Wikipedia:Peer review/Golding Bird/archive1

Golding Bird[edit]

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I've listed this article for peer review with a view to submitting to FAC. I would particularly like to address a comment at the second GAN: All in all, the prose feels a bit heavy at times. This is probably due to the sheer volume of information. It's fine for GA, but if you're shooting for FA then I'd go through a peer review first to make the prose a bit less weighty. I also request the reviewer to comment on a decision made during the first GAN to break out part of the material into a separate article, Interrupter, both for the principle and scope of the break out.

Thanks, Spinning Spark 07:42, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this interesting article, here are some suggestions for improvement.

I would add a caption to the lead image
In the lead, I doubt most readers will know what the collateral sciences are. While it is linked, I wonder if it would help to include a brief definition here?
I would link Daniell cell in the lead.
Adjusted for inflation this amounts to a spending power of about £76,000 now. I would avoid now - what year was the inflation calculation made for? Also the refs cited do not seem to be related to inflation.
Not clear to me what "children's outpatients" are in and in October that year he was put in charge of children's outpatients. I think the American usage would be "children outpatients" (probably worth linking outpatient)
There is only one mention of "electrical room patients" so this comparison makes little sense The children, like his electrical room patients, ..
This is not as clear as it should be.

Bird became well known for his knowledge of chemistry. An early indication was his comments on a paper on arsenic poisoning (being delivered by his future brother-in-law R. H. Brett) to the Pupils' Physical Society. Bird criticised the copper sulphate test for arsenic poisoning. This test has a positive result when a green precipitate is formed.[22] Bird claimed the test was not conclusive because precipitates other than copper arsenite can produce the same green colour.[23]

Is this an early indication of his knowledge of chemistry or of being well-known for his knowledge? How about something like this

Bird became well known for his knowledge of chemistry. An early example was his comments on a YEAR paper on the copper sulphate test for arsenic poisoning, delivered by his future brother-in-law R. H. Brett to the Pupils' Physical Society. Bird criticised the test's positive result when a green precipitate is formed,[22] and claimed that the test was not conclusive because precipitates other than copper arsenite can produce the same green colour.[23]

more to come...

Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 12:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spinningspark's response to comments

"...caption to the lead image". I have now added alt text throughout. I don't see the point of a caption and the frame that would have to go with it in a self-evident lead image.
"...collateral sciences...", clarified in-article
"...link Daniell cell in the lead." Done
"Adjusted for inflation..." I think the reader needs some clue what this sum meant at the time, otherwise it is meaningless having it in at all. If there is no guideline against it I think it should be kept. The inflation calculation is done through the template and the years are embedded (1842 to present). Referencing is therefore the business of the template.
"children's outpatients". Changed this to "children's outpatients ward" which I hope makes it clearer. I have to disagree with "children outpatient". Besides the obvious comment that this article is in Briteng, not Ameng, I could not get any ghits at all for the latter term, American or British.
There is only one mention of "electrical room patients" so this comparison makes little sense The children, like his electrical room patients, .. I cannot fathom this comment, the article discusses his electrical room patients at great length. Even if there were only one mention, I cannot understand how that invalidates the comparison.
"...knowledge of chemistry..." inserted with the exception of "YEAR paper" which I am not at all convinced that is a correct description.
Spinning Spark 18:37, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Replies

One major concern I have here and in most articles is to provide more context to the reader. Adding a caption to the lead image that identified it as coming from his 1855 obituary (and thus showing him late in his short life) would do this. Otherwise the reader has no idea at what stage in his life the image portrays him.
Sorry for the confusion and poor wording on my part. My comment was not against the use of inflation adjusted figures, it was agaist the vague time term "now". I think the actual year should be used. Since you are using the inflation template, CURRENTYEAR could be used here (so that it gave the current year).
As I also noted above, the inflation template needs a ref. {{Inflation-fn}} does this.
children's outpatients ward is clearer, thanks
The words "electrical room" appear together in the article only once, it is not clear to me what they mean. You know all about Dr Bird, but I do not - context needs to be provided.
I think the year of the paper his future brother in law wrote should be given in some way.
I am fine with the article that was split off.
The prose is quite good, but I would agree with the GA reviewer that a light copyedit would help before FAC.
I am sorry I have been so slow in reviewing this - have been very busy in real life.

Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the image, it may have been first published in 1855 but I have no way of knowing if it portrays him in 1855. I seriously doubt that it does and to allow the reader to believe that to be the case would be misleading. Spinning Spark 21:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ref added to inflation sentence
"electrical room" changed to "electrotherapy" which I hope makes it clearer.
Dated Bird's comments to 1832. The source does not give the date of Brett's paper but it does give the date of Bird's comment in the minutes as 27 October 1832. Brett's paper may, or may not, have been presented on the same day (but almost certainly the same year) - not able to tell without access to the primary sources.
On copyediting, I was kind of hoping that Peer Review would help with this, but I have now put in a request at WP:GOCE.
Spinning Spark 08:55, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gripe

You know that saying "thank you" (even if you don't mean it) makes the life of a reviewer just a little bit easier, don't you? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not thanking you. It goes without saying that I am very grateful for the time and effort you put into reviewing articles. I know for sure that I would not be willing to do the amount of review work that you do, and for so little reward. Spinning Spark 21:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Last comments

I think one thing that adds to the impression of heaviness in the prose is the length of some of the paragraphs. For example the first paragraph in Electrical equipment could be split into two (or perhaps three) smaller paragraphs, or the Controversy subsection could be split as well. The Electrochemistry section has nice paragraph lengths and flows well too.
I think it would help at the beginning of the Electricity section to indicate in some brief way how Bird treated patients with electricity. I had never heard of healing sores this way, for example, and it would help to have some examples early on.
Carbon monoxide was known before Bird's time - I think this could be made a little clearer.
I would move the fact that this is a review of the 6th ed earlier in the sentence here. Also watch tenses "noted" but then "observe": Popular Science Review noted that the author was now named as Brooke in their review of the sixth edition and observe that Brooke had now made it his own.
There is a fair amount of material on the 6th ed of Bird's book, but since this was published after his death, is there too much on it for this article?
Many biographies end with a legacy section - I wonder if it would work here? The information on the Bird Medal could be placed here, as well as the posthumous textbook, and perhaps the Christian Medical Association and his son following in his medical footsteps. Your call - just an idea (as it is, the article just sort of fizzles out at the end).
In particular I wondered about the medal - is it still awarded? If not, how long was it awarded? Are there any notable recipients?

Hope this helps, and apologies for my gripe above, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:42, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Response from Spinningspark

I have split the paragraphs you suggested.
I have added a short summary paragraph at the beginning of the electricity section. I have mentioned the electric moxa there but do not want to give it too great a prominence as it is somewhat tangential to the main electrotherapy work.
Carbon monoxide - discovery date inserted.
6th edition and Brooke - done.
6th edition - there is not as much prose on the 6th edition as you seem to think. One short paragraph of three sentences (the shortest para in the section) plus a small addendum to the last para. That's a total of only 102 words of readable prose according DrPDA'a tool, compared to 540 words in the whole section on the book.
I thought hard about how a legacy section could be done. The trouble to my mind is that much of the potential material follows on naturally where it is already. Brooke's edition of the book follows on from, and really belongs in, the section on the book, especially as the reviewers devote so much space to discussing Golding Bird and comparing to his editions. Likewise the Christian Medical Association really cannot be divorced from the history that led up to it. A legacy section would either be repeating material already elsewhere, contain just a few trivia, or else make for a very disjointed article.
I believe the medal may still be awarded but I have been unable to find a list of recipients. I have e-mailed Guy's to see if they can help in this.
Once again, thank you for the detailed review of this article. Spinning Spark 23:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]