Talk:Moberly-Jourdain incident

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A fact from Moberly-Jourdain incident appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 19 November 2007.
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Good article Moberly-Jourdain incident has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
February 25, 2008 Good article nominee Listed

[edit] GA on hold

  • Firstly, a general note. All the internet refs need publisher info. Using {{cite web}}, this is the |publisher= field. Eg. for ref 19, add |publisher=IMDB
  • "in the gardens of the Petit Trianon involving two school teachers" - might read better with a comma before "involving"
  • The see also section isn't really necessary
    • Removed. Majorly (talk) 19:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "At this point a feeling of depression and dreariness came over them." - you can't be *sure* of this. Better to say that "they claimed a feeling of..."
  • "they were told to go straight on" - by who?
    • Clarified. Majorly (talk) 19:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "ourdain described it as a "tableau vivant", a living picture, much like Madame Tussaud's waxworks." - this needs a ref
    • It has a ref later on in the paragraph. Majorly (talk) 19:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "and they came across a man sat" - the "they" isn't necessary here
    • Removed. Majorly (talk) 19:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "Moberly believed it was Marie Antoinette and later wrote.." - the quote after this is rather long. You might be quoting from a free work (so no copyvio issues) but it still doesn't seem...well...right to quote so much. Shorten it, and use more prose
  • "Jourdain thought she did." - "Jourdain replied that she thought so." (or similar)
  • "In doing so, they found that on 10 August 1792, the Tuileries palace was besieged, the king's Swiss guards were massacred, and the monarchy itself was abolished six weeks later." - can you source this? Shouldn't be hard considering there's a relevant article
    • Added ref. Majorly (talk) 19:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "The book with a claim that Marie Antoinette had been seen caused a sensation. However, critics did not take it seriously, describing it as a "weakness of the memory"." - refs needed
  • "and labelled as hysterics" - and again
    • There's one (good) reference that covers both of these. I suppose it would be better with more refs, but it is covered. Majorly (talk) 19:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "However, the landmarks the ladies supposedly saw which were no longer around in 1901 are still unexplained." - Needs a bit of a reword, I think
    • It does? What's wrong with it? Majorly (talk) 19:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I dunno, it just didn't seem right to me. How about something like "However, no explanation has been brought forward for the landmarks the ladies claimed to see, which were no longer in 1901."...I dunno, that's not too great either... dihydrogen monoxide (H20)
  • "The events themselves were made into a feature film, Miss Morison's Ghosts in 1981" - comma after movie title
  • Is Category:Time relevant here?
    • I think so. It's a time slip. Majorly (talk) 19:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Some nice work you've done here Majorly. :) Leave a note on my talk page when you're done with this stuff...and it'll be your first GA? Yay! Cheers, dihydrogen monoxide (H20) 07:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

And yes, good work Majorly, you've done a good job here. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 07:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
And passed! dihydrogen monoxide (H20) 08:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright Violation

Much of this article has been taken directly from Seriously Weird True Stories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.171.74.8 (talk) 21:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

As the main author of this article, I'll tell you you're wrong. I have never read/seen that book, and all the sources used are listed at the bottom of the article. Al Tally talk 21:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
As the author of most of the Explanation section I will say that I had never heard of the book mentioned by the unsigned anon. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Tidy up

The article appears to be much based on a potboiler of shaky scholarship written by a credulous alcoholic journalist. A more scholarly and far-reaching account of the story is given by Terry Castle ("Contagious Folly: An Adventure and Its Skeptics", Critical Inquiry, volume 7, number 4, pages 741-772, 1991), a reputable scholar whose facts may be relied upon although her feminist interpretations now bear a quaint 20th century air. I have tried to make the article more balanced although it really needs to be rewritten on the basis of Castle's account rather than Farson's. Castle also deals with important material relating to the subsequent lives of the two women and which casts doubt on their story. Xxanthippe (talk) 10:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC).