Talk:Jean-François Champollion/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 15:50, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Starting first read-through. More soonest. Tim riley talk 15:50, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

This excellent article lacks citations at several points (see below) but once that is remedied GA status is assured. Indeed, the article has many of the characteristics of an FA.

There is a problem – or "issue" as we must now say – over WP:RETAIN. The earliest versions where it is possible to say whether BrEng or AmEng is used use the former. I think this should be addressed on the article talk page rather than here, and have put a note there suggesting how the matter can be regularised. Assuming (safely enough, I feel) that we can settle on AmEng for the whole article there are two BrEng hangovers (a "travelled" and an "honour" that want Americanising.

A few preliminary comments:

• Upbringing and education
  • In the caption of the Rosetta Stone picture the absence of a definite article before "British Museum" looks distinctly odd.
  • The last sentence of the second para could do with a citation.
• Political trouble during the Napoleonic Wars
  • "eligible for the draft" – I assume this means liable to conscription for compulsory military service, but the phrase is not in use everywhere and could helpfully be clarified, here and below.
  • "hoisted the tricolore" – perhaps a blue link?
• Family life and later career
  • "(1824–1889)" – the MoS would have us use the form (1824–89).
  • I notice you don't hyphenate "well-to-do" but earlier you rather unexpectedly hyphenate "well off"
  • Last paragraph: "the King" or "the king"? – we have both.
• Deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs
  • "Kircher had, however as the first suggested that modern Coptic was a degenerate form" – I can't get this to work
  • "catalogue of hieroglyphs" – assuming (as above) we are going to standardise on American spelling for the article, ought this to be "catalog"?
• Rivalry with Thomas Young
  • "favourable" – another Anglicism
  • The third, fourth and last paragraphs of this section all end with an uncited sentence.
• Names of rulers
  • The first, third and last paragraphs are without citations.
• Letter to Dacier
  • Second paragraph lacks citations.
• Reactions to the decipherment
  • "later that fall" – the MoS bids us avoid seasons, as they can confuse readers in the opposite hemisphere; a month is safer.
  • "Champollion's recognized" – a word missing or an unwanted possessive.
  • "catholic church" – lower case looks odd
  • "church sanctioned" – hyphen wanted?
• The Précis
  • "dedicated to and expended by" – does "expended" mean "funded", here?
  • "King Louis XVIII" – why blue link him here rather than at first mention, in the Family life section?
  • "in 1828, a year before his death, Young was appointed to the French Institute of the Sciences by Champollion's support" – citation wanted.
• Franco-Tuscan Expedition
  • "Ironically he received this news" – WP:EDITORIAL
  • Eighth paragraph – blue link to Egypt should be removed
  • "December 6" – earlier we use d-m-y
• Death
  • Sir George Lewis – we ought to be consistent about whether the title is within the piping as here or outside it as with Sir Peter Le Page Renouf. The former is more work for the editor, but easier on the reader's eye, I have found.
  • "a priori" – better to italicise, I think
• Bibliography
  • Inconsistently gives or doesn't give ISBNs/OCLCs.
• Duplicate links
  • Joseph Fourier, Johan David Åkerblad, Saqqara, Muhammad Ali Pasha (twice), Valley of the Kings, Khedive, Sir Peter Le Page Renouf, and Academy of Inscriptions and Letters.
• Linking to disambiguation page:
  • Thutmose

Most of these are minor matters, but the sporadic absence of citations needs to be addressed. I'm putting the review on hold meanwhile. – Tim riley talk 08:34, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for these helpful comments. I will address some today and tomorrow, but am traveling over the middle of the week and so will likely not be able to finish untill next weekend. I hope that is ok. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:24, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Fine with me. No hurry at all. Tim riley talk 16:40, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
• The missing citations are the result of another editor recently splitting some full paragraphs with citation at the end into short ones without. So it should be easy to fix, either by putting the paragraphs back together or by simply duplicating the citations.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:31, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
• As for Engvar I am agnostic, I would not be surprised to be told I use exactly half of each variant. I will try to settle on AmEng, and thank you for pointing out which spellings need to be changed.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:31, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
  • If you're OK with AmEng I'll do the honours - dammit, I mean the honors. Tim riley talk 16:40, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I would be grateful for that, as well as any other of the minor fixes you would help me in carrying out.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:54, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

A pleasure. I'll do it tomorrow morning when England is having breakfast and America is still sleeping, thus avoiding edit conflicts such as the one I nearly perpetrated just now. Tim riley talk 17:07, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Done. Revert anything you dislike, of course. Tim riley talk 07:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

• Regarding Sir George Lewis and Sir Peter Le Plage Renouf, the odd thing is that the former is located at Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 2nd Baronet while the latter is at Peter le Page Renouf plain and simple. I don't entirely understand why some people apparently get their titles included in the article of the name and others don't. I'll chalk it up to something to do with the finer points of British class society.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:35, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

• The link to the Thutmose disambiguation page is intentional here in fact, since it is the name, not any of its specific holders that is meant, and the disambiguation page gives the meaning of the name.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:53, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

• @Tim riley:, I think I have taken care of the missing citations, if you would care to take a look and see if there are any other issues to be fixed, that would be great.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:54, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

• • Lovely! Ref 4 could perhaps use a tweak to make it the same "sfn" format as the others, but I leave that to you. Otherwise all now fine.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

This is a most impressive article, and I greatly enjoyed reviewing it. I learned a lot, too. If you take the article on to PR or FAC please give me a nod. Meanwhile, would you be so kind as to look in at the article talk page and back me up on standardising on AmEng? At the moment I'm a one-person consensus. – Tim riley talk 19:20, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Done and done. Thanks a lot for the review!·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:46, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

By the way I don't take articles to FAC unless someone else offers to be co-nom responsible for MOS and prose issues. I am good at researching content, but I find the finer details required for FAC to be tedious. So if you or anyone else is interested in nominating it I would be supportive as long as I can focus on sourcing and content and someone else focuses on the formalities.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:51, 30 May 2015 (UTC)