing that little thingie. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Fun fact, when I saw the Cone Mills Corporation article listed at GAn the last time I considered undertaking the review, since I had some limited experience with North Carolina textile topics like Burlington Industries. Multiple times I read over the article but every time something "felt off", and since I couldn't quite articulate what it was I decided to not go forward with it. Apparently my gut was right. Conflating the infamous early 20th century textile industrialist paternalism with "compassionate administration of their mill villages" is such a careless parroting of the commercial propaganda of that era, it's rather astounding. I'll see what I can do in the coming days. -Indy beetle (talk) 11:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course I only happened across it when checking diffs for copyvio. When I saw that shockingly blatant POV and contortion of the source, I wondered if we should be adding WP:PE to the acronym soup here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:09, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    PS, Indy beetle according to WWT, DC wrote only about 1% of that page (ie, that specific POV content), so there's a possibility the rest is not so bad. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:25, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    OOPSIE, sorry for the double ping Indy beetle, but I was wrong. Alternate account Douglas Coldwell wrote that one sentence; main account Doug Coldwell wrote over a third of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:28, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Not likely PAID, Cone Mills hasn't been an independent company for almost 20 years, and the last major textile company to own housing villages in the region to my knowledge was the Cannon Mills company, which sold them to private buyers in the 1980s, so this style of labor force management has been gone for a while. I can't think of anyone who would pay to keep their dog in this reputational fight for something so anachronistic. I'm genuinely convinced this could be attributed to Doug's lack of familiarity with the topic + his overconfidence buoyed by high score GA stats, his tendency to closely mirror bad sources (not that the one cited is bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if the addition was inspired by something written in the 1920s and 1930s), his rushed and shallow style of content creation, and a general lack of competence. -Indy beetle (talk) 12:34, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Cone Mills was really the sign something was wrong wrong wrong for me. I actually have substantial credit on the present revisions because I wrote up most of the company's later years from newspaper, much as I've done in my specialty topic areas. And that was before I had access to the Greensboro papers which are in GenealogyBank, not Newspapers.com. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Private correspondence added to Wikipedia mainspace, and passed DYK (twice). [2] [3] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:54, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    And two more[4] [5] that also passed DYK and used to source content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:07, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Mary F. Hoyt: DYK hook (2016) ... that President Eisenhower praised Mary F. Hoyt, the first woman appointed to the US federal civil service in 1883, as a leader for the hundreds of thousands of women who followed her?
    A GA. The claim that she was the first woman to hold a job under the US federal civil service system is possible but contested and somewhat dubious. See Talk:Mary F. Hoyt#This article possibly rests largely on a falsehood? Also some problems with claims not supported and getting basic things wrong. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:55, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I've replied there but to me this issue lies with Indy beetle's misreading of a source, not an actual problem in the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:47, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, mistake on my part. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:50, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Template:Did you know nominations/Ludington Airline ... ... that Charles Townsend Ludington, his brother and two other executives formed Ludington Airline, the first every-hour-on-the-hour air service? Cited to The New York Times, which made no such claim, and a book about Wood Products-- even if one can find that claim in that source (I couldn't), a Wood Products book can't be used to cite a surprising claim about the airline industry. Stubbed the article which was a mess of similar and the usual. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Template:Did you know nominations/George Escol Sellers ... that George Escol Sellers was the basis for the fictional character Colonel Eschol Sellers in Mark Twain's novel The Gilded Age? Uncited, likely untrue, Twain explicitly denied it, and it was cited to a personal website of dubious reliability. (And copy-paste from PD sources from the first version while we're at it.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Hardly dubious. Barbara Schmidt (who runs Twainquotes) is a well known expert on Twain [6] EEng 11:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thx, EEng; so with that knowledge, the entire section on The Gilded Age becomes just another example of that seen frequently in DC's work -- text is taken from one source, closely paraphrased, but then obscuring that close paraphrasing, other sources are attached to the text in place of the source the text was taken from, and those (often newspapers.com) don't actually cite the content at all. I've seen this in almost every article I've looked at. Text is not cited to the source it was taken from, which makes copyvio checking very hard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Tell me about it. I can't understand how someone could put so much effort into cranking out so much screwed-up stuff. EEng 19:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    EEng the picture is beginning to emerge for me. Because (as he stated in the newpaper interviews that used to be linked on his user page), he came up with an idea for a DYK hook first, and then worked backwards to fill in enough content to meet DYK expansion around that hook. Accuracy and thorough research were never part of the picture; just chunk in enough content to get a hook on the mainpage. These issues should have been caught years ago at DYK. Then he hit GAN, and subsequent reviewers just waved 'em through; read some of the GAN reviews. He had a flawed research method. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:30, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    To be clear, there's nothing wrong with a great hook motivating creation or expansion of an article; I've done it many times -- for example DYK ... that Dr. Young's Ideal Rectal Dilators were forcibly withdrawn after officials clamped down on them? and ... that Japanese Emperor Hirohito had a Liverpudlian cousin named Paddy Murphy? and .. that the website "Six Degrees to Harry Lewis" was a precursor to Facebook? and ... that the Get Out and Push Railroad required passengers to help its trains over the steeper bits of the route?. But Step 2 is to confirm notability, and Step 3 is to write an actual decent article with, like, sources and stuff that actually support the text. DC kept apparently didn't know how to do Steps 2 and 3. Despite being exasperated by his impervious CANTHEARYOU, the whole thing makes me sad because it's clear he meant well, and what's happening must be crushing for him. EEng 03:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, and like so many situations just like it, those close to him should have spoken up before it got to this.  :( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The whole thing makes me quite sad as well. I'm trying to preserve the GA on two of the four that I reviewed and passed (the two that I dug into most deeply at the time). I figure about half the blame for this mess lies with DC and his sloppiness and obstinance and half lies collectively with all the DYK and GA reviewers (including myself, and those review processes themselves) so saving half of them makes some kind of sense to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  6. In William Morrison (chemist): Doug claims that an electric car created by Morrison "helped pave the way for the hybrid electric automobile of the 21st century." This is sourced to [7], which says "The first successful electric car was introduced in 1890 by the American chemist William Morrison... The release of Toyota Prius in 1997 was also a turn-point, considered to be the first hybrid electric vehicle." The claim that Morrison directly inspired today's hybrid vehicles is not at all supported by this source. Clearly he took a brief read, saw the two sentences next to each other in the brief preview (without accessing the full source), and just decided that it somehow meant that Morrison deserves credit for today's hybrid vehicles without any actual evidence. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That article is a wreck. Almost everything I looked at failed verification or completely misrepresented the sources. After finding some copyvio, I sent it up to WP:CP; when it's that bad, it's easier to start over. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:48, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  7. In the surprising department, take a picture of a monument and then cite your own picture as supporting text (from Mason County Sculpture Trail):
    The large stone display has Ludington's history etched into the wall. It explains how James Ludington set up a mill and lumber industry in 1859. The hamlet settlement changed its name from Pere Marquette to become the town of Ludington. The town was plotted out then and not only bear Ludington's names, but the names of his siblings and prominent lumber barons of the area at the time. The etched history goes on to explain that Ludington prospered because of the local lumber industry. It explains that a harbor was developed to allow large quantities of lumber shipments to go out of the port. There were fourteen mills operating around Pere Marquette Lake at the height of production. They thought that there was an unlimited amount of timber to harvest into lumber, however in less than forty years all the woods were cut down. The etched history on the stone wall explains that the local lumber industry had come to an end in 1917.
    Cited to: "Ludington 1859 era". Flickr. Douglas Coldwell. 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-19..
    Takes original research to a whole new level. I am no longer adding here the surprising content unsupported by sources, or contradicted by sources, because that is too rampant to be worth noting at this point. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:29, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I have to respectfully disagree on this one. There is nothing inherently wrong with using a historical plaque (or monument inscription or similar) as a source, assuming the plaque was made by some respectable historical society or government agency. A photo of the plaque isn't even necessary, but it does permit an online verification of the plaque's contents and I don't see it as OR. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:19, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, yes, using a plaque as a source as mentioned somewhere besides your own photo ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The plaque is mentioned somewhere besides the photo. The photo didn't make up the plaque, it's a real thing that exists. We can think of it as an "official publication" of whatever entity created it, which in this case seems to be the City of Ludington. We even have a way to cite plaques and signs from museums/parks, Template:Cite sign. The only purpose the photo serves is to help out with verifiability. I'm not making a judgement about the specific use of a sign to try and prove notability, because it would almost certainly be considered primary, but plaques and the like are fine to support a broader article. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 22:54, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Cite sign would work; that's not what DC did. He took a picture and cited his picture. No concept of how to cite material (as is seen throughout his work). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:06, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, you need to be careful. Places of interest are lousy with plaques and inscriptions that are ahistorical or just plain mistaken. "George Washington slept here", and town date-of-founding claims, are notorious examples. A modern (post-1970?) inscription "signed" by, as you say, a government entity or respected historical society can be taken as provisionally reliable, but ideally you'll restrict use of it to the minimum possible. So, for example, if a marker says that this is the house where Dr. X lived at the time of the Flood of 1882, it's reasonable to accept that you're looking at the right house, but I'd be less happy to take details of Dr. X's life from such a marker, and even less happy to use it for details of the flood -- if that stuff isn't available elsewhere, then what's the marker based on? Such markers are often designed by committees (sometimes with a political or local boosterism agenda), in a rush, and they can't be fixed latter. So caution is needed. EEng 23:40, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That problem is precisely the situation with Sybil Ludington's alleged ride, which was made up by a committee as a tourist revenue bit of markers, as covered in the Hunt journal article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:43, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I agree, caution is always a good idea with these things. Nonetheless, (from what the photo shows) this particular inscription seems reasonably well-written and even-handed, and if it were being used as a cite for the basic facts of the emergence, impact, and disappearance of the lumber industry around Ludington, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:58, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure it's 98% accurate. But we aim for 100%. I ask again: if that stuff isn't available elsewhere, then what's the marker based on? EEng 04:32, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Had lumberman Delos L. Filer as a physician. In the lead. I can only find sources that say Filer used his rudimentary knowledge of some medicine to help some sick in his area. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:45, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Particularly charming is the citation specifying first=The American|last=Lumberman, thus giving us Lumberman, The American (1905). American Lumbermen : the personal history... The American Lumberman.. EEng 05:32, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I've stopped trying to clean up stuff like that; it's everywhere, it's awful, and we will be at this for a hundred years on articles with negligible page views. Once the GA mass delisting is done (bot stopped halfway through), I'm only checking for copyvio. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:00, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Did you know ... that it was Benjamin Loxley's house key that was used by Benjamin Franklin for his kite experiment to attract lightning? From an 1897 source: ... as I am the great grandson of Major Loxley the personal interest I feel in this narrative may be explained. Just like DC's Sybil Ludington (which furthered a meme based on a family account), which is just like Betsy Ross. Worse, the bragging from User:Doug Coldwell: Fastest Did You know from a new article. I created the above article on July 24, 2015. It became an official Did You Know article on Wikipedia's main page on July 26, 2015 =a DYK record for quickest Did You Know from an article made from scratch - 47 hours. None of the other credible sources in the article mention this connection; I haven't yet checked for other sources because Benjamin Franklin says that never happened anyway. I would have sent the whole mess up to WP:CP, except that Kevin1776 had already cleaned up the military portions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:10, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Did you know ... that the first roadside park in the world was in 1919 at Iron River, Michigan? Narry a source backing anything close to that statement, and the entire article based on a local guidebook. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm very tempted to try WP:BLAR to rest area for this one. It seems to be written from a very myopically local perspective, as if nobody outside Michigan could have ever done anything similar. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:05, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    David Eppstein It's horrible and ridiculous and complete gibberish ... go for it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:06, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:29, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Birth of public radio broadcasting Just read it. Truly awful. Even the title is awful. And the "first public radio broadcast" claim of course isn't supported by the sources. I debated taking this to AfD. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 04:22, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Now at AfD. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:02, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    DYK, four-time OTD, and GAN fail all in one. You may get SchroCat's prize here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  12. For your encyclopedic content enjoyment: [8]. (Aside, in the Ludington Cartier series of articles, an important element, author name, missing from citations. Starting to see we have a real Ludington, Michigan COI here.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:48, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Template:Did you know nominations/Demarest Building (a double hook): ... that the Demarest Building (pictured) built by Aaron T. Demarest is the first building with an electric elevator? — Debatable at best, since the Demarest Building was completed circa 1890 with an Otis elevator, but I'm pretty sure Werner von Siemens came up with the idea as early as 1880. I honestly doubt that no electric elevators were built at all between 1880, when Siemens demonstrated his elevator in Mannheim, and 1890, when rival Otis installed a unit in the Demarest Building. Even the articles' own sources say "The first electric elevator successfully operated", which may be a bit more plausible (early skyscrapers generally used hydraulic elevators) but somehow the qualifier "successfully operated" was dropped from the DYK hook. Epicgenius (talk) 14:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  14. ... that the first private railroad car was made for the singer Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale?"
    See #Jenny Lind private railroad car. [9] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:46, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  15. .. that Mary-Ann was the first steam turbine generator operated by a public utility to produce electricity?
    What the article said: Mary-Ann was the nickname given to the first steam turbine used in a public utility to generate electricity in America. What the source [10] says: which now housed the first steam turbine (a 55-ton Westinghouse unit named “Mary-Ann”) to be produced in America and installed in a public utility station. So it's gone from "the first American built steam turbine to produce electricity in America" to "The first steam turbine used to produce electricity". I can't check the book sources, but none of the ones that are quoted support the DYK as written. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 18:43, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  16. John B. Curtis, borderline hoax as the inventor of chewing gum (in the lead as a GA, and even the cited and plagiarized sources don't say that). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  17. A whole new element at John Caldwell (Michigan representative): likely COI (personal details not found in sources throughout, family images uploaded and released to public domain, semi-acknowledgement on article talk, and acknowledgement to media of Caldwell v. Coldwell names). Cleaning that took a few hours. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:10, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Unquoting a direct quote that was correctly quoted by previous editor; get a look before I request revdel on an article with multiple instances of copy-paste. [11] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Burr Caswell: a complete debacle. The earliest DC version (2008) of the article was entirely based on family accounts, genealogy sites, and non-reliable sources.
    This was appropriately noted as such at AFD in 2015, but by then, the family-published accounts had spread via Wikipedia to Ludington news sources, and DC associates showed up to defend his work. How does one evaluate an article for which there are two ongoing CCIs? There it is unless someone thinks an AFD could stick now; I don't know what else to do with it now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:10, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why you think there's been circular sourcing here. The article was created in 2008 and all of the sources in the article are from 2005 or earlier, in many cases much earlier. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:42, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As always with DC's work, you need to go through diff by diff. Look at the 2008 version, sourced entirely to family accounts and non-reliable sources from much earlier than 2008, and then see how those citations were later replaced by Peterson (2015) and Petersen (2011) in the runup to the 2021 GA. DC frequently revisited to alter citations, which did not always verify the text. In this case, Peterson and Petersen, written after this article, were used to replace the original faulty sourcing. This article probably could have been correctly deleted per the points raised by User:Clarityfiend except for the defense from DC associates. So what we have now is a version possibly written by Cabot (a Ludington newspaper man) based on Wikipedia. We're not likely to know if there is any real scholarship. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:34, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I was looking at the current version, and didn't realize you had moved two authors to the Further reading section. Were they unduly influenced by the then-in-existence WP article? Yes, it does happen, and I've seen it a couple of times with respect to my own articles. But unless you can point to something specific in what they did, published authors have to be presumed innocent. Otherwise every source on every subject from around 2006 and on has to be considered suspect and everything becomes unglued. As for Cabot, his writings cited here are from 1984, 1996, and 2005, all of which are from before the WP article existed. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
First, my apologies for mixing up Cabot and Petersen (both writers for Ludington Daily News).
Yep, neither Petersen nor Peterson are accessible, so that content was subject to presumptive deletion in the (now) cleaned version.
The issue here is that we went from this (zero reliable sources -- Sand, Sawdust is written by a Caswell), to essentially the same content cited to (new) published sources, and without being able to see those sources, we still have DC's own statements and editing history (improper use of sources) as a guide. DC said (claimed?) that local authors are publishing his Wikipedia work. And we know via multiple instances already that he often used family sources covered as independent sources by writing the citations incorrectly. For example, one newspaper series (no byline) turned out to be a series of memories written by a family member. DC himself has given plenty of reason to be concerned about what scholarship may be behind the transition of this article's sourcing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:36, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Doug's failed GANs[edit]

To do[edit]

Done[edit]

It occurred to me that Doug probably inserted problematic content into articles that did not get promoted, so I went looking for articles he nominated that never passed. I found these:

Since they're not GAs, they're not an issue for the GAR process, but I wonder if it would be worth letting the reviewers know so they can PDEL them if they wish. I will be cleaning up Travel Holiday, which I failed. And since there's no GAR to wait for there's no reason to delay, I assume. Though as an editor elsewhere has just pointed out to me, there's really no difference between Doug's failed GANs and all his non-nominated work, so this is perhaps just part of the CCI.

On a related note, there's no easy way to find a list of failed GANs. I posted a note at Template talk:Article history a day or two ago and got no response, so I posted another note at the idea lab about an idea for making them easier to find. Anyone interested might like to comment there. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:36, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would imagine these are all included in Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210315, at least. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:57, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, these will mostly end up as PDELs on the CCI ... if we had a list of the nominators, maybe they would help with the PDELing, but that doesn't seem to be happening except in a few cases. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:01, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Citation issues[edit]

I was revisiting Howard B. Meek, which I quickfailed when he nominated it for GA, and I noticed that he used the editor or publishing company of a book as its author. Who Was Who in America was published by Marquis, not written by someone named Marquis; the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography was published by J. T. White Co., and the early volumes may have been edited by J. T. White himself, but he died in 1920 and couldn't have edited volume 55, which came out in 1974. I saw the same problem with the National Cyclopaedia reference in Typographer (typewriter) when I tried cleaning up that. I suppose this is one more thing to be on the lookout for. XOR'easter (talk) 13:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is similar to my first tipoff at Sybil Ludington, where the Henry Ludington Memoir, published by his grand children, was listed as being published by Harvard University, because they had uploaded it to archive.org. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I did not know how to fix this issue while still using the {{sfn}} footnote template, so I had to look it up. Here is the solution I chose. XOR'easter (talk) 16:22, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Howard B. Meek is done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:27, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Joshua Lionel Cowen[edit]

I have not checked Joshua Lionel Cowen for copyvio, but I do know the standard of writing is very poor and it should be rewritten either way. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Trainsandotherthings, XOR'easter, and David Eppstein:. I am out of time for today, but there's a mess to be sorted here.
In trying to sort what to do with that article, it's not a WP:CP candidate because there was real content there before DC edited, and others have added good content interspersed.
Would it make sense to revert that article to just before DC edited, and then add back anything useful added by others ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No surprise that another Coldwell article is full of rubbish. I've had an issue with how he wrote that article for a long time, but previously he aggressively reverted any attempts to improve the article. If there's substantial content by others, best to just rip out anything Doug wrote and assemble what we can based on what's left. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:14, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't taken time to verify ... pinged XOR as physics editor ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As much as I'd like to properly rewrite a bunch of these articles (at least the ones relating to trains) I am cursed to have to work full-time irl and just creating and improving the many missing or incomplete articles on trains in New England is a project that will keep me busy for a decade easily. I did agree to do some work on Spencer Shops, and I could assemble a basic start-class article on Cowen if needed, but beyond that I have to focus my limited time on my own projects and the other hundreds of garbage Coldwell articles that need cleaning (I don't want to make you do everything in the CCI, Sandy!). In this case, because Cowen is a significant person and there's some stuff that isn't Coldwell, we want to leave something remaining so that it can be expanded in the future. If nobody else has gotten around to it by 2033, I'll do it myself. I think Cowen's article deserved being largely nuked just because Coldwell's prose is so poor. It legitimately looks like a middle-school student wrote the article. The idea of using the electrical power from dry cells to ignite an explosive charge was a new concept. Cowen obtained electrical skills and knowledge at the Acme shop and with those technical abilities it enabled him to be able to made and market electrical novelties. Ignoring the obvious grammar error, this is terrible prose on so many levels. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:24, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I thought a revert plus reinstating anything good added by others would be faster than a DC cleaning, which I am finding takes hours and hours per article because the sources are so hard to read. I appreciate all you've done, TAOT. My own time will be curtailed soon, as I've taken on a new volunteer commitment. We should all keep in sight when we can use WP:CP as the fastest route to crap cleaning. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Meanwhile, this effort has earned me followers (more than one, but I digress). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I always love seeing people accuse me of only wanting to delete things when I've written or massively expanded dozens of articles and consider it my most important activity on Wikipedia. And your own credentials as far as improving content need no introduction. I've been letting you handle sending things to CP as the folks who handle CP have mentioned too many things sent in at once can overwhelm them. I would not be surprised if I find more things that can go straight to AfD.
As for Cowen's article specifically, what I would do is use Who Wrote That? to delete anything with Doug's name on it, and then clean up and organize whatever remains. Better than spending hours on figuring out what parts are copy-pasted with a few words changed. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:39, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PS, meaning unsure of the veracity of the statement from the source DC used when he wrote exactly the opposite of what the source said. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, reverting to the pre-DC version and then adding in others' contributions would be sensible in that case. The powder then exploded with a poof! sound when a button was pushed on the tube of dry cell batteries that instantly heated the wire fuse red hot igniting the powder. Sheesh. XOR'easter (talk) 19:42, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, reverted (with a little extra cleanup). I would have brought over the sources, but a spot-check found them unreliable. The Jewish Virtual Library just copied from Wikipedia, Rules of Innovation is inspirational glurge, the National Railroad Hall of Fame recommends the Jewish Virtual Library as further reading... Any decent article on this will have to be written from pre-Wikipedia books. XOR'easter (talk) 19:54, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The sources used there are awful! I brought them over, but feel free to cut any of them (I saw your post after I did the work). Was there really no New York Times obit, for example ? And in rebuilding we have to be very careful of any source dated after Wikipedia spread potentially bad info, as we know how many "reliable" sources get their info from Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:41, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In response to Was there really no New York Times obit, for example?, there was, but the headline was scrambled for some reason (J0$HUACOWEH, 85, LIONEL INVENTOR I; Father of Electric TrainsI). This article wouldn't show up on the Times website if one used the headline as a search term, so one would've had to dig a little deeper. I added the source yesterday, but it doesn't give too many details - literally, it just summarizes Cowen's life and doesn't even give his date of birth. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:40, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Charles H. Black[edit]

Similar situation to Cowen; there was a plausible article there before DC's edits. I suggest reverting to

just before DC's major edits, as the fastest route to WP:PDEL. Then list the sources recovered from

as Further reading. That clears any potential copyvio via WP:PDEL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:27, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Taking into account comments about the sourcing at Talk:Charles H. Black/GA1. (Shocking that DC never learned what an RS was in 15 years of editing.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:30, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So reverted. XOR'easter (talk) 21:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mason County Sculpture Trail[edit]

I have stubbed Mason County Sculpture Trail to deal with the copyvio, but it still relies heavily on a promotional (Visit Ludington) website. I am dismal at AFD and do not know if it should be sent there, or what else can be done with it. Trainsandotherthings??? I suspect not as there are a few local newspaper clippings; does Wikipedia really need promotional articles on things covered only by local news? I dunno; that's why I'm a debacle at AFD. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:35, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

David Eppstein? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:36, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
From a look, seeing only local papers and the promotional website, I am leaning pretty strongly towards not notable. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 13:53, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmm ... I guess I should ask you first about AFD before I waste so much time on cleanup. There are scores of DC articles that seem to use only small local newspaper clippings, and reading through those to look for copyvio is a miserable chore. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to answer any questions regarding AfD. A fair amount of what he wrote about actually is notable, but he just did a crap job finding sourcing. Wouldn't be the first time I rescued something that looked non-notable, Tama and Toledo Railroad is a good example (albeit unfinished, there are a few GNG-contributing sources I haven't gotten around to adding yet). On the other hand, plenty is also non-notable or straight up OR, like birth of public radio broadcasting. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:48, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Taken to AfD. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mason County Sculpture Trail. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:12, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Done SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:26, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Allpar.com[edit]

https://www.allpar.com/about/ -- a source used in several automobile articles by DC. Exactly what do they review for at GAN? Most of the reviews I've looked at contain only a few prose nitpicks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:14, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ANd then, obscuring the true nature of sources (as seen in other articles) by incorrectly writing the citation. EG, at Carl Breer, the author of the most oft-cited source is listed as "Yanik", who is the editor, while the actual author is ... Carl Breer! Another tough GA; are sources even looked at? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:26, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
GAN is all about whatever that particular reviewer thinks a GA article should be. So in practice you get everything from "FAC lite" down to "a bit more than DYK". And if you tend more to the stricter end of that range when reviewing – whether it's regarding broadness of coverage or quality of sources or formatting of references or whatever – you will sometimes get pushback from nominators who may say you should read WP:What the Good article criteria are not. But sometimes you will get nominators who are happy to get any level of feedback that will make the article better. There's just a lot of variation with the GA process. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion started at WP:RSN#Allpar.com regarding the use of this site as a source more generally (regardless of whether DC or someone else added it). —David Eppstein (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! (I'm wondering if we need to do same for those Kane First Facts books; perhaps we should have been tracking how often they were wrong, but most of those articles are deleted now. If we need a list, we need someone with tools to see deleted versions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:08, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SandyGeorgia You can access copies of most deleted articles on https://archive.org/. 163.1.15.238 (talk) 13:21, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh, that never occurred to me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At the CCI[edit]

Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210315 02

Is there a method to my madness ?

  1. Because the pages were created in two separate batches, when I find an article that is on page 1 as well as page 2, I try to cut to move to combine. Because whether an article was created by DC (marked N for new) is a factor in determining whether we can revert to an older version, send to WP:CP etc, and because it helps to have everything together when evaluating an article.
  2. On page 01 of the CCI, my brain just can't deal with those big red sig blocks. So I am mostly working on page 02.
  3. On page 02, when I have finished going through a section and have sent everything eligible to WP:CP, I've collapsed the portions done, leaving outside of the collapse those that required extended work. And extended work it is.
    1. I am only sending to WP:CP articles that were created by DC (that is, no version to revert to) where most of the content is DC. Those are articles that CCI admins can fairly confidently delete.
    2. On articles that weren't created by DC (no N), we can evaluate whether a revert is is order.
    3. On articles that were created by DC (N), but subsequently heavily edited by others, the manual work needed is daunting. Because I'm not willing to only remove copyvio on those, when we know there are also unreliable sources and misrepresentation of sources. So I'm leaving those 'til later or for others. And working on them is easier with the WP:Who Wrote That? (WWT) tool to avoid WP:PDELing new content added by others. The WWT tool does not work on iPad (I have taken on a new volunteer commitment IRL, so when I come home at the end of the day, tired, I can't sit at a real computer to use WWT, and am mostly iPad editing, which is why for now I am only pulling out those that can go to WP:CP).

In those sections where I have collapsed that which is done, and left out that which is not, the work needed on what's left is just awful, because those articles typically have one of everything. We need to start looking at those that might be candidates for revert. That's the method to my work so far in case anyone wonders WTH; it's mostly because of the limitations of working from iPad when my back hurts too much to sit at real computer. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:21, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PS, we also have to avoid overwhelming WP:CP; tonight I will work on the next section of Page 02, which is Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210315 02#Pages 81 to 100. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:25, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Progress update note here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:27, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

John Peirce notable ?[edit]

Professor at Brown University, seems to be only mentioned by Brown sources. Sources that were in the article were OR and never mentioned John Peirce. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:09, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note, I have not yet cleaned very close paraphrasing, not worth the effort if it will be sent to AFD. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Brown sources he say that he was only a professional academic for two years, not long enough to establish himself as an academic even if our academic notability guidelines worked well for academics from so long ago (they do not). We will have to rely on GNG instead. Beyond the Brown link, he's mentioned in the book Sounds of Our Times: Two Hundred Years of Acoustics (1999, [12]) but far too briefly to count towards notability. That was all I found on a quick search. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:56, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't find the flowery obit that the Brown piece quoted, or any real obit, on Newspapers.com. The most I found was this brief notice in the Fall River Evening News, which said he "was one of the most widely known men in the scientific and educational circles of this city [Providence]", and then another brief notice in the same paper, which confirms the dates he was an assistant professor/professor at Brown but doesn't say anything more. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:48, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Since I know not how to negotiate AFD, I have prodded the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:40, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For future reference: go to article, enter {{subst:afd}} at the top, look at the preview, and follow the instructions that it gives you. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:26, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With my AFD record, guaranteed fail :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dart et al[edit]

After reviewing Joseph Dart, I checked in on Dart's Elevator which was a sourcing trainwreck, so I have WP:BLARd it. Please have a look; there is such a jumble in this series that I can't tell whether claims are verified, or if Wikipedia is the source of claims. Such a shame that in more than 15 years of editing, DC never understood proper scholarship, and thought newspaper clippings and non-RS constituted good research. The more I see, the more shocking the 223 GAs becomes ... the problems were so so so obvious. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:17, 29 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fer shure. I mean, how in hell does some local newspaper in 1879 know that no one in, say, Hungary had a mechanized elevator before Dart's in the US in 1842? It betrays a complete inability to read and judge sources. EEng 22:34, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it would need to be a mechanized grain elevator in Hungary, not just an elevator.
Incidentally, there's a lot of this Dart's Elevator junk still sitting in our grain elevator article. I haven't taken the effort to determine how much of it is DC's and of equally bad provenance. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:07, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! And to think I simply pulled Hungary out of my ass. EEng 04:09, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That must have hurt. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have WP:Who Wrote That? I can go check after dinner ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:31, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not Coldwell, and that article is too much of a mess to work on (especially after two months of being immersed in DC-level content). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:51, 5 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

George W. Hotchkiss[edit]

EEng are you able to get hold of this 1976 journal article? I tried WP:TWL, but either it's not there, or I don't know how to use TWL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

EEng & SandyGeorgia - I just tried to log on to JSTOR *and* onto The Wikipedia Library and couldn't get either to work. (Never have had trouble logging onto JSTOR before.) Will keep trying but wanted you to know there is a bug report on phabricator: Frequent OAuth failures on Wikimedia wikis since eqiad was repooled due to db-mainstash replication lag - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332650. Apparently if I make enough requests it will eventually work (see phabricator report: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332349#8707537). Shearonink (talk) 14:20, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Have tried again and again and nope...can't get access to JSTOR or even anything through the WP Library. I give up for now. Shearonink (talk) 14:25, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thx, Shearonink ... have spent my entire morning dealing with brokenness of Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Got it but I'm on my phone. Send me an EMAIL THIS USER so I can email it back to you once I'm at school. EEng 14:41, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thx, EEng, will do ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:31, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just now tried JSTOR again and now it works?... yay. BUT cannot read the Journal of Forest History article online, have to buy it for $51? lol methinks not. Yay for EEng.Shearonink (talk) 15:35, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've got it now, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:21, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hotchkiss still needs checking of public domain sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:26, 4 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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