Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tillson Harrison/archive1

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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 not promoted by SandyGeorgia 20:57, 20 February 2010 [1].

Tillson Harrison[edit]

Nominator(s): JulieSpaulding 12:12, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because it has been expanded to the extent of the information available on this person - well, at least what Wikipedia editors have access to, anyway! The article is an interesting read, so even if you don't want to contribute to the discussion here, it's worthwhile taking a look for your own interest. It is well-written, and the text has gone through two sets of meticulous copy-editing from two different editors, at GA nominations and peer review. The article's subject has had little written about him, so research has been difficult, and all sources have been exhausted to the point that not much more information can be garnered from them! I would say that this article is as comprehensive as it could ever be with the sources available to us. Of course, if some big discovery occurs to change this, well, that's a different matter :) JulieSpaulding 12:12, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Image and technical review No dabs, all links live, alt text present, the sole image is appropriately licensed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) Great read so far.

  • "After World War I, Harrison traveled throughout the Middle East, treating venereal disease and operating an X-ray facility in Lod, Israel." Some of the links in this sentence are of low value; is there anything in the World War I or Middle East that readers don't already know and need to know to aid their understanding of this article? This is especially important because there are two "good" links in there: venereal disease and Lod, Israel. Personally, I would remove the link to X-ray too but I'll leave it up to you. JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "World War Two" "Two" is usually in Roman numerals here, isn't it? Anyway, it's inconsistent with the rest of the article. JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I love the penultimate sentence of the lead; the matter-of-factness of it adds a bit of humor that really lightens up the article. One niggling issue, though: "six different languages"—is "different" necessary? Consider that the opposite doesn't make sense (six identical languages?), I think you can do away with that word. I notice the same issue earlier in the lead ("fifteen different countries"). JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "His daughter Rosalind considered his life to be the model for the film character Indiana Jones." I couldn't figure out why this was worth mentioning in the lead until I read the last paragraph: "This, she claims, became the inspiration..." "considers" and "claims" have different connotations; the former is soft, like a pipe dream, while the former is much bolder. I think if you could add a mention of Rosalind's contact with Lucas and Spielberg to the lead and explain the link between her father's life and the movie a little more, this factoid would seem much less trivial. JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a bit of overlinking of common terms throughout the article: lawyer, postmaster, World War I, France, Mexico, prostitutes, frostbite, etc. Do a careful link audit of the article. JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Never content" I found this phrase a bit vague; with what was was he discontented (job, himself, family)? JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "titled Cesarean Section Under Difficulties" I think article titles are in quotes, not italics. JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "without divorcing his first wife Sybil" We've already been told his first wife's name. JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That was from the lead and first section. There are a few rough edges that could benefit from a proficient (read: not me) copy-editor, but this article seems pretty good so far. The subject is definitely not your average physician! Dabomb87 (talk) 04:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments Dabomb. I have implemented them, and the article looks even better! Of course, I would welcome any further suggestions. JulieSpaulding 11:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, and I'll try to return with more later in the week. One note: please don't strike my comments; per WP:FAC instructions, "nominators should not cap, alter, strike, break up, or add graphics to comments from other editors; replies are added below the signature on the reviewer's commentary." Dabomb87 (talk) 17:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies! I think my idea from that was from the FAC instruction to not include templates such as 'done' or 'not done' on this page due to a template limit. Maybe I misread it, but I thought the solution was to strike comments - at first I thought that there was conflict between that instruction and the talk page guidelines. No matter... I must have misread something somewhere along the line! Sorry about that! JulieSpaulding 10:38, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "During their honeymoon, the couple's train was " Dangling modifier problem; I don't think the train was on a honeymoon.
  • Inconsistencies in writing numbers over ten; sometimes you spell them out ("twenty stations") and other times you write it in figures (fifty tonnes).
  • "sent a letter to the Chinese ambassador with Harrison as the subject to mark the centenary of his birth" A bit awkward; not sure what "with Harrison as the subject" means.
  • "successful Indiana Jones film series" Shouldn't "Indiana Jones" be capitalized?
  • "However, at that time, it was not made clear that Harrison had falsified his age when enlisting in the UNRRA, and the celebrations took place seven years after the actual centenary." I don't see this fact in the source.
  • In the references, "The Canadian Encyclopedia" needs to be italicized because it is a publication. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • All done except for the second last one (about the centenary fact in the source). The fact is indeed in the source: "Interestingly enough, owing to Harrison's previous misrepresentation of his date of birth, the centenary was celebrated seven years after the proper date." Arctic Night 10:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support with COI - I did the GA for this. A good first attempt at FA. I'd normally wait for other comments before supporting, but wikibreak coming up, so off the fence (: Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Ealdgyth, thanks for your comment. I would say that this source is reliable because the publisher is the local government. Considering the same local government (Oxford County, Ontario, just in case you didn't know) is one of the overseers of Annandale National Historic Site, the original source of information for most of the other sources cited in the Tillson Harrison article, I would say that it is pretty reliable. I know I didn't explain that very well: to make it clearer, I think the source is reliable because the publisher is: a) a government, and b) oversees the Annandale National Historic Site, the premier source of information on Harrison and his family. JulieSpaulding 08:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll leave this out for other reviewers to decide for themselves, but I lean reliable. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also think this source is acceptable per Julie's reasoning; in any case, most of the facts this source references is supported by other sources as well. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment. Alt text done; thanks. That alt text "Young man in suit and tie" is pretty generic. Can you modify it to describe a bit of the man's appearance for the benefit of the user who can't see the picture? See WP:ALT#Portraits for advice and examples. Eubulides (talk) 08:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have improved the alt text and it should appear better now. JulieSpaulding 10:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it looks good. Eubulides (talk) 20:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe I have resolved this. After much searching, I realised that PD-1996 applied: the work was out of copyright in Canada in 1996, and thus copyright was not restored by the URAA. Arctic Night 12:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. There's a lot of repetition of his name. I've removed some of it, but there's a fair bit left e.g. "After his graduation from medical school in 1907, Harrison gained employment with the Hudson's Bay Company and began treating the Cree community of Alberta and acting as the local postmaster.[3] Soon after, Harrison again moved his family to Washington, Idaho and finally Drewsey, Oregon, where he became a doctor, pharmacist, mayor, developer and rancher. In 1909, Harrison fathered a daughter, Rosalind, with his wife Sybil. In 1912, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article written by Harrison, titled "Cesarean Section Under Difficulties", which documented a caesarean section he performed in a remote ranch-house lit by an oil lamp.[6] Because of his restless nature, Harrison left his family in Oregon and traveled to London in 1913 to undergo postgraduate work in gynecology and obstetrics. When World War I began in 1914, Harrison assisted in the war effort in Belgium. While there, he met a Turkish woman named Eva, and married her without divorcing his first wife. In 1915, Harrison and his new wife traveled to El Paso, Texas, to settle down."
The article needs a copy edit for flow. A lot of the sentences seem a little disconnected, and taken too directly from the sources. The bit about him locking his grandmother in a room and trying to get to Cuba, for example: one incident or two? Not clear in the source either, but instead of not mentioning it, or making clear that it's not clear, it's just repeated with the same lack of clarity. The writer needs to step back, see it from the readers' perspective, and do an extensive copy edit that turns this into a story where each sentence, and each thought, flows into the next. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 07:43, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problems. I will do a copyedit of the article. Arctic Night 10:54, 20 February 2010 (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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