Talk:William O'Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:William O'Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Johannes Schade (talk · contribs) 12:44, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Welcome

Good day User:Dabberoni15. I propose to review your GA nomination “William O'Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin”. We have met before in these same roles at the review of Sir William James, 1st Baronet. We both seem to have an interest in Irish aristocratic biographies of the 17th century. I am a bit concerned that they might differ too much in style. As before, I will start with the preliminaries and then go through the article’s sections, sometimes returning to previous sections when needed.

Before the article content

• Optional Infobox officeholder – Just a comment. I would have preferred Infobox noble and would have treated his two major offices in the lead, then in corresponding sections in the main text, and finally in the succession boxes. I find that infoboxes are often too long. They then make it impossible to illustrate the first couple of sections because the text would be sandwiched between the image and the infobox. In your case Tangier cannot be shown in an image near to the correspondingt text.

• Optional Infobox, parameter |name= – In William James, 1st Baronet you gave name as "William James", so I expected "William O'Brien" for this time, but you give "The Earl of Inchiquin". Would you please care to comment?

• Optional Infobox, parameter |spouse= – You give two spouses separated by an HTML BR, but there is WP:NOBR, which you might want to take into consideration (not obligatory for GA). I would have used:

{{Unbulleted list

    | '''1.''' Margaret Boyle
    | '''2.''' [[Elizabeth O'Brien, Countess of Inchiquin|Elizabeth Brydges]]
    }}

• Optional Infobox, parameter |allegiance= - The parameters of the Military services section of the infobox do not cope well with his two differenct alegionaces.

—With thanks and best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 12:44, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

• Optional Infobox, parameter |alt= - Should not in general each infobox image have an "alt" parameter (not required by the GACR)? In this case I would propose something like: "A painted 3/4-length portrait of William O'Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin, showing a clean-shaven man with long brown curly hair or such a wig, wearing a lace jabot and clad in armour, holding a marshal's staff, standing in front of some drapery opening on a view of a landscape".

• Optional Infobox, parameter |caption= - Should not in general each infobox image have an "caption" parameter (not required by the GACR)? Or at least the information that the portrait is in the collection of the National Army Museum, was painted about 1680, the painter is unknownn. Perhaps add this to the description in Wikimedia Commons.

Lead

Remark. Dear Dabberoni15, please be not offended by some very basic advice. I know you are not a beginner and have brought 12 articles to GA level, whereas I have only 2. I do not imply that my leads are better than yours, only that I think that you have the skills and experience to do better. The basics do not lose anything in restating. Here goes in my words:

The lead should be the most carefully written part of the text. It should always be concise as everything in the lead should be explained in more detail in the main text. One might go as far as saying that typically each sentence of the lead should expand into at least one paragraph and each paragraph of the lead into at least one section in the main text. The lead should be carefully balanced against the main text. A change in the one will usually necessitate a corresponding change in the other to maintain this delicate balance.

I find your lead is not always up to that level of conciseness and polish. I do not understand why you insist on always having 4 paragraphs in the lead, irrespective of the length of the main text.

• Optional Lead length – As you pointed out MOS:LEADLENGTH is all recommendations and cannot be enforced under GACR. However, I still wanted to comment that the lead in the article is lengthy and not all statements feel essential. For example seldom do leads include a prose description of the subject's birth.

• Optional PC – There is a need to distinguish between the English and the Irish PC (not required by GACR, of course). Looking at articles I find that the Irish PC is usually indicated as <small>[[Privy Council of Ireland|PC (Ire)]]</small> displaying "PC (Ire)", for example in Alexander MacDonnell, 3rd Earl of Antrim, Carey Dillon, 5th Viscount Dillon, and Claud Hamilton of Shawfield. Some have been members of both: Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory.

• Optional 1st paragraph, 1st sentence: ... served as the governor of Tangier from 1675 to 1680 and the governor of Jamaica – GACR Rule 1a "grammar"; I would omit the article and use capitalise considering Governor of Tangier and Governor of Jamaica as post titles: served as "Governor of Tangier" ... as "Governor of Jamaica" as discussed at https://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst156702_as---an-article-or-as---no-articles.aspx. However, the other option is surely not wrong.

• Optional 1st paragraph, 1nd sentence: O'Brien is best known for his long career in the ... – GACR Rule 1a "concise"; This mostly repeats in other words what the 1st sentence already stated.

• 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence: Born c. 1640 in Doneraile, County Cork to the 1st Earl of Inchiquin ... – GACR Rule 1a "syntax"; I think there is something wrong with the construction of this sentence, the "growing up" at thew end is most surprising.

• (A) 2nd paragraph, last sentence: ... before being released and returning to England. – "and returning to England" is probably superfluous.

• (B) 3rd paragraph, last sentence: ... before moving to London. – "fleeing to London" might be more expressive.

• (C) 4th paragraph, 2nd sentence: O'Brien was frequently at odds with the Jamaican assembly ... – "Jamaican assembly" is linked to House of Assembly of Jamaica. Why not directly use the official name?

• (D) 4th paragraph, 2nd sentence: ... governor's council ... – The link to Cabinet of Jamaica is easter-eggish and unhelpful as it refers to the present situation of Jamaica as an independent state.

—Please forgive my criticisms. With thanks and best regards, Johannes Schade (talk)

Early life

• Optional 1st paragraph, 1st sentence, citation: William O'Brien was born c. 1640 at the town of Doneraile in County Cork, Ireland.{{sfn|Little|2004}} – The citation does in fact say so when you have the patience to get there and read up. The web site is behind a paywall. My local library does not subscribe. So I had to find the corresponding book., where I then found out that the articles is 6 pages long. I f you had cited the book and given a page number, I could have found it much faster. So possibly replacing the online version by the book in Internet Archive would be an improvement.

• (E) 2nd paragraph, last sentence ... who noted that he had made the trip without prior authorisation ... – GACR Rule 1a, "understanding"; I struggle to understand what the situation was and why it is relevant. It seems passports were needed for travelling between England and Ireland (no common area yet). True? So how could he travel without passport and what should have been the normal consequence?

• (F) 3rd paragraph, 1st sentence After the conflict ended in a Royalist defeat ... – GACR Rule 1a, "understanding"; the "conflict", I assume, was the English Civil War, which ended with the Battle of Worcester in 1651 or the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, which was complete in 1652. I suppose father and son went into French exile. Should this not be said and a date given? 1659 is a bit far from 1652.

Tangier and Ireland

• (G) 1st paragraph, 3rd sentence ... "displayed little military capability" ... – GACR Rule 2b, "inline citations"; This criterion is usually interpreted to mean that all quotation appearing in the text need to be supported by citations. Accordingly there is a citation needed at the end of the quote. admittedly the wording of Rule 2b is a bit confusing.

Governship of Jamaica and death

• (H) 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence ... Saint-Domingue ... – GACR Rule 2b, "understanding"; I had to look up to understand that this was the official name of the French colony that became Haiti. It might be helpful to mention the modern name in addition to the contemporary one.

Personal life, family and legacy

• Optional I feel that the to marriages, as their dates are known, should be moved to their correct places in the chronological order. However this is not required by GACR.

Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 20:31, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

—Dear Dabberoni15 I started this review on 9 August 2022 and hoped for a reactions from you. Perhaps I do not understand very well how this game is played. I will now put this review on hold. Perhaps that is what you are waiting for or do you reject me as a reviewer? If so, please tell me what I should do to get out of your way. If you want to ,go on and concerning my remarks above (ignoring those marked "optional"), please react at least to the items marked (A) to (H) in some way by making a corresponding change in the article and replying "Done" or by rejecting them by telling me so, and possibly shortly explaining why, so that I do not make the same mistake again. With best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 12:03, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Ah no sorry, I think you have the wrong idea! I've been busy for the past few weeks, and have been distracted with other articles and some personal issues. I'll get to your review eventually, but please give me a bit of patience! Thanks, Dabberoni15 (talk) 13:01, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Dear Dabberoni15, I think I have waited long enough. I will fail this GA nomination now. Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 07:05, 28 August 2022 (UTC)