Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/William D. Hoard/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 archived by FrB.TG via FACBot (talk) 8 October 2024 [1].

William D. Hoard

Nominator(s): M4V3R1CK32 (talk) 16:59, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about William D. Hoard, 16th governor of Wisconsin and dairy farming advocate. Hoard popularized many practices commonplace in the dairy industry of the United States today and was a major factor in Wisconsin becoming known for its cheese production. M4V3R1CK32 (talk) 16:59, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Suggest adding alt text

File:William_D._Hoard.jpg: source link is dead, needs a US tag

File:Privy_Seal_of_Wisconsin.svg: two of the sources are dead

Also, not an image comment, but suggest reviewing citations for consistency before a full source review is done. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:50, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Llewee

"and itinerant Methodist minister who preached to the Oneida people." - It might be useful to add a link from "preached to" to Missionary.
"Hoard was educated in a log schoolhouse" - The link is to One-room school, if that is what the source says then it seems to be worthwhile information to include in prose.
"In 1860, he married Agnes Elizabeth Bragg and moved in with her parents in Lake Mills, Wisconsin." - Do the sources say anything about what he did while living them?
"It is considered the first agriculture publication to have a nationwide readership in the United States." - Are their any figures for how many readers the paper had?
"including legislation to ban filled cheese" - Could a brief explanation of this practice be added?
"the group campaigned for the establishment of the first dairy school in the U.S., which taught students to make butter and cheese." - Could you clarify when this school was founded and what it was called?
"The group also campaigned for the showing of Wisconsin dairy products in Philadelphia and Chicago," - At agricultural shows?
"Hoard was educated in politics as a child." - Is any additional information available about this?
"Hoard served a single, two-year term as governor. His administration created one of the first food inspection agencies in the United States and the passed a controversial compulsory education law that mandated schools to educate their pupils in English." - "the" isn't needed before passed, can you add a citation here?
"affection for speaking German language in the United States," - I'd suggest changing this to "affection for speaking the German language" and linking "the German language" to German language in the United States.
The personal life section should either be expanded or broken up.
There doesn't seem to be much information on his political opinions or personal character. How did a man who seemed to spend the first part of his life drifting around suddenly develop a deep desire to reform the dairy industry?

Llewee (talk) 17:10, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - oppose

I do not believe this article meets WP:FACR #1c, both the "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature;" and "claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources". First, Osman 1985 and Rankin 1925 are published by the publishing company that Hoard founded. Rankin is particular was published not long after Hoard's death. I do not see how two sources this closely related to the article's subject can be considered independent, especially for stronger statements such as "His advocacy for agricultural practices such as single-use herds for dairying, and the use of silage and alfalfa as cattle feed led to those practices becoming commonplace throughout the United States." or "Hoard's use of local correspondents to expand his newspaper's reach was among the first by a county newspaper in the United States". Then there's the question of how this article can be considered a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" when McIntyre 1966, which is apparently a 300 page book about Mr. Hoard, is not used. I also am concerned that this article is presenting a slanted view of the subject by using non-independent sources.

For instance, this article seems to be implying that Hoard's push for English language education law was due to him having an emotional experience with Germans who had been swindled due to a lack of ability to speak English. This is sourced to one of those non-independent sources. But then we have an article, which I turned up using the Wikipedia Library, by Richard Jensen in the Canadian Journal of Social Research title "Comparative Nativism: The United States, Canada, and Australia, 1880s-1910s" which includes the following information: Hoard ridiculed the Germans by claiming that he was the better guardian of their children than their parents or pastors. Hoard counted votes and thought he had a winning coalition by whipping up nativist distrust of Germania as anti-American and then quotes Hoard as saying We must fight alienism and selfish ecclesiasticism ... The parents, the pastors and the church have entered into a conspiracy to darken the understanding of the children, who are denied by cupidity and bigotry the privilege of even the free schools of the state. There isn't a whole lot of information about Hoard in that article, but this sure seems to portray his English-language and political activism in a rather different light than what this article, reliant on non-independent sources portrays this as. This isn't a huge part of the article, but Lee Grady in the Wisconsin Magazine of History article "America's 'Alien Enemies'" also generally indicates that this was an explicitly anti-German platform.

Source-text integrity and other matters:

"In 1860, he married Agnes Elizabeth Bragg and moved in with her parents in Lake Mills, Wisconsin" - I'm not seeing where p. 43 of Risjord supports that he moved in with his wife's parents, or where it gives his wife's middle name
"In 1907, Hoard was added to the University of Wisconsin's Board of Regents and helped transport a dairy herd to the campus in Madison and to arrange the construction of the Livestock Pavilion" - this is supported in the source, but I find it odd that the context behind his appointment is not mentioned. The source indicates that this appointment was due to his support of Robert M. La Follette. I've seen several sources mention the association between Hoard and La Follette, who was a major player in Wisconsin Republican politics at the time; it strikes me as odd that La Follette is never mentioned in this article when the sources are frequently mentioning him.
Why is his 1910 resignation from the university board due to a growing rift with La Follette, which is described on Risjord p. 48, not mentioned in this article at all?
The Anderson 1917 source is a self-published autobiography. While Anderson does appear to have had some credentials relating to the Vikings and Scandinavain history, I'm not sure what makes this work as a high-quality source about Hoard's political views
"He was assigned to the 4th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment as a fife player and participated in the capture of New Orleans." - source does not mention New Orleans
"Oleomargarine, made by emulsifying lard with milk and water, was often dyed yellow to give it the appearance of butter and was sold as such" - this information is on p. 20 of the source, not page 22 as cited.

@FAC coordinators: - I have grave concerns with the sourcing here, and I'm not entirely convinced that this article is comprehensive or, in some places, entirely neutral. I don't think this is ready for FAC. Hog Farm _Talk 01:16, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Hog Farm. With concerns this grave, I don't think it's ready for FA status or will be any time soon within the FAC scope. I'm archiving this now, noting that the usual two-week wait will apply. FrB.TG (talk) 14:18, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, 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. FrB.TG (talk) 14:18, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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