Wikipedia:Peer review/Learned Hand/archive1

Learned Hand

This peer review discussion has been closed.

A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.

This article is about a famous American judge. We've listed it for peer review because we are planning to take it to FAC and would like to iron any problems out in advance. Neither of us are from the United States (British and Canadian), so help spotting non-U.S.-English idioms would be appreciated. We are not conversant with legal matters in general or U.S. law in particular, so it would be particularly useful if mistakes, infelicities, or imprecisions in that aspect could be pointed out. Many thanks in advance to anyone who reviews the article. qp10qp (talk) 21:47, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have much to add except that despite the "we'"s above qp10qp has done by far the most work on this article! And though a judge might not sound terribly interesting, this forward-looking chappy was not your archetypal bombast, and thus interesting to read about and review. We would welcome your comments and suggestions.--Slp1 (talk) 23:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Emw2012 (talk · contribs)

Inconsistent usage of British- and American-style quoting. Whichever form you choose, it should be consistent. I would have fixed this myself if I'd known what style the major editors preferred for the article.

I didn't think it was inconsistent: the style was the "logical" one, but I admit that it may appear inconsistent since one varies the position of the punctuation according to that in the sources; for example, a quote may appear to be a full sentence that requires a full stop within the quotes but may actually be part of a longer sentence in the original, therefore requiring the stop after the quotes. I agree, however, that this is problematic; and since this is an article that attempts American English, I have now gone through and placed all the relevant commas and full stops within the quotation marks. Crumbs, I will be eating corn dogs next. qp10qp (talk) 09:54, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have now reintroduced a measure of "logical" punctuation in response to SandyGeorgia's edit summary referring to the MOS. I'm getting a bit befuddled now, fearing that the more I try to make the punctuation consistent the less consistent it might be. Why couldn't Hand have been British? Then I could have punctuated on autopilot!

Unless used to describe nationalities, nouns describing areas of study usually aren't capitalized. For example, "Law", "Philosophy", "Economics", "Law School" (but not "Harvard Law School") should all be lowercase ("English", "Latin" and "Greek" remaining capitalized). I'll go through and fix this.

Many thanks. qp10qp (talk) 08:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the 'Albany legal practice' section, is "laisser faire" actually how it was spelled in the source? The phrase is usually spelled "laissez-faire". If the original author did in fact spell it "laisser faire", then the quote should probably read "...laisser faire [sic]".

Well spotted! Yes, Hand did spell it that way, and with no hyphen, but I'd left out the "sic". Now added. qp10qp (talk) 08:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I think I did include the [sic] long ago, per Gunther but someone passed by and deleted it. I don't care either way.--Slp1 (talk) 13:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Laisser faire" is perfectly acceptable, if uncommon; it's certainly not an error, and doesn't deserve a "sic" (which is heavy-handed at the best of times) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And here's the OED: "1825 [MARQ. NORMANBY] Eng. in Italy I. 296 The laissez faire system of apathy. 1848 Simmonds's Colon. Mag. Aug. 338 Mammonism, laissez-faireism, Chartism, currency-restriction [etc.]. 1873 H. SPENCER Stud. Sociol. xiv. 352 Shall we not call that also a laissez-faire that is almost wicked in its indifference. 1887 Contemp. Rev. May 696 The ‘orthodox’ laissez-faire political economy. 1891 S. C. SCRIVENER Our Fields & Cities 168 Laissez-faire is the motto, the gospel, of the person who lives upon the work of another. 1932 G. B. SHAW Platform & Pulpit (1962) 252 A Cabinet of talkers and Laisser-fairists. 1944 A. JONES Right & Left 16 The Conservative is neither a planner nor a laisser-faire-ist. 1966 Guardian 1 Dec. 8/6 Professor Peacock..isn't too keen on being cast as a ‘relentless laisser-fairist’." Note the last three instances. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I must say I dislike the intrusive sic too. In this case, the source does use one, and so I suppose it is justifiable to include it. qp10qp (talk) 09:54, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would get a more experienced editor to go through the captions and determine whether they should end in a period, per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Captions.

I think they have settled down now. qp10qp (talk) 08:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Overall I think it's an exceptional article, and should be nominated for FAC.

Many thanks for your prompt review. Much appreciated. qp10qp (talk) 08:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes thanks!--Slp1 (talk) 13:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC. The sourcing looks good.

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 13:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much.Slp1 (talk) 13:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing is more reassuring than the Ealdgyth MOT certificate! Many thanks. qp10qp (talk) 14:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All the images are PD and should be on Commons, most already are. I'll take care of this and make a Commons article on him, add cats, etc. I'm an admin there too. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:16, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! Do you think the lead image has the right license? (At a stretch, I worry that "life of author plus 70 years" may not have elapsed.) As a Commons admin, your comment on the Talk:Learned Hand#Images thread, re the picture of Learned with his father, would be appreciated. qp10qp (talk) 08:01, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Swatjester (talk · contribs) I preface these comments by saying I haven't read the entire article, so some of my concerns may already be addressed.

Not enough citations in opening paragraphs. Specifically, this claim: Even when he criticized the civil-rights activism of the 1950s Warren Court, Hand retained his popularity. and The profession suited his detached and open-minded temperament, and his decisions soon won him a reputation for craftsmanship and authority. However, many of those sections should be quite easy to source, especially the historical parts.
- I think that the point here is to follow WP:LEAD's advice on "avoid[ing] redundant citations in the lead." Those who read the entire article can see the references. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 01:50, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can ref these statements if necessary, and, of course, we are obliged to do so when requested. I'd like to hear other views before taking this step. Refs were kept to a minimum in the lead to give readers a smooth entry into the article. Certainly there are refs in the body of the article that cover all of the points in the lead, qp10qp (talk) 07:38, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Under Philosophy, more explanation of how he was a positivist, and that the positivist view tends to echo the Legal Formalist view. According to Prof. Volokh, Harvard Law School has extensive studies of Learned Hand's judicial philosophy on file in their library, thus making them citable references.

I agree that some more on the positivism is needed (we were discussing this yesterday); I have plenty of material, so I will do that. May take some time. qp10qp (talk) 07:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've now added an explanation of what Positivism means in this context. I'm not sure about mentioning formalism as well, in case the reader starts to get -ismed out, what with Relativism, Pragmatism, Positivism. Hand always advised a more imaginative approach than strict formalism, anyway. qp10qp (talk) 16:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This post from the Innocence Project quotes Learned Hand in almost a legal realist viewpoint, and argues that he was critical of the justice system's excessive formalism in criminal defense cases.

Cheers. Will check this out.qp10qp (talk) 07:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've added something to this effect to the influence section.--Slp1 (talk) 14:28, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This Stanford Law Review article via JSTOR is a ready citation for some of the more "flowery" praises of Judge Hand.

Do you mean the ones in the article or further ones? The flowery praise has been kept to a minimum (I think), and largely restricted to quotes from jurists or newspapers. In truth, nearly everything one reads about Hand is inter-larded with praise—even when he is being criticised. I found this a bit sickly and hadn't realised the legal profession could be so luvvy. qp10qp (talk) 07:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a famous quote that occurred in a conversation between Learned Hand and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in which "“Do Justice, your honor. Do justice!” Hand cried as Holmes pulled away. Holmes turned and called back to the younger judge. “That is not my job. My job is to apply the law.”" I don't have a reliable source for it, but it might be worth noting that Judge Hand very much admired Justice Holmes.
- I think the quote is probably apocryphal: I haven't seen it in my reading in any case, and haven't been able to source it otherwise either. But it is certainly true that Hand admired Holmes, and I have added it to the text about their interaction re Masses. --Slp1 (talk) 02:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it is apocryphal. It can be sourced in one or other secondary version by typing "Holmes" "Hand" "that is not my job" into Google Books. On closer inspection of the hits, though, this tends to be prefaced by "it is said", "it is told", "traditionally", and the versions of the exchange vary considerably. What is lacking is the quotation of a primary source behind it. I would not really be in favour of including this, since the sentiment itself is rather simplistic. Although it is supposed to have happened when Holmes was riding in a carriage and so would have been early in Hand's career, this does not sound like the authentic voice of Hand to me at all. The story is left out of Gunther, Schick, Griffith, etc., and so I think we should omit it too, but I'm open to persuasion. qp10qp (talk) 07:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 01:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your review. Some food for thought and much appreciated! qp10qp (talk) 08:06, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I've been following qp's work on this for a while, and now taken the chance to look at some sections in further close detail. From time to time there are a few nits to pick, but frankly, this article is already well above the average standard at FAC. It's an extraordinarily impressive piece of work. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review and for your help with the ref formatting, etc. qp10qp (talk) 11:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]