Talk:Émile Pouget/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Aleksamil (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: asilvering (talk · contribs) 02:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Hi there! I'll be adding lists of comments/questions, individually signed for your convenience in replying. If there are small edits that are easier to make than to explain, I'll just do those directly. Please feel free to question or revert any of them! Very few of the comments I will make, if any, are going to be make-or-break when it comes to passing the GA review.

Lead

1. The lead should summarize the text of the body, so it shouldn't need any citations in it, since in principle these are already backed up in the main text. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
2. It should go into a bit more detail, given the depth of the article. Two paragraphs, like we have now, is fine - but you can expand these paragraphs. What you choose to highlight is up to you, but it might help to imagine a reader who only reads the lead and nothing else. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Rewrote the lead. Hopefully this version is better. Aleksamil (talk) 20:15, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

   Much better, but - and I really hate to say this after you've done all that - now it's too long! What we're aiming for is something that follows MOS:LEAD. It doesn't provide hard rules about length, but for an article this size we're aiming for both shorter (in terms of word count) and fewer paragraphs than what we have now. WP:BETTER has some tips about the size and structure of the lead that go into more detail than the MOS itself, if you find that helpful. In general, I think if you feel compelled to break it down into more than two paragraphs, that's probably an indication that you're getting too detailed in the lead and should zoom out a bit. If being told to make it shorter after you've just made it longer brings you to existential despair, I'm happy to give it a shot if you'd prefer. -- asilvering (talk) 22:12, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

   Gah! Alright, I'm confident it'll converge on the best version. So by all means, please do! Aleksamil (talk) 01:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

   Okay, I gave it a shot, trying to preserve as much of your wording as possible. It's down to 300 words and 2 paragraphs, so I can check off 1b, but you're quite free to tinker with it as you like. -- asilvering (talk) 01:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

   Great job! I'm satisfied. Aleksamil (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Prose

1. I assume he picked the name "Père Peinard" for a reason, so it might be helpful to provide a translation of "Peinard" the first time it appears? I hesitate to just call it "Father Peaceful" ("Father Chill"?) since I have no idea if it's riffing on a slang meaning or something. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   The issue is, as is often the case with Pouget, it comes down to wordplay. The phrase "vieux penard" used to mean a debaucherous or libertine old man, almost always with the "vieux" part meaning "old". Somewhat like "old geezer" or "old perv", or "dirty old man". Now, this meaning was already sort of archaic in Pouget's time when it was more commonly used as "cunning" or "sly" old man.

   The wordplay that comes in is "peiner" means "doing hard labor", so "peinard" can also mean "toiler". "Peinard" then being a homonym with "pénard", that's the humorous part. Check this and this link.

   Similarly with "sabotage", Pouget's usage of the term gave it a new meaning, i.e both a sly man (a slacker at the workplace) and a hard laborer. I think translating it with one word would probably be misleading, and going into a tangent would bring more harm than good, if anything I'd add a red link for Le Père Peinard and then expand on the name in that article. Aleksamil (talk) 22:41, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Oh, this is all great. Please do make the Père Peinard article at some point! -- asilvering (talk) 00:14, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

2. While working at a novelty store... At least in my variant of English, this is a euphemism for a store that sells sex toys. What was he actually selling? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Interestingly, both Delesalle (in Guerin's No Gods, No Masters) and Langlais in his 1976 bio of Pouget mention only "novelty store". Luckily, managed to find the exact store where he worked with the help of his Maitron article. Scoured a bit through the sources they listed, it was actually in Émile Digeon's 2006 biography.

   Fixed now, it was Le Bon Marché and he started working there in 1877. Aleksamil (talk) 21:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Applause! -- asilvering (talk) 00:14, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

3. Any way to re-home the orphaned sentence beginning In July 1881, Pouget...? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Actually, his Maitron article says it's a mistake made by Maitron based on an undated police report, and probably isn't the case at all. I'll delete the sentence. Aleksamil (talk) 10:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

4. According to the lead, the thing he's most notable for is Le Père Peinard. But this is somewhat buried in the middle of the third paragraph in "Anarchist movement". Can you rearrange this a bit to emphasize it? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
5. working-class French slang any chance there's an article on this we can wikilink? Or interlanguage link, to fr-wiki? I don't have any idea what 19thc Paris slang was called. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Most sources just call it "argot" which is a general term for "slang". Aleksamil (talk) 22:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Do you figure Cant (language)#Argot is an acceptable wikilink, or is that possibly too specific? -- asilvering (talk) 02:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

   It seems too specific at first glance, the way I understand it Pouget's "argot" wasn't intended as a coded language. He simply employed working class slang, which is why he modeled it on Hebert's Le Père Duchesne which was a similar project, albeit in a different context. Aleksamil (talk) 14:26, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

6. Reminiscent of Rochefort's La Lanterne (The Lantern) If you can't wikilink anything in this bit, you'll have to expand a bit for the sake of a reader who has no idea who Rochefort is or what it means to be similar to La Lanterne. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Rochefort is the same Henri Rochefort mentioned and wikilinked in the preceding paragraph, and the way it was reminiscent of La Lanterne is just that it was published in small pamphlet form. I can remove the phrase if you think it's unnecessary, but expanding on it in this section makes even less sense to me. Aleksamil (talk) 12:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

   Ah, missed that. Now that I realize it's the person mentioned earlier, I think that's fine. -- asilvering (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

7. together with his partner Marie Giovanni's or Emile's? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Émile's. Reworded the sentence to "Upon reaching London via Algiers, Pouget stayed at Giovanni Defendi's delicatessen, accompanied by his partner Marie." Hope it's clear now. Aleksamil (talk) 22:59, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

8. At the congress, anarchist delegates were expelled. I know this is a huge can of worms, but if you could write a single sentence here for context that would be helpful. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   Added more context, which ties into issue (9). Check below. Aleksamil (talk) 14:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

9. In July 1896, Pouget attended... this breaks up a pair of paragraphs on La Sociale. Reorganize? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

   I added more context on his goals with La Sociale, which was to unite the antiparliamentarian faction of the labor movement, i.e anarchists and antiparliamentarian socialists. This then ties in neatly with the London Congress, on which I expanded on the anarchists' (and in general, antiparliamentarians') expulsion. It does jump in between two paragraphs on La Sociale, however now the first paragraph forms a train of thought with the second, as well as the third. Hopefully it's better now. Aleksamil (talk) 14:18, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

10. the tactic of "sabottage" Why the tt spelling? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    He essentially invented the term, and that was the first spelling he went for. The etymology is "sabot" means "clog" and Pouget mentions "sabottage" was sometimes used in slang to mean "working as if wearing clogs", i.e slow, which is why he used it to mean slowdown. Later he started spelling it with the single t.

    I propose just adding "as it was initially spelled" or something along those lines. Going into the etymology might be useful in the article on sabotage itself, but I think it would be a tangent in the Pouget article. Aleksamil (talk) 22:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    Agree, that's all interesting but "as he initially spelled it" is enough here. -- asilvering (talk) 00:15, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

    Done. Aleksamil (talk) 10:48, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

11. Despite his initial reluctance to support the Dreyfusard cause... ah yes, the true sign of translation from fr-wiki... Honestly I'd probably just ditch this paragraph entirely, since I don't think en-wiki readers are on the edge of their seats wondering whether someone is a Dreyfusard or not. If you do want to keep it in, it will need some more context, which can get... difficult. The bit about a revolutionary defence of Dreyfus is interesting, though. If you can squish the relevant background into a sentence or two, do that and keep it? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    Expanded the paragraph with two sentences on the Dreyfus affair, and added a bit more on his activities during 1898.

    Sidenote, I'd actually challenge the idea that this isn't relevant for the article, I think it's given due weight. Not only is it difficult to ignore the Dreyfus affair when describing any political conflict in France at the time, but also most sources on Pouget do mention it. And furthermore, contemporary historiography on French syndicalism, e.g Jeremy Jennings himself or Zeev Sternhell, is engaged in critically assessing the movement's tolerance of antisemitism and connections with the likes of Sorel and other precursors to French and Italian fascism. For instance, it's practically the only information offered in Griffuelhes' article at the moment. In this context, I think the fact that Pouget evolved into a Dreyfusard deserves a mention, more so due to his somewhat eclectic position.--Aleksamil (talk) 20:54, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

    Oh, I think this new paragraph is very good! I think this is very readable, even to someone who hasn't heard of the Affair before. -- asilvering (talk) 22:15, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

    And, now that I'm reading Bantman 2021, and noticed the reference to Bernard Lazare, I agree, it would be very strange not to mention the Affair in this article. -- asilvering (talk) 00:18, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

12. In 1902, the CGT merged with the Fédération des Bourses de travail, headed by anarchist Georges Yvetot from March 1901, following the death of Fernand Pelloutier. Can you restructure this sentence a bit so it's more clear what these two participial phrases ("headed by..." and "following...") are referring to? -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    Changed it to "In 1902, the CGT merged with the Fédération des Bourses de travail, which had been headed by anarchist Georges Yvetot from March 1901, following the death of Fernand Pelloutier." Would this revision be acceptable? Aleksamil (talk) 10:52, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

    The way I read this now, Pelloutier died in 1901, whereupon the leadership of the Fédération des Bourses de travail was taken up by Yvetot, and then in 1902 the Fédération merged with the CGT. If that's all correct, you're good to go. -- asilvering (talk) 21:08, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

    Yep, that's it! Aleksamil (talk) 01:42, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

13. while Yvetot and his former assistant Paul Delesalle headed the section of Bourses du Travail and Pouget headed the section of national federations as vice-secretary and remained the editor of La Voix du peuple. I don't think this means anything to anyone who doesn't already know a lot about this history. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    I'd challenge this. I think the next sentence provides the context. I explain what these men's positions were, and then point out that these were the leading names of French syndicalism in the following decade. Later in the article, I refer to them whenever I mention "revolutionary wing" or "revolutionary faction". Perhaps pointing this out might be the way to go? Aleksamil (talk) 15:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

    I'm thinking a step further out than that: I'm imagining here a reader who doesn't know what a "section" is in this context, or what a Bourse du Travail is, or so on. I do think pointing out the "revolutionary faction" is a good idea. -- asilvering (talk) 02:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

    I understand the concern, but I think the structure of the Fédération des Bourses de travail, the division into sections and whatnot, should probably rather be covered in its own article than in Pouget's. If anything, perhaps it might make sense as an addition to Pelloutier's article. The article on the federation is wikilinked in any case, or rather the subsection of the one on the concept of Bourse du Travail in general.

    I added some more context on what it represented, and why the merger was notable, and clarified that the four men became the effective leaders of French syndicalism precisely because they formed the revolutionary faction within the CGT. Aleksamil (talk) 14:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

    Great! -- asilvering (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

14. Tensions came to the fore between reformist and revolutionary wings of the CGT in 1903. Likewise, I think we need a brief explanatory sentence here. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    See above (issue 13), perhaps both could be resolved by adding ", forming the revolutionary faction of the union's leadership." or something along those lines, to the sentence regarding Griffuelhes, Yvetot and Delesalle? Aleksamil (talk) 15:57, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

15. the reformist faction started blaming the leadership for the deaths due to their reckless tactics "reckless tactics" isn't neutral, so we need a citatation for this sentence, either to attribute it to a secondary source or to the reformists themselves. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    I added quotation marks to make it clear I'm quoting the reformists, but the phrasing comes from (Jennings 1990, pp. 136–138.) which is added as an inline citation for the sentence that comes next. It's the source for both, but I'm not against adding it at the end of both sentences as well if you think it's necessary. Aleksamil (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    So long as it's clear who is calling the tactics "reckless", we're good. -- asilvering (talk) 00:16, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

16. According to Pierre Monatte, he increasingly started to view Griffuelhes as arrogant and autocratic. This is missing some kind of context, since the last we've heard of Griffuelhes was his resignation. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    I checked this issue with the source (Jennings 1990, p. 145) and then the source he's referring to which is a text by Monatte in 1959 (link). Seems you're right, the phrase "arrogant and autocratic" is something Jennings added, not a direct quote from Monatte. I'll reword this part.

    Sidenote, I think Jennings misrepresents Monatte's proposal for Griffuelhes by calling it "editorial assistance", whereas Monatte says "administration". Aleksamil (talk) 12:29, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

    Ah, this is clearer now. -- asilvering (talk) 22:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

17. In late 1909, Pouget reappeared This framing is a bit weird, since he was active in March of that same year - not exactly an age away. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    I agree the phrasing was a bit wonky with him reappearing and disappearing both in 1909. What I wanted to convey was that in March he had left syndicalism, but then reappeared in the insurrectionist weekly later that year. Reworked it now, hope it makes more sense. Aleksamil (talk) 11:51, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

    Yes, much clearer now. -- asilvering (talk) 03:14, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

18. Here, he again defended the general strike and the tactic of sabotage with great vigour until the outbreak of World War I, in addition to authoring several stories in Jean Jaurès' L'Humanité in 1913. WWI intrudes unexpectedly in this sentence, you might want to rework it. -- asilvering (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

    Split it into two sentences, and emphasized the fact that he continued to defend syndicalist tactics in particular, even though La Guerre sociale belonged to a different tradition. Aleksamil (talk) 11:53, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Sources

1. (This is definitely not required!) Would you provide translations of the titles under "works"? "Almanach du Père Peinard" is easy enough, but "Qu'on châtre la frocaille ! En attendant mieux" is probably pretty unintelligible to someone who doesn't read French. -- asilvering (talk) 02:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

   Agreed, good call. I rearranged them, categorizing into articles, almanacs, brochures and a novel. Fixed the dates, added a link to Francis de Pressensé, and finally added the English translations. Aleksamil (talk) 21:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

2. Upon reaching London via Algiers, Pouget stayed at Giovanni Defendi's delicatessen, accompanied by his partner Marie. - I'm not finding this in either footnoted source. Can you double-check this? -- asilvering (talk) 23:33, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

   Algiers is in Bantman, page 279, last sentence before the section "London and the shift to transnational militancy". His partner is on page 280. Defendi's delicatessen is in Turcato. The delicatessen itself is on page 133, and the fact that Pouget stayed there is page 135.

   Changed the footnote to include page 133 of Turcato. Aleksamil (talk) 07:47, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

   Aha, now I follow, thank you. -- asilvering (talk) 22:21, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

3. From Bantman 2009 p 282: "a bad job for a bad pay" - frequently referenced in conjunction with sabotage, should be somewhere in this article. -- asilvering (talk) 23:33, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

   Done. Aleksamil (talk) 18:58, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

4. Bantman 2009 p 284: "However, it is difficult to locate Pouget within this debate [about wwi] and thus to establish clearly his political position on the issues of nationalism and internationalism, as he did not take a stand at the time of the war." Strange that this disagrees with what we have cited to Jennings 1990? I haven't checked that one yet. -- asilvering (talk) 23:33, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

   I know, it is strange, you'll see with Jennings. She corrected the record in Bantman 2021 though. Aleksamil (talk) 07:36, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

5. The article says Pouget criticized the Marxists' economic determinism and argued against collectivizing agricultural land, as well as the notion of waiting in anticipation for the ostensibly inevitable proletarianization of the peasant class, which appears to suggest that Pouget didn't believe in collective agriculture. One of the sources says Peasants could only be persuaded of the benefits of collectivisation by example, and in light of this it's clear that "collectivizing" means forceful or obligatory collectivization, and that collective agriculture was still seen as the ideal. Could you clear this up a bit? -- asilvering (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

   You're absolutely right. Changed it to "argued against forcibly collectivizing agricultural land". Aleksamil (talk) 08:06, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

6. Any idea what's up with the Ricard of "Constant Martin et Ricard" in Langlais p 328? -- asilvering (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
7. However, he did not discount the potential utility of individual political action taken outside of the union. Can you take another look at this sentence? It seems to me that the "he" in our article refers to Pouget, but Jennings (p 137) gives the line 'I have never declared that political action, exercised individually and outside the syndicats by their members, was useless' to Keufer. -- asilvering (talk) 01:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

   You're absolutely right. A misread of the source on my part. Removed the sentence. Aleksamil (talk) 06:06, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

8. strikers clashed with the army resulting in two deaths I'm not seeing the specific death count of two in the source here. This might be my error (I'm somewhat out of sorts at the moment), could you check? -- asilvering (talk) 01:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

   True, it seems I pulled the number from the article on the strikes themselves. I just double-checked with the source given there (Derfler 2009) and it's correct, lists two dead and ten wounded. However, it says the police shot at the strikers and not the army. I added that source and expanded the sentence. Aleksamil (talk) 06:30, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

9. He spent his final years living a quiet life in the southern outskirts of Paris with his wife I added his wife to this sentence. It's a bit strange how silent she is through all of this, so I thought she ought to be mentioned in one of the few places she does appear. That's it from me for the source check! -- asilvering (talk) 01:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

   It's pretty disheartening to me too. I agree with the addition. Aleksamil (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Images

1. Émile Pouget reading La Voix du peuple.jpg: this is out of copyright, provided that the person who took the photograph died before 1954. Since it was taken in 1906, and the author is listed as "unknown", I don't think we can make that assumption. Can you try to track down the real source of this image? It may well be on gallica or some other repository and be free to use. -- asilvering (talk) 02:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

   Found this link, the image at the top seems to be taken on the same day, and it lists the author as Paul Delesalle himself. I'm not so sure about that, so I swapped it with an image of the CGT's logo at the time. Aleksamil (talk) 21:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

   If it's by Delesalle we're set, since he died in 1948 according to our article. I've had no luck verifying it myself either. I tried reverse image searching and got basically nowhere (yandex thinks all 1890s besuited men are the same person, google lens likewise is just a catalog of men with the same moustache). I suppose you could try contacting the people running that blog to ask them what they scanned it from. They probably won't get back to us in time for the GA review but you might be able to stick the image back in later. -- asilvering (talk) 00:44, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

2. Cover of Pouget's 1898 pamphlet, Le Sabotage: can you double-check the source of this too please? This doesn't look like 1898 print work - my guess is 1960s. If it's a cover of a 1960s printing we probably can't use it, unless it's by an anarchist press that explicitly waived copyright of the cover design. -- asilvering (talk) 02:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

   You're right. It seems to be the cover of the 1969 edition from Graphedis, which is unfortunately non-free, as far as I can tell. Replaced the image with the illustration featured as a cover of the 1894 almanac of Le Père Peinard. Aleksamil (talk) 21:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

   Great! -- asilvering (talk) 00:47, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

3. Delannoy caricature: worth looking to see if Gallica has a better copy. -- asilvering (talk) 02:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

   I couldn't find a better one, but frankly this version seems like a pretty good scan to me? I kept it a bit small as a thumbnail, perhaps I should enlarge it? Aleksamil (talk) 21:47, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

   Nah, no need to change anything, it's quite good enough. Was just hoping we could find the One True Digital Copy. -- asilvering (talk) 00:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

4. Infobox image checks out. -- asilvering (talk) 02:38, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.