Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Walter de Coventre

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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 promoted 01:35, 10 April 2008.

[edit] Walter de Coventre

Notified Deacon of Pndapetzim as principal author.
previous FAC (20:27, 31 March 2008)

Nominator. Co-nom with User:Deacon of Pndapetzim. I reviewed this at Peer Review, and supported it at FAC. It received, on the previous nomination, several comments on its prose, relatively late in the cycle. Malleus Fatuarum was responding to those as the FAC was being closed, and the resulting wave of changes seems to have died down. Since the previous FAC dealt by and large with text no longer in the article, and it still seems a good article on substance, it should be reviewed on its present text. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment: Some of the old comments seemed to request more elegant variation than the subject will admit. There is no sign that anyone has ever written an overarching narrative of Walter's life; the data are chiefly a list of preferments. If anybody sees a way around this, please suggest it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Articlestats:

Malleus Fatuarum 37
Deacon of Pndapetzim 27
Pmanderson 14

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Support. I was apparently just a little too late in adding my support for the previous nomination, so I repeat my view here that the outstanding prose issues have been dealt with. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Support All my concerns from the previous FAC have been addressed, and Malleus' copyedit just made things better. Excellent job of making an obscure subject shine. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Here we have proof of the importance of "fresh eyes" and a bloody good copy editor.GrahamColmTalk 23:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - Very well done, comprehensive and detailed, and on an obscure topic, great job. Hello32020 (talk) 03:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - Suggested optional tweaks:

Lead:

"Sometime before June 1361, the cathedral chapter of Dunblane elected him to be the new Bishop of Dunblane". (He'd hardly be elected as the old one).
"After his return to Scotland, Walter was a bishop for 10 years."? or possibly
After his return to Scotland, Walter was Bishop for 10 years.

Education:

"he was D. U. J., Doctor of both Laws,"
Doctor of Canon and Civil Law does not capitalise "Laws" or use periods.
""he was a DUJ (Doctor of both laws"), ?

Benefices:

"The names of these benefices, parish or office, are not known."
This may be mixing up the singular and plural. "The names of these benefices, and the parish or office, are not known."?

Return to Scotland and episcopal election:

"Above is a 19th-century map of the diocese of Dunblane"
"Above is" is redundant

Early episcopate:

I thought Mairead was 'Marion' or 'Mary' rather than 'Mariota'. The chanteuse Mairead NicAonghais is 'Maggie MacInnes' for some reason.

Footnotes:

Footnote 11 lacks a final period.
Footnotes 44-6 and 49 need to indicate a page name as well as the publisher.

Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 13:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Doctor of Both Laws, like Doctor of Canon and Civil Law (or Doctor of Medicine, for that matter). It's effectively a proper name. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I thought Mairead was 'Marion' or 'Mary' rather than 'Mariota'. The chanteuse Mairead NicAonghais is 'Maggie MacInnes' for some reason.
      • Scottish Gaelic names in the late medieval period, when Gaelic literacy has gone and most of the sources aren't usually fluent Gaelic-speakers, are terribly difficult. Names written Mariota in Latin are usually thought to represent Mairead, as in Mairead inghean Eachann written in the Moray Registrum as (accusative) Mariotam filiam Athyn. I wouldn't expect any rules, sometimes its just random, like "Archibald" being used Gilleaspaig. Goodness knows what "Marjorie" stands for. It certainly wasn't the real name of Robert Bruce's mother, who was called "Marthok" by John Barbour (oc then was the same as modern ag, a diminutive suffix, so the name looks like "little Martha" or "little Mary" or "little Margaret"). Muireadhach turns up as a different name is every other source, Maurice, Murdac, Murdoch, Murthak, Murethach, etc. But Mariota seems in Scotland (does the name exist outside of Scotland?) to be used only as a Latinization of Mairead, itself a Gaelicization of Mary.
      • It may be simpler to view this as translation; the same person had different names in different languages, just as bread or wine does. Queen Philippa was Philip or Phelip in English, as Wace shows (see the Oxford Book of Christian Names). Should we use the Gaelic, the Latin, or the Scots form in twenty-first century English? Or should we do what contemporaries would have done, and translate to Mary? (In any case, does some explanation belong in the article, prob. in a footnote?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
    • This may be mixing up the singular and plural. "The names of these benefices, and the parish or office, are not known."?
      • Changed the wording here. Will look at your other points now, to avoid conflicting responses. Thanks for your comments! Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Doctor of Canon and Civil Law does not capitalise "Laws" or use periods.
      • As PMAnderson said, this is a proper noun.
    • Footnotes 44-6 and 49 need to indicate a page name as well as the publisher
      • You can see by clicking on the links themselves. This so far as I could find out was not published in paper, the citations used here follow the sites own "short citation" suggestion. More comments are welcome btw. Thanks muchly and all the best, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
      • I must agree. This is a database of MS sources, never printed in their entirety, as the home page and its Editorial introduction make clear. What page number? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply
Notes:
I'd make Note 44 something like: "1367, 27 September, Scone, Parliament: Parliamentary Records" RPS. Date accessed: 2 March 2008; Watt, Dictionary, p. 115.</ref> as I have been spanked before for not providing a web page name.
References: "The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 On-line database prepared by the Scottish Parliament Project of the University of Saint Andrews. Cited as RPS, with date. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)"
I am tempted to make some unfunny remark about COI, but this is either an error or yet another by-way of MOS with which I am unfamiliar. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 19:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Implemented your note suggestion. Thanks! Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Unfunny remark or not, thanks for catching this; I've spent too long away from articles, clearly ;-< Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Parts of this article, particularly at the top, are not well-written. Why? Much of it is worthy.

  • "Following his arrival back in Scotland, as Dean of Aberdeen Cathedral, Walter quickly became involved in high level ecclesiastical and political affairs, with the Scottish church and the Earl of Mar respectively." Ouch. "his return to Scotland"? (and somehow reword the second occurrence of this, further into the para). Should the comma after Scotland remain (it's confusing)? "Soon" is better than "quickly", yes? Hyphenate "high level". in the Scottish church? Shift the comma after "affairs" to after "Mar".
  • Build a reconstruction?
  • "Such men often acquired university education through their family resources, through the patronage of more substantial nobles, or through networking in the church, particularly by gaining patronage from the pope."—Is the last phrase related to the previous point or the previous two points?
  • Clumsy: "He died either in 1371 or in 1372."—"He died in either 1371 or 1372."
  • "Above is a 19th-century map of "—"Above" in a caption? TONY (talk) 13:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply. I think that all of these points have been dealt with now.--Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 15:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Such men often acquired university education through their family resources, through the patronage of more substantial nobles, or through networking in the church, particularly by gaining patronage from the pope.
    • If the throughs were omitted, this would indeed be ambiguous; but the parallellism defines the structure.
    • Rewording in any case to end or through church influence, particularly support from the pope and his court. The apposition should leave the structure beyond reasonable doubt, and this removes the repetition of patronage in two somewhat distinct senses. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • in either 1371 or 1372 is a useful new idea. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:33, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
    • It's virtually impossible to write about many of this kind of figure without using these. But, you know, I don't even know what they're called. D'you know anyone who would? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Above is (now removed) was another deleterious side-effect of the MOS caption follies. If it appears that only full sentences are safe from having their periods removed (which would, in this case, be barbarism), captions will be full sentences, sensible or not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.