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Talk:George Wythe Baylor

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Did you know nomination

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 12:26, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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USS Covington, one of the tinclads disabled by Baylor's men
USS Covington, one of the tinclads disabled by Baylor's men

Created by Ficaia (talk). Self-nominated at 11:23, 22 March 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/George Wythe Baylor; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]


General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
QPQ: Done.

Overall: Thank you for this history which needs to be told. However, there are some major issues with this article, with a lot of work required to resolve the plagiarism.

  • The use of the word "Indian" several times in the article is troubling, and in my opinion it affects the neutrality of the article. We have to be particularly careful with neutrality in this article, due to the historical behaviour of the biography subject, and modern sensibilities to that. Even though it might have been a historical usage of the word in line with some of the sources used, the word is not used in quotations, so I believe that we must use a more acceptable word or phrase instead. Maybe you can find alternative words in the article Indigenous peoples?
  • Earwig finds 89.2% copyvio - not proper names or common phrases - real plagiarism. This nomination cannot be passed until all the plagiarised sections are either paraphrased or put into blockquotes or quotation marks. See Earwig for details of exactly how much you need to rewrite.
  • The citation for the ALt0 hook is offline, but I shall take that in good faith. However the date mentioned in the hook is not repeated in the article, so I cannot approve the hook until the date is there.
  • Re the image: although that picture is interesting in larger size, I don't believe it would work on the Main Page as a thumbnail. If you really want an image in this nomination, may I suggest that you give us another hook with a different image? I have removed the image checks from the review, on the understanding that the image will not be used. Storye book (talk) 10:03, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book: I've replaced "Indian" with "Apache" or "Comanche" throughout, depending on context. I've also added an alternative hook. As for the copyvio concern, the source copied from is in the public domain and is acknowledged in the "Sources" section of the article. There's more than 1500 characters of paraphrased text here besides the content lifted from the public domain source, so length is not a problem. Thanks for the review. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 12:01, 24 March 2023 (UTC) Also, the date of the sinking of the tinclad is in the caption of an image in the article. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 12:34, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ficaia: Re neutrality. Thank you for replacing most iterations of the word, "Indian", with more acceptable alternatives. However, there is at least one remaining iteration without quotation marks, and maybe some of the remaining ones could be paraphrased, with a different word? If you must have quotes including the word, then it would be wise to mention the author openly in the text, to make clear that it is a historical usage. Just using "scare quotes" makes it worse, because the word is then being used in the Wikipedia voice. It is better to correct this now, than to have repercussions when the article is linked to the Main Page.
  • Thank you for ALT1, which would be fine, but for the use of "Indian". I believe it would be acceptable if the hook included the author of that quoted phrase (so it is clear that they were being racist, not WP). The ALT1 hook fact has an online source, in the article.
  • Re copyvio. You do need to make clear with quotation marks or blockquote, exactly which words are quoted in the article. Just saying at the end of the article or in a citation that its public domain contents are used, is not enough. This is because a reviewer like me, and also your reading public, cannot tell easily what is copied public domain material, what is your own paraphrase, and what is copyvio. If the entire article and all the sources consisted only of public domain material, then little notes at the end, to that effect, would be OK. But when you have a complete mix of material, you cannot do that, without it being called copyvio on WP. So please make your quotations absolutely clear. If, as you say, length is not a problem, you will not lose this nomination if you do that.
  • Re the date in ALT0. The date being in the image caption in the article is fine, but you need a citation for the date in that image caption, please.
  • Thank you for kindly making an effort so far to sort out these issues. Because you have started in this way, I believe that we can get there, and I have good hopes of seeing this nomination pass, although it will take some work. Storye book (talk) 15:45, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book: There is at least one footnote at the end of every sentence here, so it is always clear what source is being drawn from for any statement in the article. I've been made aware that copying from PD sources is fine as long as there is an attribution in the reference list and there is always an inline citation to indicate where exactly that source is being used. Also, I've amended the hook and removed/altered any remaining uses of "Indian". 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 01:46, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Ficaia, for removing all unnecessary uses of "Indian" from the article.
  • Thank you for your explanation of why you have not indicated your quotations. I can see where you're coming from and I respect your opinion, but It does not feel right to me. This is because I deal with 19th-centrury texts every day, and I value the quotes from those sources because the language and attitudes of the era show clearly in the quotes, and tell us how those people thought about what was happening to them. But if we use their words as Wiki-voice, that can be dangerous, especially in a biography of a white pioneer soldier who freely butchered people of another race because that was his job, at a time when newspaper reports tended not to be as critical of his actions as we might be. I think we need to separate the words used at the time, from today's Wiki voice. But that is just my opinion.
  • To be fair to you, I shall ask for another opinion. @BlueMoonset: @Theleekycauldron: @Bruxton: Storye book (talk) 10:16, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Storye book: Are there any specific passages you have a problem with? I've actually done quite a bit of pruning and rewording of the PD source, changed "murdered" and "massacred" to "killed" and other such vocabulary, and haven't included any of the editorial moralising. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 10:25, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I was just making a general point of principle, and I accept that you have been very careful. I was certainly not suggesting that you were promoting those old ideas. I did not find anything non-neutral apart from "Indian", and we have resolved that. But let's see what others think about whether we should mix public domain and paraphrased copyrighted texts together without using quote marks to differentiate them. Storye book (talk) 10:51, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I myself do use "Indian" most often in everyday vernacular, but unless you're writing an article about U.S. law, it does strike me as unnecessarily inflammatory for an encyclopedic article. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 14:20, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thank you, theleekycauldron. I believe that we have now removed all the unnecessary iterations of "Indian". from the article and hooks. What is left is (1) "Indian Territory", which is a historical term appropriate for this article (2) a quote "an old Indian fighter" from a named newspaper of the era described in the article, (3) the original title of a map, and the original title of a 1916 book. I think that those are OK because they are clearly used in their historical context.
      • The main question that I have for you now, is whether we can mix (a) copied Public Domain text (without quotes) into the article text, alongside (b) the editor's paraphrased text from other sources, and (c) proper quotations in quotation marks. All material in the article is properly and fully cited (as far as I can see), but the difficulty is that the reader cannot see which is what in relation to a, b and c. Earwig finds over 80% copyvio, and on Earwig you can see that almost none of that highlighted stuff is in quotation marks. The creator/nominator says that it is OK. Because I have not seen this type of mixed presentation before, I have asked for a second opinion. Please let us know what you think? Thank you. Storye book (talk) 20:41, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • The main things to keep in mind are: 1. all text copied from the public domain needs to be attributed in the listing of the source; 2. PD copied text doesn't count towards the 1500B length minimum. Beyond that, copyright isn't really a consideration we make with the end user in mind. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 22:16, 25 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
          • As I understand it, the creator/nominator and I are already agreed on those principles. The question is: if the PD text is not defined by quotation marks, (1) how can we follow the rule, "all text copied from the public domain needs to be attributed in the listing of the source", and (2) how am I as reviewer supposed to separate out the PD stuff from the rest to count characters? Another issue for me is, if quotations are not defined, then how do I separate informal language which is permissible in quotes, from slang etc. which is used in those parts of the text which should be formal Wikivoice? One example in this article is "back of", which is possibly used instead of "behind", but to those of us outside the US, its meaning is unclear.Storye book (talk) 09:28, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the point about slang is a bit nit-picky. 'Back of X' is common usage in Australian English too, btw. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 09:59, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Slang is a local and casual use of language. This is an international platform, whose audience includes many people for whom English is not their first language, and who have been taught formal English. I am a professional user of English, and have been an examiner of English, and I am still unsure of your precise meaning of "back of" in that context. If it does not mean "behind", then what does it mean, and why can't you use a formal English expression? Or could it be a quotation, in which case please mark it as such with quotation marks? It doesn't make much sense to me: the mother is apparently in a boat on a river, - behind a city? How can you be behind a city? From which point of view is the rear of the city? That is the problem with informal language; it is often imprecise. One of the functions of formal language is precision. If you had said "back of a house", I would have understood you, because a house normally has a back and a front. I have never seen a city with a back and a front. Storye book (talk) 10:22, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've replaced it with 'near'. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 11:40, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Ficaia, for improving the article, and resolving the "back of" issue. Don't worry, you are not alone in this. Like a lot of people here, I too am using formal English as a second language, so to speak. My first dialect is from south-east England, where we have Estuarine overlaid on the old, defunct, east Kent rural dialect, plus the street habit of using the F-word several times in every sentence. But you can't get a professional job in Kent unless you can also speak received English and write Standard English. And on WP, you and I just have to fit in. It can be fun sometimes, because formal English (whether in American or British English) can be a powerful tool, not least because when your language is clear, concise and to the point, people take you seriously. So I believe that you will go far in writing these articles, so long as you are prepared to adapt to this rather powerful method of communication. Anyway, well done, so far. Storye book (talk) 14:09, 26 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Storye book: Presumably, the text in question cites the source it is copied from. As long as the source stipulates that some of the text from it has been copied, that is all that is required for DYK purposes. You as a reviewer should theoretically already know which text that is, since plagiarism checks are required, so just subtract that out with your favourite character counting tool. Quotation marks aren't required, as they would make articles uncomfortable to navigate. The slang doesn't seem to raise any issues directly in conflict with the DYK criteria in size or scope, although it might not be ideal. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 03:44, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, theleekycauldron. Using Earwig's highlighted matches from the texashistory.unt.edu source only, there are 4040 characters of copied public domain material (using the character count link above). According to DYK Check, there are 14047 readable characters n the article. So according to what you have told me, that should be OK.
  • I have removed the image checks from the review, on the understanding that because it is unclear as a thumbnail, it will not be used. The date in ALT0 is now cited in the article, so there are no more problems with this nom.
  • This nom is now good to go, with ALTs 0, 1 and 2 (no image, because the one above is unclear as a thumbnail). Storye book (talk) 09:49, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Historical commentary

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There are three statements in this article that are wrong, debatable, or make no sense. I will soon be making corrections to these statements in the article. Djmaschek (talk) 20:54, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • He was in the capture of the United States regulars at Organ Mountains, Arizona (now New Mexico), and in all the fights in Louisiana in which Colonel Thomas Green figured: Mansfield, Cane River, Monett's Ferry, Marksville, Mansura and Yellow Bayou. (My comment: Green was killed soon after Mansfield, so he could not possibly have "figured" at Cane River, Monett's Ferry, Marksville, Mansura and Yellow Bayou.)
  • He escorted the surrender of General Banks (as Brigadier General W. P. Lane, commander of Baylor's brigade, was wounded at Mansfield). (My comment: Banks was defeated in the Red River campaign, but he certainly never surrendered, so he could not possibly have been escorted anywhere by Baylor. True: Baylor took command of the brigade after Lane was wounded.)
  • At the battle of Mansfield it was his regiment that led the charge of General Hardeman's division, which turned a wing of the Union force and put them to flight. The division captured a number of prisoners, but many of their own number were killed at the last volley, including General Mouton. (My comment: William P. Hardeman commanded the 4th Texas Cavalry Regiment at Mansfield, not a division. Hardeman later led a brigade at Yellow Bayou. Both Baylor and Hardeman reported to their cavalry division commander James P. Major. Mouton led a Texas-Louisiana infantry division. Mouton's and Walker's infantry divisions broke the Union line. Mouton was killed in the early part of the battle, not "at the last volley".)
  • I see now that the above statements were copied from the Yeary source. Source or no source, they are still wrong. They are from an old man whose memory was probably fading. By "escorted", Baylor certainly meant "pursued". Djmaschek (talk) 21:06, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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