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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 Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 21:53, 28 February 2015 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Exhumation of Richard III of England

[edit]
Nominator(s): Prioryman (talk) 13:07, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this article in advance of the reburial of Richard III on 26 March 2015, an event which is certain to attract huge interest around the world. It has recently been through a GA review which it passed without any particular difficulties, so I'm confident that it's in good shape and is ready for consideration as a featured article candidate. Prioryman (talk) 13:07, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note - Please check for dead or broken links; Refs 88, 91 and 102 for example. Graham Beards (talk) 15:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. I missed that in my GA review. Sorry.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 16:12, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Review by 3family6

[edit]

- Lead

  • The opening paragraph is a single sentence. That might be acceptable, I'm not that well versed in the MOS, but I think it should be expanded or merged into the following paragraph.
  • There is a citation in the lead for the injuries to the skull. Per WP:LEADCITE, I think this is something that could be better explained in the article, and thus a citation is not needed. The second citation in the lead I think is okay, considering it is supporting a direct quote.
  • I've taken out both citations. The first isn't really needed as the injuries are already covered in sufficient (sourced) detail in the article. As for the second, the direct quote doesn't really need to be a quote at all - it's already attributed. Prioryman (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

- Looking for Richard

  • "...which she envisaged as 'a proposed landmark TV special'." - this should have a citation, since it's a direct quote.
  • " Its premise was a search for Richard's grave 'while at the same time telling his real story'.[28][18] Its objective was stated as being 'to search for, recover and rebury his mortal remains with the honour, dignity and respect so conspicuously denied following his death at the battle of Bosworth.'[29] - the prose seemed slightly repetitive here. Perhaps re-write as "Its premise was a search for Richard's grave 'while at the same time telling his real story',[28][18] with an objective 'to search for, recover and rebury his mortal remains with the honour, dignity and respect so conspicuously denied following his death at the battle of Bosworth.'[29]"
  • University of Leicester Archaeological Services is given as a redlink in the lead, but is not linked in its first appearance in the article body.

- Citations

Support, now that changes have been carried out.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 04:15, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "Richard was killed fighting Henry Tudor in 1485, at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The Welsh poet Guto'r Glyn gave the credit for Richard's death to Sir Rhys ap Thomas.": I don't know how to weigh the credibility of the second claim here, and I can't tell if it contradicts the first claim or not.
  • "contemptously": Typo? If it's accurate, you don't need a sic, I think.
  • "Dissolution": use consistent capitalization
  • It's correct as it is. "Dissolution" with a capital D refers to the overarching event of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, while "dissolution" with a lower-case d refers to individual dissolutions of individual institutions. Thus "the friary's dissolution" is correct as this was an individual event while "the Dissolution" is also correct as this was the overarching event. Prioryman (talk) 09:23, 18 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "geneticist Turi King continues to pursue a link": Whether this is okay depends on how you interpret the exception in WP:DATED for "current events". In general, it's better if you can give some kind of date, for instance "In 2015, geneticist Turi King was still pursuing a link ...", if that's true (but if it's not true, then the present tense is wrong, too).
  • "The reburial will take place": In-text attribution would be a little better ... that is, "X has scheduled reburial ..."

Support by Karanacs. This is an excellently written article, and very informative. I've watched some of the documentaries and read many of the newspaper articles, and you've done an excellent job of distilling the information down to an understandable level. Note that I did not check images. A few minor quibbles:

  • several instances of quotes without a citation at the end of that sentence
  • Two different names are given for the journal of the Richard III Society - The Ricardian and the Ricardian Bulletin
  • There are two journals - The Ricardian appears to be the major one for the big articles, while the Ricardian Bulletin is a smaller one for news and updates, published at more frequent intervals. Prioryman (talk) 21:04, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • " A table tomb was both the choice of the Richard III society in polls of Leicester people" - is that supposed to be "and" instead of "in?

Karanacs (talk) 18:04, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Close to a support. As others have said, lots of really good work here. A few minor comments on the prose from me:

  • "The dig was led by the..." would it be better to put this as "The archaeological dig..." in the first instance of its use? (or "The archaeological excavation...") (it felt a bit informal to me)
  • " show that £50 and £10.1s were paid to two men " - I couldn't quite work out if this was supposed to be two payments to both men (i.e. both got £50, and then £10), or if one got £50 and the other £10. Might just be me, but I'd have expected "£10 1s" or "£10/1s"rather than "£10.1s".
  • "Although Richard's monument had evidently disappeared by this time, it was still known where his grave was." - I wasn't sure who this was referenced to. It seems to be Halsted, writing in 1844, in which case the best we can say now would presumably be that they believed they knew where the grave was; we don't actually know if they'd placed the monument on the same location where we've now found the grave.
  • "Around when Herrick's pillar was erected, the cartographer and antiquarian John Speed wrote in his Historie of Great Britaine (1611) that local tradition held..." unclear if the "around when" is the date of Speed's book (i.e. 1611) - or if this bit refers to "local tradition held" and is an earlier date that Speed is commenting about. The article doesn't give the date of the pillar being erected, so its hard to tell from reading this paragraph.
  • "The coffin certainly seems to have existed" - as written, this gives the impression that the coffin in question was Richard's, which turns out not to be the case later in the paragraph. I'd suggest "A coffin..."
  • "the possible location of the king's grave" - the MOS would have this as "the King's grave"
  • I presume this bit: "Offices, titles, and positions such as president, king, emperor, pope, bishop, abbot, executive director are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically: Mitterrand was the French president or There were many presidents at the meeting. They are capitalized only in the following cases: [...] When a title is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name, e.g. the Queen, not the queen, referring to Elizabeth II." Is that what you were referring to, Hchc2009? Prioryman (talk) 22:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support

Note -- Anyone prepared to sign of on sources for formatting and reliability? If no-one puts their hand up, Prioryman, pls list a request at WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:56, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. I'll do so on Sunday, if nobody's volunteered before then. Prioryman (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I will do the source review. —  Cliftonian (talk)  21:30, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

Resolved source review from —  Cliftonian (talk)  08:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
:*@Cliftonian: Thanks for taking this on. Replies below. Prioryman (talk) 21:57, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent regarding locations for sources. Some have locations given and some don't.
  • Halsted: "Volume 2" should not be italicised. Also do we have an OCLC for this?
  • We have "History Press" and "The History Press" in the bibliography. Be consistent
  • Why is the 2010 book by Ashdown-Hill listed after the 2013 book? My impression is that where you have more than one book by the same author in your bibliography, the earlier book should go first.
  • OK, I've swapped the order.
  • Why do you list the two Ashdown-Hill books in full in the source notes, when you could just put {{sfn|Ashdown-Hill|2010|p=x}} to get "Ashdown-Hill 2010, p. x."? Also, these two footnotes (7 and 53) are missing page numbers.
  • Footnote 1 (desk-based assessment) seems to be a full sentence but lacks a full stop.
  • Many of the web-based footnotes lack access dates (footnotes 27, 35, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 55, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 70, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 86, 90, 106, 107, 108, 109 and 111)
  • Footnote 72 is to a book but has no page number
  • Perhaps a little quotation then so the relevant passage could be easily found if one wished to verify? Or alternatively look in the Amazon preview for a paper edition to find the page number? —  Cliftonian (talk)  00:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Footnote 76 throws up a distracting formatting error because of the "March/April" date; suggest trying to fix this
  • Footnotes 87 and 110 need page numbers as no web link is provided
  • Be consistent regarding formatting of BBC News
  • Be consistent regarding date formatting (footnotes 97 and 99 are out of theme)
  • Publisher/location for fn 103 (Military History Monthly)?
  • Ref 108: "Greig" spelt incorrectly as "Grieg"
  • Ref 58: Rachel Ehrenberg: first name and surname mixed up
  • Ref 54: Be consistent regarding how names are rendered (first name first/last name first)
  • Ref 75: The New York Times is a work, not a publisher
  • Ref 81: "Press release" is not necessary
  • Be consistent regarding initials: some have no full stop after, some have, some with full stops are spaced (X. Y. Zebedee), some are not (A.B. Carter). See refs 66, 91 and Rees in the bibliography
  • I've standardised on not using full stops or spaces - not the way I like it, but as I don't have any control over how some of the references are autogenerated from DOIs, that's the only way I can be consistent. Prioryman (talk) 21:57, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 69: "Anon" not necessary
  • External links: say from where this podcast is

I hope this is helpful. Cheers and thanks for all your work on this important article. —  Cliftonian (talk)  22:36, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Capped resolved issues above. Just one more thing: the 2010 and 2013 Ashdown-Hill books don't seem to be used anymore, but are still in the bibliography. —  Cliftonian (talk)  08:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Leaning to support: A very interesting and well-prepared article. The prose probably needs a final light ce, as I noticed a few instances of clumsy phrasing, but nothing serious is amiss. I have a few relatively minor points:

Burial site
  • Para 2: A few more dates would be welcome. When did Herrick acquire the site? When did he erect the monument recorded by Wren?
  • What do you mean by the description an "independent" historian? And we don't use prenominals as in "Dr. John Ashdown-Hill"
  • Independent as opposed to affiliated with a university. It's pretty standard terminology. I've taken out the prenomial. Prioryman (talk)
Greyfriars project and excavations
  • I'm a bit puzzled by the final sentence. It reads as though they restored the car park before the identity of the discovered bones was known. That seems extraordinary – is it the case?
  • Yes, it is. It was a working car park and a condition of the dig was that the car park was to be restored when the excavation work finished - which as you say was before the skeleton was identified. Prioryman (talk) 12:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
DNA evidence
  • I don't see the point of the quote marks in the first line. It's a statement of mere fact, not opinion or interpretation.
  • You have "matrilineal line" and "matriline" in the same paragraph. Do they mean the same thing? If so, the latter is less cumbersome.
  • "Four living descendants of Gaunt have been located.." Only four? The entire British royal family is descended from John of Gaunt, for starters.
Bones
  • "exposing the brain" – I'd say "which would have exposed the brain" as the organ has long since rotted away.
Identification of Richard III and other findings
  • You describe Michael Ibsen here as "a direct descendant of Richard's sister, Anne of York". In the earlier DNA section you rather obscure the issue by describing Ibsen's mother as "a 16th-generation great-niece of Richard's". The latter explanation is much clearer.
  • "Richard III is thus the first ancient person..." I'm not too keen on the description "ancient person", which might easily be misunderstood
  • I would place the paragraph dealing with the TV programme at the end, rather than in the middle, of the section.
  • ...but on the other hand, I'm not sure of the relevance of the last paragraph to this article.
  • It's essential archaeological context. The 2013 excavation was a direct continuation of the 2012 dig and was treated as such by the archaeological press (note the source - number 86). Prioryman (talk) 12:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Plans for reinterment
  • "...Leicester beating York by some 3,100 votes". What was the nature of the poll that produced this result?
Reactions
  • I'd keep the Buckley bit in, but I don't think I'd kick the section off with it. Perhaps at the end, as a wry conclusion.

I look foward to supporting and seeing the article on the main page next month. Brianboulton (talk) 01:24, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I said earlier I thought the prose probably needed a little titivation. Now I see that Eric Corbett has been copyediting, and I'm inclined to trust his judgement over prose, so I've moved to full support. A worthy FA. Brianboulton (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Close to support A good article which I would like to see as TFA if the following can be addressed:

  • The copyright of the main image is in dispute and its use under UK law would clearly be a breach of the photographer's copyright. How does its use here fit the Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria?
  • I think that's a dubious premise - as long as the image is regarded as OK under Commons (and more importantly Wikimedia Foundation) policy then we shouldn't be second-guessing its status as individual editors. The question of NFCC doesn't arise since it's not treated by Commons or WMF as non-free content and as far as I know there is no requirement to utilize NFCC criteria for such images. If you can point to such a requirement then I'll be happy to run up an NFCC statement. Prioryman (talk) 14:12, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand my point - I'm not second guessing. It says on the image page "As such, use of this image in the jurisdiction of the claimant or other countries may be regarded as copyright infringement." Does this make it free content or not? - I don't know. It may be that displaying this on the main page will precipitate a court case. One way to reduce that possibility would be to use a cropped image just showing his face as the do here.
I've been looking at this and the situation seems clear enough. The dispute was 6-7 years ago; there doesn't seem to have been any developments since then. Erik Moeller of the WMF has clearly stated the Foundation's position regarding such images here and Mike Godwin has done so here. The WMF position is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works which are nothing more than reproductions should be considered public domain for licensing purposes." This particular image is a scan from a book. Commons policy is that the use of the PD-Art template is OK for a "Photograph of an Old Master scanned in from a recently published book", as in this case: "The WMF takes the view that as long as the reproduction is a faithful reproduction of the original it falls into the public domain." [4] This all seems to be quite clear and explicit - the position of the WMF and Commons is that it is free content and there is no suggestion anywhere that I can find that it should not be treated otherwise for licensing purposes. I'm really not inclined to attempt to change policy on the fly, especially as I'm not a lawyer (and nor, I would guess, are any of us on this page). Prioryman (talk) 20:34, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, fair enough. Richerman (talk) 23:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead it says As a condition of being allowed to disinter the skeleton, the excavators agreed that, if Richard was found, his remains would be reburied in Leicester Cathedral but it says nothing about this in the article - where does it come from?
  • See the first sentence of "Plans for reinterment". It was part of the excavation plan which had to be approved by the Ministry of Justice, as it involved the disinterment of human remains. Prioryman (talk) 14:12, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, it says there it would be "normal archaeological practice" to do so, not that it was a condition they agreed to which sounds like something more out of the ordinary.
OK, I see what you're saying now. I've added an extra ref to clarify this. Actually it's not out of the ordinary at all, it's a standard condition of archaeological licences for exhuming human remains. Prioryman (talk) 20:34, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Looking for Richard second to last paragraph In February 2009, Langley, Carson and Ashdown-Hill teamed up with two Richard III Society members – Dr. David Johnson and his wife Wendy – to launch a project with the working title Looking for Richard: In Search of a King, which she envisaged as "a proposed landmark TV special" There are five people mentioned who does 'she refer to? Also it doesn't sound right to envisage a proposed landmark TV special - you would envisage it as a landmark TV special or possibly you may envisage producing a proposal for a landmark TV special.
(added) Sorry, I missed your first point here. "She" refers to Langley - I've clarified this in the article. Prioryman (talk) 20:45, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first paragraph of the Analysis of the discovery section seems to have the citations in the wrong place as citation 46 doesn't support the sentences before it although 47 and 48 support a lot of it. Where it says there was severe scoliosis of the spine, possibly making one shoulder higher than the other (to what extent would depend on the severity of the condition). I can't find any support for the bit in brackets, and surely the pathologist could tell from the extent of the scoliosis how severe the condition was?
  • In the second paragraph of Bones it says The wounds were made from behind on the back and buttocks while they were exposed to the elements, consistent with the contemporary descriptions of Richard's naked body being tied across a horse with the legs and arms dangling down on either side. This appears to be synthesis as I can't find anything about it in the citations - only that they were possibly humiliation wounds inflicted post mortem.
Yep, that's fixed it. Ironically the Royal Armouries’ curator says "My narrative that follows is a synthesis, based upon various elements from the historical accounts. Well, they can synthesise all they want :-) Richerman (talk) 23:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Citation 71 is a dead link
  • Under Plans for reinterment it says the litigation cost the defendants £245,000. Who were the defendants exactly?
  • From personal knowledge, the University of Leicester and the Ministry of Justice; unfortunately the source doesn't say that explicitly so I can't state that in the article without straying into OR. Prioryman (talk) 14:12, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It would be great to have this on the front page around the time of the reburial as proposed. I wonder if anyone have raised this possibility at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. I know it can't be proposed properly until it's an FA but time is short as they are looking at proposals for that time period now. If they were made aware on the talk page that this one is going to be proposed, they may be willing to leave a tentative slot open for it. Richerman (talk) 02:23, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Thanks for addressing those points - happy to move to support. Richerman (talk) 23:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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