Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Robert Roberts (author)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 14 July 2021 [1].

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Robert Roberts (author)

Nominator(s): Noswall59 (talk) 08:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I first read Robert Roberts's book The Classic Slum some years ago. An unusual and beautifully written mix of autobiography and social history, it struck me then as one of the most evocative, brilliantly drawn accounts of life in the English working classes that I have encountered. Along with his autobiography A Ragged Schooling, it offers a richly textured and at times moving insight into the lives and struggles of people who otherwise would have disappeared into obscurity. Unsurprisingly, both books have been mined by historians for decades and were critically acclaimed on their release; they are often set texts for university courses on modern British history today.

I was, therefore, disappointed to find that we had only a two-sentence stub on Roberts and nothing more about his books. That is, until this week when I reworked the article to include a comprehensive summary of Roberts's life, works and contributions to scholarship. It's a compact article, but I do not think there is more that I can say about the topic. Tim riley has kindly reviewed the prose and I've incorporated his suggestions. I therefore believe it meets our criteria and is ready for FA status. Thanks in advance for any comments. —Noswall59 (talk) 08:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC).

Pre-emptive notes

• Firstly, Roberts wrote two autobiographies and I have used these to support some of the article text. In most cases, this is attributed inline or supports a quote. It is also used, sparingly, to source some basic biographical facts: his mother's background, his parents' decision to purchase their corner shop, and their business and status in the community. I think that this acceptable under WP:ABOUTSELF, especially given that the books cited were published by a major university press.
• Secondly, there are hardly any photos of Roberts available publicly; the one I've used is a fair use one taken from the ODNB. It is already a small image and I've had to scale it down further to suit the fair use requirements. There are, to my knowledge, no free images available of his old street, which was demolished years ago. —Noswall59 (talk) 08:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC).

Image review

• Images are appropriately licensed.
• Consider using an infobox such as {{infobox writer}}. I think that most bios benefit from such infoboxes. (t · c) buidhe 09:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks buidhe. I will consider the infobox; I have no strong feelings either way about them. —Noswall59 (talk) 11:35, 27 May 2021 (UTC).

Accessibility review

• Some of the images are missing alt text. Heartfox (talk) 05:18, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Heartfox. This should be done now. Thank you, —Noswall59 (talk) 10:33, 28 May 2021 (UTC).

Coordinator comment

This nomination has attracted little attention. It could do with a couple of general reviews by the time it hits the three week mark, or I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:27, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Gog the Mild, that's a shame – is there anything I can do to raise interest in the review? Could it be added to the "urgents" bar or something? —Noswall59 (talk) 07:40, 14 June 2021 (UTC).

Urgents is, usually, reserved for when a single additional review would make the difference between archiving and promoting. You could put a request on the FAC talk page, or the talk page(s) of anyone who has shown an interest in the article - as it hasn't gone through GA or PR no one may spring to mind. Or you might enquire of anyone who you think might be interested in this sort of area, put a request on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography or on the talk pages of anyone whose FAC nomination you have previously reviewed. In all of these cases, especially the latter, be sure to use neutral phrasing. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:33, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Comments Support from Vaticidalprophet

The urgents bar, of course, is when I lurk FAC and see something interesting at archive risk. :) Have skimmed, will return with nits to pick. Standard disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing am still getting a feel for FAC reviews. Vaticidalprophet 06:58, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks, I shall look forward to your comments Vaticidalprophet. —Noswall59 (talk) 07:34, 15 June 2021 (UTC).

Resolved

Lead Per Buidhe's suggestion of an infobox, I mocked one up in my sandbox, though the effect is a little ruined because the bot removed the image. I have no strong feelings on them myself and certainly don't want to reignite the ceasefire, but there may be a useful balancing effect for an article like this with a long lead and a small lead image. Okay, I've added it. I actually tend to prefer biographies (especially of literary figures) without them, but I think in this case you are right – for desktop users, it does look strange with such a small image and this balances the lead and photo better. If a bigger photo becomes available, I may switch back. I think the image may be downscaled too far. I asked a couple people with file experience and couldn't get a straight answer, but WP:IMAGERES and the formula linked on it suggests an image as large as 280 pixels wide would be acceptable. I'm insufficiently comfortable in my understanding of NFCC to suggest expanding that far, but it seems you could have a 220x image (the default display size for Wikipedia images) without issues. Like you, I really don't know much about these policies and I'm more concerned about not violating copyright as the original image was quite small and low-res already. In 1929, he was hired as a tutor at a commercial college There's no explanation anywhere in the article of what a 'commercial college' is, and where it's linked it's redlinked, which doesn't assist in giving one. Explanation added as a note at the first instance in the body. A staunch internationalist, he was dismissed from this job in 1940 when he was exempted (as a conscientious objector) from military service in the Second World War Uncertain about the need for brackets. Removed. Background This led to the conurbation's rapid expansion but it also brought poverty is somewhat rapid-pace phrasing. The easy solution is to stick a comma after 'expansion', although the sentence then becomes fairly long and twisty, which may be why you omitted it. If you find that solution suboptimal, there may be some rejigging of the broader sentence required. I'm not sure I understand what you take issue with about this sentence. But poverty and poor housing remained endemic in working-class districts is a sentence fragment. Swapped "nevertheless" for "but". Within a year of their marriage, the elder Robert had grown tired of travelling to Derbyshire to work for a firm of engineers; he was also envious that his brothers-in-law were shopkeepers. So he borrowed £40 from one of his sisters (who had all married well) and purchased a corner shop in a slum neighbourhood I don't think this reads particularly smoothly. Writing this as two sentences, it's better split where you currently have the semi-colon, with the second sentence reworked as "He was also envious that his brothers-in-laws were shopkeepers, and borrowed £40 from one of his sisters, who had all married well, to purchase a corner shop in a slum neighbourhood". Changed as suggested. Early life (1905–1919) his autobiographical–historical books reads to me as a blending that would use a hyphen rather than a dash, although I hate nitpicking these and so am unsure. I think you're right, so I've changed it to a hyphen. Jennie ran the business but the elder Robert's work as an engineer was punctuated by periods of unemployment Would add a comma after 'business'. Done. His formal education (at Christ Church School) ended at the age of 14 No need for parentheses. Removed. According to Roberts, he wanted to remain in education but Would add a comma after 'education', and this is a very long sentence that strikes me as wanting to be split. Done. I also split the sentence. Apprenticeship and unemployment (1919–1929) He then began a seven-year[21] apprenticeship as a brass finisher Does the cite for 'seven-year' need to be where it is, rather than at the end of the sentence? I respect concerns about not having too many footnotes on a sentence, but it's no less distracting to move them to the middle of non-contentious statements. It's a short sentence, so wanting to footnote individual clauses doesn't apply. Removed to the end of the sentence. Roberts gives an account of joining the Amalgamated Engineering Union in his autobiography Any possibility we could expand on this? The account is quite brief and recalls specific work friends inviting him, him attending meetings and the general culture of the trade union. I am not sure it would add much of encyclopedic value here to expand on the point, I mentioned it more to specify which union he was a member of. Teaching, farm work, writing and later life (1929–1974) In 1929, Roberts was employed as a French teacher by a local commercial college Per above about 'commercial college', and there's some abruptness involved in what languages he knows -- we've previously only discussed Esperanto. Perhaps the end of the prior section can discuss better what he studied? Note added, and I've mentioned French in the earlier section. In 1971 appeared his book Not sold at all on this phrasing, which feels like a failed attempt at elegant variation. A more simple "In 1971 x was published" or "his next book x was published in 1971" et al works fine. Changed. a writer and traveller himself (his books included Sailing in a Sieve, 1963) This parenthesis can be omitted or moved to footnotes. Put into a footnote. Imprisoned Tongues (1968) included extracts of the prisoners' work which were interesting is a somewhat long-winded phrasing. I don't have a simple solution -- "interesting extracts of the prisoners' work" is a bit much for wikivoice -- but it caught my eye as making the sentence drag. Changed, hopefully to something better. The Classic Slum (1971) Roberts's impression of the district thus sharply contrasted with the notion of the "traditional working class" used by many social scientists "Traditional working class" strikes me as something that shouldn't be a redlink, and not just on the metaphorical "why is our coverage so poor for so much?" level. There's an idea being called at here, and it's not necessarily what every reader seeing the words 'traditional working class' will have called to mind. It would be worth defining the term-of-art here in somewhat more detail. I have added a note to clarify this meaning. A Ragged Schooling (1976) Though not as influential as The Classic Slum, it "confirmed [Roberts'] reputation as one of the most sensitive chroniclers of English working-class life" (in Davies's view) Broadly speaking, I've been picking at the parentheses a lot here. I don't think they've generally added particular value to the article that couldn't be served with commas. This can be just as well expressed by moving this up as "it, to Davies, confirmed et al" or a similar rephrasing. Changed as suggested. Broadly speaking, this is good work, hence the nitpicks rather than coming in with structural concerns (although there are some points where I called out issues with detail). I enjoyed reading it and hope to support. Vaticidalprophet 01:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC) User:Vaticidalprophet, many thanks for your review. I have addressed almost every comment (through these edits), but there was one I couldn't understand – about the "rapid-pace" problem in the background description of Salford. I'm not sure I understand your meaning there. Otherwise, I hope I've resolved the rest of the issues. Cheers, —Noswall59 (talk) 08:26, 16 June 2021 (UTC). Looks good. "Rapid-fire" was probably too metaphorical a phrase on my part for clarity. The sentence seemed to move slightly too quickly over a long sentence, without enough punctuation or other markers to separate its ideas -- basically, quite similar to the sentence about his education I noted that you ended up splitting. It could do with a comma where I called out the comma, or possibly ommitting the 'but' and adding a semi-colon. Vaticidalprophet 08:44, 16 June 2021 (UTC) User:Vaticidalprophet, ah, I see. I've added a comma before "but". Does that read better now? Thanks again, —Noswall59 (talk) 13:28, 16 June 2021 (UTC).

Happy with the article, and happy to support. Vaticidalprophet 23:19, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks for your support! —Noswall59 (talk) 08:59, 17 June 2021 (UTC).

Comments Support from Tim riley

Not having been around much at FAC I hadn't clocked this nomination. I informally reviewed the article a little while ago, and will look in over the next day or so with detailed comments. Tim riley talk 22:48, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

So much for adding "detailed comments"! On rereading the piece I find I have nothing much to add to the points I made when I reviewed the article, all of which were addressed. In the third para of the "Themes and contributions to scholarship" section there are links to Social status and Credit - both already linked earlier. (The whole article is more lavishly provided with blue links than it would be if I were writing it – but I'm not.) I think this article meets the FA criteria and I am happy to support promotion to FA. Tim riley talk 12:41, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Many thanks, Tim riley for giving this article more of your time and offering to support its promotion. I have removed those two duplicate links so all should be in order. Cheers, —Noswall59 (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2021 (UTC).

Support from Cas Liber

Taking a look now....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:31, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you – I look forward to your comments! —Noswall59 (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2021 (UTC).

• No deal-breakers WRT comprehensiveness and prose - this sentence -it also articulated Roberts's argument that the First World War profoundly and permanently altered the material, social and political lives of the residents. leaves me wanting to know what his argument was (maybe a sentence or two or does this open up a can of worms...

Thanks for your support Cas Liber. Regarding Roberts' argument, it was essentially as the quote suggests: he saw WWI as having introduced long-lasting social change which went far beyond lost lives. To expand a little, he felt that it led to changing working practices, offered greater material prosperity for many in the working classes, and turned many working class people towards the Labour party and the political left. It was this sort of fundamental restructuring which he argues for. I will re-read the relevant chapter to see if he has a pithy summary, but I'm reluctant to try to go further than that for fear of introducing my own interpretation into the article -- I'm not sure (but will check) that the secondary sources go into more depth. —Noswall59 (talk) 10:49, 27 June 2021 (UTC).

Fair points Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:14, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Cas Liber, thanks for your patience; I've now revisited the reviews and added a footnote to explain Roberts' argument based on their readings of it. Hopefully this clarifies things. —Noswall59 (talk) 08:59, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes - valuable footnote to add Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:17, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Source review

Citations

• #19 — Any link to an online version?
  • No.
    • The Guardian and The Observer are available on newspapers.com. Do you have an account there? If not, how were you able to access the source?
      • I have institutional access to Proquest's Guardian/Observer archive. The link issue I mentioned earlier occurs.
• #38 — Any link to an online version? Any reason for initials rather than first name?
  • No link. The initials were used in the original byline.
    • The Guardian and The Observer are available on newspapers.com. Do you have an account there? If not, how were you able to access the source?
      • As above.
• #49–53 — Any link to online versions?
  • No.
    • The Guardian and The Observer are available on newspapers.com. The Times and The Daily Telegraph are available on Gale. Do you have an account there? If not, how were you able to access the source?
      • As above for the G/O archive. For The Times and The Telegraph, I also have access to Gale through an institutional subscription. The issue I described earlier with URLs occurs there too. I believe the issue is a result of the access/authentification software which my subscribing institution uses.
• #51 — Any reason for initials rather than first name?
  • The initials were used in the original byline.
• #82–84 — Any link to online versions?
  • No for 82. Added for 83 and 84.
    • The Daily Telegraph is available on Gale. Do you have an account there? If not, how were you able to access the source?
• #88 — Any link to an online version?
  • Added.
• General comment: Any reason to use ref tags instead of templates (e.g., {{cite news}})? This causes some inconsistencies, e.g., how the volume/issue numbers are treated in #85 and #88, compared to how such numbers are treated in the bibliography.
  • I have now put all of the non-Harv refs into Cite news or Cite web (as appropriate). Hopefully this has resolved any inconsistencies.

Bibliography

• Briggs 1990 — Where is Harmondsworth?
  • I have added ", Greater London"
• Cooney 1972 — Any reason for initials rather than first name?
  • Because they were used in the original publication.
• Dalvi 1965 — Any reason for initials rather than first name?
  • Because they were used in the original publication.
• Heinig 1902 — This is the only source with a "free access" icon. Any reason why?
  • It appears that someone has added this. I have removed it for consistency.
• Irvine 1969 — Any reason for initials rather than first name? And what does "pp. 214 37/6" mean?
  • Initials because they were used in the original publication; the "pp 214 37/6" was used in the section header of the review and means that the book is 214 pages long and could be purchase for 37 shillings and sixpence.
• Marris 1972 — The title is a mess. I'd just go with "Review of The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century, by Robert Roberts"
  • See below for my comments on the "messy title" issue.
• Mitchel 1969 — Any reason for initials rather than first name?
  • Because they were used in the original publication.
• Parker 1969 — Ditto re messy title.
  • See below for my comments on the "messy title" issue.
• Perkin 1973 — Ditto re messy title.
  • See below for my comments on the "messy title" issue.
• Suttles 1975 — Ditto re messy title.
  • See below for my comments on the "messy title" issue.
• Thompson 1993 — Any reason for initials rather than first name?
  • Because they were used in the original publication.
• Waller 1972 — Any reason for initials rather than first name? And ditto re messy title.
  • Initials because they were used in the original publication. See below for my comments on the "messy title" issue.
• Woolfson 1972 — Any reason for initials rather than first name? And ditto re messy title.
  • Initials because they were used in the original publication. See below for my comments on the "messy title" issue.
• General comment — Many of the sources contain redundant URLs, i.e., URLs that are effectively just a DOI.
  • I don't think that's a problem – a DOI is technically distinct from the URL even if the URL is based on the DOI; sometimes, journals change publishers (as at Historical Research recently) so the URL will change but the DOI will stay the same. Also, using URLs where available is better for consistency.
• General comment — ISBNs should be hyphenated. There are a lot of online tools that will do it.
  • Should they be hyphenated? Where do we require it?
    • WP:ISBN: "Use hyphens if they are included, as they divide the number into meaningful parts; the placement of hyphens varies between books."

This version looked at. --Usernameunique (talk) 20:57, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Usernameunique: thank you for carrying out this review. I have responded to each query inline above (with one exception, will come to that in a moment). I've resolved nearly every issue and have converted the remaining footnotes to Cite news/web as appropriate. As I point out above, most of the old newspaper articles do not have a URL; if they do, they do not have a permalink I can use here (I access several of them through an institutional subscription and the website's URL alters itself to include the institution's name, which would be useless for anyone else and could identify me). As for initials, I have preserved the style used in the original by-lines, and have done so consistently. I don't think there is any guideline which says that this is an issue. I've asked a queries above about ISBN hyphenation and I've also responded about the URL/DOI query.

The main issue that remains is your concern with "messy titles". I haven't found any guideline about how to cite reviews, so I've opted to use the header employed by the reviewing publication. Sometimes this does lead to long titles, but I'm not sure it's messy: it just reflects the style chosen by the editor of the journal/newspaper. Is there any requirement that I change these? Thanks again for taking the time to review this. —Noswall59 (talk) 11:32, 27 June 2021 (UTC).

• Hi Usernameunique, how is this looking? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:31, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

• Noswall59 (and Gog the Mild), thanks for responding. I've added a few comments above. The outstanding issues are:

1. ISBN hyphenation (per WP:ISBN, hyphens should be used if possible)

• I have run the hyphenator. Revert if you don't like the result. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:12, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• Thank you Gog the Mild for running the script. I hadn't appreciated that we needed hyphens, so thanks Usernameunique for pointing that out to me. —Noswall59 (talk) 08:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC).

1. Links to newspaper links. newspapers.com has a lot of these—if you don't have an account, they're available at The Wikipedia Library, or you can ask someone at the resource exchange to clip them for you. Gale also has some; they require more work to create links, but you can generally do it by right clicking on the newspaper image, opening the image in a new tab, and then playing around with the URL. See ref #2 at George Sidney Herbert as an example.

Okay, that's all useful for me to know, but I'm not sure I need to link these for this article to meet our FA criteria -- the citations have all the information needed for someone to find them, and are acceptable as references to offline sources.

1. I've also had issues citing review titles, but have generally come to the conclusion that it's better to be consistent within the article than it is to scrupulously adhere to how journals title reviews. See Robert Kaske#Reviews and William Chaney#Reviews as examples. Each is a slightly different style, but consistent within the article. This isn't a deal–breaker, but I recommend it for clarity. --Usernameunique (talk) 22:08, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Usernameunique, I believe I have now addressed these points fully. I've converted the reviews in the bibliography to the suggested format. Gog has kindly converted the ISBNs. I don't believe I need to link to newspaper articles where I've given a sufficient reference to the offline source. Everything seems to be in order as per my earlier replies. Thanks again, —Noswall59 (talk) 08:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC).

• Usernameunique ? Gog the Mild (talk) 19:55, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

• Gog the Mild, I'm signed off. I do strongly recommend that Noswall59 provide links to sources whenever possible—including the use of clipped newspaper articles. After all, WP:Citing sources states that "A citation ideally includes a link or ID number to help editors locate the source." But if desirable for a number of reasons, this is not something that should keep an article from becoming a featured article. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:27, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

• Noswall59, would you like to provide these links? Before I go through the reviews above and the article to decide where it is in terms of possible promotion. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:42, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

• Gog the Mild, I've just had another dive into the link problem and discovered that we have templates for the Gale and ProQuest databases which automatically generate a link based on the article's unique ID. I haven't encountered these before, but it resolves the issue here. I have gone through and linked every single article to those databases. As far as I can tell, the only article reference without a URL is the Cambridge Review one, and that is not available online anyway. I hope this helps and I look forward to hearing from you about the outcome here. Thanks for your help. —Noswall59 (talk) 14:10, 14 July 2021 (UTC).

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:10, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.