Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Harriet Tubman/archive1

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

The article was kept by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 4:38, 18 November 2023 (UTC) [1].

Harriet Tubman

edit
Notified: RL0919, Scartol, WikiProject New York (state), WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Women in Religion, WikiProject Women's History, WikiProject African diaspora, [2]

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are unsourced passages and paragraphs and the prose is unnecessarily tortured in places, repetitive in others and imprecise elsewhere. Just in the first two paragraphs of the lead you have unnecessary convolution: "similary-enslaved people" for "fellow slaves"; repetition: "Born into chattel slavery ... Born into slavery" and imprecision: "irate enslaver" (it was an irate overseer not an irate owner, but this is not clear in the prose). DrKay (talk) 15:00, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I addressed some of the issues DrKay mentions, but I do think there's a need for further review. DK started at the top and I started at the bottom. I found unsourced content and a Legacy section that is seriously bloated compared to the tight four paragraphs of the FAC version. Certainly, Tubman's legacy has expanded since then, but the current length is unwarranted, and we could do with less detailed mention of each park and mural dedicated in her honor.
I looked for, but didn't find, major book-length works on Tubman published since 2008, but I bet there's some scholarship that should be evaluated and incorporated. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:23, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I had intended to stay well clear of the article about Harriet Tubman, yet here I am. I apologize for this “essay”, but it is how I organize my thoughts.
Sources
Using bookfinder.com, there are (very roughly) about 170 items with “Harriet Tubman” in the title. Trying worldcat.org produced 2,542 Results. Limiting the search to print books in the last 10 years turned up 627 records. Further selection for non-juvenile history in the past five years gave a list of 62 books. There is even a 2022 book by Kate Clifford Larson called “Harriet Tubman : a reference guide to her life and works”. Even allowing for multiple editions, there might be several sources which are not mentioned in the Wikipedia article. That doesn’t mean they all should be mentioned. After all, the title is “Harriet Tubman“ not “A Guide to Publications about Harriet Tubman“. But there might be too much reliance on Larson’s book.
People-first language
Language changes and sometimes it has to preceed changes of society’s viewpoint; gender-neutral language in job titles is a good example. But sometimes it might go too far, too fast, and we wind up with awkward references such as the “people who menstruate“ highlighted by J. K. Rowling. (I roll my eyes when people are censured for stating the title of the book “White Niggers of North America”. Perhaps it is one of those books being removed from libraries, or reissued under a title such as “White Enslaved African Americans of North America”.) With respect to this article, it doesn’t make sense to have a link entitled “enslavement” leading me to an article called “Slavery in the United States”.
In the past couple of months, I encountered terms such as “enslaved person” on Wikipedia. It is new to me and, like a new shoe, it isn’t as comfortable as the old. But neither was it so jarring that I couldn’t accept it. Wikipedia’s Manual of Style doesn’t recommend word usage. I found an article called People-first language. The article Slavery (not “enslavement”) covers such terminology, noting it is in dispute amongst historians.
My impression is that Wikipedia follows common usage. So it is not the role of Wikipedia to change society. Harriet Tubman probably described herself as a former slave not as a “formerly enslaved person”. I think Wikipedia should mirror the academic terminology of the past decade and not change until academics reach a consensus. When and if new terminology filters down and becomes the norm, in newspapers for example, the article should be changed to reflect it.
Length
The article seems too long in places. While I believe in thorough referencing, a list of hundreds of references always suggests to me that an article is too detailed. An alternative is to refer readers to the articles about the Underground Railroad and the Raid on Combahee Ferry for more detail.
I agree that the legacy section is too long. It covers everything from opera to television, and could be condensed. If I wanted to know Tubman in detail, I would read a biography and consult two or three other books. So Wikipedia doesn’t need to repeat all the details.
As an example, I will criticize my recent attempt to add more information about Salem chapel. My intention was to globalize the article a bit more, prompted by a news item. However, the details of the news are temporary and should be replaced when the renovation project is complete. I didn’t remove any existing material about the chapel; the paragraph could certainly be condensed. It is relevant to say the chapel has been designated a Canadian historic site, but the phrase about how that came about isn’t necessary, just a reference.
Content
The statement that she supported women’s suffrage by “working alongside women such as Susan B Anthony and Emily Howland” isn’t natural to me. Did Tubman actually work with Anthony and Howland, or is “alongside“ figurative? It strikes me as an effort to increase Tubman‘s status by association. Yet, at that, it assumes that the reader is immediately familiar with Susan B Anthony and Emily Howland, so it hinders the global readability of the article. I wouldn’t mention them unless it is possible to see more about their relationship with Tubman.
The comment about the plaque in Auburn New York which contains dialect forced me to look up the date. The time that it was erected is relevant to the language and her level of education so it should be there.
The map of key places in her life lacks red dots for Auburn and St Catherines.
Over All
The article seems heavy in promoting Harriet Tubman. While her accomplishments are remarkable, I really don’t want to read something which sounds like an application for sainthood. It doesn’t have to include everything. I have left some comments on the Tark page of the article questioning, in particular, whether Tubman truly planned and led (versus inspired and advised) a raid during the Civil War. Some biographers, and some editors, become enamoured of their subject, so I think it is especially important to maintain a neutral point of view in this article, and to ensure balance.
It needs some work but not necessarily a lot. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 05:42, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For the moment I will just make a brief comment about the available sourcing: Because Tubman is a well-known and revered historical figure, there are multiple books produced about her every year, and her name is invoked in the titles of books that are not really about her (for example, Conjuring Harriet "Mama Moses" Tubman and the Spirits of the Underground Railroad or Harriet Tubman: 30 Lessons in Love, Leadership, and Legacy). Numerous pop history series have a volume for her. And for a 19th-century figure, there are public domain books that on-demand publishers can spam across every platform. So while there are some interesting newer volumes to look into, numbers from search results are not a meaningful indicator. --RL0919 (talk) 15:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I struck my Move to FARC above, on the basis of ongoing work. However, I won't be able to formally review until at least late next week. Z1720 (talk) 14:17, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720: You might have forgotten, but you did already update to a "Keep" a month ago in this edit. Further feedback is welcomed, but I don't want you to feel pressured to duplicate previous efforts. --RL0919 (talk) 17:06, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC I removed some cruft but the article needs a lot more. (t · c) buidhe 06:14, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Buidhe and Z1720: could you take a new look now? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: I am not particularly experienced with FAR/FARC, but as the article's most substantial non-retired contributor, I would probably be in the nominator role if this were a new FAC, so I will leave judgment of the article to others. Instead I will react to some of the comments made above.
    • I already commented a bit about the most important point, new scholarship. As I expected, the vast majority of newer books discussing her are not going to be especially relevant for FA (children's books, books about political issues that invoke Tubman as an icon, etc.). I am reviewing about a half dozen potentially useful newer books in more detail and have already added information from a couple of them.
    • I and some other editors have already worked on compacting the Legacy section, which had indeed gotten bloated. For any other awkward wording or repetition, that's the sort of stuff that is harder for a heavily involved editor to spot, so I welcome any specific pointers or copyedits. If moving to FARC will help with that, so be it, but it can also happen any time.
    • Yes, she worked with Susan B. Anthony and Emily Howland. Tubman is sometimes the subject of excessive praise and puffery, but I don't believe that is in the article. She was a remarkable person with interesting and important accomplishments that are confirmed by reliable sources.
    • Regarding whether she "led" a raid during the war, I left a comment with perspectives from various sources in the Talk page discussion, and no one has commented there since. If there is any ongoing concern about that point, I hope people would reply there.
If this does go to FARC, I expect I will be leading the charge to "save" it, although it's not clear to me that such a step is needed. I think it needs spring cleaning and some updated furniture, not a major rebuild. But as I said, I leave judgment to others. --RL0919 (talk) 22:24, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Now would be a good time to work on that "spring cleaning" and "updated furniture"; there are no set deadlines at FAR or FARC, but steady improvement towards addressing issues is expected. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

RL0919 are you still planning to work on this article? The updating you mention is still needed. Along with the items mentioned above by others:

  • There is still uncited text, and reading within paras, attribution needs are found, sample [3]
  • At 8,300 words of readable prose, a separate "Legacy of" article might be considered.
  • Attention to pruning of External links ?
  • Sample prose issues, random look at one section:
    • Here, a new section (Later life) starts with saying years of service with whom or from what entity she never received compensation (some readers skip to read certain sections) ... Despite her years of service, Tubman never received a regular salary and was for years denied compensation.
    • Why do we need the height here ? One of the people Tubman took in was a 5-foot-11-inch-tall (180 cm) farmer named Nelson Charles Davis.
    • Odd ... New York responded with outrage to the incident,
    • Inflation adjustment would be useful: The 132-page volume was published in 1869 and brought Tubman some $1,200 in income.

Indy beetle have you any interest in helping restore this FA? Firefangledfeathers? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:42, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably obvious to anyone who is watching the article itself, but for the benefit of those who might just look at this page: Yes, I am still working on the article. In edits since 27 April, I have updated sourcing, copyedited, clarified many of the specific questions that are asked above, and added inflation adjustments. A more thorough review of other sections is still in progress. Help/suggestions/critiques/etc. from any interested parties are still welcomed. --RL0919 (talk) 06:41, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SandyGeorgia: I'm coming out of a real-life stress swamp and have some other on-wiki work to pick up first. I'm very much around to help with this article, but I'm on the B team. RL's doing some great work. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:08, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the update; good luck with the real life stuff! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:11, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Updates have been done throughout to address most of the issues mentioned above. Since my comment in May, the Legacy of Harriet Tubman article suggested by SandyGeorgia has been created, and between trimming related to that and other copy edits, the article is about 600 words shorter. I've reviewed the images and made some updates to those. The issue that most concerned me personally, the need to incorporate more recent scholarship, has been addressed with updates based on several books from 2019 to 2022.
In terms of work still to do (that I know of): I'm still working on the "American Civil War" and "Later life" sections, which I hope to wrap up in the next couple of weeks. Then it would be good for someone who isn't me to give it a copyediting pass for "another set of eyes". And when everything else is done, I want to make sure all the citation formatting is consistent (which it mostly is already, but not 100%). Beyond that, if anyone has new concerns to raise (especially outside those two sections I'm still reviewing), it would be great to hear those. --RL0919 (talk) 05:07, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Refs look inconsistent: half one method, half the other. I'll fix them when I get time, sometime in the next 2 or 3 days. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 09:25, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let me know when you finish and I can double check. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:29, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to help with the ce/eyes. Ping me when ready! Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:29, 2 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If no one else gets around to trimming the Legacy section (see the sprawling TOC relative to crit. 2b), I'd be willing to do that part. There is excess detail, excessive sectioning, and WP:SS can be better employed now that the sub-article Legacy of Harriet Tubman contains the detail. My suggestion is trimmed detail and verbosity to three sub-sections only:

  1. Parks, monuments and historical sites
  2. Works of art
  3. Other

The section can be reduced to about a third of what it is now. Examples-- plans to include her on 20-dollar bill haven't happened, and that is covered in sub-article. Excess detail on every work of art-- in sub-article. Ditto for parks. Look at this amount of detail-- all in the sub-article:

  • Tubman's life was first dramatized on television in 1963 on the CBS series The Great Adventure in an episode titled "Go Down Moses" with Ruby Dee starring as Tubman. In 1978, Cicely Tyson portrayed her for the NBC miniseries A Woman Called Moses, based on the novel by Heidish.

That could be:

  • Tubman's life was dramatized in the 1963 CBS television series The Great Adventure and in a 1978 NBC miniseries A Woman Called Moses.

Samples only. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:25, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Juneteenth is upon us, and I'm happy to say I've reviewed all the sections and finished the updates I had in mind. Pinging the previous contributors to this discussion (DrKay—Firefangledfeathers—Humphrey Tribble—SandyGeorgia—Z1720—buidhe—Lingzhi.Renascence) to thank them for their patience thus far and see if they want to update their earlier comments or suggest other possible improvements. --RL0919 (talk) 04:23, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Indy beetle: this FA has advanced to save territory; did you want to have a look? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The legacy section is much improved. If it were my article, however, I would move more of the content on artistic portrayals, monuments, operas etc. to the sub-article leaving only the most important artistic representations mentioned by name. (t · c) buidhe 05:05, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I further compacted the Legacy section in this edit. The section is down to 430 words in a 7000-word article, so if there are further concerns about article length/readability, there is probably more opportunity in other sections. --RL0919 (talk) 16:17, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RL0919, it's not so much about the word count as it is about what happens with list of artists etc-- they encourage spam and trivia additions down the road. Some criteria for why/what is included need to be established. For example, in medical articles, additions have to have made a lasting difference on public perception of the condition, ala, Michael J. Fox with Parkinson's, Samuel Johnson or Tim Howard with TS, or Robin Williams with Lewy bodies. That helps specifically avoid every mention of every notable person with the condition. I am concerned about the need to include individual artists here, as you will constantly be battling trivia additions, there is a sub-article where it is all laid out, and the TOC is still somewhat overwhelmed. See also J. K. Rowling, where we got it all tightly summarized into one section, no sub-sections, although her works and recognition go well beyond books. Perhaps if you could think not so much about word count, but about more tightly summarizing to avoid mentions of individuals unless they fulfill some pre-set criteria. (And thanks for the fine work ... I hope to do a read through by the end of this week.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:31, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There hasn't been any previous explicit discussion about it, but there is a standard at work in the content as it stands now: For every artistic portrayal mentioned, either the artist or the work is notable. There doesn't seem to be so much notable artistic content about her that a tighter standard would be needed at this point. The only thing that seems to be produced in great volume is juvenile biographies, and that type of content in general is rarely notable. --RL0919 (talk) 18:13, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind the current length. One way to help forestall the cruft is to have a talk page discussion with consensus for inclusion criteria. I'm fine with notable artist or work. It still takes maintenance work to keep it clean, but at least we'll have something to point to. I'm starting the discussion now, and all are welcome to chime in. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:00, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I hope to be able to spot-check some of the citations this week. I'll have a running list of concerns/questions below, and you should feel free to interpolate responses. Without further ado, some FFFeedback:
    • Was Tubman a mystic? The article is in two mystic-related categories, but it's not explicitly mentioned in the body. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:00, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for the feedback and I look forward to more. Regarding the categories, she had religious visions, which is a type of mystical experience, so I assume that's the relevance in the mind of whoever added them. I don't typically have a lot of strong opinions about categories, so YMMV. --RL0919 (talk) 05:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are the page numbers right on Knauer? I don't have access, but I'm seeing in a few places that it has 240 total pages. The thing I was hoping to check was that her first TV dramatization was in The Great Adventure. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:00, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • The correct reference for that information is Sernett, but it had gotten disconnected from the citation during rewrites. I added a new cite for it. As for Knauer, I'm using an e-book edition and the e-book ISBN is used in the ref list. Looking at Worldcat, it says that the edition with this ISBN has 248 pages, but I have it open now and there are 355 pages. So either the publisher is mixing up their ISBNs or Worldcat has inaccurate pages data for the edition. --RL0919 (talk) 05:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • "She reportedly received no anesthesia ..." This is stated as fact in Walters. Do we need the "reportedly"? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:00, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • It is a story from Tubman's own account, and AFAIK that detail has no other verification. Most sources seem to take it at face value, but Hobson and Dunbar do not. Dunbar calls it "virtually impossible" and an "embellishment" by Tubman. Hobson classifies it as a "strong Black woman" story that is repeated (whether or not it is is true) to emphasize Tubman's bravery. So without taking the article into a historiographic discussion, it seemed worth that small qualification. --RL0919 (talk) 05:17, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Tubman was buried with semi-military honors ..." Clinton says "military honors". Why "semi-military"?
      • That is prior text that I didn't change, but sifting through the sources, I would guess that "semi-military" came from Sernett (p. 181) because that's the only place I saw that specific term. The detailed descriptions of the funeral services do sound like a private service that has been given some military trappings, rather than an official military funeral. There was an American flag on her casket, but no military chaplain or other official formalities. An "honor guard" was provided by the women's auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic (a veteran's group) rather than by the government. That seems consistent with the shabby way she was treated by the government in life after the war. I favor keeping the wording and updating the ref to be Sernett instead of Clinton. --RL0919 (talk) 05:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I complete my citation spot-check, having reviewed 10 randomly selected footnotes (24 37 40 56 106 113 142 143 166 203). The only issue was with citation 203 (Larson xv). It doesn't support "A survey at the end of the 20th century named her as one of the most famous civilians in American history before the Civil War." I'm guessing the details come from some other source. If we want to keep using Larson, I'd go with something like "By the 1980s, Tubman was one of American history's most famous figures." Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:16, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Scartol added the sentence back in 2007 with that citation, so unfortunately there isn't another source hidden in the history that accidentally got removed. I've changed to your suggested wording, which I like better anyway since it is more general. --RL0919 (talk) 06:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:07, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @DrKay, Humphrey Tribble, SandyGeorgia, Z1720, and Buidhe: Nikkimaria (talk) 03:32, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Here are a few thoughts to consider. I’m content to rely on the good work and experience already applied.
    While diagnosis isn’t possible, it seems clear to me that she had a brain injury as a result of the blow to her head. I’d like to see those words “brain injury” if possible. Narrowing  it down is speculation although some of her symptoms sound like what would be expected from concussion.
    Larson mentions brain injury as a possibility, so I incorporated the term in the sentence about her view. --RL0919 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    “When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Tubman saw a Union victory as a key step toward the abolition of slavery.”
    I presume Clinton is the source for that. However, saying she “saw” it means she thought so, and unless that thought is documented by her or a direct source, we cannot know what she was thinking.
    This was older text that I had not changed. Upon investigation, it turns out that she had one of her visions, so "saw" was carrying a meaning that probably would not have been expected. I reworded the sentence to make the nature of her belief more clear. In any case, she told others about it and it was documented in the biographies written with her cooperation. --RL0919 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The next sentence says “General Benjamin Butler, for instance, aided escapees flooding into Fort Monroe in Virginia.” This doesn’t seem connected to the previous sentence. Perhaps it is a leap of thought which doesn’t happen for me. So I suggest considering removal of the mention of Butler.
    The context of the "contraband" camps is important to explain what Tubman was doing as a volunteer nurse, so I would not want to omit that. The sentence-to-sentence connection is that she expected all slaves to be freed within a few years, but many of them freed themselves even sooner. I revised to try to make the connection more clear. --RL0919 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Combahee River Raid
    Hyperbole: In the intro, I disagree with the bare statement “The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people” for the reasons I’ve given before.
    Later, it says “widely credited as the first woman to lead U.S. troops in an armed assault.” I think several contemporary and modern sources are needed to support that. Wording such as “XXX newspaper lauded her as the first…” is fine. Are there 3 modern historians who say she led the raid?
    More than three. I gave some examples previously on the article's Talk page, and have found more since. More importantly, Sernett's critique of exaggerations about Tubman, which includes this point, is founded on the fact that the claims are widespread. The "widely credited" phrasing acknowledges that without asserting that this claim is definitely true. The big mistake here was that I changed it in the body text but forgot to update the lead, which I've now done. --RL0919 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I’d rather have facts than icons. That said, proceed if the icon is more important since she deserves it more than a lot of built-up heros.
    “When the steamboats sounded their whistles, enslaved people throughout the area understood that they were being liberated.”
    - again, this implies knowledge of what people were thinking.
    They were told what to expect by Tubman and her fellow spies, so it's not unfounded speculation. Added more explanation and a citation. --RL0919 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There has never been a political entity called “Southern Ontario”. That term should not be used except in the most general sense of identifying the geographic area. It would be reasonable to say she guided people to an area which is NOW part of southern Ontario in Canada. Tubman went there somewhere between 1851 and the beginning of the American Civil War. So her destination was the Province of Canada. If it is stated as such, it is distinguished from the present country called Canada. (Note that the former upper Canada was known as Canada West after the merger which created the province of Canada. However, “Canada West” isn’t much more tangible than southern Ontario.)
    I don't believe anything in the article says the region was a political entity, and it is linked to the article about it that describes it as a geographical region, not a province or country. I did change the references to "Ontario" at the first mentions of St. Catherines and Chatham, since that is the name of the modern province that did not exist then. There was already an endnote that mentioned the succession of political entities as part of the explanation of abolition there; I amended that to be more clear that this is a geographical area. --RL0919 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    In view of the preceding, references to St. Catherines Ontario and Chatham Ontario are questionable. It is like referring to San Antonio Texas before Texas existed or Chicago before the war of 1812 Humphrey Tribble (talk) 10:34, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for following up. Replies interspersed into your comments above. Let me know if you notice any other concerns. --RL0919 (talk) 19:23, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@RL0919: We can't force volunteers to work in any area of Wikipedia, and review processes (GAR, FAR, PR) are less popular than the nominating processes. We are always looking for more reviewers, and I hope you will join us in reviewing some of the articles here. Z1720 (talk) 15:58, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720: In the spirit of voluntary engagement, are you able to update as to whether your concern from 6 April that "post-2008 scholarship will need to be incorporated" has been addressed? I note that the article has been edited more than 120 times since then and now uses more than a dozen post-2008 sources, including important books about Tubman from Armstrong (2022), Dunbar (2019), Larson (2022), and Walters (2020). --RL0919 (talk) 16:46, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That concern has been resolved. I don't have any other concerns with this article. I think this can now be declared keep. Z1720 (talk) 19:34, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RL0919, I doubt that (the comment about FAC and how long it takes), but I apologize for my busy-ness, and will read today or tomorrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:38, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, beautiful work throughout. I am still not thrilled with the long list of artists in the Legacy section, but this is a nitpick not worth hanging up the FAR over. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:44, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I have no involvement in FA, FAR or FARC (I don't even know what the third one means), so apologies if I'm not following protocol.
In an Internet discussion (I don't think the location is relevant) someone made a comment on the relative trustworthiness of Wikipedia and CNN. The specific area of interest was the death date of Harriet Tubman.
I joined the discussion, initially intending on sharing a comment I've made elsewhere, namely that one should always be cautious about believing Wikipedia (as well as virtually every other information source in existence) but there are ways to help assess the trustworthiness of Wikipedia, specifically the existence of references which can be independently checked. In this case, I added that the article is an FA, and I mentioned that means it has gone through some rigorous review, which is short of a guarantee but helpful.
I was intrigued to note that the birthdate had a reference but not the death date. Not impossible, but my limited experience is that there are many famous people for whom the death date is well documented but the birth date not so much.
The reference supporting the birthdate is a book about Harriet Tubman which appears to be in the [ https://archive.org/details/boundforpromised0000lars_j2u4/mode/2up InternetArchive]. Unfortunately, only a couple pages are visible, along with some summary information in the lower part of the page. Interestingly, the birthdate is listed as "1820?", so it doesn't even mention the month. It is obviously plausible that Larson specifically mentions March, and that seems to be implied by the text in the "birth and family section".
The discussion of her death date in the section "church, illness, and death" suggests that the death date is known exactly and cites it to Larson. While that section has a reference, that reference is not carried to the lead. I'm aware that some editors argue that the lead should always recapitulate information in the main body of the text. That leads some to prefer that references not be included in the lead but only next to the same information in the main text. I don't know what to make of the referencing in this particular article. There are a lot of claims in the four paragraphs of the lead, many of which are presumably supported by references in the main text but there are five references in the lead section. Why these five? In particular, the reference for the opening sentence birth and death dates specifically locates the reference following the birth date but not following the death date. What should a reader make of that information? I will suggest that while I have little experience with FA, I do have more Wikipedia experience than the typical reader and if I can't figure out what conclusions one should draw from the existence of a reference for the birth along with the absence of a reference for the death in the lead, I doubt that the average reader could reach the right conclusion.
I appreciate that the death date is referenced. However, many readers, such as the one I interacted with, may not be interested in reading the entire article word for word. They may be interested in a specific fact such as the date of death, and their observation would be that it's in the very first sentence and it's also in the info box neither of which are referenced. I'm not sure how many readers would then say to themselves "maybe I'll scour the entire article on the chance that there is a third identification of the death date and this one is referenced.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:21, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sphilbrick: The typical practice for featured articles is that leads contain citations only for specific situations, such as material likely to be challenged (three cases in the lead of this article, accounting for four of the five citations) and direct quotes (one in this lead). The birth date is likely to be challenged because there are several competing years (1815, 1820, 1822, and 1825 are all mentioned in the body text). It is only in the past decade that Larson's research for 1822 has become the widely accepted option among scholars. The description of her as "abolitionist and social activist" was the subject of relatively recent dispute (if memory serves), prompting the two citations in the lead. The description of who she rescued is perhaps the most commonly disputed item, because early biographies gave an exaggerated number that is still repeated by less reliable sources even though modern scholarship decisively rejects it. In contrast, her date of death is not disputed so there is no reason to cite it in the lead. Hope that helps. --RL0919 (talk) 20:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that responsive answer.
I often talk to people about how to use Wikipedia and one of the typical things I told them is to look for a reference following the fact of interest, track down the reference, which ideally will be viewed as a reputable source and check that source. Unfortunately, it appears I will have to modify the advice and tell them that if they find a fact in a Wikipedia article and want confirmation that it is accurate they can look for the reference following the fact but if it happens to be in the lead paragraphs they may have to look in the body of the text. I guess I can do that but it's not a very "clean" rule. I don't see any way around it though. I had hoped to propose that the reference follow the entire parenthetical entry because the birthdate and death date and presumably the birth name are all mentioned in Larson, but I see they are on different pages so that doesn't make it easy, plus the fact that her birth name appears to be supported by a different reference. Oh well. S Philbrick(Talk) 23:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fantastic work. Just some minor comments; feel more than free to ignore any which you don't feel useful, most of the following comments are mere suggestions which I feel would be helpful for improving the article.
    • Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". — The article does not make it clear where this quote comes from. It is indeed cited, but I feel that the prose should specify who said or wrote this, and why does their opinion matter. I am, however, unable to decide how to include the author without breaking the flow.
    • when an overseer threw a two-pound (1 kg) metal weight — My reading of MOS:NUMERAL suggests that both 'two' and '1' should be spelled.
    As far as I can tell, Template:Convert does not have an option to spell out the numbers in the parenthetical conversion. So short of hand-converting the measurement (a bad idea, IMO), we may have to live with this one for now. --RL0919 (talk) 23:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Around 1844, she married a free black man named John Tubman — I am not a fan of writing named before introducing a person (it may be just me!). My suggestion would be Around 1844, she married John Tubman, a free black man, if that sound better to you.
    • We have two instances of African American and two other instances of African-American. I feel there should be consistency whether or not to hyphenate.
    This type of compound term is typically hyphenated when used as an adjective, but not when used as a noun. There has been some movement to change that for compounds related to ethnicity, but so far our MOS endorses the traditional style for this. (See this lengthy discussion about it from just a few weeks ago.) --RL0919 (talk) 23:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • "[T]here was one of two things I had a right to", she explained later, "liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other". — I am unable to recall what our MOS says, but I usually avoid starting a sentence with a direct quotation. Is there a way we may rephrase it?
    • 60 miles (97 kilometres) v. 90 miles (145 km): Consistency is our goal.
    • Because the Fugitive Slave Law had made, some other instance of the same as well — I find it slightly odd beginning a sentence with because. Can/Should we replace it by "As"?
    As far as I know, starting a sentence with because is entirely acceptable standard English, as long as the dependent clause it introduces is followed by an independent clause, which is the case here. --RL0919 (talk) 23:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • and the U.S. government was slow in recognizing its debt to her — Can be possibly rephrase it to make it appear a bit more neutral.
    • There are 14 instances of using {{Inflation}}. Of those 14, we have Ref#44 (Consumer Price Index) used a total of 8 times. While I personally don't think it needs to be used at every instance, but if it is, we need it for the remaining 6 instances as well.
    • In 1874, Representatives Clinton D. MacDougall of New York — Is there a specific reason for linking "Representative". We have neither "Senator", nor "President" linked. Moreover, specifically for this instance, we have placed two links together, which isn't necessarily a wrong thing, but is something which should be avoided wherever possible.
    • Tubman traveled to New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. to — Comma after D.C.

– Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 20:29, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Kavyansh.Singh: Thanks for your feedback. Most points are now updated in the article with only exceptions noted as interpolated replies above. --RL0919 (talk) 23:13, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Harriet_Tubman/archive1&oldid=1185693676"