Talk:Ygnacio del Valle

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Good article Ygnacio del Valle has been listed as one of the History 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.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on April 13, 2007.
May 5, 2007 Good article nominee Listed

[edit] Alcalde

Del Valle is not on LA Almanac's list of mayors, but according Harris Newmark's Sixty Years in Southern California: 1853-1913 (published 1930 by Houghton Mifflin) he was. I got this last bit of information from the docents at the Rancho Camulos Museum, who are kindly investigating the matter further. howcheng {chat} 16:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

Without further ado, let me give you a brief summary of my observations. First of all, the article seems to be a really good one quality-wise, in view of all the WP:WIAGA criteria. I guess the scarcity of information and sources stems from the fact that the subject is of borderline notability (though I would perhaps feel a tad more comfortable with at least one hardcopy source).

I have a few more minor issues with the article, though, and that is why I have decided to put the article on hold for a period of 7 days. If those issues are rectified within that time, I will be glad to promote this article to GA.

  • A good part of the paragraphs or sentences have neat inline citations to the sources employed, but some are mising them. I don't suppose the rest of the facts of the article would come from anywhere else, and I know it requires a bit of work to make sure all facts in a paragraph can be referenced to this or other source, but I really believe it is necessary, so I would be grateful if all paragraphs would be appropriately referenced.
    • OK, I believe all paragraphs now contain citations. -HC
  • Isn't there a comma missing before "in a letter" (which would be an interjection)?
    • Added. -HC
  • It is not that clear to me why would it be so bad that the letter arrived to Ygnacio after his father's death - can it be explained in more detail?
    • Done. -HC
  • Oh, and what about this land grant - can it be linked to some article explaining the nature of such land grants, how were they awarded, by whom, from what land resources and for what?
  • While it is fairly obvious to any reader even briefly acquainted with American history (and I hope I belong to that group), I still believe linking Yanquis would be appropriate.
    • Done. -HC
  • "...de Valle destroyed the mine..." - what mine, dear?
    • I hope this is clearer now. -HC
  • The paragraph starting with "eventually" only has two lines - I would consider merging it with the preceding one.
    • I split the difference, putting one sentence in the preceding paragraph and the second in the following one. -HC
  • I was wondering whether the "difficult years for farmers" could be linked to any article, e.g. documenting the droughts and floodings of that period...
    • We don't have an article on this specifically, so I put a citation in instead. -HC
  • It is a bit confusing to read that the 1500 acres (presumably, this is how I understood this sentence) not only survived, but thrived. Not only land can hardly say to have survived, but also it would be good to explain what exactly happened, taking into account many readers would know next to nothing of the historic circumstances.
    • Explicated this a bit better, but most of this is explained in Rancho Camulos. -HC
  • "...for a while" - I guess "for some time" would express the nature of the, as I understand unspecified, period better (I guess it was a matter of at least months rather than "a while").
    • Put in a specific date. -HC

I am looking forward to see all those minor issues rectified and being able to pass this nomination - not to mention learning more about this interesting part of history that way! PrinceGloria 08:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I hope the additions are to your liking. For more on this topic, I suggest you read the related articles Rancho Camulos and Rancho San Francisco. howcheng {chat} 17:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Here I am back with the cake trolley! I apologize for taking so long to get back to it, pressing matters of state etc. May I kindly ask you to let me keep the compliments in pectore for the sake of sparing time? You know they are there!
Now, I know I am pesky, but despite all your efforts I still have some reservations:
  1. Excuse me if that was unclear above, but I didn't mean that every paragraph should have a citation in it, but rather that every portion of the text should be referenced. If there is a citation at the end of the paragraph, like in the 1st paragraph of the "early life" section, I assume all information contained in that paragraph can be found in the given source. Alas, there are paragraphs where citations are only at the end of sentences midway through them - what about the latter parts then?
    Hmm, I read WP:CITE differently -- I added citations for statements I felt were likely to be challenged (meaning I could imagine someone saying, "What? No way!") and not necessarily for every paragraph, because most paragraphs are cobbled together from different sources. I didn't feel that statements that were simple facts (such as the end of the 2nd paragraph of the "Ranchos" section) needed to be cited. -HC
  2. A more specific issue - can you point to a source directly stating that the consequence of Ygnacio not receiving the letter was the confusion concerning the inheritance? Unless you can, it is more or less OR to say so IMHO, however logical that may seem, and in such case I would rephrase it to avoid both confusion and OR.
    I went back to read the sources again and found it explicitly stated that Antonio did not leave a will. -HC
  3. It is still not explictly stated who constructed a mine where, I know it is fairly obvious there was a mine within the ranch, but still I somehow feel "the mine" appears out of nowhere - more of a language thing than anything else.
    There's more detail about that in Rancho San Francisco. I'll drop it from here as it's more relevant to the other article. -HC
  4. Yeah, the land grant thing does not seem to be sufficiently covered by WP - perhaps you could think of creating an appropriate section in the land grant article, or a separate one?
    To do that, I'd probably to spend research time at the library, and I don't have that kind of time -- I can do online research just fine, but book time isn't really possible for me, but a Land grants in California article is sorely needed. Most of the land grants in California don't have articles -- I've written three of them myself! :) For this California history stuff, you kind of have to rely on local historical societies and not all of them are as well-equipped as the Santa Clarita Valley one I've been consulting for this article. -HC
  5. "Reduced portion" just doesn't sound right to me (considering what is actually being meant), please ponder yourself whether it's just me or something more...
    OK, I think the new wording is clearer now. -HC
BTW, 1880-1900 is quite a bit for "a while" - I guess it's not that bad that I raised the issue :D Anyway, that's all from me now - please don't shoot the reviewer! PrinceGloria 05:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Now why would I do that? :) I wasn't even planning to do the changes now (it's after midnight on Friday here and I was going to leave it for after the weekend) but WP sucked me in as it always does. Funny thing is, I live relatively close to Camulos and I've never been there. The last time even I went to a mission was in 4th grade. So for the most part, I have no clue about this stuff beyond what the sources tell me. howcheng {chat} 07:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Gee, RL did really get me busy this week, and now poor Ygancio is on hold for 8 days already! I apologize for not standing up to my reviewer duties, and not replying earlier, especially in view of your very swift reactions to my escalating demands... I skimmed the article again and, even by my severly inflated standards, I guess it would be more improper to deny the GA status to the article than to promote it, so hereby I finally pass it! Congratulations and many thanks to the tireless leading contributor and the elite small group of people who chipped in along the way!
That said, I would still feel much better if the citations would be added to the parts of text that do not contain them - I know that WP:CITE and all other standards related are becoming increasingly lax (like all else in Wikipedia, which I believe doesn't serve it well), but still I believe it is good to cite all sources in a reasonably precise way, e.g. to make future editors' job easier by directing them to the sources they can check the facts against and make sure nothing unsourced sneaked in between. This doesn't cost that much, just put citations to whatever sources you used for every paragraph, making sure the information contained therein can be completely found in the sources referenced to (hint - if the whole paragraph could be basically referenced to any of the few sources, do not list them all but only the most reliable/comprehensive overall source). If there is some specific info in a paragraph that was added from a source not used for the rest of the paragraph, put the reference to it by the sentence/clause containing that statement - and there you are!
To provide you with an incentive to take this one last step, I would like to declare that this article is currently so well polished it could actually bode very well as Featured Article Candidate - and, AFAIK, you would be expected to complete the referencing anyway at that stage. PrinceGloria 02:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
PS. Please accept my apology for the awful English of this post, it's 4:45 AM here...