Talk:Douglas MacArthur
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Q1: Why isn't there a criticisms/controversies section?
A1: Because a section dedicated to criticisms and controversies is no more appropriate than a section dedicated solely to praises and is an indication of a poorly written article. Criticisms/controversies/praises should be worked into the existing prose of the article, per WP:CRIT.
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Confusing syntax in Early Life section[edit]
The syntax of the opening of the early life section is confusing in that it makes it sound as though Arthur MacArthur Jr. received his Medal of Honor after Douglas' birth, not before.
"A military brat, Douglas MacArthur was born 26 January 1880, at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, to Arthur MacArthur Jr., a U.S. Army captain, and his wife, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur (nicknamed "Pinky"). Arthur Jr. was a son of Scottish-born jurist and politician Arthur MacArthur Sr. Arthur Jr. would later receive the Medal of Honor for his actions with the Union Army in the Battle of Missionary Ridge during the American Civil War, and be promoted to the rank of lieutenant general."
This should read:
"A military brat, Douglas MacArthur was born 26 January 1880, at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, to Arthur MacArthur Jr., a U.S. Army captain, and his wife, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur (nicknamed "Pinky"). Arthur Jr. was a son of Scottish-born jurist and politician Arthur MacArthur Sr. Arthur Jr., had received the Medal of Honor for his actions with the Union Army in the Battle of Missionary Ridge during the American Civil War, and later be promoted to the rank of lieutenant general." Faction123 (talk) 22:43, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
- What are you talking about? Douglas MacArthur was born on 26 January 1880. His father was awarded the Medal of Honor on 30 June 1890. Douglas was ten years old at the time. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:35, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
Re: length banner and other FA concerns[edit]
I stumbled on this article to consider it for WP:OTD, but rejected it because of the length banner at the top. I read through the discussion from July and agree with Nikkimaria that the length is a problem for several reasons:
- Large amounts of text make the article hard for some readers to load the page and scroll through text (because the side bar is too small)
- Large amounts of text are discouraging for readers to read, because they have to read through lots of text to finish reading information about an event, rather than read a summary that fulfils their interest. If someone is interested in more specific information, they can find it in one of the sources cited.
- Large sections with multiple paragraphs makes information hard for the reader to find information they are looking for within a section.
I know that specialists like more information, but Wikipedia is written for a general audience, of which there are more of then people with a specialist interest. Specialists are also more likely to seek out additional sources (like biographies) while general readers will look at the length of this article and not read anything, defeating the purpose of writing an article.
A couple of suggestions for text that might be summarised or moved to other articles:
- The number of block quotes should be reduced and the information summarised or removed. If a reader is looking for a specific information, they will often skip the blockquotes and just read the subsequent paragraph. Many of these blockquotes are giving excellent description of MacArthur's thoughts or someone's thoughts about MacArthur, but are not necessary in an encyclopedia article. For example, the article doesn't need a whole paragraph blockquote of MacArthur's description of his Aug. 2 observations of the Champagne-Marne offensive: this is too much detail.
- There is lots of detail in many places that, due to the vast amount of text in the article, is not needed. Wikipedia articles should be summaries of the person's biography and the detail can be trimmed and generalised. I would do this myself, but I think that would be more disruptive than useful. Perhaps a subject-matter expert can do this instead.
I also have some other concerns:
- The first blockquote in "Rainbow Division" is not introduced, the author is not given in the prose, and it is not in quotes. A reader has to look at the footnote to see where the quote was from. With all of this in mind, a reader might think that this is Wikipedia text, not a quote from another author, which might run afoul of WP:PLAGIARISM. I suggest that this quote be summarised and rewritten.
- After the article is trimmed, I suggest that any section that is more than 4 paragraphs be broken up into sub-headings. This will make information easier for the reader to find.
- Why are the sources in "Further reading" not used as inline citations? Can these be used to replace lower-quality or older sources used in the article? If they are lower quality than the sources already used, why are they included here?
- There are lots of sources that I think can be replaced or removed: history.com, YouTube videos, and newspaper articles from the time period that should be replaced by more current references.
- Some of the include notes. These should be moved to a separate "Notes" section and cited (and the citations moved to their own section, maybe titled Inline citations?)
- Some of the sources have direct quotes from the source. I think this was used more often in Wikipedia articles, but has fallen into disuse due to plagiarism concerns and it no longer being necessary (the reader can verify the information themselves from the source). I suggest that these are removed.
Sorry for the long post. Pinging previous participants @Nikkimaria, Hawkeye7, and Srnec: Other commentators are also welcome. Z1720 (talk) 01:46, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for your well-considered suggestions. I promise to consider and take action.
- The notion that "large amounts of text make the article hard for some readers to load the page and scroll through text" has been thoroughly debunked. That readers read the article from top to bottom has also been. Studies have indicated that many readers comb the articles looking for specific information while those less interested merely read the summary in the lead. In this article the evidence is that most of the 1.5 million page views per year are from readers are looking for specific information on a particular aspect of MacArthur's life.
- Wikipedia articles are not summaries of the person's biography per se; that is contrary to our policy and the first of our five pillars, which holds that Wikipedia is a written compendium of knowledge. What we are supposed to do by policy is create ever more detailed subarticles (WP:SUMMARYSTYLE) but this has recently been challenged as well, because search engines direct the readers to the main article even when a subarticle exists on precisely the topic they are looking for. I have created a couple of subarticles, but that fact has stymied suggestions of creating more. Over time the article has slowly grown, with editors continually adding more material, particularly to the Occupation of Japan and World War I sections, which obviously fall into their particular sphere of interest.
- I will action your specific points. I note that there is currently no consensus as to how large sections should be. There is also a debate going on at the moment about explanatory footnotes and whether they should be included with the citations. My personal opinion is that explanatory footnotes need to be justified, with a reason why they cannot be in the body. : With reference to the "Further reading" section, these are books that myself and others have recommended. They could be used in the article for inline citations. I will consider each one.
- I agree about the use of direct quotes from the source in the footnotes. This is inconsistent and unecessary.
- Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
Why are dates on this article in DD/MM/YYYY?[edit]
This is a page on an American general, so shouldn't the page be in MM/DD/YYYY? Fringe, Suspect The (talk) 20:38, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
- MOS:MILFORMAT:
articles on the modern US military, including biographical articles related to the modern US military, should use day-before-month, in accordance with US military usage.
Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:17, 10 April 2024 (UTC)- Ok, thanks Fringe, Suspect The (talk) 02:15, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
MacArthur's Masonic Lodge membership[edit]
At the end of "Field Marshal of the Philippine Army" and just before the section on World War II are these two sentences:
In Manila, MacArthur was a member of the Freemasons. At the time of the occupation of Japan, MacArthur belonged to Manila Lodge No. 1 and was in the 32nd Masonic rank.
In the second sentence, should the first clause be: "At the time of the occupation BY Japan"? If not, I'm baffled as to how MacArthur's Masonic Lodge affiliation in Manila would have any relevance to the occupation OF Japan--especially since his time in Tokyo would certainly have taken away from any time he could spend in Manila. Rontrigger (talk) 06:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
- You're right. Please check the edit I made. — hako9 (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Looks good. Rontrigger (talk) 01:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 7 May 2024[edit]
|answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.Change "was in the 32nd Masonic rank" to "was a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason". The phrasing of the original excerpt is incorrect and not used by any regular Masonic body Masonicscribe (talk) 14:49, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
Done — hako9 (talk) 17:42, 7 May 2024 (UTC)