Talk:Anthony Chenevix-Trench/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sagaciousphil (talk · contribs) 14:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'm still pretty new at reviewing GA nominations so once I begin to finalise this review I will ask someone with more in depth experience to give it a quick double check. I apologise in advance if I make any idiotic mistakes along the way. SagaciousPhil - Chat 14:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I think this an extremely interesting comprehensive article, which presents a neutral balanced view. I have made a handful of very minor edits but please check I've done them correctly and haven't managed to break anything! As already mentioned, I'm just feeling my way with GA reviews, so have noted a couple of questions below. Khazar2 has kindly said they will check over my review but is pretty busy in the real world so will get to it soon. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:49, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   There is one dead link showing up (ref #53) but my interpretation is that this is acceptable as a hard copy would be available.

   Main source (Peel, 1996) is from a vanity publisher which went bust in 2002 owing £260,000. The book is not available on Amazon, nor in my public library. This makes verifiablity something of a problem! Emeraude (talk) 08:46, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

   Emeraude raises an important point here; I don't believe that a book from a vanity publisher can be considered a reliable source even if a hard copy was located to verify the citations (which isn't necessary). Given the article's heavy reliance on this book, this might be a dealbreaker for GA status. Is the author widely cited by scholars as an expert in the field? That might make this an RS, even if he's self-publishing. Good catch--I wouldn't have thought to check that. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:38, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

   I don't think Peel's book counts as self-published. The author's previous book, also a biography of an Englishman, won a Daily Telegraph award. The book cited is indeed available on Amazon - for the princely sum of one penny. My copy was previously held by a county library in Wales, so it was clearly rather widely purchased, not just a vanity publication. It received full-page reviews in multiple national newspapers. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:10, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

   The question doesn't really boil down to Amazon availability or library holdings, unfortunately, so much as whether Pentland Press has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The press's reputation as a vanity press and their subsequent collapse suggests to me that this may not have had serious editorial oversight.[1] Tell you what, though, I'll post at WP:RS/N and just get a quick opinion there. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:21, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

   That link is an opinion blog of the wrong sort of tabloid newspaper, so not a great source itself :) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:30, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

   A simple Google search turns up plenty of other sources, but of course I'm willing to look at any sources you have indicating that they're not a vanity publisher. [2] [3] [4], [5] [6] [7] The Mirror's coverage of Pentland is also listed in research databases like Highbeam and Questia. It seems fair to say that they at least have a strong reputation as a vanity publisher. Anyway, you can find the relevant discussion at Wikipedia:RS/N#Vanity_press_publication_okay.3F -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

   Thanks for the input on this, it had never occurred to me the book might not be considered a reliable source, especially as it appeared to attract a lot of publicity and reviews. It does appear to be available at a number of UK libraries (according to WorldCat). SagaciousPhil - Chat 08:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   • The subject is certainly comprehensively covered - I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this (and this doesn't really apply for GA) but after reading the article, I was left wondering: What did he die of? Also, in the last paragraph of the 'Education' section, it reads: "At Christ Church CT would win further academic prizes.....but not the ones he most wanted" What were the ones he wanted?

   I've added a few extra words about his death, which I agree was covered a little too quickly. The reality is that he either died of alcoholism, or of the ongoing effects of illnesses contracted while suffering as a slave labourer for the Japanese, or of just being tired of being tired. Or all three. Peel describes the 2nd February 1978 haemorrhage as "resulting from his wartime experiences", but goes on to quote a conversation apparently months later where Chenevix-Trench said "The doctor says I should give up whiskey. I've taken a considered view. The quality of life is more important than the quantity." Peel also mentions sources who say that Chenevix-Trench was "a shadow of his former self", and didn't appear to perceive much joy in life if he wasn't still teaching. As for his time at Oxford, the prize he was most after in his first two years was the Hertford Prize for classics (mentioned in passing later in the same paragraph); it seems still to be in operation now, or in 2008 anyway. Seven hundred pounds in 2008; probably less pounds but more value in the 1930s. I vaguely remember some taking the view that Chenevix-Trench was a little too obsessed with winning prizes while there. However, it's worth mentioning that some of Chenevix-Trench's reforming zeal at places like Eton was, according to sources, a result of an awareness on his part that his successes in life, with originally nothing more than a respectable middle class background, were partly thanks to the scholarship that had allowed him to study at Oxford in the 1930s. The caption to the quad photograph hints slightly at the possibility that without the scholarship, he wouldn't have been able to attend at all. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:34, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for including the additional material about his cause of death. SagaciousPhil - Chat 08:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

1. B. Focused:

Too "broad", to the extent that is practically hagiographic. Consider why this article exists; what makes him notable? Being a teacher? Hardly. Being a public school headteacher? Possibly, but unlikely. Being a Japanese POW? No. Being an alcoholic child abuser who held major positions in public schools where he indulged his abuse? Well, yes, and most of the rest is of no great significance. This article has been clearly edited in recent weeks with the stated aim of getting this good article label; fair enough. But, unfortunately, this has been done by a clearly sympathetic editor using as a source a book which is also blatantly sympathetic (and unavailable). As such, the article is now unbalanced and includes far too much on historical events in which he played no personal part other than being there. Emeraude (talk) 07:49, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Emeraude. A GA review is very subjective, so different editors may very well view matters differently. I feel the article gave complete coverage of the subjects life, managing to adhere to the BLP policy of avoiding giving undue weight to controversy yet including it in a balanced manner. SagaciousPhil - Chat 08:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

1. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   I think an impressively balanced portrayal has been given.

2. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

3. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   A small query, which again is simply a reflection of my lack of knowledge: Loretto School, Peckwater Quad, Shrewsbury School, Bradfield College and Fettes College images are Creative Commons licenses - are these OK or do they also require PD licenses?

   I'll defer to anyone with greater insight or interest in image licenses than I have, but my understanding is that Creative Commons licenses (that allow commercial use) are at least "as good as" "public domain" licenses. In all these cases I'm merely re-using existing Commons images that have been there for a long time and where I'm not aware of any challenge to the copyright status of those images on that project. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

   Yep, the CC tags are fine. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming that Khazar2 - I'll keep a note that CC tags are fine. SagaciousPhil - Chat 08:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

1. B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

2. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Reliable source issue

To avoid the threaded conversation above getting overstuffed, I'm opening discussion of the reliable source issue here. Quoted below is a response from WP:RS/N:

"It is clearly a vanity press. If the subject were a living person, WP:BLPSPS would absolutely bar use of this source. Since the subject is dead, WP:SPS applies. The author is not writing about himself, so that exception doesn't apply. We are left with (i) is the author a recognized expert in the field; and (ii) has the author previously been published by reliable, independent sources within the relevant scope of that expertise. It looks to me that the author has written a few books about food and about Australia, and handful of biographies, most of little note. This particular biography, as you note, appears to be highly controversial, and to have little or no acceptance as authoritative. I don't think this comes close to passing the requirements of SPS, and should not be used at all as a source, let alone be relied upon almost exclusively for content in an article. (I'd note in passing that this article also uses as a source thepeerage.com, which has been extensively discussed at RSN and is clearly not a RS, as well as several letters to the editor, none of which are reliable sources) If this passes GA with this kind of sourcing, there is something seriously wrong with GA. Fladrif (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2013 (UTC)"

I don't think the peerage citations are necessarily an issue here; as they source only noncontroversial claims, the citations could simply be removed without a problem. I would recommend that the letters to the editor be cut. But Peel is relied on so heavily that the article will need to be largely rewritten. For that reason I'd personally recommend that the article not be listed at this time, so that this issue can be addressed outside the time constraints of a GA review. But the final call is Phil's, and it's always possible that there's an angle to this I'm not seeing (there may be more responses at RS/N, too). Just my two cents. Thanks everybody for their work on this article! -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:06, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I propose to put this GA on hold for seven days to see if more debate is forthcoming on the RS noticeboard but, regretfully, it may well be the case that I will have to bow to the consensus about the reliability of the main source presently given above. SagaciousPhil - Chat 08:18, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

The query has now been archived on the RS noticeboard with little further response, so regretfully I feel I have no alternative except to close this nomination as failing to meet the GA criteria due to sourcing issues. I sincerely hope that in the future other sources may be found as it is a comprehensive article. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:39, 29 April 2013 (UTC)