Talk:Margaret Sibella Brown/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: AleatoryPonderings (talk · contribs) 06:20, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• The level of genealogical detail in "Family and early life" is excessive (see WP:NOTGENEALOGY. I also don't see a cite for her birth date or birth place. Could you provide that?

Added a citation for birth date & place. I'll go through and work on thinning the level of detail tomorrow.

• Can you pick either dmy or mdy dates? Both are used.

fixed.

• This might be a "me" confusion, but I always thought finishing schools were in lieu of education at the university level? So I find it surprising that she attending both University of King's College and the Anglo-German Institute. Maybe some additional explanation here would be helpful. Could you also say when she got her BA?

Not sure what to say about the finishing school. That's what the source says: "Margaret was educated at the Anglican School for Girls in Halifax and the Anglo-German Institute finishing school in Stuttgart". Oddly enough, another source says, "She took graduate studies at Stuttgart". I'll admit, "finishing school" and "graduate studies" don't quite go together in my mind, but that's what the sources say. There's no mention in the sources I found of what her BA major was, or when it was granted.

• "it was unusual to find women working in the sciences". Is there a reason you don't say "women scientists were unusual" or something like that? "Find women working" is rather elliptical.

Rephrased.

• I have tagged the paragraph beginning "Brown died in her Halifax home" with {{cn}}. Could you address that? It may be as simple as adding the cite from the following paragraph to this one. Also, was there no obituary or equivalent? A secondary source would be best to confirm that "Margaret Sebella Brown" is the same as the subject of this article (although it of course seems quite plausible).

Fixed.

• I don't see the encyclopedic value of File:Margaret Sybella Brown and Elizabeth Brown as adults.jpg. I guess it depicts her with plants, but they don't look like mosses ...

A photo of the subject in her home seems useful, but if you feel strongly about it, I can remove it.

• Can you explain how [1] is a reliable source? The live link is a redirect and the archived copy looks like a self-published RTF file.

Hmm, it was just the wrong URL. It's an official history of the society, which seems reliable for who was a member. I've updated the URL to point to the copy on the society's website. The URL that was there pointed to what looked like some early draft. I'm not sure where that came from.

• Is it possible to explain a bit more about her scientific impact? I see the awards listed, with accompanying citations, but I was left wondering when I read this: what contribution(s) make her a notable scientist?

Yeah, I get what you're saying. The gist is she was basically a upper class society girl from a wealthy family at a time when most girls like that majored in being a rich society girl, but instead she made some recognized contributions to science. The problem is, writing that would be rather blatant WP:OR. I'll come back tomorrow and see what I can do here.

Actually, I think what you're looking for is the 2nd sentence of the lede: "Although lacking formal scientific training...".

Passed it. The genealogical stuff was my main outstanding concern and I addressed it to my satisfaction. I also added more details about her scientific contributions, which resolved the remaining concerns I had about that. Comprehensive to the extent the subject allows for it, clearly written, references good and there are cites in the right places, the British Bryological Society ref is fixed. Neutral, illustrated, stable. Meets the criteria. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 15:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings thank you for the quick review and all your help. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:12, 2 January 2022 (UTC)