William L. Breckinridge (final version) received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which on 25 June 2024 was archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.
A fact from William L. Breckinridge appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 May 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that one abolitionist said that William L. Breckinridge's anti-slavery views would "disqualify [him] from political usefulness"?
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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.
... that one abolitionist said that William L. Breckinridge's anti-slavery views would "disqualify [him] from political usefulness"? Source: The Breckinridges of Kentucky by James C. Klotter (1986), p.67
ALT2: ... that William L. Breckinridge increased tuition costs at Centre College for the first time in over thirty years as the school's president? Source: Our Standard Sure: Centre College since 1819 by Bob Hill (2009), p.36
Created by PCN02WPS (talk). Self-nominated at 18:59, 9 May 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/William L. Breckinridge; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]
Overall: Looks good. Hooks are interesting - AGF on the offline sources (also, I noticed that the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi link doesn't work; you may want to fix that in the article). Just need a QPQ. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:52, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Early in his adulthood, in the early to mid-1820s – Is there a way to word this that doesn't use "early" twice in a row?
Is antislavery the proper term? I usually just see "abolitionism".
I usually see that word as well but I decided to use "antislavery" since that's the word used by the source: "...they made a strong trio in the cause of antislavery." PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 18:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In 1849, he was among the attendees – It's fairly obvious that we're talking about Breckinridge again, but the last sentence was about James G. Birney, so "he" should be replaced with "Breckinridge".
The following year, Breckinridge returned to academia – We've moved to a new section, so it should specify the year.
and Oakland never fully recovered – This makes it sound like someone that suffered a physical injury. Could this be reworded or clarified?
There are a few times where Centre is used to refer to Centre College, which seems informal.
I added "College" to the first mention in the "College president" section, and the full name is present upon the school's first mention and last mention. I think the rest of the mentions as "Centre" are okay since I also have "Oakland" without its full name earlier in that section. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 18:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
in the midst of – How about "during"
though that number had dropped – "though" isn't necessary here, since it's adding on to the previous point to confirm the change rather than contradicting it. "and" is fine.
and the graduating classes while he was in office... – "ranged from seven to thirteen students" is more readable than a list.
He formally left office – Clarify
The "personal life and death" section is very short. One option is to get rid of the "career" and "personal life" distinction to just have a chronological biography. But if not, then it won't affect whether it's a GA.
Personally I'd prefer to keep it since I don't have any dates for marriages or the death of his first wife, which would make it difficult to integrate into a larger chronology. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 18:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Verifiable with no original research
I notice that there are a lot of older sources, including some primary sources. Newer sources would be better, but of course sometimes that's just not possible with lesser known subjects
Reliability:
Presbyterians of the Past appears to be run by one person, and I'm unable to find evidence that he meets the requirements of WP:EXPERTSPS. This might not be a reliable source.
I will admit that I am probably biased in some way because a lot of the article uses his source, but I have found a little that would suggest that Waugh could qualify as a subject-matter expert: he is a church historian at the Second Presbyterian Church (Greenville, SC) and got his MDiv and PhD from Westminster Theological Seminary. He has written and reviewed articles for the journal The Confessional Presbyterian and the Westminster Theological Journal. If you're still wary I'd be happy to hunt down and look through the sources he lists in his article to verify. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They seem like legitimate journals, so they should satisfy EXPERTSPS. This source should be usable at least for simple facts, though I'd be hesitant to use it for more contestable claims. All current uses look good. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What makes Log College Press a reliable source?
From what I've been able to find, Log College Press is a publishing company and online library that digitizes and reprints documents and works from Presbyterians and Presbyterian writers from the 18th and 19th centuries. They describe themselves on the "about" section of their webpage as a "historical archive", and much of their content about Breckinridge are digitized versions of his works, in addition to a picture and label of the whereabouts of his grave, which I used as a source on the article. Here is a short blurb about the company and here is an article about it. It looks to me like they only reprint works as opposed to writing any of their own. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 19:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi looks like it was published by a legitimate publisher, but is the authorship anonymous?
As far as I can see, no author is listed on the Google Books page or in the book itself - I looked through a couple of different digitized versions and none of them mentioned an author, just the publishing company. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:44, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Spot checks:
Howard (1975) – Checked all uses. Does the source specifically say that The Louisville Democrat supported abolitionism? My understanding of the source was that they decided to allow him to publish that opinion, not necessarily that they adopted it themselves
Minutes of the General Assembly (1859) – Where does it support Indianapolis? If it's on the webpage, I don't see it. If you're citing the book, then you should just cite the book directly with a page number rather than a webpage about it.
This seems to be a subject with limited sources, but it covers the events of his life.
Neutral
No ideas are given undue weight, and the article does not praise or criticize the subject.
Stable
No recent disputes.
Illustrated
Both images are public domain, and both have suitable captions.
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.