Wikipedia:Peer review/Nicholas Exton/archive1

Nicholas Exton

I'm requesting Nicholas Exton be peer reviewed so as to boost the quality of our coverage of the very dead but very intersting- an underrated demograph I think. Let's have it with anything you can think of- in a perfect 'paedia I' be taking this up to A-class or further, but, first things first, is it broad enough in its coverage? If not- h'mmm- I'm not sure how it could be broadened without losing focus. anyway, thanks in advance for your time and effort. Cheers, — fortunavelut luna 15:49, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Galobtter

• The lead doesn't read all that well: A leading member of the Fishmongers' Company and citizen of the City of London, he was twice elected Mayor of that city during the troubled years of the reign of King Richard II. is pretty confusing - A leading member of the Fishmongers' Company, he was twice elected Mayor of the City of London during the troubled years of the reign of King Richard II. is better but I reckon the fact he was mayor should be in the first sentence. Sir Nicholas Exton (died 1402) was a medieval English merchant and twice Mayor of the City of London. as it is seems important. The remaining sentences in the lead could be clearer, especially the timeline of the events that occur. Galobtter (talk) 10:23, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Wilco, Galobtter, thanks! — fortunavelut luna 10:38, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

• This event must, then, have occurred "within days" of Exton's election as Mayor. I may be a fool but I have no idea why that has to be true or what that's even about. or why It was important, though, for the King to gain the backing of the City of London, I think there are quite a few passages that are quite confusing and have quite a few assumptions like that if you don't know the politics of 1300s england. Explaining them may be complicated so may be better to just remove those and just state what happened.

• Although Exton was "clearly a partisan figure" in the politics of London, his most recent biographer has noted that he "nevertheless belonged to a ruling oligarchy whose shared interests often made it a force for stability" in those politics. I see a lot of quotes that don't really need to be quotes throughout the article.

Quotes should only really be used when the phrasing is important and when attributing to someone. (see WP:QUOTEFARM: Overuse happens when: a quotation is used without pertinence: it is presented visually on the page, but its relevance is not explained anywhere; quotes are used to explain a point that can also be paraphrased) I don't really see that. Who is calling him a "clearly partisan figure"? And most recent biographer is very awkward, should introduce him by name or attribute to oxford biography. Similar thing here: As his biographer has said, Exton "continued to co-operate closely" with Brembre. Should either be attributed to someone or something or not even be quote.

Two more examples that seem very weird unnecessary and unexplained quotes: This he was able to subsequently exchange for a royal pension of 6d. per annum, "with the consent of the council." and In 1392, however, he once again, with other leading London citizens, incurred the King's anger during Richard's "quarrel with the city."  Galobtter (talk) 13:33, 13 November 2017 (UTC) Did some formatting changes 14:11, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

• Looking at some of the text, I'll give you an example of a sentence that really could be much shorter.

The 1381 Peasants' Revolt must have formed the basis of much of Exton's political education, although since London had been in a condition of "political turmoil"{{sfn|Bolton|1981|pp=123–4}} even before this - ever since the 1376 Good Parliament, in fact - it is possible that he was active in City politics far earlier.

Rewritten

Much of Nicholas Exton's political career must have started with the 1381 Peasants' Revolt, although since London had been in political turmoil {{sfn|Bolton|1981|pp=123–4}} ever since the 1376 Good Parliament, it is possible that he was active in City politics far earlier.

Looking through, you regularly overuse things like "in fact" and use overly wordy phrasing.

• The sentences after that really don't make any sense to me - what does knowing the peasants have to do with anything? The merchant and alderman section should really come first. Knowing the public record dates etc really helps frame his career. Should weave the background in at various points where it can be used in explanations rather than dumping it in at the beginning. Galobtter (pingó mió)

Comments by Iridescent

These are done as if this were an FA review so may be pickier than usual. As always, I haven't read anyone else's comments prior to review so there may be some duplication. This version is the version reviewed.

Layout

• It desperately needs something to break up the wall-of-text. I appreciate that there may be no surviving images of him, but there are plenty of other things that could be used—images of medieval London, a portrait of Richard II, quotations shoved into quoteboxes (see Charles Domery for an example of quoteboxes being used to break up blocks of text), the Guildhall… This map might be useful to give an idea of how London and Westminster related in this period, and also of just how huge the City was compared to Westminster. (You might want to get onto the Guildhall if you haven't already and ask if they're aware of any portraits of him. He might well turn up in a carving or a stained-glass window, even if no paintings or drawings survive.)
• The capitalisation is non-MOS compliant when it comes to titles (e.g. "the King", "the Mayor"); if you decide to take it up to FAC level you need to sort that out or SMcCandlish and Tony1 will shout at you.

Lead

• Especially in light of the fact that there's no birth date, it needs to have what dates are known (particularly his term as mayor) in the lead, so someone skim-reading the lead knows what period we're talking about. Most readers will have absolutely no idea when "during the reign of Richard II" will refer to.

Missing section

• Before we get into his biography, there needs to be some kind of background section giving a brief explanation of the significance of London in this period. ("Far enough away from the seat of government to be left to run its own affairs but close enough to make its voice heard; the main port for international trade and consequently a source of tax revenue that couldn't be ignored; the plague had wiped out the throw-cheap-manpower-at-it approach to agriculture and manufacturing so the trade guilds were in a very strong position; central government was so ineffectual that the big cities were essentially writing their own laws; its strategic location controlling both road and river access between the north and south and as the last line of defence between the coast and Westminster meant the government needed to keep it on side in the event of civil unrest.") At some point, there needs to be an explanation of what a medieval Lord Mayor did, too; British readers will know that the position as a meaningless sinecure and readers elsewhere will assume it equates to "Lord Commander", both of which are inaccurate for this period.

Merchant & alderman

• Without the context this section appears to be about a dull internal dispute within a trade body over the pricing of fish. Without knowing that there had been serious mass insurrection the previous year, culminating in the leader of the peasants being assassinated by the leader of the Fishmongers in person—there's no way the reader could be expected to understand why the question of whether the primary function of the guilds was to keep prices high or to ensure the poor had access to staples had suddenly become a topic on which people were being imprisoned for their views. (I appreciate the records may not exist, but do we know where Exton was during the Peasants' Revolt?)
• imprisoned for a year […] and forced to leave the city […] a month later he was arguing in parliament—how does this work? Had he been released from his sentence early, or had he been given some kind of dispensation to attend Parliament?

Mayoralty of Nicholas Brembre

• Nicholas Brembre, who was to hold the office for three terms—you should probably say "three years" rather than "three terms". Most readers will (reasonably) assume that a term is either four or five years, given that those are the standard terms of office for almost every English elected position (including the present-day Mayor of London)

Twice mayor of London

• As his biographer has said—which biographer? This sentence is uncited.
• in 1386 the King's political opponents had attempted in parliament to reduce Richard's authority, and the King was therefore seeking revenge—it's not clear how this relates to Exton. Was he an opponent of Richard and worried that he was going to be locked up, or a supporter who was looking to help Richard? It's not really clear from this paragraph whether he tipped off Richard's enemies because he was on their side, or whether he was a supporter of Richard who didn't want his friends getting hurt and tipped them off.
• On a related note, the King was planning on having some of them arrested—who are they? You've mentioned "the common council", "the king's political opponents" and "parliament" in the preceding section.
• requesting, unsuccessfully, that all the craft guilds would take an oath of loyalty—was this specifically only the craftsmen's guilds and not the merchants? If so, why were the butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers not expected to take the oath, given that they were the guilds who had the power to destroy the economy by withdrawing cooperation?
• Nevertheless, the King despatched a warrant for the arrest of the rebel lords—what rebel lords? None have been mentioned up to this point. (Yes, I know you mean the Lords Appellant, but there's no way Randy from Boise who just happens to have stumbled across this from Special:Random, or a twelve-year-old child researching their school project on Dick Whittington, is going to know this.)

Later career

• After saying that Exton loaned the government £1000 and carefully putting that value in context, you then suddenly jump to He paid 500 marks for some de la Pole estates, and 700 marks for a manor of Sir John Holt's. Why are we suddenly using a different currency, how much was a mark worth in relation to a pound, and how can the reader be expected to know this?
• Throughout this period, although the King appears to have remained rather backstage—where is this coming from? Assuming that the period in question is 1388–89, this was the period when Richard had kissed and made up with John of Gaunt and was busily going about re-establishing autocracy.
• a Spanish sword from received the King—this is obviously incorrect, but I haven't fixed it myself as it's not clear who received the sword from whom.
• In 1392, however, he once again, with other leading London citizens, incurred the King's anger during Richard's "quarrel with the city."—what was the nature of the quarrel, and what did he do to annoy the king?

Death and overview

• Do we know where he was buried?
• Is anything named after him? (There's an Exton Street in Lambeth, but I've no idea who it's named after)
• Per my comments on your talkpage, this needs to be expanded into more of a "what happened next?" section. In particular, I'd expect to see mention of Richard Whittington, who is arguably the most important figure in the entire history of medieval London (certainly the first Londoner since Saint Alban whom any non-expert nowadays has heard of with the exception of Chaucer) and and would have been one of the dominant figures on the Common Council throughout Exton's mayoralty, and at least a one-liner about Richard II's overthrow.

Hope that helps… ‑ Iridescent 11:28, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

(Adding) According to this (p.177), at one point Geoffrey Chaucer was Exton's boss. If that can be sourced to something more reliable than an unpublished thesis, that should definitely be given prominent placement regardless of how tangential it is to Exton's actual career. ‑ Iridescent 17:20, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

That's not a thesis, that's a space station from this OUP thing. Ironically, though, it's actually sourced witihn to the ODNB article. You know, I found a fair bit more about Chaucer & Exton (naturally, because of course so much has been written on him), much of which I deliberately didn't include- undue, etc: covering tiny periods of his life in great detail just because GC was involved. You think it would be ok then? On a note of etiquette, is a PR like a GA, where I tick off the points as they get {{done}}, and / or argue the toss / discuss them?

I wouldn't worry about ticking things off—since PRs aren't pass/fail it will just stay until the bot archives it (although you may want to tick things off or cross them out so you, and anyone else reading, knows what's been addressed and what hasn't). Yes, I'd personally definitely include the Chaucer connection, and probably in the lead; notability may not be inherited but interest definitely is, and "oh, this guy had a direct personal connection to someone I've actually heard of" makes people more likely to read it. An adequate article which people actually read serves more useful purpose than a fantastic article which nobody ever looks at. ‑ Iridescent 18:13, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm working on a subsection for the Chaucer connection as we speak, cheers. And thank you, Iridescent, I look forward to enjoying adequacy over excellence  :) — fortunavelut luna^{Rarely receiving pings. Bizarre.} 18:27, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

That should have been the slogan for my Arbcom candidacy ‑ Iridescent 18:34, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

In good company with most post-war British governments then :) On the matter of reducing the WallOfText approach, I have, err, increased the wall of text. Hold on- I think I've got a plan. — fortunavelut luna^{Rarely receiving (many) pings. Bizarre.} 18:22, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Comment from SagaciousPhil

FIM, you've done a tremendous amount of really great work on this article and I'm sincerely sorry to see you may have retired; I hope you will change your mind. The ref software is as temperamental as me so I'm going to try to tidy some of the refs to make them work/be clickable and do some typo fixing (you know how 'pernickity fernickity' I can be!) so that it'll be ready for you to continue working on if - hopefully when - you return. If I get any of it wrong or you're not happy with it, please just revert. SagaciousPhil - Chat 12:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks User:PernickertyPhil :) I went to a lot of trouble replacing the sfns with short titles instead of dates :p but to be fair, as you say, I only afterwards found out that they then don't link to the bibliog, so that was a ******* ****-up! If you've got any advice or commentary (like Iridescent, treat is as FAR if you prefer), feel free to dish it out. Thanks for everything! SerialNumber54129 12:19, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Good to see you back, Serial Number 54129! If you're considering taking this to FAC the refs would still need more work to standardise them as it's something that would definitely be picked up on. I can try to help with that if you like? Are you going to be expanding further or waiting until after it finishes the DYK endurance course? SagaciousPhil - Chat 16:50, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Sagaciousphil  :) Now; what are the odds on me having my cake and eating it? I.e., letting you lose on the refs after I've finished with the text? -I've got a few more pieces (one of them major, which I hadn't managed to get hold of) to mine, and then that should be that. Then, I guess it becomes work of precision... What say ye? Serial Number54129^{...speculates} 21:46, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Of course, Serial Number 54129, no problem, just let me know when you're done. SagaciousPhil - Chat 11:56, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Phil, and apropos nothing, if you happen to know any other esteemed reviewers who would care to have a look, feel free to invite them along to the carnage  :) cheers! Serial Number54129^{...speculates} 12:16, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Lingzhi

• Missing ref for Gransden 1996  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
• Three instances of "[citation needed]" Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:13, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
• I know people get all bent out of shape when I point out things that simply don't make sense to me, but alas: I've never understood the practice of leaving full book citations in the Notes (not listed in Refs) if there is only one instance of citing that book. It gets more confusing to me when other cases exist of books in Refs cited only once (Barker 2014, Barron 1970, Beaven 1908, Bolton 1981, Bolton 1986, Brown 1979, Favent 2002, Firth Green 2002, Hatfield 2015, Hicks 2002, Postan 1972, Prescott 1981.
• Bird 1949 seems cited once as Bird, R. (1948). The Turbulent London of Richard II. Aberdeen: Longmans, Green. p. 12.
• Dodd 2011 (in the References) is in the Notes once fully cited as Dodd, G. (2011). "Was Thomas Favent a political pamphleteer? Faction and politics in later fourteenth-century London". Journal of Medieval History. 37: 405, 407. OCLC 39167361
• Ditto for Duls
• Ditto for Ellis
• Ditto for Goodman
• Ditto Mortimer
• Ditto Nightingale
• Ditto Roskell
• Ditto Turner
• Kinda sorta ditto Sherborne, tho one is for the book and one for a chapter in the book by the editor of the book (?)
• Those two Strohms should be 2004a and 2004b
• If Agnes was the ward of John Wade, then why was John Ward holding money for her? Lingzhi ♦ (talk)
• Thanks Lingzhi, just fyi, I recommenced working on it in my sandbox, so this is actually a pretty out of date version by now :) thanks for the thoughts though, input always welcome. >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 10:18, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly suggest you close this PR then. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 11:16, 15 January 2018 (UTC)