Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ernest Emerson

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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 07:46, 15 March 2007.

[edit] Ernest Emerson

Self Nomination I've been working on this article for quite some time. I helped build it up from a stub article to where it is now. I have properly formatted all sources in the Harvard Citation method and documented everything within the article. It was originally 2 articles, one on the Knifemaker, the other on his knives and I merged them into this current version. I welcome all comments and advice to get this article to Featured Status.

• Support my own Nomination.

Thank You --Mike Searson 20:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Object I think the introduction can be a little longer, plus, some more information on his early life would be nice (for instance, what made him interested in martial arts and knife making?). There's some trailing whitespace after the "Popularizing the tactical knife" section and a few grammar mistakes punctuation-wise. Also, there seem to be too many pictures; they seem to be decoratory, which would bring in issues of fair use. Lastly, one of the pictures is way too large and disrupts the rest of the article. It's a good article, but it still needs some little tweaks to perfect it. I know that some users may object to the Harvard citation style, too. Helltopay27 21:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the comments, I will work on most of it. All images have the proper tags, I didn't see that as an issue. Which image is too big? I was under the impression Harvard inline citations were the preference here...have I been misinformed? Thanks again for the help! Mike Searson 22:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Image:Emersonlottery.jpg is much too large (at least on my browser it is), and even if they have the proper image tags, too many pictures can be a problem, because excess use is also an issue with the fair use policy. As for the Harvard citations, I personally have no problems with it (though I prefer MLA style), but I've read other users' comments against Harvard style citations.
      • I may clip that one or remove it. Thanks for pointing that out, on the peer review I was told to make the pictures bigger and add more.--{[User:Mike Searson|Mike Searson]] 23:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. There are numerous manual of style, grammar and other issues here:

• The birthdate should be in parentheses straight after the name, per here.
• Images generally shouldn't have specified widths, per here.
• Months and days should be wikilinked together for date preferences; single years generally shouldn't be wikilinked.
• Decades should be given without an apostrophe, e.g. 1980s
• First use of dollars should probably be written US$ to eliminate ambiguity.
• edged weapons authority - I assume he is an authority in edged-weapons rather than a weapons-authority with an edge, so hyphenate it. Hyphens missing throughout the article.
• You shouldn't use numbers for the notes as well as the references, to avoid confusion. I'm not sure how you've done it, but can you use letters?
• For the Emerson Knives infobox, why are "Revenue" and "Employees" marked as "N/A"? I don't see how the information isn't applicable to a company.

Added to the above, the article has a tendency to read like a puff piece. There are POV statements, like "The system is based on simple and effective techniques" (who says they're simple and effective?). The second paragraph of the lead in particular makes him seem too good. Have there been criticisms of him or his knives? It feels unbalanced at present. Trebor 23:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Trebor, Thanks for the input...I was not aware of many of the items you pointed out (date formatting, etc) and will correct these ASAP. I will use letters for the footnotes and plan to add some more, I saw the numbering used on another featured article and used the formatting i saw there.

• I'll work on the POV as well. There are no formal documented criticisms...for example, some critics do not care for the chisel ground edge or feel the grind is on the wrong side of the blade. Some people resent the long wait to recieve knives (in excess of 10 years). I could put these into the article, but they would be unsourced and hearsay at best. If you can think of a way I can include that sort of thing, I'll be more than happy to put it in to achieve balance, however it's been non-existent in the 70+ print sources I've researched. Mike Searson 23:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, okay. If nothing's been published there's not a lot you can do. I think, then, that it just needs a weed out of anything too flowery: phrases like "numerous books", "countless numbers of...", "numerous articles", can lose the "numerous" and "countless numbers of" parts. They are redundant (the meaning isn't really changed without them; numerous is non-specific in amount) and seem to be bigging him up too much. If you give it a go, and I'll come back and take another look. And I didn't mention this the first time, but the amount of referencing is very impressive, well done. (Another nitpick: sometimes the page references include "pp", sometimes they don't.) A little work and I think this can become featured. Trebor 00:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought I removed that stuff from the beginning, but I'll have another scan for flowery prose like you mention. I'll also make the referncing consistent, I apologize, I was looking for shortcuts to the Harvard style. Thanks again, looks like my weekend is cut out for me! {[User:Mike Searson|Mike Searson]] 00:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Got it, it was in the lead section...I was under the impression that was ok...but I took them out and will work on running down accurate numbers if possible. Many thanks!Mike Searson 00:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Back for another look, sorry for the delay.

• Ref 68 has an unwikilinked accessdate
• The notes are a bit odd (and change size halfway through). I've never seem them used to collect quotations before, but I suppose it's okay. I feel they should be ordered alphabetically through the article, and also consistently come before or after the references for the sentence they are attached to.
• The double dash (after "baseball player") shouldn't be used; see WP:DASH for more.
• The prose is generally alright, but could perhaps do with a copyedit from an uninvolved editor. I spotted a few occasions where punctuation was used incorrectly. If you can't find anyone to run through it, I could give it a go myself, but not for at least a couple of days. Keep up the good work. Trebor 19:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the second look and your comments, Trebor. I wikilinked the access date, for some reason I thought that was done as part of the template. Found a stray tag in my "Footnote section" it threw the size to normal halfway through, ordered them alphabetically and put them after the source. I removed the double dash, will have another copyedit done. Mike Searson 22:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but there still appears to be a stray tag in the notes, and the year should be wikilinked in #68 as well. The reason it isn't happening automatically is that you're using accessmonthday and accessyear, as opposed to accessdate (personally, I don't see the point in having two options). Accessdate can be filled in in a YYYY-MM-DD format, and will automatically wikilink. Trebor 22:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Doh! OK, either I found it and forgot to remove it, or walked on my own edit. Fixed now...ok, access date it is! I'm still kind of new to all this and probably used another article to see how this tag was used...Thanks again! Mike Searson 22:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Support now, it looks good. Trebor 15:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I too have a few issues with the article...

Support My concerns have been addressed. We're now left with a well-referenced and comprehensive article that edumacated me. Caknuck 00:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

1. The opening paragraph of the "Background" section reads "...traveling to another state twice a week in order to learn." Um, which state?
2. The "Viper Knives" section reads "Although he always maintained that his knives were fighters first and foremost..." I think "fighters" is too jargonny in this context. I'd suggest changing it to "fighting knives" or "combat knives".
3. Why are all of the section headers third-level, except for the last four (which are second-level)?
4. The caption for the butterfly knife image reads "First Emerson knife." I'd suggest changing this to "Emerson's first handmade knife." to better coincide with the text. Also, the caption for the Viper Knives image should indicate (if possible) which model is which, since the model names are referenced within the article.

Once these issues are resolved, I'll be happy to support this for FA. {[User:Caknuck|Caknuck]] 20:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your review and for catching those things, the state in question was/is Minnesota. I fixed the captions on the two pictures, one of the earlier pictures I recently deleted showed 4 of the 5 Viper models and an early CQC6 marked with a Viper logo (Viper-6), I kept the current picture as it was better quality than the other, but didn't realize it was missing a descriptive caption. I made all headers Second level, I didn't realize they were different. Sorry for using the term "fighter", I realize now that this would be jargon.Mike Searson 21:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Object None of the fair use images used here have a detailed fair use rationale. Several images are also unsourced. ShadowHalo 20:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the fair use comment; some of the images probably shouldn't be there at all. Which images are unsourced? Trebor 21:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, help me out. Some are pictures I took, uploaded and released to public domain, the majority were released to public domain by Mr Emerson, 3 were taken by other contributors and uploaded by them and released to public domain. If anything is unsourced, let me know and I'll make sure that it is. Which do you think should not be there? Mike Searson 21:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Most of the logos. The first states that it came from a knife itself, but the others don't say where they came from, and in the case of Image:Eki.gif, there's nothing but the {{logo}} template. ShadowHalo 21:18, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Ooh okay. I thought you meant some non-fair use images were unsourced. Trebor 21:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Ack! All of the pictures look like they're appropriate for the article. However, some of the logos don't say where they came from (a picture of the knives, online, etc.), and all the copyrighted pictures (the logos and the book cover) need an explanation of why they meet Wikipedia's fair use criteria. If you need help, there are some guidelines at WP:FURG. ShadowHalo 21:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I walked on your edits. OK, thanks...I'll get to work on it. I used the template on the photo of Ernest and on the Bowie logo...is this what I need to do for the rest? Do I need added permission from Emerson? Thanks for pointing this out. I'll do what it takes to make them compliant. Mike Searson 21:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks good now. I'll withdraw my objection. ShadowHalo 21:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping me honest, ShadowHalo! Mike Searson 21:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I first encountered this article on peer review, and did some help early on with copyediting and referencing. Fine job! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support with no comments - I like it just fine.Peter Rehse 07:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.