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Wikipedia:Featured article review/John Dee/archive1

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John Dee

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Filiocht (away indefinitely), Bio, UK notice board, Astronomy, Geography, Math, and Writing systems. Sandy 20:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that the primary author, User:PRiis, didn't get one. (See Filiocht's nomination). I just saw this review, and have left a note for PRiis today. Unfortunately he's away too. Bishonen | talk 21:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC).[reply]
I do these extra notifications as a courtesy (the formal notification is the FAR template on the talk page); when compiling the original authors and WikiProjects on 423 articles, I couldn't read through the entire FAC commentary on each one. Thanks for the additional notification to PRiis; if more time is needed for ongoing work, it is always granted. Sandy 03:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article was promoted in 2004. I think it's basically well written and saveable, but it has issues. Starting with the minor points, it has no infobox and a questionable number of redlinks.

On a more serious level, it has no inline citations, and a listcrufty "Dee in fiction" section at the end. --kingboyk 20:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Several problems: besides no citations and extremely listy, in the lead, we find a very strange sentence, with improper capitalization: "Dr. Dee (Or, Mr. Dee, as he left university before achieving his doctorate) straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable." I hope that's not typical of the rest of the prose. External links is strange. Sandy 20:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly is wrong in having no infobox?
  • Any objections to simply delete the Dee in fiction section?
Pjacobi 21:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The weird sentence is a good example of the way FAs will deteriorate once the main contributor leaves or stops watching. (PRiis left shortly before it got that way.) This is less a problem of vandalism, which is usually promptly reverted, and more of well-meant but ill-judged, er, well, infobyte addition. I expect many main authors (most FAs are essentially written by one person, according to Raul) can testify to an inherent tension between the impulse to remove incoherent additions, and the likelihood of getting told that they're in violation of WP:OWN. All of it an argument for stable versions. Bishonen | talk 04:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC).[reply]
  • An infobox isn't mandatory for an FA as far as I know, but they're standard issue and present the biographical data in an easy to digest manner. That's not a key issue as I said in my introduction.
  • I personally wouldn't object to simply removing the fiction section; others might. --kingboyk 21:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I found the following unsatisfactory

He believed that mathematics (which he understood mystically) was central to the progress of human learning. ... It should be noted, though, that Dee's understanding of the role of mathematics is radically different from our contemporary view.

which begged the question: so what was his understanding?

I'm not sure about the wholescale deletion of in fiction that section demonstates his impact today. Quite a few well know authors have used him as a sort of iconic figure. --Salix alba (talk) 22:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the subject in depth, but I think it would be a pitty to delete a whole section. Of course, it is listy. Of course, it needs rewriting, but deleting ... I don't know ... A sub-article could be created and keep just the most important things of the current section here. This is just a proposition. But what about the inline citations? Even if the section is deleted, the problem with referencing remains.--Yannismarou 16:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understood his view of mathematics from the sentence alone. Had I not, there were other sentences that explained it very well. While an FA is written for a general reader, it's also supposed to be a generally educated reader. From Pythagoras through Newton, and into some contemporary mathematicians, mathematics has been understood by some people to be real and not proportional. In other words, in the real mof ideal forms, mathematics is the supreme truth (cf. Plato in Timaeus). Dee saw mathematics in this way: math was a truth beyond the existential: it was essentialist. We don't generally think of it that way, these days, as most Platonic Idealism is rejected, but Dee did. Geogre 15:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Lacks inline citations (1. c. violation), and the "Dee in fiction" section needs a vast rewrite from its poor listy format into readable, fluent prose that's cohesive throughout. LuciferMorgan 17:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations. Marskell 09:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per my comment above. --Ghirla -трёп- 10:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I tagged the biography section in order to show what the article needs. "Reputation" needs also referencing. This was just an example of what the article needs. Let me give you another example:
  • Arthur was also an alchemist and hermetic author. John Aubrey gives the following description of Dee: "He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit.... A very fair, clear sanguine complexion... a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man." This is a quote. Quotes should always be citated. Where is the citation?
  • And of course it is not correct that only disputed assertions should be ciated. Every assessment, quote, reported historical event or referred printed source should be citated. And this article fails these criteria.
  • "Casaubon, who believed in the reality of spirits, argued in his introduction that Dee was acting as the unwitting tool of evil spirits when he believed he was communicating with angels." Where did he argue that? Citation needed. General reference inadequate for a FA.
    • See earlier in the same paragraph "[sold Dee's] manuscripts to the scholar Méric Casaubon, who published them in 1659, together with a long introduction critical of their author, as A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James their Reignes)...". Not every citation need be a footnote; insisting on "Casaubon, op. cit.: Introduction" would add nothing. . Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • "There is doubt, however, that an organized Rosicrucian movement existed during Dee's lifetime, and no evidence that he ever belonged to any secret fraternity." Here we have somebody who "doubts" another assertion. But we donot know who's this person, because we have no citation. According to your own argument Ghirla, here we need a citation!
  • "As a result of this re-evaluation, Dee is now viewed as a serious scholar and appreciated as one of the most learned men of his day." Viewed by whom? Citation needed. We have no verifiable source to support the specific assertion (and verifiable sources are of course a fundamental FA criterion).
  • "The centrality of mathematics to Dee's vision makes him to that extent more modern than Francis Bacon, though some scholars believe Bacon purposely downplayed mathematics in the anti-occult atmosphere of the reign of James I." "Some scholar believe", while obviously others "do not believe the same thing". Therefore, we have another "disputed assertion". Don't we need a citation here? In any case, "some scholars" without a citation are weasel words and weasel words are inacceptable in FAs.
  • "Dee's most long-lasting practical achievement may be his promotion of mathematics outside the universities." Curious expression in every respect. It "may be" his most important achievement?! But it "may also not be"?!! Who say it "may be" and who says it "may not be"? Rewording and referencing needed here.--Yannismarou 11:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a marginally better article if all of these were more specific; but there are three modern lives of Dee cited in full in the references. Adding the three of these to each sentence is a triviality. Would details on these, which no-one has yet denied, improve the article? Would they be worth the bits? Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, with these improvements the article would be an article fulfilling FA criteria, something that it is not doing now. As it is now this article would never pass FAC (as it is FAC now). I insist on this point, because I think it is totally unfair for all these Wikipedians who are nowadays striving to upgrade their articles to FA status and also strive to properly citate them, including at least one inline citation for each paragraph and sometimes one inline citation for each sentence. If we kee totally uncitated article like this as FA, I'm afraid we show no respect to their efforts and we apply double standard in similirar cases (this particular article in FARC and all the others in FAC - e.g., Salvador Dali's FAC was blocked for some time, because the editor of the article could not citate one particular sentence - and during my Demosthenes' FAC a reviewer placed a [citation needed] in one particular sentence I had not citated, although I had about 150 citations in total). In this specific case, the mere and unspecified presence of references at the end of the article is not enough. The use of this sources is not specified. It will be specified when every assessment of this article will be verified with a verifiable inline citation. This is the rule FAC applies nowadays and I think this is the principle we should also apply. And instead of having this theoritical discussion, it would be much better if somebody could go through the article and add the necessary citations so as the article no to lose its FA status. This is the real solution to the present problem - not the questioning of an existing and obvious problem.--Yannismarou 07:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bah! May work so sometimes, and sometimes it's at best silly. Before in-line citing it was a biography article based on three well accepted, large biographies of Dee. If someone had doubts about it, or want to kown, he can read one of those.
Now it looks like specific sentences come from specific sources, of rather mixed quality. Referencing an encyclopedia article by another encyclopedia article? With all due respect to the EB, this isn't good practice.
And as a highlight, referencing Around the same time the True and Faithful Relation was published, members of the Rosicrucian movement claimed Dee as one of their number. There is doubt, however, that an organized Rosicrucian movement existed during Dee's lifetime, and no evidence that he ever belonged to any secret fraternity. with a reference to the Hermetic Journal? Didn't know that there are peer-reviewed journals on alchemy nowadays. And that they count as valid references for English history? Also what exactly did the reference support? In my quick reading, it is just of the opposite opinion.
Pjacobi 04:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think if the books in "References" had been moved to "Further reading" then your claim would have some validity, but since they are still listed as references, I think they have to be looked as at general references for the whole article (which is precisely why I haven't moved them). Inline citations provide an important function in that they make us examine the statements in the article. Without them we can claim that the general references cover anything in the article, but since the article is dynamic this often turns out to be untrue (or at least unverifiable). For example, in this article it was claimed Dee married three times, a claim which all the available sources contradict. Incidently, the Ackroyd biography was added as a reference yesterday, so if that was one of the three it indicates one of the problems with general references being accepted as the sources of the article. If the article was static and peer reviewed then a list of general references would be fine, but since anybody can add any information at any time, demanding a minimum level of inline citation is the only way to maintain the standard. With regard to EB, I've argued against this in the past, but since we use a great deal of data from the 1911 EB and that is regarded as an acceptable source, I think it would be somewhat ridiculous to exclude the 2006 version on the grounds it is less acceptable. The Hermetic Journal reference is badly placed (it replaced the fact tag rather than being put at the end of the preceding sentence), but if you feel it is an unacceptable source I will remove that statement. Yomanganitalk 11:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Arguments over whether it should have inline citations aside, I was wondering if anybody has either Wooley's The Queen's Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, or French's John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus mentioned in the reference section? I think some of the remaining uncited claims are too specific to have come from anywhere else. Yomanganitalk 12:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • After Yomangani's excellent referencing work I turned my vote into weak object. There are still two paragraphs in "Achievements" needing referencing and one more [citation needed] in "Biography". I'd also welcome a slight expansion of this two stubby section at the end of "Biography", but I don't think that this is a major problem. They are quite fine even with their present form.--Yannismarou 17:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is some more information that can be used to fill out both of those sections, but it needs collating and checking from the different sources - I'll come back to those once I have finished filling in the references (I'm having trouble with the last one in "Biography"). Yomanganitalk 18:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The subsections 'Thought' and 'Dee in fiction' under 'Achievements' still need inline citations. LuciferMorgan 02:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I agree for "Thought". For "Dee in fiction" I'm not absolutely sure that citations are needed (they would be, of course, welcomed). Recognizing the great improvements done in the article, I turn my vote into Weak keep, waiting for the minor remaining improvements.--Yannismarou 07:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I won't change my vote until my concerns are addressed, indeed the people at FAC wouldn't change their vote if they still had minor gripes. "Thought" is a major 'original research' concern unless inline cites are added. LuciferMorgan 11:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll look at those. Yomanganitalk 11:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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