Talk:Virginia Conventions

Expanded convention sections

I've expanded the convention sections based on research in sources accumulated over the past year. I cannot yet find in depth accounts of the 20th century activity after the unlimited Convention of 1902. It may be that a survey of Richmond Times-Dispatch microfiche may bring some additional information. I noted by happenstance in searching for a photo of the presiding officer of Virginia's Limited Convention of 1945, that a proposed biographical article on John J. Wicker, Jr. was dismissed from Encyclopedia Virginia because he was not considered notable, dismissed with a dismissive characterization of him as a self-important "muckety muck". More research is required to be exhaustive, but I believe that the article now satisfies the requirements of the general reader for an encyclopedia article.

Any contributions to advance the article will be appreciated, especially suggestions related to style and format. For instance, I am sure that the Reference section should follow only one convention naming authors, but it is mixed, in part for the convenience of copy and pasting links for author names. I will continue to make attempts to copy edit on my own, as well as to follow the suggestions of other editors with contributions. Thanks in advance. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:58, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Hey, VH, I just created the Wicker article for you. I'm not exactly familiar with the EncyclopediaVirginia notability guidelines, but, being a member of the state legislature is all that's needed per WP:NPOL. On a separate note, I'm extremely impressed with the work you've done so far on this article. Not sure how I missed it until now. Poor coverage of Virginia political history is one of the main reasons I got involved as a Wikimedia contributor, and it's always great to have people of your background/expertise. I hope to provide some more in-depth input moving forward. Rockhead126 (talk) 22:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:12, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

B-class criteria

Note that at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/B-Class criteria we have the following criteria:

1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional.

2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing.

3. The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind.

4. The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but it does not need to be "brilliant". The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously.

5. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams and an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.

6. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. Although Wikipedia is more than just a general encyclopedia, the article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.

Of course, the goal is for articles to advance in their assessment to good article (GA) status. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:32, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Propose Article for A class status

See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/A-Class criteria

Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:Article development. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate.

An A-Class article should approach the standards for a Featured article (FA), but will typically fall short because of minor style issues. The article may need minor copyedits, but it should be comprehensive, accurate, well-sourced, and well-written. A peer review by project editors should find the article to be a viable candidate for FA status. Assessing an article as A-Class requires more than one reviewer. There are two methods available for doing this.

• For WikiProjects without a formal A-Class review process, the proposal to promote to A-Class should be made on the article's talk page. The review should also be noted on the project's discussion page  Done.

• To be granted, the proposal should be supported by two uninvolved editors, with no significant opposes. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:33, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• The article is well written and sourced. I would recommend putting it up for Good Article nomination.--Mojo Hand (talk) 19:44, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I've made a request for a peer review by creating the page, Wikipedia:Peer review/Virginia Conventions/archive1, but there is a long backlog under the history classification. It may be that the way to proceed is to be bold and nominate, but we could give it a few days to see if there are additional contributions or comments. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:50, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@Gwillhickers, Thorkall, and R'n'B: Thank you for your contributions to this article. I have promoted the article to B-class; it takes two other editors to promote an article to A-class. Mojohand and I were thinking of trying for Good Article (GA) status. Further contributions and comments are welcome. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:33, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Will be glad to offer any help I can. On cursory examination it seems the article has what it takes to become a GA and then A class article, however I see the citations and Bibliography need work, with many cite' templates and URL's mixed in with the text. Don't know if this will effect A-class requirements. As far as content goes I'll only be able to help there nominally it seems unless I hit the books on this one. Anyway, let me know what I can do. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:12, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

@Gwillhickers: The article is unusually broad in scope, covering multiple historical eras. Would you be kind enough to look at the encyclopedic style for the first five Revolutionary Conventions, as you have a demonstrated expertise in the Late Colonial and New Nation periods that Jefferson participated in?

Interesting question on references, I do not think the variations will prevent either A status or GA. Procedurally, I think it is A class then Good Article (GA). But to your point substantively, another editor used the cite book template for Dinan which shows up in the References -- it is the only one --, perhaps to suggest that the rest of the article conform to it. I think there is a bias for the book cite template rather than the simpler <ref> convention when trying for the highest Featured Article (FA) rating.

I have tried to learn enough about the coding to remove the frequent HARV ERRROR messages on pages that accompany editor efforts when they do not know how to properly implement the book cite template, --- mostly I just delete their flawed attempts and replace them with <ref> notation. I still have not figured how to use the book cite template myself, though it is not for lack of trying. In any case, I do not think the year's worth of work will be held hostage to style minutia which does not impact either the accessibility and verifiability of the research or the quality of the narrative. No HARV ERROR messages appear in this article to date. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:07, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning me in the contributions, which were mainly some expansions and adding some references on the Revolutionary War conventions (First through Fifth) since I was initially doing some updates on the House of Burgesses article (and their role up to and during the Revolutionary War). I was able to access the Avalon Project (but at times some reference links are down). Additionally I added a reference for First Convention (does not verify all the info in that paragraph, but a start). Also I discovered that previous redirects of First Virginia Convention, Second, etc., to this article have recently been expanded to have their own individual articles. So currently there are articles that contain information on the First to Fifth Conventions in this article, standalone articles, and House of Burgesses (HoB) article (although HoB article only provides highlights of the conventions and links here for more information since the HoB (as a Royal Assembly) ceased to meet during most of the Revolutionary War). I have not had the time to thoroughly review the standalone articles to see if they provide new information, but I believe they mainly reiterate/reformat information from this article (and do not know if they provide any additional references or mainly use ones from this article). I will not be able to pursue this or other updates on this article in the immediate future due to travel plans for the next few months, but can perhaps return to it after the first of the year, and meanwhile invite anyone else who currently has the time to expand on this or other related articles.Thorkall (talk) 17:27, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Critique

• @TheVirginiaHistorian: -- Apparently there is no definitive policy regarding uniform citation conventions, but there are citation guidelines regarding uniformity I would strongly recommend following. I've seen GA and FA reviews where this issue had to be addressed before reviewers gave their approval. Also, url's mixed in with the text should be dealt with, if for anything, out of practicality -- url's mixed in makes navigating through and editing the mark up very difficult sometimes. HARV citations: I've had difficulty with these sometimes, as cite-book templates with no last name field included can often cause ref-link problems. I would recommend using the convention used in the Thomas Jefferson article, where the ref link in the cite book template is defined by the user. (e.g. |ref=Malone) Back in February I outlined a simple example in talk. Recommend using this convention since it seems to be less problematic than the harv style.

Additional : I've just added ref links to citations using Freehling, 2010 and Dinan, 2006, and upgraded their listings in the bibliography. If this is an acceptable convention then I'll continue making such upgrades as time allows. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

• Lede. It starts right off with the introduction of details, (i.e. "their resulting Constitutions...") before Virginia Conventions has been defined. First sentence in lede should provide a simple/general definition.:

Proposal: ..The Virginia Conventions involved the assembly of delegates from Virginia for the purpose of establishing uniform laws throughout their various districts.

 Done simplifying intro as Virginia Conventions were the assemblies of delegates elected for the purpose of establishing fundamental law for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Their Constitutions and subsequent amendments span four centuries across territory of modern day Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. Beginning with the traditions of the General Assembly, convention delegates have met to bridge the differences among their respective populations to forge community in each historical era. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:22, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

• The first paragraph in the First through fourth conventions section seems to need a citation. If the content in this paragraph has a reference/citation in the lower paragraphs it should still be noted in the 1st paragraph.

This morning, the Avalon server seems to be down, so I could not confirm the information in the link contributed by another editor for the second paragraph pertains to the first, but I'll get back to it. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:22, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@TheVirginiaHistorian and Gwillhickers: I was able to access the Avalon Project, and that reference is only in regards to Second Convention (i.e., not pertinent or citable for First Convention or first paragraph), but also references have now been added for first para and others. While looking to see if there are other sites, vice Avalon Project, I did find this link HISTORIC VIRGINIA DOCUMENTS ON THE INTERNET. It only listed the Avalon Project link for Second Convention but it still may be useful for finding other documents from colonial times to 20th century. I took a break from working on this and other Wiki articles over Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays, and now back working on a few of them. Good comments on how to improve the article and a lot of good work done by TheVirginiaHistorian. I will see what I can contribute, but looks like the lion share of work has been done.

• Content. I will lend what knowledge and insights I can here but as I said, my knowledge in these areas, even where Jefferson is concerned, is general at best. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:26, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:34, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Daughter articles

@Mojo Hand and Dallyripple: Althugh I originally despaired at collaborating with Dallyripple, I did not want to pull the trigger on deletion of the articles because I could already imagine the benefit to shorter articles (on second thought) that Dallyripple now points out in discussion elsewhere.

I think on balance I now prefer the use of both the shorter articles Dallyripple has created that maintain the debate detail in each convention, with individual's bio links directly to the shorter articles, — and then keep the main article, which might be better summarized in an encyclopedic style since the detail of the debates are held in each convention article. It might shorten the main article and so make it more readable. But I do not believe that this ongoing effort should derail the efforts to bring the main article here to GA status.

They should over time, each take on their own elaboration in greater detail both in historical context and in discussion of their constitutions. Even the Secessionist Convention produced a proposed Constitution that failed referendum…neither the Virginia Conventions nor Virginia Constitution articles are likely to address it in any detail. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 05:16, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree. Each convention is almost certainly notable in its own right, and the size of this article suggests that sub-articles or daughter articles are probably the right move in the long run.--Mojo Hand (talk) 13:33, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

 Done for all general conventions. Specific elaborated debate and related pics are transferred.

• 20th century activity does not have coverage in the sources to merit separate articles to date. Additional research is welcome, but might require editors mining the Richmond Times Dispatch for the 1927 Commission, 1945 Limited Convention, 1956 Limited Convention, and 1968 Commission. Those articles as stand alone stubs have been PROD deleted after consultation between Dallyripple and TheVirginiaHistorian, the two contributors to date. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Peer review

A peer review is begun at Wikipedia:Peer review/Virginia Conventions/archive1. Editors are invited to contribute. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:30, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

From Mike Christie

Most global

• I think the article is a bit underlinked; of course the quotes shouldn't usually have embedded links, and there are a lot of quotes, but here are some examples you could link: John S. Carlile, Wheeling, Virginia, Unconditional Unionist, Fort Sumter, Fort Pickens, and perhaps a couple of county names.

 Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:22, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

• A general point, now that I'm well into the article; it's quite long, and since you have sub-articles on the conventions I wonder if perhaps some of the detail could be compressed and moved to the sub-articles. For example, in the Ratifying Convention section you give Henry's, Randolph's, Mason's and Madison's views in some detail, but would a summary of them be more useful to the reader at this survey level?

Good idea. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

 Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:13, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

• Another general thought: you begin each section on a convention with the date of meeting and the events of the convention, but shouldn't the article also discuss what led to the convention being convened, and how that process worked?

 Done for the Constitutional Conventions. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• I think some explanation of the political landscape is in order -- I've no idea what the "Progressive" party stood for at the time, and am having to work it out from context as I read through. For example, I can't tell from Watson's statement about "the elimination of the negro from the politics of this state" if he supported or opposed the elimination.

This is especially important in each section as the article becomes less reportorial and more summary. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Related to "what led to the convention being convened" above,  Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• I won't repeat this point, since I've hinted at it a couple of times, but this section strays into reportage rather than summary on occasion, and I think this is connected to the "in-viewpoint" voice that you use on several occasions in the article. It feels more like a narration, by someone intimately familiar with the events, than an encyclopedic view of those events.

Reportage describing convention cut, replaced with summary, article is now almost half of its previous page size.  Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• The twentieth century conventions are covered in much less detail than the earlier ones; I assume from your comments above that the article will be rebalanced, but I wouldn't expect there to be a great deal less detail on them than on the earlier ones, at least at this summary level.

Unfortunately, after a year's research, this is about all I've come up with. More contributions are needed, perhaps if someone will delve into the daily reportage of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not clear why the material in the "State and Federal Courts" section is included -- obviously this material could have been the subject of conventions, but so could much else.

The elements relate directly to Constitutional provisions tested in the Courts. But I'm open to moving the section to Virginia Constitution. The Constitutional Commission of 1969 in my lifetime was explicitly called to address the disparities between the 1902 Constitution and mid-20th century holdings of state and federal courts. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

 Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:23, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

General comments

Some general comments from Mike Christie at Wikipedia:Peer review/Virginia Conventions/archive1 TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

• I like the gallery, but I think it should come further down the article; it's odd to have it right where one expects the body text to start.

 Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

• The first paragraph of the Ratifying Convention section is uncited.

 Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:21, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

• Is it normal to capitalize "Eastern Shore" as you have it?

Yes, addressed in the new maps at the introduction.  Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

• "Some malapportionment in the General Assembly was eased relative to the majority of voters and white population in the Valley in the House of Delegates, but nothing for the transmontane west": I'm not sure what "the Valley" refers to, and I think the rest of the sentence needs rephrasing -- it's a bit vague.

Valley definition is partly addressed with the new maps at the introduction. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Rewriting  Done. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:29, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

• Do we need the paragraph on the Restored Government of Virginia? It's relevant to the history of the period, but does it belong here?

Paragraph transfer to Restored Government of Virginia  Done. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

• The first paragraph of the 1868 section is uncited.

 Done. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:47, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

• "Martin political machine": a link at least, and perhaps an explanatory note, would help readers who've never heard of Martin. I see you explain it in the following paragraph, but even that's too much of a delay; the reader's already confused by then.

 Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:13, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

• How about including a list in table form of all the conventions at the end, showing dates, name, and perhaps precipitating events and outcomes?

Good idea. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

 Done TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:08, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Linking

@TheVirginiaHistorian: -- Re: Linking, it's a general rule of thumb that only the first occurrence of a topic be linked, with the exception of a similar link in the lede, a caption or in an infobox, table/chart, etc. If it's a very important link, say for a president, a second link (aside from the lede, etc) may be used if the two similar links are far apart in the article. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:16, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Galleries are now done. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:25, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Good topic considerations

Mike Christie posted a bit of wide ranging encouragement at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Virginia_Conventions/archive1, " I'd suggest fleshing out the subarticles first. Even if you don't get them to GA level, by the time you've finished deciding what contents they should have I think you'll be in a much better position to figure out what summary information is retained here. And if you do get some or all to GA level, this article will be a great deal easier to write (and you might have a Good Topic on your hands)." -- an interesting challenge. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

At Good Topic it says, A good topic is a collection of inter-related articles that are of a good quality (though not all are featured articles). A good topic represents Wikipedia's quality-rated content by thoroughly covering all parts of that topic through several good articles that share a similar structure and are well-linked with each other. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:23, 15 November 2016 (UTC)