Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Daniel Webster/archive2

Daniel Webster

Second Nomination for FA following its recent second PR. I'm very happy with its prose and I think it does an excellent job of covering Webster's career. It also recently achieved A-Class status. I've contributed significantly to the article since June and support its nomination. TonyJoe 10:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Certainly much better than most of the political articles on Wikipedia. I would recommend reading through Schlesinger's Age of Jackson, however, as a point of view which seems somewhat underrepresented on the source list. Septentrionalis 17:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the most access that I have to Schesinger is a paragraph from The Age of Jackson quoted in A People's History of the United States. But if you can manage any useful Webster related viewpoints from Schlesinger, it would of course be a welcome addition. TonyJoe 07:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. For a political article it seems to be free of POV rewrites, but that's a good thing. I'd be willing to locate additional sources if needed. However, this is a good article. --TheM62Manchester 22:26, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support This article is well written and clearly laid out. Assertions are support (though Septentrionalis's suggestion would be helpful) and this article is without a POV. —David618 ^t e 17:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rlevse 11:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral On examining it much more closely, I find it is based almost entirely on Henry Cabot Lodge's 1883 life of Webster, lightly salted with Profiles in Courage, and omitting Lodge's occasional severe criticism. The result is a list of the offices Webster held and the great speeches he made; omitting all else. It is as neutral as a biographical dictionary because it has the same omissions. This may genuinely be the best Wikipedia is capable of; I stand by my view that most of the political articles are far worse. Revamping it by including a modern biography, with Webster's politics and his problems, would almost certainly make it unstable. Comments? Septentrionalis 15:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments, yes- I think it's a bit unfair to claim that the article "ommits all else" with regards to Webster's "politics and his problems." I think that the article does clearly show flaws. For instance, that Webster was in the pocket of the New England Elite and as a legislator, when their identity changed from shippers to manufacturers, his position on the tariff changed effortlessly. This unattractive bit of Webster is made more unsavory when but next to the fact that he often employed their "subscriptions" against his constant personal debt, boardering on bribery; while the article by no means makes that judgement, it does present present the shadowy facts.

As I said on the talk page, you're right about me omitting Lodge's criticism of Seventh of March and as I explained it there, I sort of skipped over that chapter because I assumed it would be similar to Kennedy's take on the speech so I just went with Kennedy's (which I had already read) and saved myself the trouble of reading Lodge's. I was of course wrong and I've since gone through it and added Lodge's criticism of the speech which was a pretty good take on Webster's inconsistencies with regard to compromise. The quotes I picked out were slightly different from the ones you favored on the Talk Page, so you might want to add to them or change them as you see fit.

On the talk page you gave a list of things from a variety of sources that I think you'd like to see added. There were some there that I agreed with and some that I didn't agree with, but in my opinion, most of those points were minor (Webster's take on indians and calling the Dartmouth peoration nonsense stand out in my mind) and their absence doesn't in my opinion pose any hinderance in a reader's ability to understand Webster, though others like Remini's take on Webster's lack of legislative ability, could certainly be useful in drawing into focus Webster's conspicuous lack of legislative accomplishments of his own. Even so, I still maintain that it's a minor point when compared with Webster's bribery and flip flopping on compromise and that though the article it could benefit from it, it is still comprehensive, well written, and neutral in its exposure of Webster's flaws, virtues, and inconsistencies, thus still deserving of FA status.

So those are my comments. I hope that no matter what happens with the candidacy we'll be able to continue to work together on the article to implement the stuff that you think needs to be added and hopefully, while still respecting the article's current integrity (if you could do it Schlesinger you could probably do it with the other stuff too). Cheers, TonyJoe 03:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This was not an objection, but a proposal to accept the article as it stands; however, I am certainly willing to update. Some of the omitted points are minor; but others (like Webster's speech on conscription) are not. Septentrionalis 18:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support Those who have been maintaining this article have done a great job. It's well-sourced, well written and noticably free of biases and POV. The layout is also quite attractive, with appropriately placed photographs and excerpts. In addition, the article isn't absurdly long and each section has a proper amount of material. I also want to point out that prior to my reading this I knew fairly little about Webster aside from that he argued at his first trial in my hometown. Well done... already we know that this is a decent article since it has been approved for A-class status. -Prezboy1 11:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support It's well-written and comprehensive, and the criticism (both praise and exposure of flaws) is balanced well for an encyclopedia article. The section on Webster's tenure as Secretary of State under Tyler seems a bit short and cursory compared to the coverage of the rest of his career, but that's a minor issue. Absecon 59 13:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I found the prose heavy on dramatization. I removed the obvious ones, but at many places, since the sentences were referenced, I was not able to. I am quite sure that at many places, the reference isn't as dramatized as the article puts it. I have noted some suggestions in the prose by adding comments. Since I am not sure that the references back up the statements in the prose, as well as my being unfamiliar with the subject and not in a position to comment on comprehensiveness concerns as others have pointed out, I cannot support the prose. I can also not oppose the prose because I have not provided any actionable concerns. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 12:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- BTW, I had to fix the license tag of WebsterbyLamb.jpg, that had a {{Fairuseunsure}} tag. I am surprised that nobody noticed that before me. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 12:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]