Talk:David Owen Dodd

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David Owen Dodd has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

David Owen Dodd was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: March 27, 2008

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A fact from David Owen Dodd appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 26 February 2008.

[edit] Aristotle reference

It's really gotta go. It's just somebody's personal website. — NRen2k5, 00:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It has been removed and replaced with a reliable source that contains the same information. I suspect the information on the personal website came from there ... they are very similar. Truthanado (talk) 00:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA failure

I have had to fail this article at GAN, not because I don't think it has the potential to be a good article. I just think that what needs to be done to bring it to GA standard will take a while, certainly more than seven days. I would be very pleased to see the article eventually renominated, if the points below can be addressed.

The main problem I had is that there are so many loose ends that it seems as though only about half of the article has been written. There is a whole lot of stuff missing that we (the readers) needs to know if we are to make proper sense of this story. The following is a list, not necessarily exhaustive, of questions that need attention:-

• What was the nature of the business that Dodd's father sent him to Little Rock for?

This has been added to the article

• Who was Mary Dodge - an old or a new acquaintance?

Unknown ... some info about Dodd and his popularity with girls has been added to the article

• Why did Dodd visit the Dodge home?

This has been added to the article

• Were the Dodges thought to be implicated, and if so, why were they merely sent to Vermont while Dodd was put on trial for his life?

This has been added to the article

• What defence did Dodd put up at his trial? Did he explain how he came to be carrying messages in morse code about Union troop strengths. Did he admit they were his and that he'd sent them, or claim they were planted, or what? How did he plead? Was he legally represented?

This has been added to the article

• How, if at all, did Dodd explain the Derringer found on him? Was this held against him, or was it acceptable - there was a war going on, after all.
• What was the significance of the parcel found "between his shirts"?
• What was his family doing while all this was going on? Were they suspects? Was his father, who had sent him to Little Rock in the first place, questioned?
• Who were the character witnesses that testified for him?

That's enough for the moment. Please let me know if anything is not clear. Brianboulton (talk) 23:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

(This is being posted on the article's talk page as well as on the reviewer's talk page.) As the one who started this article, I appreciate your taking the time to review it. I was flattered that the article was nominated for GA status. I will try to address your questions, although it is difficult to find verifiable sources for the level of detail you are asking about. Having been involved in some GA reviews previously, I would be curious how you rate the article using the six criteria in Wikipedia:Good article criteria. Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, and I apologise for not including the following criteria list in my original review.

• • Well-written, etc: Marginal fail. It's not badly written but the lead is not in accordance with MoS guidelines
  • Verifiable: Pass
  • Breadth of coverage etc: Fail. This is the main area of concern - as indicated, too much is presently left out of the story.
  • Neutral: Pass
  • Stable: Pass
  • Images: So-so. As you have the only confirmed photograph of Dodd there probably aren't any other specific images you could use, but you could consider brightening the article with some background stuff (Civil War, maps etc?). I wouldn't make this a GA pass-fail issue, though.

So what it amounts to is writing a proper lead, and dealing with the points previously posted in order to provide a more complete story. It may be necessary, where the details asked for are simply not available, to say things like: "The exact nature of this business is unknown", or: "The contents of these documents have not been recorded" - these are of course examples, not suggestions. I imagine, however, that at least some of the key missing details are available somewhere, and will be interested to see how the article develops. Brianboulton (talk) 11:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I am trying to improve the article by addressing the GA review comments above. As I find and add things, they are added in italics after the appropriate comment. Everyone is welcome to help with this. Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 00:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)