Talk:Liebigs Annalen/GA1

GA Review

Passed. —Kusma (talk) 21:23, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Reconrabbit (talk · contribs) 00:27, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 18:45, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Planning to review this. —Kusma (talk) 18:45, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for opening up this review. I tried to provide a broad overview of the information provided by available sources but at a point became limited by having no knowledge of German. Also, there is conflicting information about dates in the early years of the journal in the sources I relied upon. Recon rabbit 19:10, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you are aware of anything important in German that you can't read, I am at your service :) —Kusma (talk) 19:31, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Less so that I am aware of important sources and more that if there are articles in English that describe the history of this work, there have to be others that have not been translated from the original language of the work I could not find. Recon rabbit 19:38, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Content and prose review

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

Lead: will comment later on whether this is complete.
We have Liebig's death mention twice, very close to each other.
Citations in the lead are certainly permitted, but not required unless for direct quotes or material not in the body (see MOS:LEADCITE).
I am not totally sold on the organisation of the article, but I will talk about that later.
The beginning of "Content" focuses very much on Liebig's personal editing style and editorial principles.
Give a short gloss of Partington and Volhard so we know why they are mentioned.
"Liebigs Annalen may have been the first German scientific journal to publish the news of the discovery of ether as it is used in surgical anesthesia" this is a bit MOS:WEASEL. Best to attribute this statement so it is clear the weaselling is in the source, not in Wikipedia's treatment of it.
Basically the ether and the periodic table story tell us that Liebig used the Annalen as a general news outlet for advances in chemistry, publishing more content than typical research articles?
"from its first publications up until it became a part of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry" this is just a lengthy way to say that this was not limited to one specific part of the journal's history.

More later! (I am travelling so it is a bit unpredictable when I will have good wifi). —Kusma (talk) 09:10, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I made some changes to reflect these points:

The lead did not encompass the major points of the article (e.g., what kind of material was published) so I expanded it somewhat.
Liebig's death is mentioned only once now, since it should be clear the name change in 1974 was after his death in 1973.
Liebig's editorial style is a significant part of the historical accounts of the sources, but it isn't very conducive to explaining what the content of the work was, so the paragraph was moved.
Partington and Volhard have been described (briefly) to give context on why their statements or actions are relevant.
I don't know what to do about the statement on ether. The more I look at it the less relevant to the history of this journal it is, but could help explain that it was more of a news magazine in addition to publishing primary research results.
You could go for something like "In addition to publishing primary research, Liebig included news about other new results. For example, he published a description of the use of ether for anaesthesia that had been discovered by ..." and then discuss the periodic table and mention that both Meyer and Mendeleyev had published about it elsewhere before their Annalen articles. (In high school in 1990s West Germany, I was told that Meyer was the real discoverer of the periodic table...)
"From its first publications..." was redundant, my mistake. It's been removed.

Recon rabbit 12:19, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What was the "combustion" discussed by Liebig? (Did it fit into organic chemistry?)
History: I agree with Esculenta that it would be helpful to try to have a list of at least the main or managing editors. (We don't need to know everyone who ever might have been on the editorial board).
"Justus von Liebig as a druggist's apprentice" I am confused. Liebig was professor in Gießen since 1824 and his time as druggist's apprentice was short and before 1822? Geiger was a pharmacist.
According to dewiki, Brandes contributed a supplement called Archiv des Apothekervereins im nördlichen Teutschland ('Archive of the pharmacists' association in Northern Germany') until 1834, when it was replaced by the Neues Journal der Pharmacie für Aerzte, Apotheker und Chemiker.
"Annalen der Pharmacie was renamed to Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie around this period in 1840 in an effort to be more inclusive and attractive to a European audience" I don't really understand why mentioning Chemistry in the name helps attract a European audience.
The "Liebig left Germany, then returned to Germany" story is a bit confusing: was this for long or for just a research trip? I can't see this mentioned in our article on Liebig.
The Graham/Dumas story could generally use some clarification. Who were the co-editors that Liebig fired? Were Graham and Dumas co-editors or just credited as such?
Perhaps the history and editorial policy under Liebig's leadership could be a separate section? Liebig currently dominates both the "content" and the "history" sections but it is not fully clear to me which parts of the Liebig story belong in which section.

More soon, I hope! —Kusma (talk) 15:36, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The "combustion" is only briefly mentioned by Phillips, I've elected to exclude the specific subjects Liebig was publishing since it certainly goes beyond just what is discussed in that article (which is mainly about his disagreements with Dumas).
I'll put together a draft of a list of editors and put it under a subheading... Title history could be a heading level 2, and so could Editor history.
The druggist's apprentice statement was a misleading thing I brought over from van Klooster's article. Should be more straightforward here.
Archiv der Pharmacie was the original name of the Archiv des Apothekervereins im nördlichen Teutschland. Neues Journal der Pharmacie für Aerzte, Apotheker und Chemiker was a separate work that Trommsdorff edited that also was merged with the Annalen, according to van Klooster.
I don't remember where I got "European audience" from, it's more like "non-pharmaceutical audience". I tried to clarify.
It seems he left Germany to meet with the British Association for the Advancement of Science. It's possible he was also "elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences" and "became a first-class member of the Ludwig Order" during this trip but I can't find any sources; there aren't any in the Liebig article either.
Clarified on the co-editors. His acknowledgement of Graham and Dumas is opaque.
It's hard to separate the journal and Liebig in a lot of sources. I will keep trying to separate the work from its authors if there's a clear goal.

That's all my responses. If I made mistakes please point them out. Recon rabbit 18:48, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generally improved! I'll have another overall look after reviewing sources, but one topic not touched upon is the publishing houses. Wiley/VCH is in the infobox, but the infobox image has C. F. Winter in Leipzig instead. Were there others? —Kusma (talk) 19:13, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
C. F. Winter, as far as I can tell, is one of the "learned societies" that became Verlag Chemie (Wiley-VCH) in 1921. The publisher's name unceremoniously changes from "C. F. Winter'sche Verlagshandlung" to "Verlag Chemie GmbH" in volume 429 in 1922. [1] Recon rabbit 16:00, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Driveby comments by Esculenta

It's rare to see a journal at GAN! In the spirit of friendly collaborative article improvement, I offer the following unsolicited driveby comments that you are free to ignore:

Klaus Hafner was editor/senior editor of the journal from 1967–1997, see doi:10.1002/ejoc.202101393
Following from the above comment, a "List of editors" section might be worth thinking about. Karl Friedrich Mohr was another editor back in the day. doi:10.2307/27757152
the article discussed in this paper could be a candidate for the "Selected notable publications" section.
this source (not used in article) looks like it might have more information (it's in German, but text is copy/pastable into your favorite translator).
I happened upon the article during the unreferenced articles drive and felt the need to bring this one up to a better standard of quality. The supporting articles are fascinating, but very widely distributed. Recon rabbit 13:13, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- - A list of editors is probably a useful addition! Maybe just "senior editors", though; there were so many sub-editors, many of which did not get directly named in the historical accounts and the list would be woefully incomplete. "List of notable editors and senior editors"?
  - I can't remember exactly where I got the original list of selected publications. It was formatted very poorly, and there was no indication of what made these papers individually important. I started adding more as I found them, so this would be a welcome addition. I could also make a note of it under "Content" though Kusma has made note of an intent to reorganize the whole thing...
  - Paper looks like it could be useful to back up claims relevant to the early years of the journal. Thank you!

Source spotchecks

Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1238479049.

1: ok. On p. xxxiii we have a few further names of co-editors, "all pupils of Liebig".
2: this seems the main source. It is missing page numbers (27–30?) Papers citing this not used but possibly useful include:
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/27757261
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ed045p426
2e: fine
2i: fine.
There is enough in 2 to give a nice list of editors. That Kekulé was an editor is worth mentioning I think.
3: ok
5: primary but fine
6a: how does this directly support "750 volumes"?
7: that article gives a different journal for Bunsen/Kirchhoff and lithium

More later! (Sorry for the interruptions and the slow work, but I am done travelling so things should get better in the next few days). —Kusma (talk) 19:37, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interruptions are fine. I do not have access to the library where I get access to most of the relevant references until two days from now.

6a, the numbering of volumes in the archives increments up until 766, after which point it uses years to number and becomes less trivial to count volumes. If it's extraneous information the number of volumes it exceeded in its history can be excluded.
7, I got confused by the publication of this article by Bunsen in the notable publications list I started off with ("Darstellung des Lithiums") and the published work in Ann. der Physick und der Chemie that article refers to. Could easily be altered by pointing towards the main subject of that article, Carl Setterberg's discovery of Cesium, which was published in the Annalen.

Recon rabbit 23:29, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. The number of "volumes" often isn't particularly meaningful, but it doesn't matter too much (unlike lithium versus caesium). —Kusma (talk) 19:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8: source says "synthesis of haemin", which doesn't seem to be the same as haematoporphyrine.
9: Wittig did publish a lot in Liebigs Annalen. Is this mentioned explicitly somewhere or did you just look through the list of publications (which could stray into WP:SYNTH)?
12: ok. Kind of interesting how deep they delve to figure out when exactly Liebig knew what.
14: there is a lot of content about the Annalen in this source (like publishing Liebig's students), but I am not sure where you get this bit from.

Rest soon! —Kusma (talk) 19:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

8:
9: I think that this reference and 10 (9 in current revision) demonstrate that he published in the Annalen though I see how it's somewhat synthesis to ascribe "many publications" to this. I can also include [2] which is a secondary source that describes the publication of the Wittig reaction in the Annalen.
14: From an early stage of writing this article. I've removed it since the statement it's attached to is redundant and not well supported by the text - synthesis of "his students published their experimental results" to "the journal published experimental chemistry".

Recon rabbit 12:59, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so "soon" was a lie. Somehow I couldn't get myself to do wikiwork all week :( —Kusma (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15: would be nicer if you could cite Partington on this directly, especially for something that looks like a direct quote, compare WP:SAYWHERE. From Partington I get on p. 299 "As editor of the Annalen, Liebig criticised others freely, and sometimes showed poor judgment, e.g. in his violent attack on a factual paper on hydrogen persulphide by Thenard. A paper on benzene by Mitscherlich is full of critical footnotes by Liebig, and as if this were not enough, he added a critical ‘Nachtrag’ and an ‘Erklärung’. His criticisms of Laurent and Gerhardt (see p. 411) and of Mulder (see p. 319) exceeded all reason."
16: ok. There is probably more to be taken from this source, also about Liebig's too confrontational communication style.
17b: ok
19: ok; you could use the Graham quote about a chemistry journal in three languages. The "attempt to attract a European audience" is on p. 50
21: I think you are misrepresenting the timeline: the feud doesn't seem to be until 1840, not several years before the 1837/38 collaboration?

Generally these are reliable sources but there are some small issues with source-to-text integrity. I did not see any obvious close paraphrasing. —Kusma (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

15: I've included the block quote. Did not have access to the book at the time. It looks like Gebelein mischaracterized his words (that I was attempting to quote)? Not that I wish to make my mistake his.
16: Have not gone particularly in depth through machine translation; only happened upon it because of Esculenta's recommendation.
19: Good point. I saw that Partington mentioned something similar about his attempts to launch a magazine in 3 countries in 1837 that went no-where - worth mentioning alongside that?
21: I was confused by this in that van Klooster describes Liebig as "settling his controversies with Dumas" during his time away in 1837 but does not describe such controversies. I was under the impression that there was some previous feud that subsided and began again in 1840.

Recon rabbit 20:21, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General comments and GA criteria

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()

3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()

Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Prose is ok, but some clarifications would be helpful as above.
Lead section doesn't really fully summarize the article, which has a lot of back and forth of editors and Liebig's personality.
Ref layout and quality of refs are fine.
It is unclear how the "notable publications" were selected.
No copyvio issues.
Broadness/focus: There is a lot of focus on Liebig, and a bit too little on others and later editorial history / publishers etc.
No issues with neutrality/stability.
Not very illustrated. The image is ok, although it very much represents the post-Liebig time not discussed much in the article. I won't argue whether the image should be PD (it probably depends on the country whether a simple photo like this can be CC-BY-SA instead of PD).

First pass finally done. @Reconrabbit, my apologies for the delay. —Kusma (talk) 21:37, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there is a great deal of focus on Liebig and not the other editors, and especially not the period after 1878. The most in-depth independent source I can work from is van Klooster's history written in 1957 which I can still draw yet more from but has an obvious cutoff point. As for notable publications, I am not sure what is typically chosen for "notable" especially in a journal of this scale. I have no clear criteria either over the time period since most other journal articles don't even have selected publications. For illustrations, if portraits of the concerned editors or authors are to be depicted, I would be acquiescent. I added a cover page from 1848 here. Recon rabbit 20:40, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, list all editors that you can find. The "selected publications" appear a bit random, mentioning Mendeleev but not Meyer, and sometimes with an English translation, sometimes not. Some are linked, some are not. Consistency isn't among the required criteria at GAN (and it isn't something I value too highly), but it would be nice to see an attempt made in the direction of consistency. Do you think you can expand the article a bit more based on some of the references I provided? —Kusma (talk) 09:40, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Kusma I believe I've done all I can to improve the article as it's been reviewed, besides one point: how can I be consistent with the notable publications? Should I include only papers noted in the article already, or from names that are dropped by van Klooster? For now I've commented it out entirely to avoid confusion. Recon rabbit 16:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Reconrabbit, the article is looking better now. For the list of notable papers, I think going with something like "mentioned in the article or by van Klooster" is a reasonable way to go (I was mostly picking up on having Mendeleyev without Meyer). I think you could add something like the observation "...that the polemical outbursts for which Liebig and Kolbe were famous were not mere episodes in low comedy but a reasonably consistent defense of the conservative position that organic theory must develop from experiment alone" from Phillips 1966; that might make the "polemics" stuff a bit more neutral. But all of that is optional. Before I go and pass this article, I just would like to ask what the source for the list of editors is. Probably van Klooster, but as there is another sentence between the citation and the list, it is not completely obvious (maybe put the "tenures past the end of Liebigs Annalen" into a footnote, or after the list)? —Kusma (talk) 15:16, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The source for the list of editors is van Klooster. It was originally just that source after a colon, and the note about editors past the publication date of that document was to clarify the other names past 1957. I read in the Manual of Style that it was more accessible to provide an explanatory note beforehand rather than footnotes afterwards but for the purpose of clarity where the reference is for this list, maybe using a dagger on those 2 at the end with a note is preferable? Recon rabbit 18:33, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{efn}} does not support daggers as far as I can see. Anyway, I combined the two identical notes into one that is used twice. I think we're done here, thank you for working on this article! —Kusma (talk) 21:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.