Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Walter Hunt (inventor)/1

Walter Hunt (inventor)

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.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: There is a consensus to delist. Gusfriend (talk) 11:30, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This article had substantial amounts of content removed for being a copyright violation; this diff is the removal and this is the source. The source is paywalled to Gale through TWL. There is a very high chance that I have missed more close paraphrasing and copyright violations from both this source and others, as I only removed the most blatant of what I could see. The original addition was also blatantly copy-pasted, and then subsequently edited down. There was an effort by the nominator to reword, but it barely changed the actual copied text. There was also plagiarism, and there's a chance that more needs to be attributed. The copyright issues means that this article is possibly not broad enough as it stands. Sennecaster (Chat) 04:35, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, this needs to be delisted. Given the amount of CV already removed, we can't assume good faith on anything else. It would need a complete rewrite from top to bottom from a completely different editor to retain GA status, and I doubt that's going to happen. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:37, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delist, per PMC's comments. I was the GA reviewer and did not spotcheck the sources. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:37, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. Honestly, the issues go beyond copyright violations. Irrespective of that, if I had reviewed the article, I would not have passed the page in its current state because of the quality of the prose (WP:GACR point 1). For instance:

He also made improvements to guns, cylindro-conoidal bullets,[22] ice-breaking wooden hull boats, paraffin oil candles, velocipedes, machines for making rivets and nails, and self-closing inkwells.[23][24] He also invented the Antipodean Performers suction-cup shoes claimed to be used by circus performers to ascend up solid side walls and walk upside down across high ceilings.[20][25] He did not realize the significance of many of his inventions when he produced them and sold off most of his patent rights to others for low prices making little for himself in the long run - Three sentences in a row that start with "He" make for a very awkward paragraph indeed. I'm pretty sure the second sentence also needs a comma after "shoes".
He developed the first modern feasible operating sewing machine[20] sometime between the years 1832 and 1834[28] at his Amos Street shop that was up a narrow alley in Abingdon Square[29] at the borough of Manhattan in the city of New York. is a run-on sentence and needs to be split into preferably two, or even three, sentences. Also, "at the borough of Manhattan in the city of New York" is both unnecessarily detailed and technically grammatically correct. No one would say "at Manhattan", and most people would just say "in Manhattan, New York City".
He gave as reasons for not procuring a patent that 1) he was busy with other businesses then; 2) the expense of getting the appropriate drawings and paperwork together to register a patent was more than he could afford and; 3) the difficulty of introducing the new sewing machine into public use, saying it would have cost two thousand (equivalent to $54,290 in 2021) or three thousand (equivalent to $81,430 in 2021) dollars to start the sewing machine business. - Technically, this is not a run-on, but it is a very long sentence, and "1) 2) 3)" aren't necessary in a prose list like this.

These are just examples and not a full review. Since large parts of the article have been determined to be copyright violations, the article would have to be rewritten anyway, but these examples are representative of what improvements are needed. – Epicgenius (talk) 14:52, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I passed it, and I'm aware the prose is weak, but I interpret "clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct" as allowing some weak prose through in comparison to what FACR requires. These sentences convey what they mean to convey and aren't technically incorrect (except for that run-on sentence). I do copyedit as I review, but it's hard to do that without access to the sources. Other GA reviews I've looked at seem to be setting the prose bar higher than my interpretation of GACR so I think I'm going to end up being a bit more stringent in the future, if only to avoid criticism. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:09, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie, your prose comments are fine with me. I'm just saying that, if I had reviewed this article, I would have required a few more tweaks to the prose. – Epicgenius (talk) 16:29, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mike Christie, I've always understood FA-level's "well-written"—its prose is engaging and of a professional standard—to be significantly above that of GA's "well-written". GA as you've quoted would seem to require a level of quality above "some weak prose": clear and concise is frequently not particularly engaging but I wouldn't expect it to be weak or repetitive if we're calling it "good". (Personally, I've always had trouble elevating my workmanlike prose to "engaging" or "of a professional standard". With some care and self-editing, however, "clear and concise" is well within my wheelhouse, along with a bit of variation in structure.) BlueMoonset (talk) 05:09, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably not the right forum for an extended discussion of GA prose requirements, but I've started being stricter about prose in my reviews, just because that seems to be the community norm. However, I think "clear and concise" doesn't mean the same as "good" prose; I think a sentence can be grammatical, not repetitive, and not ambiguous, and hence meet the "clear and concise" standard, without being considered good prose. A lot of Doug's prose is like this, in fact; he is not a fluent writer, and his sentences can be stilted and awkward, but they're usually not ungrammatical or ambiguous. It's moot as I'm going to raise the standard of prose I require in a GA review, and it appears other regular reviewers are also requiring a higher standard than my original interpretation would support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:16, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delist With all of the issues here it should be delisted. Gusfriend (talk) 02:52, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delist The issues here are damning and would require a total rewrite to keep GA status. The CV alone is more than enough, let alone bad prose. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:04, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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.