Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/William Rath/1

William Rath

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Kept per general consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:40, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

As part of WP:DCGAR and as the original GA reviewer in 2020, I am placing this article nominated by Doug Coldwell up for GAR in order to keep its status as a GA. During the original review I was involved in looking at some of DC's sources and shaping the focus of the article to give a more chronological treatment. Now prior to this DCGAR process, I have gone through the article again. Regarding copyvio issues, there was nothing egregious but there were a few borderline too-close paraphrasings, which I have now reworded. Regarding text-source correspondence, I've gone back and looked at all of DC's sources. There were some issues that got missed in the original review, but I have corrected them. So at this point, I believe the article corresponds to the GA criteria and its status should be kept.

P.S. The 'Fountain of Youth mural' image is up for deletion at Commons; during the original review, I tried to get DC to retake the photo to be truly de minimis, but alas he didn't quite understand what was needed. So I fear that image is doomed, which is a shame but should not affect the GA status. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:47, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

WTF, to XOR'easter's and EEng's great frustration, DC's haphazard citation style (which I have taken to ignoring as it's so awful) has made copyvio checking even more difficult. As long as we're here, it may be worthwhile to get that sorted. I questioned you elsewhere about Cabot, which you had checked, but what about this mess:

• Ludington Daily News 1997, p. 11.

  Ludington's Carferries: The Rise, Decline & Rebirth of a Great Lakes Fleet. Ludington Daily News. 1997. p. 11. ASIN B000FKPTF6.

Were you able to access that, and can anything done to make the citation style more consistent? I realize that may not be part of WIAGA, but what a mess throughout. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:59, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

oops !! Well, the F is exactly below the R on the keyboard ... one of my better typos :) Sorry ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:19, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that was a great typo ;-) I did also verify the Ludington Carferries content. I have fixed up the cites for inappropriate page numbers in the bibliography and for its 'harv' name being easy to confuse with the newspaper cites. I have also tried to further normalize some of the other cites. Let me know if there is anything else that you see in this regard. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:37, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

As an experienced editor, you can be trusted to get that; no need for me to recheck. By the way, see WP:FINDAGRAVE-EL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:20, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

In this case, I thought the Find-a-grave entry helped illustrate the time and place of the subject, so I left it in. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:04, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

PS, for the record, I was stuck with the WTF typo above when Wikipedia went down at 14:00. [1]. Else I would have corrected it :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

The citations were a mess (I believe I've cleaned them up now), and the writing still reeks of DYK word padding; could still use some tightening. Why is this DUE (that is, what secondary sources mention this)?

• His estate was the subject of two lawsuits.[20][21] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

I've looked further at these two lawsuits. The first, Ludington State Bank v. Estate of Rath, does have secondary source coverage. But it took place in the 1930s, after Rath's widow died, and became interesting only when a normal probate case involving William Rath's bequeathings upon his wife's death got intertwined with Michigan's new emergency banking act (a forerunner of the national one at the start of the New Deal). It ended up going to the Michigan Supreme Court for a decision. But it really has nothing to do with William Rath in a biographical case. The second, Cartier et al v. Hengstler (or the other order, the final name was a countersuit), has to do with allegations of fraud against Cartier and Rath by someone who felt cut out of a real estate arrangement. It has very little secondary coverage and ended up being dismissed on appeal on grounds of statute of limitations and laches. So while this one does have something to do with Rath biographically, it isn't significant enough to include. So I am removing both of these from the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:06, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

WTR, the bigger issue is that it's just so hard to understand, particularly after reading through so many sources during the copyvio check, how bits were chosen for inclusion in articles. There are due weight issues and even POV everywhere (it's only in reading the sources for this article did I discover pov at James Ludington). The most random bits of unencyclopedic trivia make it into articles; in that vein, I just couldn't see why those lawsuits were added ... with no context, such insertions render a very odd flow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:28, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm done all I can for now; can you find a way to lower the number of paras beginning with Rath? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Have done this. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:16, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

EEng do you have a moment to glance over this short article to see if any other absurdities stand out? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:08, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

• Removed silly and misinterpreted stuff. EEng 06:10, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

  Some of your reductions/removals I agree with; some I think make the article a little less interesting but will not argue; but some I think removed important biographical points. Those I have attempted to restore, but with completely rewritten text that tries to explain things better. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:16, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm all for articles being interesting, but not by stuffing them with pablum like saying someone's success in the lumber business eventually made him a lumber baron, where lumber baron means someone really successful in the lumber business, and anyway redirects to business magnate, which is just another way of saying he was successful, which is where we started. EEng 13:34, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Noting that a paraphrasing check is still needed, because although it was cited to a different source (Powers), this wording was taken directly from this source. This is a frequent feature of DC's work (text taken from one source but cited to another). It is insufficient to check individual sources relative to the text they cite; everything has to be evaluated versus the entire body of sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Wasted Time R, SandyGeorgia, and EEng: and @GAR coordinators: where does this stand? Can the GAR be closed? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:24, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not willing to close this as keep without either Doug's content being almost entirely excised or indication that extensive checks (and I mean every single source, with Coldwell it's that bad) for copying/close paraphrasing have been completed. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:37, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Here's the problem (seen in every DC article I've looked at). You can't just check whether individual bits of content are copyvio, because DC frequently took content from one source while citing it to another. You can never be sure from whence came the copyvio; I frequently find it later while checking another source, and that is why his content so often fails verification (he retrofit citations to content taken from different sources). Content has to be written anew. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, I have looked through every piece of text in this article and every source used by this article (fortunately in this case there aren't that many). I have made many changes to the article, including rewriting text, correcting or refining source-text improvement, improving citations, and so on. Two other editors during this post-DC phase have also been active in rewriting or removing material and in improving citations. I believe that all the content is correctly sourced at this point and that there are no copyvio's or close paraphrasings in the current article.

I will also note that what I have done is in accordance with the instructions given by WP:DCGAR FAQ #2 and #3 to the original GA reviewers: "If you believe the GA status might be retained ... you need to be willing to open an independent GAR ... and able to verify all content cited to online and offline sources ... Re-evaluate the content" per the problem areas listed in FAQ #1. That's what I've done, and I believe the current article is free of all of those listed problem areas. If someone points out an issue that remains, I will fix it. But nowhere at WP:DCGAR does it say that an article has to completely replaced with a new article or that content has to be written anew.

If writing a completely new article had been the stated requirement at the start, I would not have signed up for this GAR. So from my perspective it is unfair to suddenly make that the requirement, and if all my efforts disappear under the PDEL/CP hammer, I am going to be one disgruntled Wikipedian. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:32, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Trainsandotherthings, I have worked with Wasted Time R for over 15 years, and if WTR says the copyvio is removed, I believe he can be trusted. I'm OK with this article, although I don't pretend to understand the GA standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:43, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I will take a closer look later tonight when I get home. If another coord wishes to close before I do so I won't object. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:47, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Having looked at it more closely, I am generally satisfied with the rewording of Doug's former content and I retract my previous statement. I apologize for being overzealous; the computer I was using did not have who wrote that installed and I should have waited until I got home to weigh in, but I didn't want to ignore a ping either. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:46, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

My eternal problem; Who Wrote That won't work on iPad, and it's essential with DC work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.