Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cardinal-nephew

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

The article was promoted 15:54, 26 July 2007.

Cardinal-nephew

Self-nomination. Meticulously referenced article with plenty of free images and an interesting subject matter. It is, I believe, exhaustive in terms of the number of referencable facts about this obscure topic. Has been recognized as a good article, and improved substantially since then. I filed a peer review to see if anything could be done about this list of cardinal-nephews, but quicly realized (with the help of LordHarris) that the obvious solution was to move that to a separate list: list of cardinal-nephews. I hope that you'll support this article; otherwise, I'd be happy to address any actionable objections. Savidan 00:25, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - It's a pretty nice article, but it needs a bit of work. First order of business that I can immediately notice is that, unless things have changed since I was last around here, years without dates should not be wikilinked. Also, there is currently a discussion on the proper format of date ranges that you might want to pay close attention to. I also wonder if all those date ranges are even needed, though I'll leave this discussion up to someone else and just posit the thought. I also don't like the large amount of red links as a matter of personal style. I think a truly thorough article will leave no red link unfixed in case someone wants to do further research on subjects within this larger subject. My last immediate problem is the lead. I personally don't think it is doing a tremendous job of inviting the reader into the rest of the article. There's too much action going on, whether it be date ranges or names or wikilinking or footnotes...it's all just a bunch of clutter. On top of that, I think it could be expanded a bit to adequately summarize the article. Nice job on the references, though I suggest fixing the clutter there as well by separating the bibliography from the notes like you might find here. Cheers, JHMM13^(Disc) 07:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I will unlink all the date ranges, but I prefer to leave them for now. As there are several hundred popes, and the difference of one ordinal number may mean several hundred years, I think it is necessary to give the reader context. Savidan 14:03, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - It looks surprisingly less cluttered without the blue links for the date ranges. Amazing how that works, eh? :-D JHMM13^(Disc) 04:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I do intend to one day fill all these redlinks. For now, I think it's reasonable to redirect them to the pope who was their uncle in most cases with the {R with possibilities} template. Savidan 14:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Nice job, and to the user below, note how I said it was "a matter of personal style." I'm not entirely sure what you (Briangotts) are trying to say by it "is not an appropriate grounds for opposing." I was not opposing and I made it clear that it was my personal preference, and I think the preference of many users, to see a featured article that supplies links to help suppress the confusion rather than add to it. Blue links = good. Red links = bad. Especially if these are links to people who you might want to look up because of confusion over context or other reasons. Once again, nice job, Savidan. JHMM13^(Disc) 04:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What bit of information do you think needs to be added to the intro? Savidan 14:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - My main concern is that the article devotes an entire section to the role of cardinal-nephews in conclaves, yet it is not mentioned at all in the lead. Furthermore, the lead should not have two sentences straggling off the end. You should tie it together somehow and create a proper paragraph. JHMM13^(Disc) 04:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't quite understand what you want me to do to make there be less "action going on" or why relevant wikilinks and footnotes are a bad think. See if you think it's less cluttered once I fix the date ranges. Savidan 14:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Generally the lead shouldn't be a place for excessive use of footnotes. Perhaps one or two footnotes to deal with things only mentioned in the lead (like a note on the spelling of a person's name if it's a biographical article), but the majority of this stuff should be information that is supplied in the body of the article. The lead should represent the whole of the article and serve as a small summary of the entire thing. Generally speaking, if it's worthy of inclusion in the lead, it should probably be in the article, so put the note in the article, not in the lead. JHMM13^(Disc) 04:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll separate the biography from the footnotes for sources that are cited more than once. Savidan 14:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Nice job, but I'd still like to see a complete separation, even for single-cited sources...just for continuity's sake. You can do this if you agree with me...if not, the way it is is fine. JHMM13^(Disc) 04:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - The above-described actions have been completed. Can I get an update from you on where the article stands? Savidan 15:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - It stands quite well, just as it did before. Another quick thing...I'm not sure you need the "Main article: Cardinal Secretary of State" tag there since it is not a spinoff of this article. Just let it be linked in the main part. I still haven't read the entire thing thoroughly and on continued arbitrary section reading I'm finding various syntax issues like single-sentence paragraphs that you might want to fix. The quote boxes irk me a little too. I do like the use of quote boxes, but these ones seem to use far too much space for what they have in them. Could you search around for another style, perhaps? Thanks, JHMM13^(Disc) 04:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me from breaking with the imbedded format. I'm inclined not to remove the quote boxes (which are used in other featured articles), although I will change the references as you ask, if you can point to some guideline (actually, even a few examples of outstanding articles would be fine). As for the intro, I will explore ways to to make it more inclusive, but I might have to sleep on that. I'm not incline to move the foot noted material from the intro to another part of the article and then repeat it uncited in the intro. The whole point is that those sentences are summary material, but I wanted to avoid original research in the way I summarized the trends. As I said, I will make some change to the intro, and notify you when its done. Savidan 17:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will forgive you in time X-D. Please check out this discussion which is very relevant to this FAC. Incidentally, I'd love the opinion of our most esteemed friend Titoxd here. Again, the quote boxes are just a personal thing. I like this template better. If you agree, stick it in. If you don't, keep yours. JHMM13^(Disc) 22:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support. Meticulous and thorough. Presence of redlinks is not an appropriate grounds for opposing. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 18:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your support, but, just to be clear, the redlinks have been eliminated. Savidan 18:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Support I think the list problem has been sorted. LordHarris 22:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Comment~~ - so, I've been poked to look at the article. Overall, it is very good, but there are a few things I noticed. Separating them by section:
1. Lede
  - It is unclear whether Cardinal nephew is a term used for the historical office, or for the current Cardinal Secretary-of-State.
2. Before 1566
  - Delink 1059. All of the other years have been delinked.
  - What sources indicate that Saint Anselmo da Baggio was brother of Pope Alexander II? By the way, source #9 doesn't load for me.
  - I'm confused by the following sentence:
    "by the Council of Bazill [(1430—1440)], Session 21, the number of Cardinals was not to be above 24, and not any nephew of the Pope or of any Cardinal was to be of that number. (Session 23.)"[10]
  - What is the point of the brackets and the Harvard citation? It's the only one I see in the article, and it seems the sentence can be reworked to avoid mixing citation styles.
  - "A cardinal-nephew could usually expect cushy appointments"... is there another word to use instead of "cushy"? It breaks the tone of the prose.
3. The Cardinal Nephew: 1566-1692
  - When did Pope Paul V elevate Roberto Ubaldini to Cardinal Nephew?
  - Consider breaking up the following run-on sentence:
    "Many historians consider Olimpia Maidalchini, the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X (1644—1655), to have been a de facto Cardinal Nephew, although the position was formally held by her son, Camillo Pamphilj, (after Pamphilj renounced his cardinalate in order to wed) her nephew, Francesco Maidalchini, and (after Francesco proved incompetent) Camillo Astalli, her cousin.[33][34]"
4. Role in conclaves
  - What on Earth is Instruzione al cardinal Padrone circa il modo come si dve procurare una fazione di cardinali con tutti i requisiti che deve avere per lo stabilimento della sua grandezza? I assume it is some sort of document, but more info would be nice.
5. Legacy
  - It is better to include "List of Prohibited Books", which the casual reader may understand more than Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Don't remove the actual Latin title, just add the vernacular English term next to it.
Overall, it isn't bad, again, and these things are fairly minor, so I wouldn't consider this an oppose. As an addendum, there's a ton of quotation templates, so that's just a trivial preference issue... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have augmented the lead as JHMM13 suggested and cleared up the Cardinal Secretary of State thing which Titoxd pointed out. Do either of you have any lingering concerns about the lead?

The source is at the end of the sentence; unfortunately, the entire "[www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/cardinals.htm Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church]" site seems to be down right now. If it's not back up within a week, I'll go through the cache and substitute the printed references which Mirandas gives. I used the site itself because the sources are extremely archaic and the site itself is quite reputable, being included in the Library of Congress's "MINERVA Web Preservation Project" and being linked by multiple scholarly sites, including Britannica.

The Council of Bazill sentence is just a quote from a (relatively ancient book). I can find no other mention of such a council or even figure out where Bazill might be. I didn't want to paraphrase because its possible that the author wasn't extremely precise with his choice of wording, as is common with older books. The brackets are the dates that I found for when this Council of Bazill took place. It's not a Harvard citation; its part of the original quote. He's refering to Session 23 of the Council of Bazill. Again, I didn't want to reword this because I am skeptical about the rigorousness of the source.

I'm out of town at the moment, so pardon me for leaving the rest of your comments for the time being. Savidan 05:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe one day I'll write an article about Instruzione al cardinal Padrone; as I explained in the article it offers choice pieces of advice about how to consolidate power in the college. The rest of your comments I have implemented. Savidan 16:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. I'm not sure whether I was unclear about the source comment: I see it is there, but it would be better if the name of at least one source were explicitly stated in the prose. Instead of "Some sources say brother", write, "Some sources, such as the New York Times, say brother". (And yes, the NYT is the most absurd thing I could come up with.) But, again, otherwise, it deserves to be FA'd. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oooooh, re-reading that I can see why another source might be needed. It's not that there are two sources in conflict; it's that one source says it could be either. I changed it to make that more clear. Savidan 23:24, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While it wasn't what I was saying, I'll file this one as WORKSFORME. Support. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Nice job...all the changes are great! JHMM13^(Disc) 19:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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