She was born the younger daughter of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire by his famous wife, the political hostess Lady Georgiana Spencer. "the younger daughter" younger is comparative; younger to whom?; "famous" is a
WP:PEACOCK term.
Thank you for taking this one on! I've emailed you the ODNB entries (let me know if you didn't get them). I've also removed "younger" and "famous" from the lead (although her mother is probably one of the most famous persons of her day, male or female! And it is cited in the article body...). Let me know if there is anything else. Regards, Ruby2010/201321:33, 17 August 2014 (UTC)reply
OK, thanks. My major problem with the article is that it seems to present what appear to be opinions as facts. Take, for instance, the following sentence: Harriet was slightly plump in appearance, with a clever, funny, and perceptive personality, and compare it to the following sentence: Her biographer, Virginia Surtees, writes that although Harriet .... The first gives what appear to be opinions as facts, while the second describes what someone described Leveson-Gower to be. See
WP:YESPOV and
WP:ASSERT. The second is fine; the first is not. Another: "Her family later encouraged a match with another cousin John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, though it turned out that he was more interested in hunting than in her." a more neutral wording would yield: "though, during her stay at
Althorp, she stated that "no reasonable woman" could think of him as anything "but as an eager huntsman". I haven't read the rest of the article, but if it's written as the first bit, we're in trouble.
Note: this comes from a deep ignorance of royalty-related articles on Wikipedia, and I could be missing some policy on such works... I also assume it's difficult to write these articles because the subject has done almost nothing of note other than be born into royalty, and thus it's difficult to summarize personalities without the repetitious "x described Leveson-Gower as y".
My apologies with the late response. RL has called me away recently -- will work on addressing your comment by Monday, hopefully. Thanks! Ruby2010/201307:23, 23 August 2014 (UTC)reply
Thanks again for reviewing. I think when writing this article I unconsciously tended to mimic the editorial voice of several of the main sources (Gleeson in particular -- while undoubtedly reliable, her writing style does tend to take a rather intimate view of the various historical personages). Reading the article again, I do see that attribution could be tightened (to make clear whose opinion is being told, especially on such subjective matters as her appearance). I've thus made the attribution clearer for her appearance and used your wording for the Althorp content. I did another read through and don't see any similar issues, but let me know if you do.
The subject of this article, by the way, is not royalty. :) But yes, it can be difficult to find enough content without delving into "who married who" or using quoted descriptions! Subjects of this period, particularly women, are especially difficult because all we really know are important births and deaths, and occasionally more due to the period's penchant for letter writing. And with the latter form, the "facts" are then largely sourced to subjective opinions expressed during the time period. So it can be hard to write an article like this without saying "[person 1] said this" or [person 2 describes her as this]". Hopefully I found enough of a balance but please let me know if you think it could use some more tightening. She was an interesting subject to write about. Regards, Ruby2010/201301:20, 8 September 2014 (UTC)reply
In the "Family and early life" section use her last name instead of her first per
WP:SURNAME. WP:SURNAME allows royalty to be called differently but apparently she's not royalty.
Lord Granville had been Henrietta's own lover by now for seventeen years; indeed, she had borne him two illegitimate children during their relationship and was to declare that she "loved him to idolatry." Nevertheless, Henrietta encouraged her niece to consider marriage with the thirty-seven-year-old Granville. We don't need "indeed". Instead of "was to declare" why not just "declared"?
Does Henrietta have a last name?
Lord Granville died in early 1846, having never recovered from his illness when did he get an illness?
I would like to ask for a second opinion when you respond to these comments to ensure that no OR or peacockery has occurred in the article.
Seattle (
talk)
20:48, 14 September 2014 (UTC)reply
3. How can you be an infamous political hostess and leader of fashion, are we sure this is correct?
Well she certainly had a reputation, in many circles with a negative connotation. As with the lead, however, I will just remove "infamous/famous" as this term seems to attract criticism more frequently. Ruby2010/201302:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)reply
4. "The historian Janet Gleeson describes Cavendish as slightly plump in appearance, in possession of a clever, funny, and perceptive personality. Her biographer, Virginia Surtees, writes that although Cavendish was "no beauty, she had wit, intelligence, and shrewdness; her sharp eye missed little but in high croak and spirits viewed with tolerance the world of drums, dandies, gossip, and matchmaking in which she moved." - this might be something for a personal life section unless it's supposed to describe how she was in childhood as it's currently under that section. But this is just a suggestion.
I placed it there since the section is discussing her personally (her family, personality, and other traits). I like that the reader gets a description of her as she approaches adulthood (since the immediate next paragraph jumps into potential suitors). Ruby2010/201302:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)reply
5. "Though still infatuated with him, she knew that Granville would need to eventually marry and produce legitimate offspring, and that when he did so, she would likely lose him. Getting her niece to marry him was one way of keeping him within her circle" - whole lot is un-sourced.
6. "Now however, she came to appreciate Granville's finer qualities: historians describe him as handsome, intelligent, of good family, and a member of the British parliament" - this is fine and all but the ":" should be replaced with ";".
8. "The couple had four further children" - when followed by the previous Susan-was-born-in-1810-in-London sentence it should be changed to something like, "the couple would go on to have four children" or "the couple would have a total of four children".
8. "She survived her husband by fifteen years, dying on 25 November 1862 of a stroke at her London home at 13 Hereford Street" - might considered adding a word or two about the irony that they both died of stroke. Something like, "She survived her husband by fifteen years, ironically also dying of a stroke at her Home in London the 25 November". This is also just a suggestion.
a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline
b. it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines
c. it contains no original research
The sources used in this article is very acceptable and meet the GA-criteria, but might considered finding the ISBN numbers to those who do know show it and instead of simply adding "9781403966056" add it correctly, like this "978-14-0-396-6-0-56". Other than that, I don't see any problems with the sources.
a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic
b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail
It defiantly doesn't go into unnecessary detail and stays firmly on topic, but reading it thoroughly through, and noticing the length of the article, one start to wonder if it has the comprehensiveness required by the GA-criteria. It seems only to cover small parts of her childhood and love/wedlock life. One could improve this by creating one or two more sections and move information was other parts of this article into those. I'm sure you get the idea.
Neutral
a. it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each
There is hardly any controversial or touchy subjects in this article and is fairly perfect in terms of neutrality.
Stable
a. it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute
There is not much (none) discussions on talk page and is not the subject of ongoing edit war or content dispute.
Illustrated
a. images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content
b. images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions
This article contains two large pictures. For the length of the article, it seems just fine.
Pass, fail, or hold?
My second opinion on this GA-review would be to put the article on hold. The article still needs work to match up to the GA-criteria, but I don't think it misses enough to fail. Fix the ISBN problems and considered the points made by both the GA-reviewer and my second opinion. Hope this helps, guys. Peace out.
Jonas Vinther (
speak to me!)
18:14, 19 September 2014 (UTC)reply
And
Seattle, regarding the
WP:PEACOCK issue, I wouldn't worry about too much. My definition of peacock is more "awesome, legendary, the greatest, unique, exceptional" and so on. To make it sound more humble and non-peacock, simply considered switching "famous" with "well known" or "notable".
Jonas Vinther (
speak to me!)
09:58, 20 September 2014 (UTC)reply
I believe I have addressed all but one of your suggestions (and will post here when I've resolved the remaining point). Let me know if there is anything else. Thanks! Ruby2010/201302:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)reply
Ruby2010, I agree, the article is improved and defiantly match up to the GA-criteria. I didn't recognize the problem or issue with
WP:PEACOCK in the first place, seems rather like a small problem, if problem at all. However, it appears the actualy GA-reviwer is somewhat ... inactive in the latest discussions and maybe not on Wikipedia at the moment. It's over a month ago that this article's GA-review began. According to
WP:GA, the reviewing process should not take more than a week. An untraditional intervention is maybe needed. Thoughts?
Jonas Vinther (
speak to me!)
01:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)reply
She was born the younger daughter of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire by his famous wife, the political hostess Lady Georgiana Spencer. "the younger daughter" younger is comparative; younger to whom?; "famous" is a
WP:PEACOCK term.
Thank you for taking this one on! I've emailed you the ODNB entries (let me know if you didn't get them). I've also removed "younger" and "famous" from the lead (although her mother is probably one of the most famous persons of her day, male or female! And it is cited in the article body...). Let me know if there is anything else. Regards, Ruby2010/201321:33, 17 August 2014 (UTC)reply
OK, thanks. My major problem with the article is that it seems to present what appear to be opinions as facts. Take, for instance, the following sentence: Harriet was slightly plump in appearance, with a clever, funny, and perceptive personality, and compare it to the following sentence: Her biographer, Virginia Surtees, writes that although Harriet .... The first gives what appear to be opinions as facts, while the second describes what someone described Leveson-Gower to be. See
WP:YESPOV and
WP:ASSERT. The second is fine; the first is not. Another: "Her family later encouraged a match with another cousin John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, though it turned out that he was more interested in hunting than in her." a more neutral wording would yield: "though, during her stay at
Althorp, she stated that "no reasonable woman" could think of him as anything "but as an eager huntsman". I haven't read the rest of the article, but if it's written as the first bit, we're in trouble.
Note: this comes from a deep ignorance of royalty-related articles on Wikipedia, and I could be missing some policy on such works... I also assume it's difficult to write these articles because the subject has done almost nothing of note other than be born into royalty, and thus it's difficult to summarize personalities without the repetitious "x described Leveson-Gower as y".
My apologies with the late response. RL has called me away recently -- will work on addressing your comment by Monday, hopefully. Thanks! Ruby2010/201307:23, 23 August 2014 (UTC)reply
Thanks again for reviewing. I think when writing this article I unconsciously tended to mimic the editorial voice of several of the main sources (Gleeson in particular -- while undoubtedly reliable, her writing style does tend to take a rather intimate view of the various historical personages). Reading the article again, I do see that attribution could be tightened (to make clear whose opinion is being told, especially on such subjective matters as her appearance). I've thus made the attribution clearer for her appearance and used your wording for the Althorp content. I did another read through and don't see any similar issues, but let me know if you do.
The subject of this article, by the way, is not royalty. :) But yes, it can be difficult to find enough content without delving into "who married who" or using quoted descriptions! Subjects of this period, particularly women, are especially difficult because all we really know are important births and deaths, and occasionally more due to the period's penchant for letter writing. And with the latter form, the "facts" are then largely sourced to subjective opinions expressed during the time period. So it can be hard to write an article like this without saying "[person 1] said this" or [person 2 describes her as this]". Hopefully I found enough of a balance but please let me know if you think it could use some more tightening. She was an interesting subject to write about. Regards, Ruby2010/201301:20, 8 September 2014 (UTC)reply
In the "Family and early life" section use her last name instead of her first per
WP:SURNAME. WP:SURNAME allows royalty to be called differently but apparently she's not royalty.
Lord Granville had been Henrietta's own lover by now for seventeen years; indeed, she had borne him two illegitimate children during their relationship and was to declare that she "loved him to idolatry." Nevertheless, Henrietta encouraged her niece to consider marriage with the thirty-seven-year-old Granville. We don't need "indeed". Instead of "was to declare" why not just "declared"?
Does Henrietta have a last name?
Lord Granville died in early 1846, having never recovered from his illness when did he get an illness?
I would like to ask for a second opinion when you respond to these comments to ensure that no OR or peacockery has occurred in the article.
Seattle (
talk)
20:48, 14 September 2014 (UTC)reply
3. How can you be an infamous political hostess and leader of fashion, are we sure this is correct?
Well she certainly had a reputation, in many circles with a negative connotation. As with the lead, however, I will just remove "infamous/famous" as this term seems to attract criticism more frequently. Ruby2010/201302:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)reply
4. "The historian Janet Gleeson describes Cavendish as slightly plump in appearance, in possession of a clever, funny, and perceptive personality. Her biographer, Virginia Surtees, writes that although Cavendish was "no beauty, she had wit, intelligence, and shrewdness; her sharp eye missed little but in high croak and spirits viewed with tolerance the world of drums, dandies, gossip, and matchmaking in which she moved." - this might be something for a personal life section unless it's supposed to describe how she was in childhood as it's currently under that section. But this is just a suggestion.
I placed it there since the section is discussing her personally (her family, personality, and other traits). I like that the reader gets a description of her as she approaches adulthood (since the immediate next paragraph jumps into potential suitors). Ruby2010/201302:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)reply
5. "Though still infatuated with him, she knew that Granville would need to eventually marry and produce legitimate offspring, and that when he did so, she would likely lose him. Getting her niece to marry him was one way of keeping him within her circle" - whole lot is un-sourced.
6. "Now however, she came to appreciate Granville's finer qualities: historians describe him as handsome, intelligent, of good family, and a member of the British parliament" - this is fine and all but the ":" should be replaced with ";".
8. "The couple had four further children" - when followed by the previous Susan-was-born-in-1810-in-London sentence it should be changed to something like, "the couple would go on to have four children" or "the couple would have a total of four children".
8. "She survived her husband by fifteen years, dying on 25 November 1862 of a stroke at her London home at 13 Hereford Street" - might considered adding a word or two about the irony that they both died of stroke. Something like, "She survived her husband by fifteen years, ironically also dying of a stroke at her Home in London the 25 November". This is also just a suggestion.
a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline
b. it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines
c. it contains no original research
The sources used in this article is very acceptable and meet the GA-criteria, but might considered finding the ISBN numbers to those who do know show it and instead of simply adding "9781403966056" add it correctly, like this "978-14-0-396-6-0-56". Other than that, I don't see any problems with the sources.
a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic
b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail
It defiantly doesn't go into unnecessary detail and stays firmly on topic, but reading it thoroughly through, and noticing the length of the article, one start to wonder if it has the comprehensiveness required by the GA-criteria. It seems only to cover small parts of her childhood and love/wedlock life. One could improve this by creating one or two more sections and move information was other parts of this article into those. I'm sure you get the idea.
Neutral
a. it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each
There is hardly any controversial or touchy subjects in this article and is fairly perfect in terms of neutrality.
Stable
a. it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute
There is not much (none) discussions on talk page and is not the subject of ongoing edit war or content dispute.
Illustrated
a. images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content
b. images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions
This article contains two large pictures. For the length of the article, it seems just fine.
Pass, fail, or hold?
My second opinion on this GA-review would be to put the article on hold. The article still needs work to match up to the GA-criteria, but I don't think it misses enough to fail. Fix the ISBN problems and considered the points made by both the GA-reviewer and my second opinion. Hope this helps, guys. Peace out.
Jonas Vinther (
speak to me!)
18:14, 19 September 2014 (UTC)reply
And
Seattle, regarding the
WP:PEACOCK issue, I wouldn't worry about too much. My definition of peacock is more "awesome, legendary, the greatest, unique, exceptional" and so on. To make it sound more humble and non-peacock, simply considered switching "famous" with "well known" or "notable".
Jonas Vinther (
speak to me!)
09:58, 20 September 2014 (UTC)reply
I believe I have addressed all but one of your suggestions (and will post here when I've resolved the remaining point). Let me know if there is anything else. Thanks! Ruby2010/201302:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)reply
Ruby2010, I agree, the article is improved and defiantly match up to the GA-criteria. I didn't recognize the problem or issue with
WP:PEACOCK in the first place, seems rather like a small problem, if problem at all. However, it appears the actualy GA-reviwer is somewhat ... inactive in the latest discussions and maybe not on Wikipedia at the moment. It's over a month ago that this article's GA-review began. According to
WP:GA, the reviewing process should not take more than a week. An untraditional intervention is maybe needed. Thoughts?
Jonas Vinther (
speak to me!)
01:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)reply