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Featured articleThomas F. Bayard is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Featured topic starThomas F. Bayard is part of the 1880 United States presidential election series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 16, 2018.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 24, 2014Good article nomineeListed
May 2, 2014Featured article candidatePromoted
March 2, 2017Featured topic candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 6, 2014.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that during the American Civil War, Henry du Pont had future U.S. Senator Thomas F. Bayard placed under arrest on suspicion of pro-Confederate activities?
Current status: Featured article

Misc

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I have been doing some research into Bayard's impeachment, and will no doubt be able to add significantly to this article in the future when I have collated my results. In the meantime there seems to be little more information than already presented here on the Web regarding the rest of his life. It would be very useful (for me at least) if anyone could add anything more general to this article; for example, I believe he was a presidential candidate on at least one occasion. His views on protectionism and on international relations in general were the main subject of controversy, it seems; this is part of my research, but summaries of his views seem to be hard to come by and newspaper reports too numerous to be easily summarised. --SMeeds 23:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

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Thomas F. Bayard (1828-1898) → Thomas F. Bayard, Sr. – According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people), use of a junior/senior suffix is preferred to a parenthetical disambiguator, and such parenthetical disambiguators are supposed to “avoid … anything … containing numbers”. — DLJessup (talk) 23:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

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Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

Discussion

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Add any additional comments

Oppose It is my intention in the very near future to flesh out this article considerably, I look forward to perhaps working together on it. There were many Bayard's, even in Delaware, and it's very hard for many people to keep them straight. I have just finished correcting several articles confused between father and son. Sr. & Jr. would seem to work in this case, because right now I know of only the two Thomas'- but there are more than two with other names, and I would prefer a consistent way of dealing with this problem. The only clean, consistent way is clearly to use dates. That's what the published encyclopedias do. The convention was written by people thinking of a smaller encyclopedia and not focused on the issue of many (say) James Smith's that were lawyers in California (for example). So why not bite the bullet and understand we need to just use dates. This concept is not original to me, see William Bradford, but would ask that everyone seriously consider it. stilltim 03:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some questions:
  • How would you handle a person for whom the dates of birth and death are not known?
  • For people who are still alive, the name of the article would have to change when they died. For example, if Michael Jackson (TV) were to obey this rule, the article would have to be titled “Michael Jackson (1958—)” and, if he were to die tomorrow, the article would then have to be renamed “Michael Jackson (1958–2006)”. Would a more consistent practice be to note the date of birth only (e.g., “Thomas F. Bayard (born 1828)” or “Michael Jackson (born 1958)”)?
  • Since MediaWiki 1.5+ can handle Unicode titles, should the date range be “1828<hyphen>1898” or “1828<en-dash>1898”?
DLJessup (talk) 23:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
good questions-nothing's perfect is it?
  • 1) I would use the existing approach if no dates are available.
  • 2) I would do as you imagine with living people. Their dates won't be the only changes required when they die.
  • 3) I have no idea. I don't understand the implications of these approaches. I have been using the hyphen, but only in ignorance. What would you suggest?
- stilltim 23:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • 2) While the dates won't be the only changes required when a person dies, it behooves us to try to minimize the necessity to change article titles due to its implications for wikilinking.
  • 3) In general, en dashes are supposed to be used for ranges. However, until the MediaWiki 1.5 release, en-dashes couldn't be used in article titles, and it is somewhat easier to type a hyphen (strictly speaking, a hyphen-minus) than it is to use the insert link on Wikipedia's edit pages to enter the en-dash, so hyphens tend to be used instead.
DLJessup (talk) 02:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A few comments:
  • I have proposed a change to the parenthetical disambiguation rules at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Parenthetical disambiguators that, when a parenthetical disambiguator is necessary, the dates of birth and death should be used.
  • I haven't withdrawn the rename request. Until now, I have been torn, because you do have some strong arguments, particularly in your example of William Bradford, and those arguments have convinced me to make the proposal I just mentioned. However, after deliberation, I still have to support the renaming. Wikipedia's general guideline is that, with names, if a middle initial or name or suffix can be used to disambiguate, then it should be used in preference to a parenthetical disambiguator, and "Thomas F. Bayard, Sr." is not ambiguous. (In the William Bradford case, "William Bradford, Sr." and "William Bradford, Jr." are ambiguous, so we must fall back on parenthetical disambiguators, and, in that case, the date range is probably the most consistent and most professional way to disambiguate.)
DLJessup (talk) 05:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That seems like a reasonable position to me- dates are "the most consistent and most professional way to disambiguate" when middle names or suffixes such as "Sr." & "Jr." are not appropriate or meaningful. I appreciate you entering that point in the wider discussion. I have not yet taken the time to learn how to do that. I will move the two Thomas Bayard's, correct their links, and remove the message. I hope that is the right action to take at this point. stilltim 11:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can't do it- I see you already moved Junior, so must ask you to do the same on Senior. I presume you are an admin. I will correct the links on both. Thanks for your help. stilltim 12:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, I'm not an admin. — DLJessup (talk) 14:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't comment on the talk page of the "people" NC yet, but it seems highly unlikely that the "people" NC would change in this sense anywhere soon. So, I propose not to take account of such speculations in this vote. The "people" NC did not change because of Roger Taylor (drummer), neither do Roger Taylor (1949) or Roger Taylor (1960) even exist as a redirect. --Francis Schonken 07:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Delaware legislature and secession

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"However others may have felt, on January 2, 1861, Bayard is widely credited for convincing the Delaware General Assembly to drop, once and for all, any thought of secession." This is a statement so vague as to be meaningless, and it's introduced with a clause that is weirdly confrontational. Furthermore, there's no citation to support it (or provide explanation of what, exactly, the article is trying to say). No mention is made of Bayard being a member of the Delaware state legislature, so presumably he didn't do this convincing by speechifying. How, then, did he do it? Binabik80 (talk) 04:47, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the author is trying to defend Bayard against the charges, levelled later in his political career, that he was friendly to secession and lukewarm on the Union war effort. It's a weak sentence in a weak article. I hope to improve this to GA or FA, but I doubt I'll have time for it before 2014. --Coemgenus (talk) 12:16, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Thomas F. Bayard/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Seabuckthorn (talk · contribs) 12:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nominator: Coemgenus (talk)

Hi! My review for this article will be here shortly. --Seabuckthorn  12:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]


1: Well-written

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3: Broad in its coverage

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5: Stable: No edit wars, etc: Yes

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I'm glad to see your work here. As per the above checklist, I do have some insights that I think will be useful in improving the article:

  • "By that time, Garfield had been assassinated and Arthur was president." (Can you provide inline citation?)
    • Done.
  • "After four years in private life, he returned to the diplomatic arena as Ambassador to the United Kingdom." ("as Ambassador" or "as an Ambassador"?)
    • I think "as Ambassador is correct in American English.
  • "Born in Delaware to a prominent family of that state, Bayard learned his politics from his father, James A. Bayard, Jr., who also served in the Senate." (or simply "learned politics"?)
    • Done.
  • "When Bayard's father retired from the Senate, Delaware elected his son to succeed him in 1869." (Can you rephrase it? For example: "In 1869, Delaware elected Bayard when his father retired from the Senate.")
    • It should be less awkward now.
  • "A Peace Democrat during the Civil War, Bayard spend his early years in the Senate in opposition to Republican policies, especially the Reconstruction of the defeated Confederacy." (spend or spent? Can you rephrase it? For example: "During his early years in the Senate, Bayard who was a Peace Democrat during the Civil War opposed Republican policies, especially the Reconstruction of the defeated Confederacy."?)
    • "Spend" was a typo. Fixed it.
  • "His conservatism extended to financial matters, as well, as he became known as a staunch supporter of the gold standard and an opponent of greenbacks and silver coinage, which he believed would cause inflation." (Can you rephrase it, "as well" is affecting the flow?)
    • I just removed "as well". The sentence works fine without it, so I shouldn't have written it in the first place.
  • "His conservatism made him popular in the South and with Eastern financial interests, but never popular enough to obtain the Democratic nomination for President, which he attempted to win in 1876, 1880, and 1884." (Is "the" missing?)
    • No, neither of those would typically take a "the".
  • "In 1885, President Cleveland appointed Bayard Secretary of State." (Is "the" missing?)
    • Same as above; "the" isn't the normal construction.
  • I think the sentence "As ambassador, Bayard continued to strive for Anglo-American friendship, which brought him into conflict with his successor at the State Department, Richard Olney when Olney and Cleveland demanded more aggressive diplomatic overtures than Bayard wished in the Venezuela Crisis of 1895." can be broken into simpler sentences to make it easier to follow.
    • Yes, it works better as two sentences. Done.
  • I think the sentence "He protested the requirement that readmitted Southern states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed equal protection of the laws to all Americans, and inveighed against the continued presence of federal troops in the South." can be broken into simpler sentences to make it easier to follow.
    • Yes, it would. Done.

Besides that, I think the article looks excellent. Coemgenus, please feel free to strike out any recommendation you think will not help in improving the article. All the best, --Seabuckthorn  23:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Promoting the article to GA status. --Seabuckthorn  00:10, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]