Talk:Samuel Engel

Did you know nomination

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 Desertarun (talk) 08:26, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that the theories of Swiss geographer Samuel Engel about an ice free region near the North Pole led to a British expedition towards the North Pole in 1773? Source: Ann Savours, An Interesting Point in Geography, p. 403, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40510304

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Xianü (short story)

Moved to mainspace by Kusma (talk). Self-nominated at 21:52, 26 May 2021 (UTC).

• The article is long enough and new enough. I assume good faith on the references that I can't access. A QPQ has been completed. This is approved. SL93 (talk) 18:31, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

GA review

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.

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

Nominator: Kusma (talk · contribs) 22:37, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Actuall7 (talk · contribs) 13:15, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I'd like to review this article. Expect my review soon. Would also like to say in advance that I will use machine translation for the sources. actuall7 (talk | contrib) 13:15, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

initial checks

• Earwig gives a 23.1% chance, but most of it is book titles.
• No edit warring.
• File:SamuelEngel.jpg, I can't seem to access the link, but if it was made in 1776 then the copyright should be expired. Y
• File:A voyage towards the North pole undertaken by His Majesty's command, 1773 (1774) (14596259239).jpg Y
• File:Agriculture Economie Rustique, Pommes de Terre (from Suite du Recueil de planches).jpg Y

lead

• Maybe link agronomist? I wasn't too familiar with it until I realised it was just an agriculturist, but I assume the sources call him an agronomist which is why it shouldn't be changed.

  done

• In 1736 he became head librarian -> should add a comma In 1736, he became head librarian

  done

• for example promoting potato farming in Vaud. -> maybe reword such as promoting potato farming in Vaud.

  done

• Should geographer be added to his list of professions at the start? I understand he was only an amateur, but a large part of his career seemed to be exploring the Arctic.

  Not sure, I don't want the list to be sooo long. Professionally, he was a librarian and later civil servant; being an armchair navigator was not really connected to his professional work.

Early life and family

• Engel was born in Bern as son of Burkhard Engel -> maybe change "as son of" to "the son of" so it flows better? Though it might sound repetitive as the son of a Landvogt is said earlier in the lead.

  Rewritten

• Minor thing, but I would recommend writing Bern, Switzerland, the first time Bern is mentioned. I didn't really know where Bern was till I checked the link, so maybe it would be better if the country was included.

  Added. Nowadays Bern is the capital of Switzerland (at least in practice), but this was before modern Switzerland even existed, so I mentioned the Old Swiss Confederacy.

• Engel married Susanna Rosina Fischer, the daughter of Johann Friedrich Fischer, the Landvogt of Saanen. -> Is Susanna or Johann the Landvogt? It's a bit unclear here.

  Johann is the Landvogt; I don't think it is confusing.

• I noticed that there's no details on his death in the article, maybe consider adding it here?

  Will add the death at the end of the next section instead.

Professional career

• Engel worked as an administrator for orphanages from 1724. -> not really a critique, but did he really work as an administrator from 1724 to his death?

  No. Rephrased.

• Put a second comma after the name of the auction -> He produced an auction catalogue, (...) , that appeared in January 1744.

  Done.

• By June of that year, more than 600 of the catalogues had been shipped; the planned location for the auction was the trade fair city of Leipzig. -> shipped to Leipzig?

  No, shipped all over Europe. Engel had agents in various European cities that were supposed to solicit offers and transmit them to Leipzig.

• As librarian -> As a librarian

  ok.

• Landvogt in Aarberg 1748–1754 and Échallens 1760–1765 -> write out the years, Landvogt in Aarberg and Échallens from 1748 to 1754 and 1760 to 1765, respectively.
• Vaud in Nyon in 1770/71 -> I assume this means sometime between those years, Vaud in Nyon sometime from 1770 to 1771
• In the lead it mentions economist in his list of professions, but I don't really see anything related to economics in his career. I wouldn't consider his financial loss a justification to him being an economist if that's where you got it from.

  He was not a businessman, more of an economic theorist interested in planning the economy of various places in Switzerland. I added a gloss to the economic society he co-founded.

Geography

• from an early age -> "early age" doesn't really make sense, maybe "young age" or "in his youth"?
• Engel's 1765 book (...) suggesting the existence of a vast empty sea near the North Pole had a great influence in England and France -> reword, Engel's 1765 book, (...), which suggested the existence of a vast empty sea near the North Pole, had a great influence in England and France
• ships HMS Racehorse and HMS Carcass (commanded by Constantine John Phipps and Skeffington Lutwidge) -> did both of them command Carcass? If not, please specify.
• the voyage, A voyage towards the North Pole into German -> add comma, the voyage, A voyage towards the North Pole, into German
• Why is Denis Diderot linked by his last name? Why not mention him fully as Denis Diderot?
• The last image awkwardly sticks down into the references section, would it be worth removing? Or possibly moving it up to his career section as it would fit in with his agriculture career?

  All done; I moved the image to the other section, but I am not sure if that is the right move. It only seems to look bad in Vector 2022 (but then, every page on Wikipedia looks bad in Vector 2022, so I avoid using it).

Will do source review next. actuall7 (talk | contrib) 02:30, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

References

As of this revision.

• Cited bibliography sources all appear to be reliable.
• [1] Y

• For [1]e, would it be better context to note the famine happening during that time?

  Added, thank you for this excellent suggestion!

• [2] Y

• For [2]b, the source says (according to my translation) that he attended High School from 1718 to 1722. In the article, you call it the University of Bern. They probably are the same thing, but could you explain?

  They are not quite the same thing, so I linked to dewiki and added a footnote.

• [3] Y
• [4] N

• I think you put the wrong page for this source. The page 340 of Sander 2013 is a picture of Engel. Did you mean page 341?

• If you did mean page 341, then this ref is fine. Y

  Fixed.

• [5] Y
• [6] Y
• [7] Y
• [8] Y
• [9] N

• Add page numbers to this source.

• Just to help, [9]a should be page 145, [9]b should be page 146, and [9]c should be page 147.

  All added.

• [10] N

• This source says he participated in the discussion in 1735, not from 1735, which would imply he participated in these discussions regularly, if they were held regularly. Unless there is another source that says that this was a regular thing, change the "From 1735" to "In 1735".

  We have a letter from him that was published in 1735; after that most of what we know is from his letters that were published much later (all of Haller's correspondence has been published). Rewritten a bit.

• [11] Y Will assume in good faith that this ref is accurate as I don't have this book.
• [12] Y This ref is just to confirm the book's name.

• The actual name includes this é in Mémoires and géographiques, does it need to be included?

  Indeed, spelling fixed.

• [13] Y
• [14] N

• Should be 408–409, not 409. Some of the quote is on 408.

  Fixed.

• [15] Y
• [16] Y This ref is just to confirm the book's name.
• [17] Y
• [18] Y This ref is just to confirm the book's name.
• [19] Y This ref is just to confirm the book's name.
• [20] Y
• [21] Y
• [22] Y

Will place article on hold for now. actuall7 (talk | contrib) 05:10, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much for reviewing! I'll get to this as soon as I can. —Kusma (talk) 09:03, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

actuall7: Thank you again for the review and especially for looking at the sources so closely! I hope I have fixed all of the places where I have been sloppy. —Kusma (talk) 19:14, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for addressing everything @Kusma. Upon a second look at the article, I couldn't find anymore issues, so this passes. Just a minor cosmetic suggestion for the potato flour image, but maybe move it to the top of the professional career and left align it? Other than that, good work on the article. actuall7 (talk | contrib) 10:04, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

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.