Wikipedia:Featured article review/Sydney Riot of 1879/archive1

Sydney Riot of 1879

Review commentary

Messages left at Jguk, Moondyne and Cricket. --RelHistBuff 15:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC) Additional message at Australia. Sandy (Talk) 22:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Nominating due to non-conformance of criterion 1c (only four inline refs). The inclusion of the letters was an issue in the vote for FA. Although they were accepted to be included, at least the sources of the letters should be cited. --RelHistBuff 13:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the comment about the sources of the letters not being included as the text makes it clear that they are from April 1879 editions of the UK Daily Telegraph and the following Wisden Cricketers Almanack. Isn't the text considered "inline", or am I missing something? jguk 07:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I was going by WP:CITE under the subsection "Say where you got it". The original source is the Daily Telegraph, but I assumed that the text was really from an intermediate source (such as one of the references in the list under "References"). So to improve credibility, the reference should be cited. As it is a long quote, the quotation template could be used. The citing of intermediates sources can be applied to the footnote to the 1879 Sydney Morning Herald as well as other quotes throughout the text. --RelHistBuff 09:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I got the text from an anthology that included extracts from different years Wisden Cricketers Almanack, including the 1880 version. As Wisden Cricketers Almanack is cited in full in the text, is still available to read, and is probably, given online resources, easier to find then the Benny Green Wisden anthology I copied it from, I think the requirement to provide the source is adequately met. jguk 09:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Our citation standards are under WP:CITE#How_to_cite_sources. FA candidates these days are being failed for not reaching these standards. Could you use one of those three styles? --RelHistBuff 09:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

So basically you want a footnote? --bainer (talk) 10:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Either footnote (cite.php) or Harvard referencing. I assume many of the published sources are not available online so that excludes embedded HTML. This should be applied for the quotes as well other cases where cites are needed. --RelHistBuff 10:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm just wondering why you started a featured article review when all you want is a certain style of referencing to be used. You couldn't have just asked on the talk page? --bainer (talk) 11:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to cite sources is rather more prescriptive about one of the three mentioned citation systems having to be used than I understand the consensus to be. As far as I am aware, there are various suggested styles for citation, but it is not a mandatory requirement to use one of them.

In this article, there is a very full description of the source of the first extensive quotation in the text - fuller, indeed, than a footnote or Harvard would require:

On 11 February 1879, one day after the conclusion of the match and three days after the riot, [Lord] Harris wrote a letter to one of his friends about the disturbance. It was clear that he intended that the letter would be printed in the press, and, indeed, the letter appeared in full in The Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper on 1 April, and in other London newspapers, where it caused a furore. Wisden's Cricketers Almanack considered the incident of such significance that it found space for the whole correspondence too. The letter, which gives a detailed contemporary account of what Lord Harris thought about the riot, read as follows:

I can't see what a footnote would add to that, although it would be helpful to add the date of the original Almanack for the first (1880, presumably?) and that it is included in the Anthology.

(insert response) Not really pushing for *extra* information, just wanted to know where the letter came from. As jguk said, he copied it from Benny Green's anthology. So it is simply a matter of putting <ref>s on Wisden Anthology - 1864-1900 with page number. The quote should state the source. --RelHistBuff 16:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The introductions to the second and third are much shorter:

The New South Wales Cricket Association were outraged by Lord Harris's letter and got their honorary secretary, a Mr JM Gibson, to write to the Daily Telegraph in reply:

and

Fred Spofforth, Australia's Demon bowler, did comment on it years later in an 1891 cricket magazine interview, but with a different slant on the cause. His view was that the English team were unfortunate victims of intercolonial rivalry:

Perhaps it would be helpful for these to give a bit more detail (what was the date of the Telegraph in which the letter was published? which magazine was Spofforth quoted in?).

I'm sure some other citations could be added, though. The other quotations in the rest of the text (such as the one from the Sydney Morning Herald and from Lord Harris's autobiography) ought really to have specific inline citations. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:50, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added some more inline citations, as indeed have others. Is the review complete now? jguk 13:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I fixed the footnotes to conform with WP:FN; there is still quite a bit of unreferenced text. Sandy (Talk) 14:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This "unreferenced text" is largely a distillation of the various accounts that are all listed below as references, which all take slightly different perspectives. I'm not really sure how useful it would be to link in every single fact to such a wide range of references. I'd be interested in your recommendations. jguk 18:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the cites to the letters. As ALoan mentioned, the other quotes ought to have inline citations as well. I list only some of them below with the primary source as mentioned in the text. The secondary source should be cited and page numbers should be included if the secondary source is a book. The latter point has been raised as an important issue for current FACs for better verifiability.

• had written "The decision... " – issue of the Sydney Morning Herald
• his diary that "It was a most disgraceful affair…" – Vernon Royle’s diary
• The Australasian asked, "What will they say... " – issue of The Australasian
• the two men "expressed regret" – issue of the Sydney Morning Herald
• Lord Harris wrote, "They asked... " – Lord Harris’s autobiography

--RelHistBuff 11:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Status? Is work progressing? I noticed that bluelinks in notes and references need to be expanded (including last access dates), there is still unreferenced text (per RelHistBuff), and some of the TOC headings could be more compact. Sandy (Talk) 16:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, work is progressing. I dug out my copy of A History of Australian Cricket over the weekend, which is probably enough to deal with the rest.

It would be more helpful, if you are concerned about "last access dates" that you checked the links worked and then added the day's date. Especially as I do not recognise that as a concern anyone has raised before.

I would also note that RelHistBuff has not pointed out that there is unreferenced text. All five points are referenced - namely to the SMH, Vernon Royle's diary (for which the ISBN has been provided), The Australasian and Lord Harris's autobiography (which in a larger library, you should be able to find). I will, however, add references to pages in A History of Australian Cricket, where they refer to SMH and The Australasian extracts included, in the next week or so.

I have no idea what you mean by "bluelinks in notes and references need to be expanded" (other than in relation to access dates) so am unable to address the point. jguk 13:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I completed one ref as an example of the work still needed.

Publisher, pub date, location? Wisden Anthology - 1864-1900 edited by Benny Green ISBN 0-356-10732-9

Publisher, pub date, location? The Cricket Captains of England by Alan Gibson ISBN 1-85145-395-4

Expand ref, as example. Cricinfo page on George Coulthard

Expand. Australian Journal of Public Administration

etc.

Similar work is needed in footnotes:

Publisher, date, other biblio info so reader can locate source. Also, this uses last name first, while refs don't - consistency. ^ Cashman, Richard. The "Demon" Spofforth. ISBN 0-86840-004-1.

This isn't a reference - it's a link to the Wiki article on the Herald: The Sydney Morning Herald - 10 February 1879

A consistent biblio style would be helpful, for example, last name, first name ... page number last, etcetera. p35 Lord Harris's Team in Australia 1878-79, The Diary of Vernon Royle by Vernon Royle, edited by JW McKenzie ISBN 0-947821-10-4

etc. Sandy (Talk) 17:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I still don't follow.

The example reference you changed [1] was to change the accurate heading "Cricinfo tour index" to "England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST).] ind.cricinfo.com Accessed 7 December 2006".

However, that's less accurate. First "Cricinfo England 1878-79 tour index" would be much more accurate than the confusing "England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST)". As you can see, the tour index contains scorecards of five different matches played between January and March 1879, including the game in question here, not just one Test . Second "ind.cricinfo.com" is just an Indian server of cricinfo.com. The "ind" bit can readily be replaced with "aus" or "usa" or anywhere else where they have a server. So it's not useful.

That's the website given, and when you access that webpage, that's the page title. The idea is to make it easy for future readers to find the page if the links go dead. I'll try to tackle some of these this weekend, and see if there are stable versions in the Internet archive. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

In terms of a standard way of presenting book references, all books, except the Cashman book on Spofforth are cited as Title, Author, ISBN. That really should be sufficient for anyone who wants to locate the book to find it. Is it just a case of tweaking the Cashman reference, or more?

Publisher and pub date are needed. If you have the books, you can provide them - otherwise, someone else has to go digging around (maybe in amazon or B&N) for that info. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I can follow the "Accessed 7 December 2006" bit.

With respect to the reference to the Sydney Morning Herald of 10 February 1879, is it just a case of removing the bluelinks? Or are you looking for something else. jguk 18:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

We need a ref to the actual article - info like title, date, author, etc. I'll try to look at these in more detail this weekend, but my time is tight, so anything you all can do will help. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to try to work on this today: does anyone have publisher and publication date on the books? I can't find them. Sandy (Talk) 15:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, ALoan. Sandy (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I know where the Australasian quote came from but will need 24 hours to get the details. Bear with me. —Moondyne 16:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - I think this article is close, and we should avoid FARC. Additional questions:

Can anyone fill out the missing info on the Sydney Morning Herald article?

Can anyone give us page numbers on the two Green, Benny letter references, and the Cashman ref?

Can anyone straighten out Jguk's concern (above) about the reference,

England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST). cricinfo.com Retrieved 7 December 2006.

I just listed what was given, so I'm not sure how he wants that changed.

I'll go through next and see if any more cites are needed. Sandy (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what to do - there are still a lot of quotes from various press sources, that are probably the same sources already cited, but I'm not sure. Can someone verify if they are the same, and if so, we can use named refs to point at them. Sandy (Talk) 17:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

My bit:

• Added a page# for the Cashman quote
• Removed the Australasian quote as I cannot 100% confirm the source or give details. I'm almost certain that it came from another Cashman book: "Violence in Sports" but cannot get my hands on it. The article can live without it.

I can't find any more. —Moondyne 06:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The references to newspaper articles, other than the Australasian come from A History of Australian Cricket. jguk 12:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations (1c). Marskell 18:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't understand this. (1c) says that FAs must be:

"Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations. See citing sources for information on when and how extensively references are provided and for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.

The article cites all its sources, and cites them in a way that allows anyone wishing to check what is said in the article to find them. I know SandyGeorgia wishes to present some of the citations in a slightly different way, and that is happening - indeed, much of that is already happening. But that's a far cry from saying that 1c is not met.

Marskell has neither commented on the talk page, edited the article, nor commented above on the discussion on references. I'm not even convinced he has even read the article.

I remain very disappointed that minor, technical issues that could (and in my view should) have been addressed on the talk page, instead appear to lead to the automatic defeaturing of an excellent article. jguk 12:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no move towards automatic defeaturing: Joel was allowing extra time in FAR, Marskell allows extra time in FARC, both work towards the same goal - saving articles when work is progressing. It would be unusual for anyone to vote to Remove the article while work is progressing. (In the Bodyline case, there was no response for several weeks from editors working on the article.) Sandy (Talk) 18:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

There are still quotes that require citations. I still have no idea what is the secondary source where the quote from Lord Harris's autobiography came from. Also, as Sandy mentioned, there are still the missing secondary source citations for the Sydney Herald quotes. Finally, there is the need for the page numbers for the Royle, Green, and Cashman cites. If these are addressed, then I would vote Keep. --RelHistBuff 12:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've now just added the Sydney Morning Herald citation detail. —Moondyne 13:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

RelHistBuff, there is no need to give a secondary source for everything. I believe you are misunderstanding the requirements there. Anyone who has the Green book would be able to find the right passage within 30 seconds, so there is already sufficient information there to meet the requirements. I will, however, add in the page references anon. jguk 13:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added details of Lord Harris's autobiography, A Few Short Runs. jguk 17:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

If someone will please just tell us the source of the Herald article, I think we'll be just about there:

^ Author name ???. Article title ???. The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 1879.

Sandy (Talk) 18:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove- lengthy primary source quotations are indicative of a lot of the problems of this article which are detailed in the above. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 09:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment Why is there no explanatory text for what this process is and when it will end? --Dweller 10:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The instructions are at the top of the main page here, WP:FAR. Sandy (Talk) 11:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

They should be here too. And there's no date there for this particular process. --Dweller 12:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The article was moved to FARC on 9 December: add 14 days for the minimum period it will be at FARC - that period is extended if FAR is notified and work is clearly progressing. Sandy (Talk) 20:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - quoting the letters was discussed in FAC, and it was passed anyway. There are now enough referneces and inline citations for me. Adding more will be fine too, of course. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - this type of "cutting off the nose to spite the face" nitpickery is damaging to WP. I'm all for improving the article through the FAR, a highly positive process, but this FARC is unnecessary. --Dweller 12:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - but I'm none the wiser how this process actually works. —Moondyne 13:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment The FA standards are very high now. One can see this by scanning through current FACs. I have personally seen one FAC that had over 50 inline citations, but it almost did not make FA simply because page numbers were not provided in the citations. The argument made for this requirement was the verifiability policy. I, myself, would not have been so picky and I do not "count" citations, but I do point out where they may be needed. A quote such as the one below would need a cite (the ref is only an example).

• In his autobiography Lord Harris wrote, "They ...".<ref>Lord Harris (1921). A Few Short Runs as quoted in Green, Benny (1992) pp. 1-2</ref> This plus the Sydney Morning Herald cite would be enough for me to vote keep. --RelHistBuff 15:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ditto - there are only a few cites holding up my keep vote, but because the article relies heavily on this quoted material, the cites are needed. Sandy (Talk) 20:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Needs more cites - there's a lot of info that could be speculation in the article. LuciferMorgan 05:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, I disagree with the above assertion, given the highly unique nature of this article. Daniel.Bryant ^{[ T · C ]} 11:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think I can't go better than neutral on this one as the full inclusion of the letters totally throws off proportion. I won't go remove, however, if a few more cites are provided.

• All direct quotes.
• "That Coulthard was a Victorian no doubt added to the emotions, and there were unfounded rumours that Coulthard had placed a large bet on an English victory." The first clause strikes me as a POV aside and should probably be dropped. The second is especially problematic without a cite: not only does it repeat the rumours, it declares them unfounded. According to whom?
• "Independent witnesses said Coulthard's decision was close but fair." This absolutely requires a cite, as I think should be obvious.

Earlier jguk noted "I'm not even convinced he has even read the article" re my moving it to FARC. Nope, I hadn't. I moved it down just like everything else on FAR that doesn't have a definite consensus after the first period. But there's no "automatic defeaturing" here; just the opposite. Marskell 17:19, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove but conditionally: I am voting now only because I have been told if one does not clearly make a statement, then my comments would be construed tacitly as being neutral. If my citation requests as well as Marskell's concerns above are addressed, then I will change my vote. --RelHistBuff 12:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove have tried in vain to get sources for letters, upon which text relies heavily, as well as direct quotes. Reluctantly must vote to remove, as source for important parts of article aren't given. Sandy (Talk) 01:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per ALoan. The referencing of the article is satisfactory to demonstrate factual accuracy. A handful of fact tags were added in the past couple weeks and it would perhaps be worthwhile to provide specific sources for them. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove unless serious citations are addressed; the requests have been up for ten days. Jguk does not appear to be editing—hopefully that's just a holiday thing and he can get back to it. I must say I'm absolutely astonished people find the referencing satisfactory here. Marskell 19:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Among other things, 10 days is nowhere near the usual amount of time given for citation tags on uncontroversial information to be filled in. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Citations were requested over a month ago - that was the reason for the FAR - *tags* were up for ten days (according to Marskell). We try not to tag articles. Sandy (Talk) 14:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
      • As far as I can tell, the main sources that were requested in the original FAR have been provided. The only remaining place where a citation clearly would be helpful is a specific issue date for the quotes from the Sydney Morning Herald. However, this is not a sufficiently urgent issue to warrant removing featured status. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
        • "Independent witnesses said Coulthard's decision was close but fair" is not "uncontroversial"—it's a critical piece of info on which the whole story turns.
        • I'm not suggesting closing this incidentally; at the very least we should wait for further comment from jguk. Marskell 22:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, until s are fixed and the article gets properly cited. Comment: Are these looong letters necessary?--Yannismarou 19:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)