# Talk:Göttingen Seven

My German is rusty, but taking a look at the sources, I do not believe that they are reliable. You should have someone whose German is better verify this, though.

www.agronomia.de - This appears to be a self-published website. WP:SPS
The Göttinger filters and William Eduard Weber - "Wir sind eine Arbeitsgruppe von Seniorenstudierenden der Universität Leipzig, die ihre Tätigkeit mit Unterstützung der Universität selbstständig organisiert und gestaltet." - This looks like a self-published, student page.
Göttinger seven 1837 - I think this self-published by Markus Gail (see [1]).
The Gottingen Filters - This site lists no author and requests that the reader contact a press and communications department for more information. It is not a scholarly source (as far as I can tell), it is just the university's page on itself.
Die Göttinger Sieben - This appears to be a self-published website as well.
What about using some of the books listed on these sites, such as Die Göttinger Sieben. Kritik einer Legende? 
Also, having at least one English source would be good, I think. (Wikipedia.en tends to assume that its readers are proficient only in English.) What about a general history of Germany in the nineteenth century? Certainly, it would make a passing reference to this event? Awadewit | talk 01:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I have got at least 10 book sources now, so the reliability of source matter has been fixed up. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 00:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The biggest problem with the prose in this article is its wordiness; there are a lot of extraneous words and phrases. You might take a look at this helpful guide on writing. Although aimed at FAC articles, it is a good general article on writing as well. Awadewit | talk 01:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I have fixed some of this... I just can't see it very much. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 00:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I am placing this article on hold, and intend to do a copy edit for you (I will note what is done, and include a whole diff for you to ensure I didn't introduce any factual errors). The issues that should be addressed before this is passed are listed below.

Wordiness/iffy prose: part of the well written GA criteria. There remains a lot of extraneous words in the text, I will try to alleviate most of this. I will come here with anything I am not clear on factually, some of the sentences are hard to understand because of the way they are worded. I have put a couple preliminary examples below just so you know what I am talking about.
The Göttingen Seven (German: Göttinger Sieben; also known in English as the Göttinger filters) were a group of seven professors who hailed from Göttingen, who protested in the year of 1837 against the abolition or alteration to the constitution of the kingdom of Hanover by Ernest Augustus.
This is the first sentence of the article. It could be condensed to read something like: The Göttingen Seven (German: Göttinger Sieben; also known in English as the Göttinger filters) were a group of seven professor from Gottingen who protested against the abolition of the constitution of the kingdom of Hanover by Ernest Augustus. Or it could be split up: The Göttingen Seven (German: Göttinger Sieben; also known in English as the Göttinger filters) were a group of seven professor from Gottingen. In 1837 they protested against the abolition or alteration of the constitution of the kingdom of Hanover by Ernest Augustus.
It was in the year of 1833 that the constitution that Ernest Augustus would later oppose came into effect.
This is the first sentence of the body, it could be reworded: The constitution that Augustus later oppposed came into effect in 1833.
This eliminates the wordiness ("It was in the year of") as well as the passive voice.
All done

Not sure this will hold up GA but I don't think most of the claims in the lead really require footnotes, they seem to be referenced further down in the article, and don't seem like particularly extraordinary claims.
Please note the foreign language references in the citation.
 Done
The web references need a bit more info in the citation, publisher, author, date (all subject to availability except publisher.
All of the book references are more useful with page numbers, this is highly recommended.
Unfortunately I no longer have the books, so I can't find page numbers. Is this a problem? -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 00:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Red links shouldn't appear in See also section, as they have nothing to see.
 Done
Ten days later, the seven were relieved of their posts at the university, and two of them, the Brothers Grimm, were given three days to leave the country.
Does this sentence really need five footnotes?
Do you propose they be removed....?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anonymous Dissident (talk • contribs) 01:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Dahlmann's document was published and met with an explosive influence — the students at the university produced many hundreds, or even thousands, of copies and disseminated them across Germany.
This sentence and much of the article implies this protest was a big event in German history, to meet GA I think a bit more detail is required on exactly how this protest was so explosive and influential. Basically, how did things progress from protest to creation of a liberal republic in Germany.
Well, my source is vague at this point; it states that it contributed to a liberal republic without expanding.... -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 01:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Section title: "The Gottingen Seven" section should be retitled per WP:HEAD, basically the issues here are: the use of an article "the" and the duplication of article title in section heading.
Retitled. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 01:11, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Please feel free to give some copy edits yourself too. :)
I am also a bit worried about the reliablity of the first four sources, which much of the text is derived from, particularly, this one [2], no author or sources. The first one seems to link to museums, so its probably okay, but please explain the others.
It appears that they really are not reliable. However, I have removed them, and I have found some good books, which I have now used. The article is still well cited. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 03:39, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
When these issues have been addressed please let me know on the talk page and I will take another look, you have up to seven days to address my comments.
IvoShandor 11:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Copy editing done
My copy edits have eliminated much wordiness, passive voice and obvious redundancies. This should help the clarity immensely. Here is the diff so far.

The Gottingen Seven section has been copy edited once by me. IvoShandor 11:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Background and protests section done by me. I will do the lead once the other issues are addressed. :) IvoShandor 11:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for your help; I intend to get cracking soon (later today, probably). Regards, -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 05:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The page numbers are usually pretty important, but if you can promise to get to a library sometime and search them out and add them, I think I can let it slide. The five footnotes, what I am wondering is, why are there five, if the statement is that verifiable I would think one would be good enough. IvoShandor 17:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Reduced to one and I will get to a library soon. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 21:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
In light of the work completed here, and the discussion above, I have passed this article per the good article criteria. Congrats. IvoShandor 03:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

This article seems to contradict that on the Brothers Grimm, that says only one of them was expelled.  I believe only Jakob was actually expelled, though both were dismissed.  Also, I have a reference to a book which discusses the King's motivations and legal basis for annulling the Constitution.  I'll put it in a bit later.--Wehwalt 14:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello Anonymous Dissident,
first of all, thank you for writing this article.
One problem however: currently, this article gives some very strange citations (permant link to this version). Examples: For the fact, that Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm are known together as the Brothers Grimm, it cites a book "Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein". King Ernst declared that it was his aim and ambition to make the necessary changes to the constitution, this fact can be found in "Portraits of pioneers in psychology"?
Somehow it seems that the connection between the references and the text has been lost during the edits. Is it possible for you to correct this?
Regards --Cyfal (talk) 23:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The final sentence in this article states:

The efforts of the Göttingen Seven outlived each of them, and the impact they caused on German politics at large can be, in some part, attributed to the creation of a liberal republic in Germany.
What does this sentence mean?
Normally, the "impact" of a person is attributed to the person himself and perhaps to the circumstances surrounding him.  For example, the impact of Teddy Roosevelt on American politics is attributable to Roosevelt himself, and to the political situation during his life.  It would seem very odd to state that "the impact of Teddy Roosevelt on American Politics can be attributed to the Vietnam War", since that war happened long after TR's death.
Yet this sentence seems to be saying that the impact of a protest in 1837 is "in some part attributed to" the creation of a liberal Republic in Germany, which did not happen until 1919 -- or, if you want to stretch things, 1848.  But either way, how can the impact of their protest be attributed to something that happened afterward?
Did the writer of this sentence mean it the other way around -- that the creation of a liberal German republic is attributed to the Göttingen Seven?  — Lawrence King (talk) 01:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The current version that the two Grimm brothers were the only members of the Göttingen Seven that were banished from the country (i.e. the Kingdom of Hanover) is incorrect and is also not supported by the given sources. Johson and Iba write that the Grimm Brothers chose to "sign, along with five other noteworthy professors, the protest of the 'Göttingen Seven', an act that led to their firing an banishment from Göttingen." (p. 14) They neither state an explicit number of people that were banished, nor do they mention a country-wide banishment. In this source, "their banishment" could as well apply to all seven scholars. Holborn instead is very explicit about the event and has been cited wrongly in our article: "Dahlmann, Jacob Grimm and Gervinus were forced to leave Hanover within three days." (p. 28) This version is supported by Kraus in the recent issue of Damals (pp 40–41). That's why I'm now going to correct the article. De728631 (talk) 14:01, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix!  Unfortunately, when wrong information is put on a page, it becomes almost permanent if someone puts a footnote after it.  Glad you were able to verify this wrongly-cited data. — Lawrence King (talk) 16:40, 22 April 2013 (UTC)