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This page contains the Peer review requests that are older than one month, have received no response in the last two weeks, are not signed, have become featured article or featured list candidates, or did not follow the "How to use this page" principles in some way. If one of your requests has been moved here by mistake, please accept our apologies and undo the archiving edit to the peer review page for the article.

Charles Lindbergh

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I think that it is a trifle bloated and quite oddly written. It may also contain material of trivial or no relevance to the biography, or which may be a copyvio.

Thanks, Collect (talk) 13:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain what exactly you mean by "oddly written" and identify what specific material are you claiming as being in copyright violation. Thank you. Centpacrr (talk) 23:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Question

Collect, PR is for eliciting feedback for article improvement, not for dispute resolutions. It seems like you think you know what may or may not be wrong with the article, although Centpacrr (one of the major contributors) seems to disagree. What do you wish to accomplish here at PR? María (yllosubmarine) 22:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See the extensive discussions here and here where I have addressed User:Collect's issue with a well sourced single word ("fleeing") in great detail. His/her posting here thus seems to me to be more for the purpose of canvassing and/or forum shopping then any improvement of this long standing and mature article. Centpacrr (talk) 22:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) I haven't read the article in detail -- the nomination statement confused me, which is why I commented. Like I said before, PR isn't for dispute resolution, so this really isn't the place to discuss such things. Unless Collect wishes to partake in the review process, perhaps this PR should be archived so that proper dispute resolution can take place on the talk page. María (yllosubmarine) 23:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine with me (closing this discussion) as here is clearly not the right place to address this matter (which has already been discussed at great length in the two threads linked above), and User:Collect has also failed to answer the questions I posed to explain what he/she means by "oddly written", copyright violation, etc. Holding a third parallel discussion here over the use of a single word seems to me to just be a waste of time. Centpacrr (talk) 23:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Amazingly enough - no one notified me of the "closure" which I feel is not only inapropos, but errant. The purple prose syndrome runs through this, and asking for "peer review" is the exact proper course. /The idea that the OP must somehow engage in a debate is not part of the normal process. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing to discuss here because the OP's "nomination" is so vague and nonspecific as to be all but meaningless. The OP was asked several times (on February 17, 20, and 26) by two editors to specify what he/she meant by "oddly written" as well as what he/she claims to be "copyvio" but remained silent. The OP has also failed to be specific about what he/she claims to be "material of trivial or no relevance" to the article, and has provided no support for any of these allegations. The only specific issue, in fact, that he/she has has ever raised regarding this article was the sourcing of the word "fleeing" which was fully addressed in extensive discussions here and here in which multiple reliable published sources (both contemporary and from historians) were provided supporting its use as appropriate and verified. The OP was also asked multiple times in both of those discussions to provide support for his/her claims that these were either not reliable and/or to provide specific sources countering them but continually ignored all those requests as well. Centpacrr (talk) 01:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All that is needed is for a third party to read the article - which is now at 118K in length, with such "important" items as a lengthy quote from "We", emerged suddenly from virtual obscurity to instantaneous world fame , This eventually led to the Lindbergh family being "driven into voluntary exile" in Europe to which they sailed in secrecy from New York under assumed names in late December 1935 to "seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria" in America (in the lede), to California during his childhood and teenage years (none for more than a full year) , unfortunately, the 20-year-old student pilot was not be permitted to "solo" during his time at the school because he could not afford to post a bond which the company President Ray Page, After just half an hour of dual time with a pilot who was visiting the field to pick up another surplus JN-4, Lindbergh flew solo for the first time in the Jenny that he had just purchased for $500, few weeks after leaving Americus, the young airman achieved another key aviation milestone when he made his first nighttime flight near Lake Village, Arkansas, Although that initial time limit lapsed without a serious challenger, the state of aviation technology had advanced sufficiently by 1924 to prompt Orteig to extend his offer for another five years, and this time it began to attract an impressive grouping of well known, highly experienced, and well financed contenders. Ironically, the one exception among these competitors was the still boyish Charles Lindbergh, a 25-year-old relative latecomer to the race, who, in relation to the others, was virtually anonymous to the public as an aviation figure, who had considerably less overall flying experience, and was being primarily financed by just a $15,000 bank loan and his own modest savings, five long paragraphs on the 4 years in Europe, including " By late 1935 these concerns finally led him to decide to take his family into voluntary self exile in Europe[60], and thus in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, December 22, 1935 they "sailed furtively"[61] from Pier 60 (West 20th St, Manhattan) for Liverpool, England[62] as the only three passengers on board the United States Lines freighter SS American Importer. To help maintain the strict secrecy that Lindbergh had insisted upon for their departure[63], the family traveled using assumed names and under diplomatic passports which had been issued the week before they left through the personal intervention of Treasury Secretary Ogden Mills.[6, The Lindberghs' sudden self exile resulted in immediate wide spread editorial and public commentary which "was overwhelmingly but not unanimously with the fleeing Lindberghs."[61] Although he had "offered no public explanation" for the family's unannounced departure from the United States[61], shortly before sailing for England Lindbergh explained to the Times' Lyman that he felt that he was being forced to leave the United States because he found that: "We Americans are a primitive people. We do not have discipline. Our moral standards arw low. It shows up in the private lives of people we know — their drinking and 'behavior with women.' It shows in the newspapers, the morbid curiosity over crimes and murder trials. Americans seem to have little respect for law, or the rights of others."[66][67] Lindbergh also told Lyman that he was taking his family into voluntary exile in England to "seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria" that surrounded him in America.[65] The Lindberghs arrived in Liverpool on December 31, 1935 where they went into immediate seclusion.[68][69], twelve paragrphs on his thoughts on "Race and Racism", enumeration of his illegitimate children with names and other identifying information (a bunch of paragraphs on all of them), etc. Note that a fully reasonable biography of Lindbergh on Wikipedia in 2007 weighed in at under 50K, which is a far more reasonable article length on Wikipedia. I trust this ends the "requirement" that I somehow provode "evidence" that the article is bloatred with purple prose and material which is not actually biographical in nature. And note also that a copyright violation using an extended quote from a source was, and is, a copyvio. One does not fix a copyvio by saying it was not long enough to be one <g>. Cheers. Collect (talk) 02:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Everything quoted immediately above from the article is fully sourced as accurate and has been included by the many editors who have been developing this article over the past ten years (none of which appear to have been the OP) to describe the many important aspects of the life and actions of a man who was one of the most famous, influential, controversial, and intensely watched people in the world between his non-stop solo flight to Paris 1927 and his death in 1974. The OP is, of course, perfectly entitled to his/her own personal opinion as to whether or not this information is "bloated", "purple", "oddly written", or "trivial" but he/she has still provided no evidence whatsoever that any of it is inaccurate, unverified, or not reliably sourced.
As for the brief three sentence boxed quote from Lindbergh's 1927 book "WE", it is directly on the key point (and in his own words) of Lindbergh's view as to why he considered his year of Army flight training to be the critically important one in his development as both a focused, goal oriented individual, as well as a skillful and resourceful aviator -- something without which he would have never been able to make the non-stop solo flight to Paris which changed his life and made him world famous. The quotation is fully identified as to its origin, and its brevity and manner of use falls fully within the meaning of 17 USC §107, the "fair use" provision of the U.S. Copyright law. The use in this article of a three sentence excerpt from a 318-page book published 85 years ago is most assuredly not a copyright violation within the meaning of §107.
§107 Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
As for the article's 118K length, it is, for instance, 45K shorter than the article Winston Churchill (163K), 32K shorter than Franklin Roosevelt (150K), 29K shorter than Douglas MacArthur (138K), and only slightly longer than that of the Wright Brothers (104K), all individuals of similar fame and public interest who were roughly contemporaries of Lindbergh. The fact that the Lindbergh article was 50K five years ago (or 1K when it was started in 2002) is a red herring and a completely irrelevant and specious argument. It is the length that is because of the significance and complexity of its subject and certainly does not need to be pablumized. Centpacrr (talk) 03:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The book is still copyright, the use is not needed in the article, is not covered by "fair use" and a willful violation of US and International copyright law, as well as violation of Wikipedia policy on copyright is not a "specious argument" Nor is the existence of a copyright violation made non-existent by continuing to exist. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:10, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As any individual's opinion as to whether something is either "needed" or "not needed" in an article is purely a matter of his or her personal subjective editorial view, this is not really a meaningful basis to support the OP's position that it should not be included. Among the correct objective criteria for inclusion of such material are accuracy, relevance, appropriateness to the topic, reliability of sourcing, and the like. This three sentence quotation from "WE" (which constitutes 112 words out of the 52,000+ word volume's text) has been in place in the article for almost four years without the issues of accuracy, relevance, appropriateness to the topic, reliability, or copyright infringement having ever been questioned by any reader or editor. The excerpt is also objectively not an infringement of U.S. copyright law as it more than conforms to both the spirit and the letter of all four criteria of 17 USC §107 as spelled out above that constitute "fair use" of such a quotation. Centpacrr (talk) 13:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia:Peer review/Request removal policy, this peer review should be closed as it is about a content dispute: To keep down the size of the PR page, every editor is invited to close inactive discussions. Please only do so with the following kinds of requests: 1. Requests that aren't appropriate for peer review, for instance requests for help in ... resolving an edit war, or detecting a copyvio. These should be removed promptly in the interest of the requester, since he/she is unlikely to get adequate response to them at Peer Review. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 14:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted earlier above, I fully agree that this is the wrong forum for the OP to have brought this issue which was already fully addressed in extensive discussions here and here and thus it should be closed. Centpacrr (talk) 14:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And I demur as the concept of Peer Review is to get skilled editors to state in what ways the article ought to be improved - which is exactly what I sought. It is, unfortunately, Centpacrrr who views it as a "content dispute" when it is much more properly considered a "style dispute" about use of florid language and, in some parts, overt copyright violations which are absolutely disallowed by Wikipedia policy. Cheers. Collect (talk) 03:30, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See 17 USC §107 above. QED. Centpacrr (talk) 05:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Read Wikipedia policies. Your reliance that extended quotes are allowed as "fair use" is not accepted by the community here, or by the WMF. Cheers - and READ THE DARN POLICIES. Collect (talk) 13:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You have made your point (as to what you consider to be a "copyright infringing extended quote") and I've made mine, however as noted above this discussion has also already been closed -- twice -- so there no reason for you to continue to beat this dead horse here and you are now free to move on to other windmills. Centpacrr (talk) 15:39, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Luzhniki disaster

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
Hi, after the recent Port Said Stadium clashes I paid attention to somewhat similar Luzhniki disaster in 1982. I discovered that Wikipedia article about this disaster was a start-class and pretty basic. I worked a lot on it recently. Unfortunately, English is not my native language. Would you be so kind to let me know how could I improve this article and correct my most obvious mistakes?

Thanks, Potorochin (talk) 21:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi. Not a full review by any means:
    • Try the toolbox on the right-hand side of this page, specifically the automated checker and the alt text checker.
    • If you're wanting copyediting, you might look into posting it on the WP:GUILD requests page, although be forewarned that it's rather backlogged.
  • Allens (talk) 00:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On second thought, I'm taking a look:
    • I'm doing some copy-editing.
    • You tend to over-link (something that I also do...); common terms like "girl" do not need to be linked.
    • You need to take a closer look at the specifications for the citation templates - try looking at some of the ways I've changed them.
  • Allens (talk) 00:44, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot. I already see a great job that you are doing on this article. I'm not going to interfere with editing this article, while you work on it. Would you please let me know when you finish, so that I may continue editing it according to your advices? Thank you again --Potorochin (talk) 00:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quite welcome. I've about finished copyediting it - I suspect I may have missed some problems with earlier references, though (particularly on things like the lastname/firstname formatting). Would you like to try fixing those, or should I? Allens (talk) 01:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, don't bother, you already did a great job. I had a good laugh, when I realized what kind of stupid mistakes I managed to make like crash instead of crush. I'll try to keep editing this article following your advices. But if you have a chance to come back, say, the next day, and take a look on this article again, it would be awesome. Thank you --Potorochin (talk) 01:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Quite welcome; I'll try to come back by and take a look tomorrow or the next day (I have a class to teach tomorrow evening). Glad you can laugh on the mistakes - silly mistakes happen to all of us, even when writing in our first language...Allens (talk) 01:19, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When you return back to this article would you please take a look on the use of articles in this article? There are no articles in the Russian language, so I just put them here and there, wherever I feel they belong to. But I feel myself very unsure in using them :( --Potorochin (talk) 03:54, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll certainly take another look, and I understand completely; that's a very common difficulty. (I found the differences in articles between English and Spanish a headache when I was learning my minimal bit of Spanish, and those languages are not extremely far apart.) My wife, as it happens, isn't a native English speaker, and I don't think Hebrew has articles either (or, even if it does, I'm sure the rules are rather different); I will inquire of her and take a look at her grammar books for any helpful rules of thumb (I do it by instinct, which isn't a very helpful rule description for you in learning how to do it...). Allens (talk) 15:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
At least for telling when to use "the", you might take a look in a book for native Russian speakers on learning Bulgarian or Macedonian (assuming you don't know one of them already) - they're apparently about the only Slavic languages with articles (as a suffix onto the verb, as it turns out). I was just checking out the Wikipedia article on articles - very interesting! Allens (talk) 15:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have a very nice "Advanced Grammar in Use" by Martin Hewings, which has several pages of rules only about articles. But I find some of these rules so ambiguous sometimes, that I just have to retreat to my intuition. And as I'm not a woman, my intuition is not faultless :) --Potorochin (talk) 16:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Heh! Don't tell my wife, but neither is a woman's... Reading over well-written material in English (stay away from newspapers for this! They tend to leave out articles, particularly tabloids or in titles) may help you learn. My wife also says to ask a native Russian speaker with good command of them about it (although I suspect you're already better than most!). The article on English articles may be of assistance. Allens (talk) 16:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! I never heard about the "Contains Cyrillic text" template. Oh gush, I feel myself absolute novice now... --Potorochin (talk) 16:50, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I only thought of it when I was looking at the "lang-ru" template (I concluded it wasn't suitable for names, since those aren't in a different language, "just" in a different alphabet & pronunciation system). I went up a level and noticed the Cyrillic text one, and remembered seeing it in other articles. (I also just found the "outdent" template that I just used...) Allens (talk) 18:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article looks very nice now, but it's still labeled as a start-class article. Do you think it would be appropriate, if you, as an experienced user, who already thoroughly examined this article, will do its reassessment now? --Potorochin (talk) 17:15, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, according to the Talk page, it's down as a C-class article (higher than Start-class). For a higher one, you should probably inquire at the assessment departments of the WikiProjects whose banners are on the Talk page - I'm not a member of any of them, so I don't have experience with their assessment rules, at least for anything more than Stub vs Start classes. You might be interested in becoming a member of one or more of them - that's generally just a matter of putting your name on a page - then asking for the assessment to be examined. (For instance, they can tell you if there's anything specific to those projects that needs doing.) Allens (talk) 18:39, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops! I see that the Start-to-C-class change just happened today, so it already has been assessed for going higher than Start-class. You may still want to sign up on those WikiProjects, partially to ask them what improvements would make it B-class. Allens (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much, Allens, for a HUGE contribution to this article. You walked much more than an extra mile for me! I consider this article really important, as, I hope, it would eventually clarify a lot of uncertainties, still surrounding this tragic event of the modern history, for researchers and enquiring readers from all over the world.
I probably wouldn't make any more changes myself in the text of this article, as I'm afraid to create new grammar mistakes. But I may try to continue improving citations for this article, so that they fully comply with Cite news and other templates. I hope it would also speed up the promotion of this article from C to B-class.
As regarding this peer review, I might leave it for a while. It should be closed automatically after one month of its creation, anyway, so, there is no need to close it manually now, in case somebody else would decide to contribute to this article.
Thank you very much again --Potorochin (talk) 02:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cloudz679

Lead

  • "Until than" - typo (then)
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 18:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "3" - three

Disaster/Match

  • "(According to some reports the total number of tickets sold was 16,643.)" - this should have a citation and not be in parentheses.
 Partly done Not sure I removed the parentheses. As regarding the citation: according to the investigator, about 16,000 tickets were sold; according to the stadium director about 16,500 tickets were sold. The figure of 16,643 tickets I found in several blogs of FC Spartak fans. From one side, I know, that blogs are not a reliable source of information, that is why I didn't cite them. From the other side, the figure of 16,643 tickets perfectly correlates with the two official figures. And it is a very specific figure (I didn't find any other specific figures of the number of tickets sold). So it just looks like this figure is actually accurate. The only problem, that it was not cited originally. Of course, I can through this figure away from the article, but I sincerely feel that it's an accurate figure and I wouldn't not be happy to sacrifice it just because of my inability to find the original source. What should I do: 1) through it away and forget about it? 2) cite one of the fan's blogs where this figure is present? 3) do not cite this figure, but move it from the main body of the article down to the "Notes" section? 4) do not use separate sentence for this figure and incorporate it (in parentheses) into the sentence with an official figure? --Potorochin (talk) 19:04, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 1982, the Luzhniki Stadium had no cover (the cover was only installed in 1997)" - again the parentheses are not appropriate.
  • I disagree on the second one; the parentheses can't simply be removed, but will need to be replaced with a ";".
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "On the 16th minute" - wrong preposition (in).
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 19:40, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the first goal for Spartak was scored by Edgar Gess." - word order, Edgar Gess scored the first goal for Spartak.
 Done Though, I think, the previous version better expressed the idea, that after the first goal so early in the game the FC Spartak fans could have been more inclined to leave the match earlier, as they were confident in the win of their team and they didn't expect the score to change anymore --Potorochin (talk) 19:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you want another option, try "In the 16th minute Spartak took the lead through an Edgar Gess strike". Cloudz679 20:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disaster/Crush

  • "the Stairway 1." - incorrect use of the. Delete.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 20:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "as a leader of the country" - incorrect use of a. Delete.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 20:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "all of the fatalities died of compressive asphyxia" - use victims instead of fatalities.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 20:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aftermath

  • "He even went so far as firing (on 17 December 1982, two months after the stampede)" - On 17 December 1982, two months after the stampede, he even…
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 20:21, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "placed in the Butyrka prison" - incorrect use of the. Delete.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 20:21, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Lyzhin, a World War II veteran, was admitted to the hospital after a heart attack." - incorrect use of the. Delete.
  • "last-minute unexpected goal" - I don't know how you can establish the truth of "unexpected". Delete.
 Done I suppose no fan would leave the stadium if he/she thinks that the score is about to change. Some unofficial reports on the second Ibrox disaster, and the Luzhniki disaster as well, even speculated that the stampedes happened because of some fans, who were leaving the stadium, turned back after hearing of a scored goal- so nobody expected these goals. But you are right, there is no proof for the "unexpectedness" of these goals, and, as this word doesn't bear any importance for the contents of this article, I won't hesitate to delete it.

Media coverage/before 1989

  • I know the quote is translated from Russian, but preposition "on" (the Grand Sports Arena) should be "at".
 Done red-outlined triangle containing exclamation point Warning I've done this translation myself, as the only other (which I found) English translation, made from the original note in Vechernyaya Moskva, was pretty shortened and somewhat misleading, comparing to the Russian original. Here it is:"As spectators made their way out of a football match at the Lenin Stadium, an accident took place as a result of non-compliance with safety regulations. There were casualties. An inquiry will be held" There were also many translations made not from the original note, but from its much shortened and inaccurate version presented in the "dark secret" article of Sovetsky Sport. They sounded like this: "Yesterday in Luzhniki after the football match an accident occurred. There are some injured among the spectators." That is why I included the original Russian text of this note from Vechernyaya Moskva in the "Notes" section. I realize that this quotation might probably be used in future by English-speaking researchers, so if you think there is any way to improve it and to make it sound more accurate and coherent in English, please let me know. --Potorochin (talk) 22:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, they are. Here is this text of a note, as it appeared in the "dark secret" article: "Вчера в Лужниках после окончания футбольного матча произошел несчастный случай. Среди болельщиков имеются пострадавшие" And the Sovetsky Sport's journalists even used the quotation marks when they provided this text of a note. When I read it the first time, it struck me, that this quotation just doesn't sound like the "newspaper style" (e.g. no newspaper in 1982 would write "Luzhniki" instead of the "Central Lenin Stadium", etc.). Actually this incorrect quotation in the Wikipedia article, moved me to check this quotation and other publicized facts of this disaster and to find out that the vast majority of the information about the Luzhniki disaster in the modern media is just a replication of the incorrect and misguiding information from one single article, "Luzhniki's Dark Secret". --Potorochin (talk) 07:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "published (on 21 and 24 October 1982) detailed accounts of this match" - again the parentheses are used incorrectly. Move the information about the dates to the end of the clause.
 Done I moved the dates to the front of this sentence, as I don't know how to put them to the end in a coherent way. --Potorochin (talk) 22:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and, probably, other news agencies" - not recommended. If other agencies reported it, name and reference them, if there is no evidence, remove this part completely.
 Done I removed it. Though taking into consideration that ANSA is an Italian news agency and this match involved the Soviet and the Dutch teams and journalists, they most probably used the reports from ANP or some larger international news agency. But, as I didn't find any references to other agencies, I'd better not mention this idea, you are right. --Potorochin (talk) 22:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "should be understand" - understood (grammar, passive).
 Done I replaced it with "should be understood" --Potorochin (talk) 22:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "other Western newspapers informed" - reported.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "that there were 3 people killed and 60 injured in this stampede" - that three people had been killed and 60 injured in this stampede.
  • 3 → three.
  • "Three days later, on 26 October The New York Times informed" - reported.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "La Stampa informed" - reported.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "By 1987, El País lowered" - had lowered.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Until 1989, none of these figures were neither confirmed, nor challenged, by the Soviet officials." - Delete "none of".
 Done Replaced "none of ... neither ..., nor" with "none of ... either ..., or" --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

18 April

  • "The journalists noticed, that no information" - delete comma.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Luzhniki was ever revealed" - Luzhniki had ever been revealed.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "admitted in the article that they are not familiar with the archived evidence" - that they were not…
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "accusing the police officers on the stadium in provoking this disaster" - at the stadium of provoking...
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

20 July

  • "information was withdrawn" - information was hidden.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "no journalist ever approached him" - no journalist had ever approached him.
 Done This passage was removed --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "simple request,- advised the detective." - simple request, the detective advised.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

21 July

  • "Two months later, in August 1989, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office in a special press conference in Moscow confirmed that there were 66 fatalities of the disaster in Luzhniki." In a special press conference in Moscow in August 1989, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office confirmed that there had been 66 fatalities in the disaster in Luzhniki.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

27 September

  • "On 27 September 1989, Sovetsky Sport finally admitted that information, provided by their journalists" - delete comma after information.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Western media outlet reported" - has reported.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Sun newspaper published in the UK a sensational article about the Hillsborough disaster" - The Sun newspaper published a sensational article in the UK about the Hillsborough disaster.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

After 1989

  • "In 2007 NTV aired in Russia its "Fatal Goal" (Роковой гол) documentary about the Luzhniki disaster" - aired its "Fatal Goal" (Роковой гол) documentary in Russia about the Luzhniki disaster.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 2008, ESPN Classic aired throughout Europe a Dutch documentary "Russian Night, the hidden football disaster"." - aired a Dutch documentary "Russian Night, the hidden football disaster" throughout Europe.
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  • "Both photos were made when the footballers were leaving the pitch after the game" - Both photos were taken…
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have only addressed the grammar but I hope it helps to improve the article. Cloudz679 12:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing, picture caption "After 1997: An evening football match in cold weather, as on 20 October 1982". Confusing. Is it in 1982 or after 1997? Make sure this is clear. Cloudz679 12:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Well, I thought it is clear enough, but if it is not, I just removed "as on 20 October 1982" --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I just discovered the hidden text at the top of this peer review: "Please do not include any images, such as done/not done templates with tick/cross graphics" I was using these templates recently in my replies in this review, and I found them quite helpful in navigating through this review (it's not so small, as it used to be) and also in realizing what else should be done. Please let me know, if the use of these templates is really unacceptable in such review and I remove them immediately. --Potorochin (talk) 21:14, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've got it :) --Potorochin (talk) 23:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done --Potorochin (talk) 06:24, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To Cloudz and Allens:

I'd like to make some clarifications. On 11-12 February Allens generously spent a lot of time copyediting this article. I do appreciate greatly his time and efforts and I realize the very high quality of his edits. I revealed in this peer review above, my intention not to mess up with the text of this article anymore, as I realize how difficult it is to get an editor (and especially such a good editor as Allens) to copyedit your article, because of a huge backlog of the articles needed this job.

But afterwards, after searching through the publications about this disaster in other European languages (not English or Russian) I discovered several new facts which, as I understood, ought to be included in this Wikipedia article for its completeness and accuracy. So I added a considerable amount of new information, using my poor knowledge of the English grammar. I realized that this article need to be copyedited again. But I knew from Allens's user page that he is a doctor and a college professor. And, realizing how busy he is, I would never bother him again asking for a new copyedit of this article.

So I would like now to apologize to Allens that my recent edits, made after 12 February, have concealed his great job on this article before, and that this article, which is marked as being copyedited by Allens just a week ago, may not have looked like Category B article in terms of grammar and style after my edits. I'm really sorry :( --Potorochin (talk) 01:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, I wouldn't say that your grammar and style are "poor". (I've seen very bad English, including from my students - for whom English is a native language! - and yours isn't it.) As I said above (sorry for my lateness on getting back to you on that), I would not want you to try to freeze the article - I don't own it any more than you or Cloudz679 do, and I'm happy to hear that you've been updating it with more info. (I'm impressed by your knowledge of languages!) I may well have the time a bit down the road to at least skim over the article to look for anything that jumps out at me - between semesters/quarters, or even before that (one thing that helps me as a copyeditor and Wikipedia contributor is that I read and type very fast, not to brag...). I doubt there will be that much, though. Allens (talk) 02:04, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have to say, looking at the article I had no preconceptions that anyone had really gone through it. I was aware of the first two lines of this page, where Allens had said he had no time for it, and being a football-related article I thought I would take a look for myself and make some comments. Although Allens agreed with most of my recommendations, I don't believe this is any reflection on the standard of his work, and frequently any editor can see something another editor, even a very high quality one, cannot. As for the article itself, I think it is really useful - and will continue to be - so this is a great reason to have it on Wikipedia, looking as good as possible. One day we might see this as a good article - in the mean time, please feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you would like a second opinion on anything. Cloudz679 10:15, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to thank Cloudz and Allens for a great job on improving the grammar and style of this article. What else, do you think, could be done for this article to get closer to the B-class standards? --Potorochin (talk) 07:39, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • For me B2, B4 and B6 are now met. The other criteria seem to have been met prior to this review. Therefore I am upgrading the rating of this article to B class. Good job, Potorochin. - Cloudz679 09:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

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The article has just been passed as a GA after a fairly long process, and I'd like to try to get it to FA quality. I'd love if someone who has experience with the FA criteria could take a good look at it and point out issues that would gain Opposes at WP:FAC. There has been a lot of discussion on the talk page about possible neutrality/spin issues, so attention to that would be appreciated, as well.

Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 15:33, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ohmigod total April Fools material! Have you considered doing work on Flat Earth Society as well? ;) ResMar 21:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But what's wrong with spokesman? ResMar 01:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, nothing, I guess: changed. Should I say, "serves as spokesman for the movement" or "serves as the spokesman for the movement"? Mark Arsten (talk) 02:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "psychologist James Ormrod claims" claims implies that he's a member
  • "such as gardening" He's not being sarcastic?
    • I don't think so, I do wonder sometimes though, the quote from the article was "While he accepts the existence of sexual drive, he thinks the need for children is 'cultural conditioning', and that such desires could be channelled elsewhere: perhaps into gardening, adopting a stream, caring for old people, or by having a pet."[3] Mark Arsten (talk) 00:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alright I'll strike this. ResMar 01:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "argues that talking about population control is seen as taboo" This seems more like a "fact" then an argument
    • Didn't think of that, rephrased.
  • "a one child per family limit as a preferable alternative to human extinction" Wouldn't the end result be the same?

Short article but interesting. The tone in the last section is obviously strained; hard to talk about this without going into overt bashing. ResMar 21:55, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, that one hadn't occurred to me. Earth day had come to mind, actually, not sure if they'd let us though. Thanks for peer reviewing. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, thanks for your help, I took a first run through the points, I'll revisit again later. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also, what do you think of the lead? It looks a little gaunt to me. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Lead is a bit short I suppose. The article is probably long enough to be two paragraphs. ResMar 01:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well there you go, looks fine now. ResMar 03:15, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edmund Sharpe

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I've listed this article for peer review because I should like to submit it at FAC. The main source is a self-published work, but this should not be a problem because it is highly detailed, scholarly, and IMO reliable. I have given details of the credentials of its author on the talk page.

Thanks, Peter I. Vardy (talk) 11:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've added a bit on how his scheme for Gothic architecture differed from Rickman's. For FAC I would expect more on this. The linking seems to fall off towards the end - eg when he moves abroad. Was he "conservative" or "Conservative/Tory"? More analysis of a couple of typical churches would be welcome. Were all his churches C of E? He seems to have had relatively Low Church views, something of a contrast with many Gothic Revivalists, something that might be mentioned. Can anything of his personality be detected beneath Victorian politeness? The main source would ideally be supplemented by parallel refs to other, if shorter sources. I'm ok with it, but others might not be. Johnbod (talk) 02:58, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: Most enjoyable and soothing; what could be nicer than earning one's living designing churches and writing about their architecture? The following is the first half of my review, mainly concentrating on prose because I have no expertise to bring to the table.

  • General prose point: there are some overlong sentences, e.g. in lead: "He started his career as an architect in Lancashire in 1835, initially on his own, then from 1845 in partnership with Edward Paley, mainly designing churches but also some secular buildings, including work on domestic properties and schools." Look for others, and try to avoid.
    • Dealt with that one; will look for others
  • Also ther is a tendency towards overdetailing and some unnecessary wordiness in places. A particular example is in the last two sentences of the first "Early life" paragraph. Stripped to the essential information these could become: "In November 1823 his father died suddenly, aged 48,[6] and in the following April his mother moved the family to Lancaster,[7] where Martha resumed her teaching career."[8] Does more than this need to be said?
    • Fixed
  • In the same section, "probably Hallwood Academy, close to the village of Halton" seems hardly necessary.
    • Deleted
  • Some awkwardness in the phrasing: "Francis Sharpe then worked both as a farmer and as a music teacher, including teaching at a school in Runcorn". It's the "...ing ..ing" that's the main problem, though I wonder whether the reference to the Runcorn school is actually necessary?
    • No, it's gone.
  • What did Sharpe read at Cambridge? Also, a quibble, but one does not "graduate" MA at Cambridge (see here for a summary of how the system works.
    • Not sure. Did they have specific subjects in those days, or was it a common curriculum? I'll enquire. MA admission clarified.
  • What was a "Worts Travelling Fellowship"? Who awarded it?
    • Added, plus a footnote to say what it is.
  • Lancaster practice: Surely Paley became Sharpe's partner rather than his "successor"? Is it necessary to includ the information that relates to the practice after Sharpe left it?
    • Paley was both, but partner first; changed. I've retained the rest because Austin has already been mentioned, and Henry was related to Sharpe.
  • Re Immanuel Church, you say this was "built in 1835–36 to the design of his cousin", which seems clear, but then "The evidence is conflicting as to whether Sharpe either made or amended the design" which obscures the issue somewhat. Can you perhaps rephrase/clarify?
    • Clarified.
  • "Two major influences on the Gothic Revival were A. W. N. Pugin (1812–52) and the Cambridge Camden Society". This statement might be better placed in the preceding paragraph, which introduces the Gothis revival. As it is, it seems somewhat isolated.
  • Who describes Sharpe's early works as "pre-archaeological"?
    • I agree this was unclear. I've re-written it in parts, and explained the term "pre-archaeological".
  • "brother of his future wife Elizabeth" → "his future brother-in-law"?
    • Fixed
  • "Towards the end of his life, Sharpe designed one more church incorporating this material" - presumably terracotta, but this needs to be made clear.
    • Done.
  • Sharpe was an architect, but: "...he built a bridge over the River Hyndburn at Fournessford" Did he actually "build" it, or design it (and maybe supervise the building)? The impression that he built these structures himself is increased by phrasing such as "he added several wings and a chapel; nearby he made extensions to the Union Workhouse." The wording here and elsewhere needs to clarify his precise role - architect, builder, site foreman etc.
    • I think I've "got" them all.
  • "Arichitectural historian": the grammar goes awry at the end of the first paragraph. My suggestion: "The work, which was praised by John Ruskin in The Stones of Venice, consisted largely of drawings by Sharpe's pupils—Paley, Austin, and R. J. Withers—with text by Sharpe describing and analysing the tracery of Gothic windows."
    • Done.

I'll try and have the rest done in a day or so. Brianboulton (talk) 17:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the rest:

  • Of the "six expeditions" those in England, though stated as being in different areas, are all in fact within the same small prt of the country – indeed, all within a radius of about 40 miles from where I live (Stamford). Was there a reason why Sharpe concentrated his researches in this particular region?
    • No idea; I'll ask Hughes.
  • The mention of Sharpe's death and the published memorial would be better placed at the end of the section.
  • "During the time that" → "While..."
    • Both done.
  • Railway developer, England second paragraph: Can you clarify what was actually built?
    • Not clear to me either; I'll try to clarify.
  • "About this time too..." Zap the word "too"
  • Another overelaborate sentence: "In May 1842 Sharpe had been elected a Port Commissioner, and subsequently suggested the Morecambe Bay Harbour Project, proposing to build a new port at Poulton-le-Sands (soon to become part of Morecambe), and linking it to Lancaster by means of a ship canal." At least two sentences there.
    • Both done.
  • "He also awarded himself the contract for building the harbour." Sounds a bit like Poo-Bah; can this be phrased so as to distinguish between his corporate capacities?
    • Done
  • "for a while" is a little indeterminate for an encyclopedia article. Tighten up?
  • You have "In August 1863" followed by a comma. This is not normal BritEng usage, and you have not adopted this form elsewhere as far as I can see, so I suggest you drop it.
    • Last 2 dealt with.
  • "..joining the local Heart of Oak Club in 1837" → "and had joined the local Heart of Oak Club in 1837" Can you explain the nature of this club with an appropriate adjective ("patriotic", "traditionalist", etc?)
    • Small expansion to explain.
  • "These appointments gave him opportunity to observe the unsatisfactory state of sanitation of the town, and the determination to do something to improve it." Suggest rephrase/simplify: "Through these offices he became aware of the unsatisfactory state of sanitation in the town, and resolved to do something to improve it."
    • Fixed.
  • "it was described as..." Who described it thus?
    • Cannot find a clear source; probably redundant, so deleted.
  • "...owing to conflicts of interest there was constant friction between the [police] commission and the town council, the former tending to block any necessary reforms on grounds of cost to the ratepayers." How did the police commission come to be the guardian of ratepayers' interests?
    • Rephrased to clarify.
  • "A campaign was initiated in 1847 by two Lancaster doctors, Thomas Howitt and Edward Denis de Vitre, and they were soon joined by Sharpe who drew extensively on his experience of having accompanied Professor Richard Owen (born and educated in Lancaster) on his tour of inspection of the town in 1844, the report of which was published the following year". Length and complexity issues - there is a similar problem with the sentence beginning "Though agreeing in principle..."
  • "...and published another report" → "and published a further report" (to avoid repetition)
    • Both dealt with.
  • Some of the information in the "Personal" section has been mentioned earlier, e.g. the move to Geneva, and could be abbreviated, for example: "In Geneva the family lived for about three years in "Richemont", a rented property on the road to Chêne-Bougeries."
    • Done.
  • I am not sure that the "other interests" deserve such a lengthy section. Some of these interests (cricket, singing etc) are pretty marginal; I think the first two paragraphs could be condensed into a single sentence noting that Sharpe followed a number of sporting and cultural interests.
    • Some tightening; not too much because these are further factors in his being described a "Renaissance" man,
  • Appraisal: suggest delete the word "Yet" from beginning of second paragraph, and "...Hughes considers Sharpe..."
    • Done.
  • "He was also considered by some to have been an early pioneer of the Gothic Revival,[H] though this was "probably more for his books than for his buildings". Whose words are the quote? And "considered by some" is always risky; people might tag [who?]
    • First point clarified; second point: I give an example in a footnote.

That's all my specific remarks. I don't think this is far away from being a FAC (I have seen lesser articles promoted) though I would ecommend a little more prose combing for wordiness, relevance, repetitions etc, as I have not carried out a line-by-line prose examination. The general structure of the article looks good, and coverage seems comprehensive (almost too much so in place). I have noted what you say on the talkpage about the main source, and I think ths is fine. Please drop me a line when if/when you decide to take it to FAC. Brianboulton (talk) 16:26, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks again. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 14:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2010 Haiti earthquake

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Obviously one of the most significant and tragic events of our time. The article is quite large and very comprehensive, though there might be issues with its content (such as outdated info, lack of accuracy and neutrality) and the prose. It is quite large, so even comments on just parts of the article would be much appreciated. As a community, I hope we can collaborate to the best of our ability to bring this top-importance article up to standard. Thanks, Auree ★ 00:35, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reference formatting: there are a couple of dead links, some of the citations could be smoothed out for conformity, and there's one big old ugly error message. ResMar 14:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A quick automated check and alt text check reveal some problems (e.g., inconsistent spelling between British and US usages). Allens (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Niagara

  • Kilometres is abbreivated in the lead, but elsewhere in the prose, it is spelled out; it should be consistently one or the other.
    • Same goes with the spelling "-meter" and "-metre"; percent and %; "US", "U.S." and "United States", C$ and CAD$, US$ and $.
  • Inconsistent use of unit conversions (US gallon converted but not litres; US$ to € once, but nowhere else)
  • "It is no stranger to natural disasters; in addition to earthquakes, it has been struck frequently by tropical cyclones, which have caused flooding and widespread damage."
    • Too many "it"s, why not just separate the sentences? — "Haiti is no stranger to natural disasters. In addition to earthquakes, it has been struck frequently by tropical cyclones, which have caused flooding and widespread damage."
  • "The damage from the quake was more severe than for other quakes of similar magnitude due to the shallow depth of the quake." — One sentence paragraph, could be merged into the preceeding paragraph.
  • "The quake seriously damaged the control tower at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport and the Port-au-Prince seaport, which rendered the harbor unusable for immediate rescue operations. The Gonaïves seaport, in the northern part of Haiti, remained operational."
    • Change the sentences so that the airport and seaports are in their own respective setences — "The quake seriously damaged the control tower at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport. Damage to the Port-au-Prince seaport rendered the harbor unusable for immediate rescue operation, however, the Gonaïves seaport in northern Haiti remained operational."
  • "As a result, a machine translation program to translate between English and Haitian Creole had to be written quickly."
    • Reference needed for that.
  • The "Status of the recovery" section is a very long "wall-of-text", would be possible to add a photo or two to break-up the visual monotony. That section is also one of the longest in article and could be pared down a bit, some suggestions where are:
    • The second paragraph could be trimmed as it talks about preparing for the 2010 hurricane season, which has come and gone.
    • The third paragraph could be nixed as it is mostly a quote and adds nothing new that wasn't already implied in the first paragraph of the section.

Definitetly comprehensive and informative, but needs a lot syle cleanup. Considering reviewing an article from the backlog as that how I found yours. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 19:33, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

American Airlines Flight 191

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I think this would make a great featured article. There has been a lot of recent work on the article through science and technology, I think some review of it as a historical event (the most deadly air accident prior to 9/11) would be merited to get it nominated as a featured article.

Thanks, WGFinley (talk) 20:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: I agree that the article has FA potential and is in relatively good shape. However, it is not yet ready for FAC. It's an interesting and important article, and I'd like to encourage you to improve it. Here are some suggestions:

  • Citation 1, used in multiple places, links to a PDF document that is 103 pages long. To make it useful to fact checkers, it should include the page number or numbers that support the claim(s) in each instance. Otherwise, it's quite difficult to determine whether the document supports the claim(s). Since different claims will be supported by different pages, making this change will be a fairly big job and will result in non-identical citations. It will probably not always be possible for a single citation to specific pages in this long document to cover all of the claims in a paragraph. To keep the Reference section from becoming cluttered, you might add a "Works cited" or "Sources" section to the article, list the complete bibliographic information for the PDF there, and use short-form refs like "Accident report, p. 5" for the inline citations.

Lead

  • The two "caused by" phrases tacked onto the ends of the final two sentences are awkward. Juxtaposition suggests that the wing was caused by maintenance procedures and that the public was caused by accidents. Reading twice sorts this out, but it would be better to revise for clarity.

Aircraft

  • "On the day of the accident the records had not been removed from the aircraft, as was standard procedure,[clarification needed] and were destroyed in the accident." I agree with whoever added the tag that this is not clear. Which records? Glancing quickly at the 103-page PDF, I see that at least some data was recovered from the flight recorders. (See page 4).

Accident

  • Could speeds be added for VR here and so on for this particular case? Some specific numbers appear later in the article, but it would useful to have them where we first encounter these terms.
  • "The number one electrical bus, whose generator was attached... " - A bus isn't a "who", so I would re-word this slightly. Also, it might be helpful to link "electrical bus" to something or to briefly explain it.
  • "the deadliest aviation accident in the United States to date" - Since "to date" is not specific, I'd be inclined to delete it and let note 1 provide the caveats.
  • "the intersection of Touhy Avenue (Illinois Route 72) and Mount Prospect Road" - Link Illinois Route 72?

Investigation

  • "In response to the accident, slat relief valves were mandated to prevent slat retraction in case of hydraulic line damage." - I'm not sure what this means. The logic of the sentence implies that after the line was damaged, someone told the valves to prevent the slat(s) on the left wing from retracting. Could the situation be explained more clearly?
  • "Wind tunnel and flight simulator tests... " - Link wind tunnel?
  • "after the uncommanded retraction of the slats" - I don't think "uncommanded" is a real word. Maybe just "after the slats retracted"?

Engine separation

  • "Investigators looked at the plane's maintenance history and found that its most recent service was eight weeks before the crash, in which engine number one had been removed from the aircraft." - This sentence is a bit awkward and wordy. Suggestion: "The plane's maintenance history showed that the number one engine had been removed from the aircraft during its most recent service, eight weeks before the crash."
  • "The procedure recommended by McDonnell Douglas called for the engine to be removed from the pylon prior to detaching the pylon itself, but American Airlines, along with Continental Airlines and United Airlines, had begun to use a procedure that saved approximately 200 man-hours per aircraft and "more importantly from a safety standpoint, it would reduce the number of disconnects (of systems such as hydraulic and fuel lines, electrical cables, and wiring) from 72 to 27."[1]" - Too complex. Mismatch of verbs (called, would reduce). I'd recommend using two separate sentences to explain this.
  • "The new procedure involved mechanics removing the engine with the pylon and engine as a single unit." - Tighten by one word by deleting "mechanics"?
  • "The field service representative from McDonnell Douglas said the company would "not encourage this procedure due to the element of risk" and had so advised American Airlines." - Straight past tense, "did not encourage" rather than "would not encourage"?
  • "the engine would rock like a see-saw and jam against the pylon attachment points" - Straight past, "rocked" and "jammed"?

The DC-10 years after

  • The section head lacks clarity and doesn't meet Manual of Style guidelines. Suggestion: "Aftermath".
  • "Despite losing an engine and all flight controls and crash-landing in a huge fireball (which was caught on video by a local news crew), 185 people would survive the accident." - The people didn't lose an engine. Suggestion: "Although the aircraft lost an engine and all flight controls and crash-landed in a huge fireball (which was caught on video by a local news crew), 185 people survived the accident".

Notable victims

  • I think this would be better rendered as straight prose rather than as a bulleted list. One possibility would be to group the Playboy material into a separate paragraph and to group the others into a second paragraph, or vice versa. I would also shorten the Leonard Stogel part of this; the list of groups is unnecessary, though you might say "California Jam and other musical groups".

History and media

  • This section has the left-overs that seem to accumulate in many articles. I'd consider relegating the Chorba material to a note and merging the other three items with the "Aftermath" section. It might be that "Aftermath" would work as one section with three subsections: "DC-10", "Media coverage", and "Notable victims".

Notes

  • The two links to external sites should be changed to inline citations. The direct links violate Manual of Style guidelines and will not survive scrutiny at FAC.
  • "Three are of particular importance to the understanding of this accident" - I would delete this part of the sentence since it is a personal observation rather than a claim supported by a reliable source.

References

  • The date formatting in the citations needs to be consistent throughout.
  • Some of the citations are incomplete. For example, the author, Chris Kilroy, is missing from citation 4, and citations 8 and 9 lack dates of most recent access.
  • What makes AirDisaster.com a reliable source?
  • The abbreviation for a single page is p., for multiple pages it is pp.
  • Newspaper names should appear in italics.
  • To add hyphens to the ISBNs that don't already have them, you can use a converter here.

Images

  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 20:01, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia (U.S. state)

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I have listed this article to be reviewed because I feel that it's a highly important article and I'm at an impasse to what I should do next (as far as improvement) I know there are probably things that I would overlook that others would easily spot. Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated and noted.

Thanks, Ncboy2010 (talk) 16:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dana Boomer

Hi! I see that you have done quite a bit of work on this article and made a nice start. Here are some thoughts for improvement:

  • First, references are probably the biggest issue with the article at the moment:
    • There are a ton of dead links. These need to be fixed, as they essentially leave the information they support unreferenced.
    • Local government section has three fact tags.
    • Besides the fact tags, there are quite a few areas missing references. The majority of the history section is unreferenced, as is the majority of the Boundaries section, the entire Geology and terrain section, significant chunks of the Elections section, etc.
    • References need more information. Web refs should have a title, publisher and access date at the very least - authors, publication dates, etc. should be given where applicable.
  • The weight given to various facets of the article seems a little disproportionate to me. For instance, the governance of the state is give over three times the amount of space that the history section is... Is two sentences really all that can be said about the geology and terrain?
  • There are a lot of short, choppy sections, which make the article flow poorly. These should be expanded or combined with other sections for better flow. Same with lots of short, choppy paragraphs - some are OK, but lots of successive ones lead to poor flow.
  • There is a clarification needed tag in the Boundaries section.

Overall, I think this articles needs quite a bit of work on the references before much else happens. Because of the amount of referencing work that is needed, I have not done close checks of prose, reference reliability or images, as these often change as significant referencing work is done. Despite all of these comments, I think you have done a good job in beginning to improve and reference the article. Please let me know if you have any questions, Dana boomer (talk) 03:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Disavian

Glancing over the article, I have a few suggestions, many of which Dana has already covered:

  • It looks like the History section does not adequately summarize the history of the state - certainly something has happened since 1870!
  • Now that I look at it, I feel that a lot of the sections - for example, sports - do not give a detailed enough summary of that aspect of the state.
  • Consider using citation templates for all of the references present in the article. {{cite web}} and {{cite news}} are the two I use the most.
  • Remove specific image sizes so that the user's set image size preference makes a difference. Also consider adding alt text.
  • You may want to combine a few of the shorter sections. For example, cities might fit under geography, and education might fit under infrastructure.
  • Sourcing absolutely has to be a priority. As a good guideline, every paragraph should have at least one citation. This will also help you expand each section.
  • I'd suggest looking at a high-quality article that covers a similar subject matter. After poking around, I discovered that Virginia is a featured article, so you can probably get some good ideas by comparing this article to that one.

You're doing a good job so far, though :) Disavian (talk) 17:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Invasions of the British Isles

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like guidance on how to deal with the article's blank sections, and how to effectively utilize the higher-quality, full sections that I think could propel some version of this article to a GAN. Any ideas?

Thank you, DCItalk 17:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: The article appears to be in a very early stage of its development. There is no lead to speak of; there are sections tagged for expansion (one section is completely empty); there is a great deal of uncited material; there is no information given subsequent to 1560; no serious work has been done to investigate images...I could go on. In response to the question "Any ideas", I'd simply say do a lot more serious research using the enormous amount of published material relevant to this subject. Or gather a group of likeminded editors to share the task and make it into a co-operative project. There has been no serious work done on this article for months; the nominator's most recent edit was in August 2011. Peer review is not the arena for initiating projects; it is, as its front page makes clear, "intended for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work". My advice, therefore, is to withdraw the article from review, do the work, then bring it back. Brianboulton (talk) 20:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

'Comments - I concur with Brian's comments above. The article needs a lot more work before it would benefit from Peer Review. The best thing you can do is start reading and researching the subject. A good place to start would be with the various Oxford Histories of the various subject areas - they will not only give a good overview but also point you towards more works to read and do research in. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am withdrawing this article from this peer review. Thanks to both of you for your input. dci | TALK 19:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

R v Peacock

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I've listed this article for peer review because it covers an important current event to have occurred in British law, and has recently undergone a revamp.

Thanks, Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:58, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: An interesting article, which needs further attention in a number of respects:-

Lead
  • Is it possible to remove the twitter hashtag stuff from the first line? It's an inelegant introduction to the article, and could be incorporated into the second paragraph where you mention the legal significance of the tweeting.
  • You should also remove the term "notable", per WP:PEACOCK
  • Michael Peacock's birthdate is irrelevant at this point
  • The word "something", in "something which was illegal", is redundant.
  • In British law, one is not "found innocent", or at least that's not how we say it. The correct term is "acquitted", or possibly "found not guilty", but why use three word when one will do?
  • Link BDSM
  • The sentence "Peacock was the only individual to have pleaded 'not guilty' under the Act for the kind of gay BDSM pornography he published and won their case" is confusing and ungrammatical. When you say "Peacock was the only individual..." is that still the case? If so this should be "is the only individual", otherwise "was at the time the only individual". To avoid the grammatic tangle at the end, I suggest you delete the words "and won their case" and instead insert the word "successfully" before "pleaded". Also, this significant fact should be mentioned in the body of the article and cited there, rather than in the lead.
  • Final lead sentence needs much attention. Remove peacock terms "notable" and the first "significant"; rephrase "the 14 December 2011 guidance from the Lord Chief Justice..." - dates should not be employed as adjectives. And do you really mean "allowed tweeting in English Courts", or allowed evidence from tweeting..." etc?
Details of the case
  • Repetitive prose: You have "working...worker...work" in very close proximity
  • "mid 40s" → "mid-40s"
  • "Sleazy Michael" should be in quotes
  • I would say "the Craiglist website" rather than "the website Craigslist"
  • The words "to perform" (after "illegal")are redundant. In the same sentence you say "at the time". Does this mean thatthe acts have since become illegal? If not, you should remove these words, too.
  • More redundant words: "to be" after "DVDs"; "subsequently" in the final line.
  • "As a result of this" - as a result of what?
Trial
  • More redundancies in the first sentence: "finally" and "taking place". I won't mention others, but you need to be fully aware of this characteristic in your prose and to watch for it carefully.
  • "outdated" is not hyphenated
  • Amazingly enough, not everybody knows what "tweeting" means, so you need to elaborate a bit beyond stating that "Myles Jackman tweeted throughout the trial".
  • "Jackman himself recognised it" → "Jackman recognised it" - and you need to be clearer about what is meant by "it".
  • "Friday 6 January 2012" is clumsy. I'd drop the day, which is not relevant anyway.
  • Link/xplain the term "recorder". Many readers won't be familiar with it.
Aftermath
  • I'd call the CPS the "prosecuting legal authority"
  • "Specialist Lawyers..." why the capital L? Likewise the W in "Sex Worker"
  • Slangy abbreviations such as "aka" should be avoided.
  • As Jackman has been mentioned in an earlier section, he doesn't ned this full introduction here. Do we need to know the name of his firm?
  • Avoid contractions, e.g. "didn't"
  • "its director Vivienne Pattison" → "the group's director Vivienne Pattison"
  • "she related that while "As a society we are moving to a place where porn is considered as kind of fun between consenting adults..." I don't think "related" is the right word here. And are you sure the quotation should start with "As..." (with a capital A)?
Press response
  • Why "Press" rather than "Media"
  • Was the Guardian the only paper to comment?
    • Nichy" Hodgson?
From what I can gather, The Guardian was indeed the only major British paper to cover the story. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC))[reply]
Sources
  • What makes "Storyful" a reliable source?
  • Ref 10: Publisher details missing. What makes this blog a reliable source?
Dablink
  • Link on Escort goes to a disambiguation page

I hope these comments are helpful. As I am not able to watch individual peer reviews, please contact me via my talkpage if you want to raise any questions arising from this review. Brianboulton (talk) 23:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing this Brian, I will make many of your suggested improvements to the page, crossing out your suggestions as and when I undertake them. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)).[reply]

SRI International

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like some feedback on the article before I nominate it for GA. Thanks, Disavian (talk) 21:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Thanks for your work on this article. The prose is highly readable, and the article generally follows the Manual of Style guidelines. However, the article does not yet meet WP:V, as I note below, and it depends so heavily on materials published by SRI that it might not meet WP:NPOV in places. It's hard to be more specific about the point-of-view issues because of the sourcing issues. I have some other suggestions as well.

Infobox

Layout

  • If possible, place images entirely within the sections they illustrate. For example, File:SRI Packet Radio Van.jpg would look better if moved up a bit so that it does not overlap a section boundary and displace an edit button. Also, avoid making text sandwiches like the one in the "Recent history" section; just move the images slightly in relation to one another until the text sandwich has been eliminated. Also, directional images should face into the page, if possible. Thus File:SRI Packet Radio Van.jpg should be positioned on the left rather than the right side of the page.
    • I attempted to make these changes. I think one issue is that a lot of SRI's really notable history happened in the 1960s-1970s and I had more images than prose for the "Rapid expansion" section. Disavian (talk) 15:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Overlinking

  • Common terms like "policy", "education", and "matter" should not be linked since most readers of English already know what they mean. Also, it's generally unnecessary to link terms more than once in the lead and perhaps once again in the main text. I would not link "artificial intelligence" more than once in the main text, for example. Most readers will not need even one link to this fairly common term, although I would probably link it just once, on first use.

Lead

  • For readers who have never heard of DARPA, perhaps "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)" would be better on first use.
  • "SRI's mission is discovery and the application of science and technology for knowledge, commerce, prosperity, and peace." - This is what SRI says about itself in its mission statement, but can SRI be neutral about itself? Since it's juxtaposed with the students' alternate view, I'd take care here to attribute the claim with a qualifier like "SRI describes its mission as... ".
  • "Curtis Carlson, Ph.D." - Wikipedia generally avoids identifying people by their academic credentials but prefers a brief description such as "physicist".
  • "Year 2011 revenue for SRI was approximately $585 million." - To avoid using a date as an adjective, maybe this would be better: "Revenue for SRI in 2011 was approximately $585 million."
  • "SRI International Sarnoff is being used as a brand name for a period of time for business activities based in Princeton, New Jersey." - Tighten by deleting "for a period of time".

Early history

  • The first paragraph lacks a source or sources. My rule of thumb for meeting the WP:V guidelines is to provide a source for any set of statistics (including dates), any claim that is unusual or apt to be questioned, any direct quotation, and every paragraph. If one source support all of the claims in a paragraph, the citation goes at the very end of the paragraph. The same concerns arise in paragraphs 3 and 4 of this subsection and elsewhere in the article. The last part of paragraph 5 also needs a source or sources. It's very important to fix these sourcing problems before nominating the article for GA.
  • The image File:SRI Air Pollution study 1949.jpg does not appear on my computer screen, but I don't see what has gone wrong. Clicking through to the Commons, I see that the image is directional, facing left. It should therefore be placed on the right side of the article so that it faces into the page rather than out.

Diversification

  • "several landmark education and economic studies" - I'd stay away from adjectives like "landmark", since they imply a judgment that might violate WP:NPOV. Much of this section lacks sources, and readers may suspect that it is SRI boilerplate. Ditto for the next section. Words like "landmark" may add to this impression, and the fact that the Nielson book was published by SRI might make readers wonder whether the article is essentially neutral or whether it wanders into promotion for SRI.
    • A lot of the language in the article (particularly the history section) is from long before I "adopted" it. I definitely agree that the article could use a thorough copyediting for NPOV issues, but they're not terribly bad. Disavian (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

References

  • The date formatting should be consistent throughout this section. Citations 23 and 24, for example, use a different formatting from most of the rest. They should all be done in the same way.
  • For books, include the place of publication. If this information is not in your notes, you can generally find it via WorldCat.
  • Since most of the ISBNs in the article are hyphenated, I'd track down and include the hyphens for all. An ISBN converter lives here.

Further reading

  • These should be listed in alphabetical order. Also, I wouldn't list Nielson again since his book is already in "Works cited".

Other

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 22:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review this article. It looks like I have my work cut out for me :) Disavian (talk) 22:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan

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I've listed this article for peer review because… another editor and I are attempting to get this article up to Good Article status. We both have looked at this article for a long time and believe that the article would benefit from a fresh set of eyes. In particular, I hope that someone would help suggesting ways to generally improve the content. Is there too much information? Too little? Does the layout/structure make sense? Is is grammatically correct? Are there any sudden leaps in logic? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, RDavi404 (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by A. Parrot

The article looks to be neutral in its approach, which is commendable with such an emotionally charged subject. It also looks reasonably well organized, with some exceptions that I describe below.

The references are mostly news sources and look pretty reliable. (A reviewer might question The Idiot's Guide to Pakistan, but the author is a journalist who spent years there and is presumably well informed.) My one suggestion about sources is to find more academic and analytical sources, like the paper by C. Christine Fair or the book by Zahid Hussain. When writing articles myself, I strive to find the gist of a subject, the big picture, and make it clearly visible to the reader amid the details. Sources that analyze the situation in Pakistan, and not just news articles about the latest terrorist attack or political announcement, will help do that.

Because the article leans so heavily on news sources, it does sometimes feel choppy, with single sentences on particular events strung together into paragraphs of loosely related information. That may not be a problem in a GA review unless, because of that lack of cohesion, the article leaves out essential information—the gist that I was talking about—or confuses the reader. I saw one case where I think it does both of those things, which I describe under "Relations with other militant groups", below.

Lead

  • The lead specifies "the TTP" as an alternate name, but the article sometimes says "the TTP" and sometimes "TTP". It should be consistent.
  • It says in the lead that the TTP is also called the Pakistani Taliban, yet in the next sentence it says, "Most, but not all, Pakistani Taliban groups coalesce under the TTP." That suggests that "Pakistani Taliban" can mean something other than the TTP. The distinction should be clarified. For example, you could say (assuming that this is factually correct), "Most, but not all, groups that are commonly called the 'Pakistani Taliban' are part of the TTP." Also, because the lead should reflect what is in the article body, there should be something about what defines "Pakistani Taliban" in the body.
  • The second paragraph nicely draws a distinction between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. The "however" in the third sentence, though, makes it feel like the attacks on the US described in the rest of the paragraph are a similarity with the Afghan Taliban, in contrast with the differences described above (people seem to forget this, but the Afghan Taliban has never launched attacks in the United States). Also, rearranging the third and fourth sentences to put events in chronological order (Camp Chapman attack, Qari Mehsud's declaration about US cities, Times Square bombing) would make sense.
  • "In 2009 Pakistan launched offensives to force the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan from its territory in South Waziristan." That kind of leaves the reader hanging, because it doesn't give the results of the offensives or the current state of affairs. I suggest replacing that sentence with a paragraph about the areas in which the TTP is operating or has operated (has it ever reached far outside the tribal areas?), and how its fight with the government of Pakistan is going.

History

  • The BBC quote is long, and I don't see a particular reason why it shouldn't be paraphrased.
  • "The TTP soon held a shura to appoint his successor". This probably needs a brief gloss, e.g., "…soon held a shura, or council, to appoint his successor."
  • The section on the TTP's designation as a terrorist organization needs some expansion to justify its existence as a separate section. The statement about the US designation mentions some of the measures the US government has taken as a result of the designation; if more detail is available it might be useful to include. The British and Canadian designations need some indication of why those designations make any practical difference for the TTP. I also wonder about the exact reasoning for the designation—was it just "the TTP has blown up X and killed Y and Z and is therefore a terrorist organization", or was there some kind of statement about the TTP's geopolitical significance? And finally, does Pakistan label the TTP as terrorists?

Relations with other militant groups

  • The bold heading saying "Cross-border controversy" should either be changed into a real heading or eliminated. I favor the latter, because a section with a single subsection is rather clumsy organization. I realize that cross-border issues are a significant part of the relationship between the TTP and the Afghan Taliban, but if the text about them is so long that it seems to need a separate section, perhaps it should be trimmed.
  • The section on the Punjabi Taliban needs some clarifying. If the organization is merely alleged to exist, as the first sentences of the section suggest, who alleges it? It may be an untraceable rumor that is widespread among the Pakistani public, but if so it should be explicitly stated. Was the term really invented by Rehman Malik, as Sharif claims, and what exactly were the "ethnic grounds" for his claim? Are any ethnic groups particularly apt to repeat the rumor out of dislike for Punjabis?
Yet in other sentences, the Punjabi Taliban appears to be real. For example: "TTP has significant recruits from Punjab based sectarian organizations also called Punjabi Taliban." (Punjabi Taliban organizations that are somehow "other" than the imaginary Punjabi Taliban? Who's to say they aren't the Punjabi Taliban?) And the quotation from C. Christine Fair, referring to "the movement", seems to be speaking of the Punjabi Taliban and implying that it is a real organization. I think the confusion here demonstrates the problem with writing style that I mentioned above: statements are reliably sourced and relevant to the topic but don't necessarily form a cohesive picture when strung together. A few sentences at the start of the section should state how certain or uncertain it is that the Punjabi Taliban exists, who argues over the issue, and why.

Claimed and alleged attacks

  • The title looks redundant at first glance. I think I grasp the distinction now: attacks that the TTP has claimed responsibility for versus attacks that outsiders have accused them of. The title should probably be reworded so it is clearer and doesn't seem redundant.
  • This list is pretty long, which looks cumbersome. More useful than a litany of TTP attacks would be a summary of its usual tactics and targets, and the most significant attacks it has made. Perhaps you could make a section on "Attacks" with a subsection for the list and a subsection for the analysis, or maybe you could just turn the list into an article.

I wish you well in your efforts. Let me know if you need any other help. A. Parrot (talk) 01:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Trinity University (Texas)

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I've listed this article for peer review because…

I am looking for a quality scale review. the page has been improved and updated.

Thanks, Crepic (talk) 22:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I suggest getting more references - particularly look at unreferenced sections like "Trinity University Press". My general rule of thumb for whether something should be included, unless it's specifically mentioned in the University Style Guide as something to mention always, is whether it's gotten an external citation for reference (for instance, student clubs only get mentioned if they have an external citation). Of course, don't over-reference either - I probably tend to do this... Allens (talk) 16:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this interesting article - While it is clear that a lot of work has been put into it, some more is needed to improve it further. I agree with the comments above, here are some more suggestions for improvement.

  • The lead does not follow WP:LEAD which says that it should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article
  • Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself - the "awarded 649 degrees in 2007-2008" is one example of this, check for others.
  • The lead needs to be expanded to be a summary of the whole article. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, even if it is just a sentence or a phrase, but alumni are not even mentioned in the lead (as one example)
  • Biggest problem with the article I see is a lack of references. Article needs more references, for example the whole first paragraph of History has no refs, and almosy none of the alumni have any refs at all
  • My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
  • Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
  • Make sure the article uses sources which are reliable (see WP:RS) and that it is uses sources independent of the university as much as possible.
  • Photo of the mural is almost certainly of copyrighted art work and probably does not meet WP:NFCC criteria for use here
  • Sentences like this need a date / year to make sure they are put into context Trinity's 2,693 students come from 48 states plus 58 countries. Students of color account for 23 percent of undergraduate and graduate students. See WP:PCR
  • Avoid vague time expressions like "recent/ly" as these can quickly become dated. In YEAR or As of YEAR work
  • Avoid bullet point lists and short (one or two sentence) paragraphs as they impede the narrative flow of the article.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 15:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Review by GrapedApe

Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore

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Fellow Wikipedians, I humbly present for peer review, this article about a Singaporean charitable organisation serving the intellectually disabled! The organisation turns 50 this year and the goal is GA status for this article. Could you support the quest to counter systemic bias on Wikipedia by pointing out any and all issues that would prevent the article from meeting the GA criteria? The Management section is of particular concern. Should I mention the awards, which were by Singapore government bodies? Is the official website a better source for the sentence about corporate structure, than a 1993 news article whose information may be outdated? What other information could be added to this short section and is there a better name for the section?

I hope you enjoy reviewing this short, but interesting, article, as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thanks! 谢谢！Terima kasih! நன்றி! J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 15:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP Comments

As far as I can see, there is generally not much keeping this from being a GA. I'll give suggestions for general improvements anyway:

  • You have one DAB link.
    Done, please check The rehabilitation link now points to rehabilitation (neuropsychology) though I am unsure whether this is the best article to link to. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that's good. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 13:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "They run four special schools and a centre called MINDSville@Napiri, which offers several types of therapy and residential care." - I would remove the "several types of" because without those words, the sentence really means the same thing, but it's tighter.
    Done The intended meaning was that there are several options for residential care, besides the usual ones provided by most similar organisations, and likewise, wide options for therapy, but I guess it does not come across, so removing the redundant phrase. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Founded in 1962, MINDS is among the largest charities in Singapore, with 420 staff, 2400 beneficiaries and yearly expenses of S$21 million." - You could link "S$" to Singaporean dollar. I'm sure you'll get many foreign readers (like yours truly) here.
    Done Thanks for pointing that out, foreign reader! --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Since the term "retarded" had acquired negative connotations and the organisation had started services for adults," - "Since" to "After" works a lot nicer here. The word "since" is a bit awkward in causal clauses.
    Clarification needed Simply changing "Since" to "After" would make the "had"s grammatically incorrect. How should I reword the sentence? Or would simply changing "Since" to "As", which would not mess up the "had"s, be fine? --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess you could keep it as is. It's kind of a strange word to use in place of "because" (which you can also use). I guess I read a bit too much into WP:CHECKLIST. :-) —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 13:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Last but not least" - Very informal transition. I don't think you need a transitional term here. Simply removing will do.
    Done, please check Removed the transition, but the last sentence does seem awkward without a transition. Would "In addition" (with or without moving the sentence so it is the second of the paragraph) do? --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    "In addition" would for GAN, but have in mind that additive terms and transitions are frowned upon in FAC, to which you probably won't take it though. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 13:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "MINDS is one of the oldest and largest voluntary welfare organisations in Singapore, with 420 staff, 2400 beneficiaries and yearly expenses of S$21 million." - could link S$ here too.
    Done See above. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Awards that MINDS have won include the 2001 President's Social Service Award (for MINDS Youth Group)" - Subject/verb disagreemtn? Do you mean "has won"?
    Clarification needed In British English, when are collective nouns plural and when are they singular? --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess I could be wrong. Based on what I observe, you refer to them as an organization in singular and as a group of people in plural? There's a MOS page on this I'm sure, but I just cannot find it... —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 13:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources look good. Although, if you were to take the article to FAC, the article may not be comprehensive enough, so try and see if it can be expanded.
    Comment I would never take any of my GAs or potential GAs to FAC! As a non-native English speaker writing on poorly covered topics, I know my limits. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great topic you've worked on and well written too. My review may not appear thorough, but I've read it for concerns that may be raised at GAN and I did not find many. I'm no expert at the subject area, but I think you've gotten a great outside opinion on your work. Hope this helps, —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 11:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review! I agree that you have given a great outside opinion. The questions I posed about the Management section could be answered, should you feel like doing a further review of this article. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 13:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take a look. You're welcome for the review! —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 13:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: I agree this looks like it is ready for GAN, here are some fairly minor suggestions for improvement.

  • Any chance for an image or two? Perhaps a photo of one of their facilities? Or if they have a logo, that could be shown here under WP:FAIR USE
  • It would help to identify when these statistics were valid "...MINDS is among the largest charities in Singapore, with 420 staff, 2400 beneficiaries and yearly expenses of S$21 million." From the ref it appears this is as of 2005, so it may have changed since.
  • MOS says to define abbreviations on first use, so "Singapore Association for Retarded Children (SARC)"
  • Ditto for AESN
  • Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
  • Any idea when Ng became executive director?
  • Any other named leaders in their 50 year history?
  • Are there any events planned for their 50th anniversary this year?
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 14:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wiesbaden

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to make this article an GA.

Thanks, Zeeuwsebad (talk) 12:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: Wiesbaden looks a nice place, but the article needs a lot of attention if it is to make GA. Main points:-

  • The banner relating to absorption of content from German Wikipedia should be dealt with or removed
  • The lead needs to be expanded into a proper summary of the whole article, touching albeit briefly on all the significant aspects of the main text.
  • The article has far too few citations. Some citation tags have been added, but there could be dozens more. Many sections are without any citations at all.
  • The prose lacks flow. This is mainly due to the large number of very short paragraphs, combined with what looks like an excessive number of sections and subsections. Consider combining short paragraphs to form longer ones, and also whether this many subsections is necessary.
  • Bullet points should be avoided in the general prose. They're OK for obvious lists such as "Notable residents" but not, for example, in the World War II section.
  • The images are interesting, but there may be too many of them. The small gallery below the St Elizabth's Church section looks unnecessary. Images overdominate and crowd the text in some places, for example in the Geographical Setting and Modern era sections where the text is squeezed by the left-right alignments. It may be possible to reposition some of the images into less crowded parts of the article.
  • Minor point, but "Geographical Setting" should be "Geographical setting" per MOS
  • What was the basis of the selection of "notable" residents? Some are clearly notable in the true sense of the word, but Melody Perkins? Rudolf von Ribbentrop? (and why, alone, does Ribbentrop have a year of birth?)
  • "Famous visitors": the visits of Wagner, Brahms and Dostoyevsky have been mentioned earlier in the article in the context of the spa, and don't need to be repeated here. The professional concert engagements of musicians hardly qualify as "visits". I see little merit in this section and advise you to delete it.
  • Likewise, the very brief "rivalry" and "fictional" sections smack of trivia and should in my view be ditched.
  • All German-language sources should be marked as such. All online sources that are not from print media should have retrieval dates.

I have not carried out a prose check – although I would avoid using the word "plus" as a synonym for "and". All in all, there is plenty of work still to be done on this promising article. Brianboulton (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (series)

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I want to know where it needs to be improved.

Thanks, Greg Heffley 23:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Maria

Hi, Greg. I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for here, but the article does need quite a bit of work -- beginning with research and expansion. I would suggest looking to high-quality articles dedicated to book series for children. Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events are both Good Articles, and as you can see they include quite a bit of information about the series' plot, genre, themes, publishing history, achievement, reception, films, etc., etc. Depending on what sources you may find (Google is a good place to start), here is what you may consider adding/expanding:

  • Expand the book summaries, keeping writing about fiction guidelines in mind. At the moment there's only one sentence per book, so this can be expanded quite a bit to explain plot development, character growth, etc. (New section: "Plot summary".)
  • Where do the books take place? Who are the main characters? (New section: "Characters".)
  • Are there recurrent themes? What genre do the books fall under? (New section(s): "Themes" and/or "Genre".)
  • The current section, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", would work better as "Background" or "Origin" since that's what it's about -- the genesis of the series, beginning with the first book. More could be said about this, such as how/where Jeff Kinney got the idea for the series, what inspired him, etc. (Expand.)

I hope these suggestions help. Sorry it isn't much of a review, but the PR instructions do state that this process is "intended for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work." Because Wimpy Kid isn't exactly high quality at the moment, it's difficult to review in such a way. Again, my suggestion is to look at other articles on series of children's books for inspiration. You can find a list of such articles at Category:Series of children's books. Good luck, María (yllosubmarine) 20:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dan Leno

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because of the extensive work I have undertaken in the last few weeks and I now feel confident the article meets GA criteria. This will be my second GAC and one that I have thoroughly enjoyed working on. I would like to take this to FAC in the next few months, depending on how well it does here. Please be as critical as you like as this will not only help the article, but will also help me as an editor in the future. Many thanks! -- Cassianto (talk) 10:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
  • The article looks like it's in pretty good shape to begin with, so that will make this more fun. I'm not an expert with the FA criteria, so you should probably get advice/copyediting from someone else, as well. I'll see what I can do though.
  • Links: No dabs, subscription sources (such as the ODNB) should be noted as such. The WP:REPEATLINK script I use is showing Pantomime, Max Beerbohm, and Grand Order of Water Rats repeated one too many times.
  • The auto-peer review link is highlighting "Many considered Leno and Albert Chevalier to be Britain's two leading comic music hall singers of the late 19th century." You should note who the "Many" are who considered that.
  • I ran a couple scripts on the page, hopefully there are no problems with the changes.
  • The ISBNs look like they need formatting. I think they should be consistent at 10 or 13 digits with consistent hyphen use.
  • ISBN's replaced with OCLCs complete with link. -- Cassianto (talk)
Cassianto, you should *not* replace ISBNs with OCLCs. ISBNs are better. OCLCs should only be used for books where ISBNs do not exist. But several of the ISBNs look wrong - they should all be 10 digits, or they should all be 13 digits. -- Ssilvers (talk) 07:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have had another go. Some do not exist, despite extensive research on the internet and at the British Library this morning. So, as suggested, these will have to have OCLC number's added instead. I will continue on the further reading section later. Cassianto (talk) 11:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You might want to think about trying to work some of the Further reading section into use as references, at FAC they might bring that up as a comprehensiveness issue.
Cassianto this is a good thought. Feel free to e-mail me if you want to discuss this. -- Ssilvers (talk) 08:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I suggest noting in the lead that the GOWR was a entertainment industry charity and brotherhood or something.
  • "Born in Marylebone, London, he began to entertain as a child." Might want to avoid starting the paragraph with a pronoun.
  • That's understood. Replaced.
  • "He was the youngest of six children, including two brothers, John (1851–1893) and Henry and an elder sister Frances." Might want to take a stab at rephrasing this, see if you can smooth it out a bit. Cassianto (talk),
  • "The word "Irish" was suggested by his stepfather, William, who thought that it would ensure greater success." Do we know why he thought that?
  • ""Patrick" was chosen so that Leno could earn a separate fee, 23 shillings per performance plus living expenses." Why did that name allow him to earn a separate fee?
  • "The same year, the Lenos appeared in Belfast at the same time as Charles Dickens, who was giving lectures in local schools, and who encouraged the young Leno." Did he speak with Dickens personally or was it that he heard Dickens say something encouraging during a lecture?
  • "In October 1884, the Lenos gave up the lease on the theatre." Do we know why they did this?
  • "In 1885, now married, he and Lydia moved to London where he gained new success with a solo act that featured comedy patter, dancing and song." Do we know when they married?
  • "On the night of his London debut, he appeared in three music halls: the Foresters' Music Hall in Mile End, Middlesex Music Hall in Drury Lane and Gatti's-in-the-Road, where he earned £5 a week." Was this what he earned from all three or just the last one?
  • "included Collins Music Hall in Islington," I suggest linking Islington here.
  • You start consecutive sentences "Though..." and "Although..." in the 1880s section. Might want to vary that up a bit.
  • I made some copyedits, feel free to revert if you don't think they're improvements. (Also, keep in mind that British English doesn't come naturally to me.)
  • "Like his alcoholic father and stepfather, Leno began to drink heavily, and by 1901 he had became an alcoholic." Do we know what kind of drinks he preferred?
  • Try to be consistent in serial comma use/non-use, i.e. "a police officer, a Spanish bandit, a fireman, and a hairdresser." vs "including "The Detective", "My Old Man", "Chimney on Fire", "The Fasting Man", "The Jap", "All Through A Little Piece of Bacon" and "The Detective Camera"."
Fixed now. I eliminated the serial comma. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... which he performed at London's Surrey Theatre in 1886, having been spotted singing "Going to Buy Milk" by the Surrey Theatre manager, George Conquest." Could the cause and effect here be spelled out a little better?
  • "which had the improbable title" What made the title improbable?
swapped improbable to unique, as I bet there was no other performance with that kind of title! Cassianto (talk) 19:19, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "His performances proved popular with audiences..." This is the same starting a paragraph with a pronoun thing I mentioned above, use your best judgment here.
changed to noun. Cassianto (talk) 19:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "because he disagreed with the hiring of music hall performers to take on acting roles." Is there a good way to tighten this up?
I have re-worded slightly. -- Cassianto (talk) 16:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "pantomimes, running until 28 March 1902." How long did it run total?
I don't think this is an issue if they always started within a couple of days of Christmas. We just need to say "Christmas" pantomime. Cassianto, please confirm. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see, this is probably one of those things that is obvious to Brits that a lot of Americans wouldn't realize. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Mark. I'm an American too. We don't even know what pantomime is, but I think that if anyone has read this far into the article and hasn't read the link for pantomime, then at least the fact that we repeatedly refer to them as Christmas pantomimes ought to clue the readers into the idea that they started on Christmas. Normally, such entertainments only ran six or eight weeks (kind of like the Radio City Christmas Spectactular) Mark, do you think that the point that Leno's pantos were unusually successful is clear enough? -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think the point about it being usually successful is clear now. I was curious because I wasn't sure if they started right before Christmas or if it was a Christmas season thing starting in early December. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Pantomime's here in blighty are not nearly as successful as they were then, but are still considered to be a traditional part of Christmas. Sadly, they now feature non-entity celebrities who are famed for nothing more than a shampoo commercial. They are closely linked to music hall, and as a result burlesque for you guys due to the variety, spontaneity and audience participation. The Leno panto's at Drury Lane were famed, primarily for their austentatios and elaborate productions, and of course for Leno and his co-stars. If you go there today, you are reminded of the panto days as there are plaques, bill posters and photo's and press cuttings on the wall's . The theatre is now owned by Andrew Lloyd-Webber who is always vocally proud of it's history.[4] Hope this helps. -- Cassianto (talk) 17:48, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting, I'll try to look that up. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Gents, it started on Christmas eve and finished on 28 March 1902. (I hope they had an intermission! :-) ) -- Cassianto (talk) 16:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the excellent comments and copy edits, everyone. -- Ssilvers (talk) 08:20, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it looks to me like this article is very well-written, not a whole lot of copy edits needed in my view (though there are doubtless some reviewers who could find a few things. Mark Arsten (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • More Comments/Questions
  • "a further two shows, the musical farce, In Gay Piccadilly! and Mr. Wix of Wickham" Is the second comma needed here?
done Cassianto (talk) 17:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 1897, Leno went to America..." Is the name of the ship he traveled on known?
I have access to shipping records but it may be difficult to cite. I have tried to steer clear of such detail as it caused problems at Stanley Holloway's FAC. I will look and ask for cite advice if found Cassianto (talk) 17:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't worry about it, I was just thinking if he sailed on a famous boat it would be nice to note that. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"The Silver Albatross" was the boat. No not famous. I'll leave this. Cassianto (talk) 19:15, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "However, he rejected all later offers to tour the United States and Australia." Interesting, I wonder why that was?
elaborated on. Cassianto (talk) 19:27, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... the first paper to bear an individual's name." Does this need to be qualified somehow, or was it really the first paper ever to bear someone's name?
Please double-check the source, but if says "first", I have no reason to doubt it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Double checked and reworded with slight extension. -- Cassianto (talk),
  • "In 1880, Leno met Sarah Lydia Reynolds (1866–1942), a Birmingham-born comedy singer, while appearing at King Ohmy's Circus of Varieties, Rochdale." Who was appearing at the circus?
Nobody notable. Harry Clayton, Arthur West and Charles Deswart... No me neither!. Cassianto (talk) 19:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, I think the question is: Was it Leno or Lydia (or both) who was appearing at the circus? -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ah got ya! Both. They met there whilst performing. -- Cassianto (talk) 22:01, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the Personal life section you have "They married in 1883" twice.
deleted. Cassianto (talk) 19:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should this be "St. George's Church, Hulme, in Manchester" or "St. George's Church, in Hulme, Manchester"?
done. Cassianto (talk) 19:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Leno owned two acres of land" Should probably add a conversion template here.
  • "where he produced cabbages, potatoes, poultry, butter and eggs, of which he would send dozens as Christmas presents." I assume he sent dozens of eggs, do you think it is clear enough though? Mark Arsten (talk) 17:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reworded. Cassianto (talk) 19:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I reworded it again. It doesn't matter how many. Now it just says that he sent gifts. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Leno began to drink heavily after performances, and by 1901, like his father and stepfather before him, he had become an alcoholic". Do we know when he began to drink heavily after performances?
  • "It was often a result of his diminishing ability to remember his lines and inaudibility in performance." What does "It" refer to here?
specified further. -- Cassianto (talk) 01:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You might want to mention in the text where he's buried (it's just in a caption now).
added. Cassianto (talk) 00:52, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That was great Mark, keep them coming! -- Cassianto (talk) 22:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's a small issue that I didn't notice before: you might think about trying to vary the words you begin paragraphs with. In the Decline in health and death section you start 4 out of 5 paragraphs with "Leno..." and before that you start 4 out of 5 with "In...". Mark Arsten (talk) 00:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I'm pretty much done with my review, I might find a couple other small things to mention though sooner or later. I think this is solidly at GA quality, and likely on it's way to FA. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank's for an excellent and thorough review Mark. I hope all of your points have been answered to your satisfaction. -- Cassianto (talk) 09:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Tim Riley

I think you have done a splendid job with this article. I particularly like the way you have incorporated the "Personal life" section into the chronological structure in what seems (but I'm quite sure wasn't) a completely effortless way. A few drafting points:

  • I don't remember seeing the names of performers italicised in other music hall articles, and I would think about removing the itals from The Comic Trio (Mr & Mrs Leno and Dan Patrick) In Their Really Funny Entertainments, Songs and Dances and from Dan Leno himself (at the mention of his new stage name in the 1880s section).
Thanks for your kind comments Tim. They have now been swapped from Itals to inverts. I have swapped ALL previous stage names as opposed to just the ones you mention above for consistancy. -- Cassianto (talk) 12:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You should, I think, be consistent about capitalising the definite article in the names of theatres; at present you have, e.g., "The Grand Varieties Theatre" but "the Queen's Theatre", and so on. I'd lower case them if it were my decision (except where they are upper cased within quotations), but whether you prefer "The" or "the", it would be good to be consistent throughout.
fixed. Cassianto (talk) 13:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Later career
    • "In 1896, impresario Milton Bode" – this is a tabloid journalese construction, and you have wisely avoided it elsewhere in the article. British style guides counsel against it, and so do I. Adding "the" before "impresario" would transform the prose.
added. -- Cassianto (talk) 13:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd be inclined to put "the King's Jester" in inverted commas rather than in italics, both in the text and in the image caption
changed-- Cassianto (talk) 13:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • References/Sources
    • I don't know whether Hickory Wood is a double-barrelled surname or if Hickory was a given name and Wood the surname. If it is the latter, he should be just "Wood, p. xx" in the references; if it is the former, then he should be "Hickory Wood, J." in the list of books.
See afterthought.-- Cassianto (talk) 13:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ref 90: I imagine "p. x" refers to a page in the preface, but I merely mention it on the off-chance that "x" should be an ordinary number.
changed to 10. -- Cassianto (talk) 13:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those are the only drafting points that struck me on reading the current version of the article. I have read earlier contributions to this peer review with interest: some very good stuff there, which has benefited the article considerably. – Tim riley (talk) 09:58, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Afterthought: I see Hickory Wood qualified for a Times obituary (29 August 1913, p. 7), in which it is made clear that his surname was Wood, and Hickory was a given (or to be precise a taken) name. So you have him listed correctly in the "Sources", but should drop the "Hickory" from the various mentions in the "References" section. Tim riley (talk) 10:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All references changed to Wood. -- Cassianto (talk) 13:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tim, thanks for your comments. I hope this has been done to your satisfaction. If there is any more let me know. -- Cassianto (talk)|

Looks good to me. If I were reviewing it for GA (which as an occasional contributor to the article I can't, of course) I don't think I'd find much to quibble at. Tim riley (talk) 20:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Yomangani

I haven't had a chance to look through it in detail, but here a few comments picked at random (and ordered randomly). I may add to them later.

  • It's pretty solid, but occasionally you have some short sentences that interrupt the flow and leave the reader with more questions than answers (e.g. "He earned £200 a week". For what? Those two pantomimes? That year? In general?), and some pronouns get a bit overworked when they are detached from the subjects by several intervening sentences.
  • ...where he became known as "The Great Little Leno, the Quintessence of Irish Comedians (meaning performer of comic songs). Something's off there. Presumably there should be quote marks after Comedians and the explanation put into a footnote, but it may be the parentheses are part of the title. I couldn't tell.
  • Mother Goose, the following year's Drury Lane pantomime... This paragraph needs reworking as Mother Goose has already been discussed in the preceding paragraph.
  • These productions included: Jack and the Beanstalk These productions? What are they examples of? Productions in which they appeared in palaquins? Productions in which Leno and Campbell appeared? Productions at Drury Lane? Yomanganitalk 12:07, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gwen Cooper

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This peer review discussion has been closed.

I've listed this article for peer review because I am interested in submitting it for a good article nomination, but would like feedback on spelling, grammar, content and content/lack of bias. I'd particuarly like help regarding the real world perspective on the character in the 'Characterisation' and 'Reception' sections, and whether the material there is too much.

Thanks, Eshlare (talk) 17:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "portrayed by Welsh actress Eve Myles" I would have this straight after "fictional character".
  • "episodes of Torchwood's parent show, Doctor Who" do you feel you need to say this after, in the previous sentence, you say " Torchwood, a spin-off to the long-running show Doctor Who,"?
  • "Across the various situations she is placed in, Gwen remains "grounded" by her family life, which critics have responded positively to." -> "Across the various situations in which she is placed, Gwen remains "grounded" by her family life, to which critics have responded positively."
  • Done!
  • "rewards Gwen" is it a reward? Or is it simply an offer?
  • Changed the wording here, thanks.
  • "Following from this" no need for "from" and probably no need to repeat Gwen as she was the last subject of the previous sentence.
  • Changed the wording.
  • "aired as a five-part serial in" -> "aired in five parts in" to avoid series/serial?
  • Simplified the wording
  • Is it 456 or 4-5-6? Our own article to which you link seems confused.
  • Standardised as 4-5-6, to avoid confusion with 'four hundred and fifty six'
  • Something Borrowed is a dab link.
  • Fixed both occurances of this
  • "During series two, the Torchwood website, www.torchwood.org.uk" this is a little incongruous for me, a little bit adverty if you know what I mean, I really don't think you need to put the URL into the prose.
  • Done
  • " by Gary Russell - an insider's look into Torchwood collects " -> " by Gary Russell – an insider's look into Torchwood – collects "
  • Done
  • According to our article, Afternoon Play should be in italics.
  • Fixed
  • "guest starred" should be hyphenated in my mind.
  • Done
  • Lead Writer, Executive Producer, unnecessarily capitalised, and you link Exec Prod on the second instance.
  • Fixed
  • " that Torchwood are "taking the Welsh global"" are or is?
  • Fixed
  • "2005-6" -> "2005–06".
  • Fixed
  • "archetype[59] " missing full stop.
  • Fixed
  • ""It was completely - one too many "
  • Fixed.
  • Don't think that's the G-star you mean to link.
  • De-linked
  • The Telegraph should be The Daily Telegraph.
  • The Radio Times should be the Radio Times.
  • Fixed all noted occurrances
  • Anne Frank's diary should be in italics.
  • Done
  • What is SFX?
  • Disambiguated
  • Barrowman caption does need a full stop.
  • Fixed
  • Refs - sometimes you link Torchwood, sometimes not, be consistent.
  • Refs - ditto to BBC Two (but not BBC Three or BBC One oddly).
  • Refs - ditto to Doctor Who. I'd suggest you either link first only, all of them or none them. Check all refs.
  • Standardised
  • Ref 18 spare "
  • Ref 19 too.
  • Fixed
  • All refs need to use spaced en-dashes, not spaced hyphens per WP:DASH.
  • Fixed where noted.
  • Ref 55, e.g., all titles should be per MOS, so Exclusive: Who Dunnt? See ref 80 for more over-capitalisation.
  • Changed
  • Ref 60 poorly formatted.
  • Fixed
  • The Telegraph in refs is surely The Daily Telegraph?
  • And The Guardian...
  • Check all "works" are shown in italics.
  • Fixed all, as far as I'm aware
  • Don't mix date formats in the refs, see refs 133 and 134.
  • Standardised
  • Is it BBC or BBC News Online? Be consistent and link consistently.
  • Fixed

The Rambling Man (talk) 15:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Usher discography

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Previous peer review
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This peer review discussion has been closed.
The article has improved quite a bit since its last peer review, it looks to have potential of being a featured list. Suggestions for improvements/changes would be appreciated.

Thanks, Rayman95 (talk) 14:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • In the Singles and Other charted songs sections, you've used multiple references in some columns. Please make those columns like refs #84, #85 and #86.
  • For the RIANZ singles certifications (from May 2007 to July 2011) use this archived source because that website doesn't work anymore.
  • Also the rianz.org.nz sources don't work anymore because the website has been changed to nztop40.co.nz.
  • In the Video albums table, you've linked RIAA, MC, and BPI again. Also a lot of WP:OVERLINK in the Notes column.
  • A lot of overlinking in the Music videos table.
  • For ref #3, instead of Music-mix.ew.com, use Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc
  • Publisher is missing for ref #4 (which is Viacom).
  • For ref #9, use [[People (magazine)|People]]. Time Inc
  • Publishers missing for refs #10 and #11.
  • Ref #16 is a dead link.
  • For ref #17, instead of Billboard.biz, change it so it looks like ref #12.
  • References still need a lot of work. The Hung Medien sources like australian-charts.com should not be italicized, and the Allmusic, Allmovie, Billboard, MTV and Rap-Up sources are missing publishers.

Oz talk 04:20, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Game of Thrones (season 1)

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it's been years since I took anything through the FLC process, and I would like to get this article to FL status as the cornerstone of a Game of Thrones (season 1) good topic. I will muddle through this myself, but a few pointers from an experienced reviewer can probably shortcut the overall effort needed to bring it up to FL standards.

Thanks, Jclemens (talk) 07:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comments

I have no experience writing Featured Lists, but here are some suggestions to help you along:

  • The lead needs strengthening per WP:LEAD. Perhaps consider expanding to include other areas covered in the article -- production, casting, filming, awards, etc.
  • The "Music" section also seems somewhat skimpy. Anything to say about composition, orchestration, the theme song, etc.?
  • Something more about the awesome title sequence would be interesting; I see that it was given an award, and that the "making-of" was on the DVD. Anything more to say about its production, reception?
  • I also don't see any critical response/reviews section. Is that not standard?

I hope these comments help! María (yllosubmarine) 13:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll get to working on these... Jclemens (talk) 06:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Missing My Baby

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to bring the article to FA status

Thanks, Jonayo! Selena 4 ever 21:13, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brief comments from Nikkimaria

In general, this article could use an extensive copyedit. It might also be a bit on the short side for FAC - is there any further information available? You might also find it helpful to go through GAN first. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed all concerns. No, I have looked everywhere from google news/books to archives and this is all I can find. So the article won't be good enough (length wise) for FAC? Best, Jonayo! Selena 4 ever 21:38, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's not my area of expertise, so I'm not sure. Maybe find someone who frequently reviews music articles there to take a look? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Will ask thanks for your comments. Best, Jonayo! Selena 4 ever 03:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: I'm no expert on single-song FAs either, but I'll give this one a whirl. I agree with Nikkimaria that the article could use an extensive copyedit. I fixed a few minor things, but I see more. I don't think there is any strict length minimum at FAC in general, but if I were writing about a single song with the goal of FA in mind, I'd probably choose one that was extraordinary in multiple ways. That doesn't mean that it's impossible to write about every song ever sung, but finding much to say about most of them looks difficult to me, a non-expert. Here, you might be able to add a bit more background for readers who know nothing about Selena or her band. What were her "diverse musical abilities"? How long had she been singing before she recorded this song? How old was she when she was murdered? I personally find the background information more interesting than the interpretation of the lyrics, which sound too thin to need much interpreting. Perhaps your best course of action would be to add a bit more background, seek a copyedit, and try GAN before leaping to FAC. Below are a few more comments, mostly about the lead.

  • The link checker finds one suspicious link here. When I click through on this link in citation 20, it sends me to a general page that doesn't seem to support the claim. Since citation 19 supports the claim, maybe it would be best to delete citation 20.

Lead

  • "It was composed by Selena y Los Dinos backup singer Pete Astudillo as well as her brother and principal record producer A.B. Quintanilla III." - Even though it would be unusual for a woman to be named "Pete", the sentence might be misunderstood to mean that Pete's brother is A.B. Quintanilla III. This could be avoided by changing "her" to "Selena's".
  • "She also wanted the song to be included in the album to help enforce her crossover attempt." - Crossover from what to what? It would be helpful to readers who know nothing about Selena to know what "crossover" meant in this particular instance.
  • "The lyrics convey the love felt by a lover who stays positive and constantly thinks of the happy times she and her lover had as couples." - Why "couples"? Were they not just one couple? Also, can this be stated more succinctly and without repeating "love" or "lover" three times?
  • "Though in some parts of the song, the lover faces negative outcomes because of loneliness and withdrawal from her boyfriend during the night." - Grammar. This is not a complete sentence. Also, it uses a lot of words to say little. Couldn't this sentence be combined with the one that precedes it and compressed to something like "The lyrics convey the happiness of a lover and her loneliness when separated from her mate"?
  • "The song was met with generally positive criticism by contemporary music critics." - Active voice is almost always punchier and less wordy than passive voice. Suggestion: "Contemporary music critics generally praised the song."
  • "It was among the "Most-played clips" - Lowercase "m".
  • "Though the song was never intended to be released as a single for any of Selena's albums, it managed to peak at number 22 on the US Rhythmic Top 40 chart." - I'm not sure what "for any of Selena's albums" means. The sentence would be clear to me if it said, "Though the song was never intended to be released as a single, it managed to peak at number 22 on the US Rhythmic Top 40 singles chart." However, I'm not quite sure that my sentence conveys your intended meaning.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 19:39, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will be applying your comments by this weekend on the article. Thanks for you're comments. Best, 19:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Adolf Galland

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I've listed this article for peer review because a while ago Dapi89 (talk · contribs) and I had been working on this article, with the bulk of the work attributed to Dapi89 so far. Unfortunately Dapi89 chose to retire from Wikipedia leaving the article more or less where it stands now. I want to continue his work and move the article further up the quality scale. To establish a new baseline for improvement I seek feedback on the article as it stands now.

Thanks, MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Nimbus227. I've had a reasonably thorough look at the article and it looks very good. Excuse the numbered points but it might help to improve the article.
  1. The lead appears quite long (too many paragraphs). It's not a hard and fast rule but four paragraphs is the recommended max. Painful as it might be to do it I think some detail could be removed from the lead to compress it.
  2. The article itself appears quite long but it does seem to stay on topic and it is a big subject to tackle, I would look through it again for anything that isn't directly related to Galland. Another option would be to split it but I don't know quite how that would be achieved with this article as his life and the events are all part of the same story.
  3. It looks well referenced with many citations reflecting the length of the article, there are whole paragraphs though with many statements/claims in that are supported by just one cite at the end, it would get picked up at FA level.
  4. One note is uncited (Blenheim identification - who is making the assumption?), the other two shouldn't need citing
  5. The multiple stacked navboxes can be collapsed to tidy things, it's in use at Supermarine Spitfire.
done
Hope that helps, cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:21, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Binksternet comments
  • Check UK English spelling: I found hospitalization and center.
    • I fixed these.
  • I intend to go through the article and make it comply with WP:DASH. There are too many jumbled hyphens and dashes to list here.
    • I did the dash work.
  • Citation style is various. To prep the article for FAC, the citations should be made more consistent. Binksternet (talk) 05:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • For instance, the imdb.com cites don't have a publisher or accessdate. The Cull et al reference has no page numbers, and the Cull 1995 cite does not refer to a book (unless the year is wrong). I added a full stop to the end of one page range to match article style.
  • Three dots—ellipses—should be properly formatted per WP:ELLIPSIS.
  • The external links could use some more descriptive prose to tell the reader what to expect. For instance, one of them has a photo of Galland's gravestone but the link does not say so. Another external link to svetskirat.net uses copyright violation photos and non-English language. Binksternet (talk) 08:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Looks very good. Three minor suggestions: (1) I would not normally use blockquotes for anything shorter than four lines on a computer screen. The one-liner about Mickey Mouse looks especially odd, but the two- and three-liners look odd to me as well. (2) Nothing should be linked from inside a direct quotation; therefore the two links in the block quotation in "Last combat" should be removed. (3) I don't think you need to link traffic accident in the "Personal life" section. Finetooth (talk) 03:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dimple Kapadia

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I've been working on this article for the past few months (though I had a break recently due to lack of time). The article has gone through major expansion, more than I had ever hoped for. And now I have new plans to take it a few steps further. I naturally believe that a broader number of opinions would help improving it further, so here I am. Please let me know what else can be done. Thanks, Shahid • Talk2me 17:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redtigerxyz' Comments

--Redtigerxyz Talk 17:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Redtigerxyz, thank you for the comment. I find that your concern has got more to do with structure. I thought of mentioning her most notable work first, I then I decided to go by a chronological order of events to avoid POV. Thanks. Shahid • Talk2me 19:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Animeshkulkarni's Comments

(I will be commenting more like an admirer than an editor. So these are just suggestions.)

  • More pictures please, especially in different roles.
  • No mention of Bobby Print? The "polka dot" design that she wore in Bobby is quite popular as "Bobby print". The fashion is refered but the exact term is not. (Sorry! i dont have reference as such.)
  • None of her songs are mentioned. "Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate", "Chehra Hai Ya Chaand Khila Hai" can find space here.

- Animeshkulkarni (talk) 15:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Animesh, thanks for the comments.
  • I am intending to add images later on, if there are some particular images which could be useful in the article, then I'd be happy to add them.
  • "Bobby Print" mentioned.
  • I'm not sure how relevant songs would be in an article about her, unless these were just item numbers. There are always popular numbers, I'm not sure proper sources in regard to their notability could be found. Shahid • Talk2me 19:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A passing mention of songs can be done saying how hit they were and still are. She got to be a part of those songs. Not that she contributed to the singing or music. But as indian actresses have to dance a lot in various songs and they are usually remembered by only through the videos of these old songs, its good to mention it. Just a suggestion! -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 15:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But it was imitated and satirised on several occasions, so I can't see how mentioning this particular film would make much sense. Shahid • Talk2me 10:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Was it? Didnt know that. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 20:46, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe someone else? :) Shahid • Talk2me 07:52, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rajinikanth

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to make this article an FA. I would be grateful if somebody could provide a more detailed review.

Thanks, —Commander (Ping me) 09:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm afraid this isn't a detailed peer review (I am not a movie buff...), but I can say a few things:
    • Try using the automated checker; it found several problems.
    • I skimmed over the lead and noted some infelicitous phrases ("He was bestowed {such-and-such an honor}", for instance; it should be "{such-and-such an honor} was bestowed on him", or even better "he won {such-and-such an honor}"); perhaps the Guild of Copy-Editors could help? Their request pages are at WP:GOCE/FA for FA nominees, and WP:GOCE/REQ for more general requests.
    • You might check with the film peer review people.
  • Allens (talk) 17:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no expert in this area, but I can advise on Manual of Style issues, layout, and prose. I'll do this today (perhaps extending into tomorrow). For starters, the link checker in the toolbox at the top of this review page finds four dead URLs in the citations and a couple of others that look suspicious. See here. Finetooth (talk) 22:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Thanks for your work on this article. The prose is generally clear, and the article seems comprehensive to me, an outsider with no special knowledge of the subject. However, it is far from FA-worthy. I have concerns about the sourcing; a spot check indicates to me that in some cases the supporting citations do not support the claims they are attached to. This is a big problem that will have to be fixed. I'm also concerned that some of the sections include what I consider unnecessary detail; celebrity news generally has a short half-life, and much of it has little encyclopedic value, in my opinion. What follows is not a complete line-by-line review, which I think would be premature. However, I think it should give you plenty to think about. Good luck with improving the article.

Lead

  • Claims do not usually need supporting citations in the lead if the lead is a summary of the main text sections, as it should be. If the lead is a summary, the claims should appear in the main text, and the supporting citations should go there.
  • "Within a few years of his career... - Tighten by deleting "of his career"?
  • "He is one of the most influential actors in the film industry due to his overwhelming back-driven influence on politics in the state and also many columnist suggest it reportedly." - This is awkward and ungrammatical. Also, I'm not sure what "back-driven influence" might mean. In addition, do you mean "repeatedly" rather than "reportedly"?
  • "He was bestowed the Padma Bhushan... " - Tighten to "He won the Padma Bhushan... "?

Early life

  • "where he had his elementary education in Kannada" - What is Kannada? Unless you link it here on first use, many readers will have no idea.
  • "out of which the most notable role performed by him" - Tighten to "in which his most notable role was"?
  • "the film was directed by K. Balachander" - Is there a special reason to include the initial on any but the first reference to Balachander? If not, I'd change all but the first to "Balachander".

Experimentation

  • "The success of Bhuvana Oru Kelvikkuri prompted Muthuraman to make a mushy melodrama with Rajinikanth as a hero sacrificing everything for his siblings in Aarilirunthu Arubathu Varai (1979)." - The phrase "mushy melodrama" caught my eye here, but it turns out that the source does not seem to support the claim. Although Aarilinthu Aarupathuvarai is mentioned near the end of the supporting document, the film is not described as a melodrama, and the article says nothing about a hero who makes sacrifices. Where do the claims come from? Who says the film is a "mushy melodrama"?
  • "In 1982, he starred in Pokkiri Raja and Thanikattu Raja. Moondru Mugam had Rajinikanth playing three roles for the first time." - Needs a source.

Commercial stardom

  • I would break the huge first paragraph into two or three smaller paragraphs if only to give the readers a rest now and then. Beyond that, I'm wondering if it's really necessary to comment on so many of Rajini's minor films. I would think about trimming some of the material. Here's an example: "Annamalai, which released in 1992, was yet another friendship eccentric film and was loosely based on the 1987 Bollywood film Khudgarz." Here's another: "He made a cameo in Peddarayudu for his friend Mohan Babu and also helped him in obtaining the remake rights." Foreign readers may well be interested in this actor, but I'm not sure they will want this level of detail.
  • "as his films began to take on a whole new dimension in terms of expectations, hype and revenue. His political clout... " - The words "hype" and "clout" probably qualify as slang. Better might be "advertising" and "power".
  • "It was also during this time that he started taking active participation in politics as his films began to take on a whole new dimension in terms of expectations, hype and revenue. His political clout also steadily rose with the cinematic tide, a trend which actually began with the release of Annamalai in 1992 and arguably climaxed during the time of Padayappa's release in 1999. Being his 150th film, Padayappa, directed by Ravikumar, turned out to be the largest blockbuster in his career at that time." - These claims do not seem to be supported in any way by the cited source, which is an article about Muthu.

Health scare

  • I would break the huge first paragraph into two or three smaller ones. Here too I wonder whether readers need this much detail. Here is an example: "The hospital restricted unauthorised visitors and Latha requested media and the public to not crowd outside the hospital in order to allow Rajinikanth to rest." A good deal of this section includes detail that had news value for a short time, but it's doubtful that these details have lasting importance or encyclopedic value.

Popularity

  • "Many also cite reasons for Rajinikanth's popularity as coming from his larger-than-life super-hero appearance in many films, supported by gravity-defying stunts and charismatic expressions, all while attempting to maintain modesty in real-life." - The citation for these claims does not support the claims. The given URL links to a general Slate page with a "sorry" message.

Religious views

  • "He considers his Guru Swami Satchidananda to be his role model." - Needs a source.

Influence in politics

  • "Rajinikanth said, "Even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if AIADMK returns to power." - Direct quotations need a source. The inline citation for a direct quotation should be placed right after the end of the quotation and its punctuation.

Images

  • File:Billa Rajini.jpg has a fair-use rationale for its use in another article but not in this one. If you use it in this article, you must provide a reasonable rationale. Since the article has other images of Rajini, I doubt that a reasonable rationale exists.

References

  • Citation 2 is malformed.
  • If you take this to FAC at some point, every citation will be checked. To make things go smoothly, it's best to make every citation perfect before FAC, if possible. One of the questions that often arises is "What makes this a reliable source"? Newspapers and books are generally reliable sources per WP:RS, and many web sites qualify as reliable. However, fan sites, blogs, some dot-coms, and some articles with no named author may not be reliable. You need to be sure that behindwoods.com, Bharatwaves.com, rediff.com, Tamilomovie.com, and others meet the WP:RS guidelines. I don't know if they do or not, but you need to consider each of these and make sure.
  • Quite a few of the citations are incomplete. For example, citation 14 should include the author, Manisha Lakhe, and the date of publication. In general, citations to web sites should include author, title, publisher, URL, date of publication, and date of most recent access, if all of those are known or can be found.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 00:55, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Selena videography

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to take the article to FLC

Thanks, Jonayo! Selena 4 ever 19:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • No image for the infobox?
  • "Selena had released 22 music videos and 12 video/live albums during her career" no need for "had".
  • No need to link orchestra.
  • "which is a duet with" just "a duet with" is fine (you don't need "which is a").
  • "it featured Selena and a couple of people dancing" -> "featuring Selena and two people dancing..."
  • " dancing the cumbia dance in a beach house" -> "dancing to the cumbia in a beach house" and delink "beach house".
  • "dancing in the styles of hip hop." -> "hip-hop dancing."
  • Link Joshua Tree National Park and make the capitalisation correct.
  • You could mention in one sentence how/why Selena died.
  • ""Viviras Selena", which is a tribute song," don't need "which is".
  • "was only featured in two scenes" -> "was featured in only two scenes"
  • "During Selena's tenth death anniversary " -> "In 2005, ten years after Selena's death..."
  • Make the tables conform with MOS:DTT, i.e. focus on the accessibility. You aren't prohibited from using colours for pure visual appeal, but please use col and row scopes.
  • Song titles don't match reliable sources with their capitalisation.
  • Don't think you need a separate table for posthumous videos, merge the tables into one sortable table.
  • "Video/Live albums" as a title isn't good, at least decapitalise and make it "Video/live albums"...
  • No need for the bullet points in the certifications column.
  • Ensure all references comply with WP:DASH (i.e. en-dashes not spaced hyphens) and have publisher/publication dates wherever possible.

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of Friends episodes

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I've listed this article for peer review because I believe this is far from WP:FLC but can be with some suggestions/ideas. Having looked at other featured lists similar to this, I have managed to add all production numbers on each episode and a summary of Nielsen ratings. Any comments will be appreciated, thanks, Lemonade51 (talk) 21:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Not convinced that logo image qualifies for fair use in this list of episodes. Removed.
  • "This article is about the episodes of the TV series "Friends". For the characters of "Friends", see Characters of Friends." hat notes normally used to ensure there's no confusion. Why would I get confused between episodes and characters? And shouldn't it be "List of Friends characters"? Maybe a see also, or, I suspect, it'll be in a template at the bottom... Removed.
  • "The American" -> normally wouldn't this be something like "The US..." to ensure all comers know which Americans we're dealing with? Replaced
  • Make sure all the tables meet MOS:DTT.
  • Since most of the sections have barely a few links, I would suggest a synopsis of each season is included. Done, shared from the main article.
  • I would make all tables have same col widths from season to season. Done
  • Season 10 appears to be missing information. Done, moved specials from the episodes.
  • Check for WP:DASH issues in the viewing figures table. Done.
  • Make date formats consistent in the refs. Done.
  • Check ref 8, avoid bare URLs. Done.
  • Check ref titles meet WP:DASH. Done.
  • Check works (like USA Today) are in italics. Done.
  • I'm moderately unclear where all the episodes, their writers, their prod codes etc are referenced. Done.

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:14, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Henry Savage

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This article is about a worldly man who had two very strong careers, one as a military engineer and one as a writer. His greater fame came from his books which were all highly popular pulp novels, fast-moving and easy to read; nothing very snobby.

It gained GA a while back and has been resting quietly since then. I would like to push it farther to FA, but I don't have very much objectivity about it. New eyes would be very good! Binksternet (talk) 23:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: Well done in developing the article on this interesting and diverse character. At present the prose requires some further attention, and there are issues of clarification and relevance. A general concern is that so little of the article deals with Savage's activity as a writer, which is highlighted in the first sentence and which is, you imply above, what he is chiefly remembered for. There is a legacy section with no legacy in it. Here are my detailed comments:-

  • Lead: MOS indicates a maximum of four paragraphs. For a relatively short (under 2000w) article, this lead is too long and should be cut back; a lead should be a broad-brush summary.
  • There is no reason for the single citation in the lead, since the same fact is given in the text and should be cited there.
  • Prose and general issues
    • "Savage joined with his family" → "Savage joined his family". The sentence containing this phrase is overlong, and should be split.
    • Some readers may wonder how Savage came to study law with a US Senator. Did he work in the senator's law office, or was this an informal arrangement?
    • "The Civil War found Savage immediately joining the Union Army but his father had him discharged for extreme youth." - very awkward phrasing. I suggest: "At the start of the Civil War Savage joined the Union Army, but his father secured his discharge on the grounds of his extreme youth".
    • In what capacity did Savage's father "push to keep California on the Union side" Did he have political influence?
    • Clarify whether his appointment as Collector of Internal Revenue was statewide or nationwide. The years 1861-73 are not part of the job title, so I would say : "...in which capacity he served between 1861 and 1873".
    • "Through his influence..." - "his" referring to whom? Lincoln? Please clarify. This is another of those sentences that needs reorganising and splitting. Why was Savage crossing the Panama isthmus? What are plebes?
    • What is the meaning of "brevet" when attached to a military rank?
    • Avoid POV or peacock terms such as "Savage served ably..."
    • "Through President Grant..." Explain how he was able to secure the assistance of Grant.
    • "Beginning in 1871, Savage traveled to Egypt..." Unless the journey took a very long time, you should delete "Beginning"
    • You serve with, not at the rank of captain, and to clarify that this captaincy was in the Egyptian Army. This is not altogether clear at the moment.
    • I, and maybe other readers, will wonder how, without any apparent training, Savage was able to serve as chief engineer to a railroad.
    • I'm not sure that the information about Savage's daughter's much later marriage has any relevance here.
    • Individuals such as Henry George should be properly introduced, rather than merely named and linked.
    • More clarity necessary about the publication dates of Savage's various books
    • The "Critical Review" section has one single review, which is hardly worthy of a section to itself. Is there no other recorded criticism of any of Savage's words? If not, it would be better to paraphrase the main points of the Overland Monthly review and tack this on to the previous section.
    • The beginning of the "New York" section is verbose and overdetailed. I recommend: "In 1896, Savage sued his publisher for $12,000 in unpaid royalties. The publisher..."
    • The first paragraph of this section seems somewhat anecdotal and disconnected. I recommend that you eliminate most of this and move more quickly to Savage's service in the Spanish-American War. Likewise, the last paragraph has nothing to do with New York life, and very little to do with Savage.
    • "Death and legacy" - where's the legacy?
  • Images

As I am not watching individual peer reviews, please ping my talkpage if you wish to raise any questions with me, or if you want me to take another look. Brianboulton (talk) 00:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review! I have edited the article to address many of your points, except for the following:
  • US Senator law office, and President Grant: The sources are silent regarding how Savage came to be apprenticed to a senator and later given an assignment by President Grant. Binksternet (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Days Gone Bye

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to see it reach FA status. I have recently given the article a massive expansion, and a moderate copyedit. I would like to know some improvement I can make because setting it up for nomination.

Thanks, —DAP388 (talk) 00:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments
  • Lead image caption does not need a full stop.
  • Is it the first episode or is it the pilot episode?
  • "wakes up in an abandoned hospital from a coma" consider making it "wakes up from a coma in an abandoned hospital"
  • "been riddled with" overtaken by?
  • "where his wife and son are. After finding out that both Lori and his son" -> "to find his wife, Lori, and their son. After discovering that they are both missing..."
  • "in a neighbors house" in a "neighbor's" house.
  • We don't tend to wikilink common locations like London...
  • However, I would link Nielsen rating appropriately in the lead, this is very US-centric.
  • "The two men are shot, " -> "They shoot the two men"?
  • " for an undisclosed amount of time" -> "undisclosed period".
  • No need to link hospital.
  • "more walkers" - make it clear that these are the zombies you've previously referred to.
  • "breaks down into tears" maybe USENg, but I'd say "breaks down in tears"
  • "he encounters (and shoots) a " don't think you need the parentheses here.
  • "find any gas" replace gas with fuel so it's internationally understandable!
  • " tank crewman; therefore deafening" no need for the semi-colon, just a comma, and no need for "therefore" either.
  • Link M1 tank.
  • "The Walking Dead setups at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con International." no need for the full stop.
  • "Robert Kirkman[2]" no need for his name to be bold. Same for other quotes.
  • Instead of linking Willy Loman, why not just link Death of a Salesman?
  • "scriptment" I've never heard of this before. Do you just mean script?
  • "was split half and embellished, subsequently making it into an arc between two episodes" split in half? And what two episodes?
  • "revelation. t’s extremely faithful." missing letter?
  • "The Mist (2007)," I think, the second time, you don't really need to repeat the year.
  • " premiered in Hong Kong" any reason why Hong Kong is selected out of the 119 countries other than the US where it premiered?
  • " (2002).[36][26]" I tend to expect footnotes to be in numerical order.
  • "It debuted in 120 countries in 33 languages.[38]" you've already mentioned that it debuted in 120 countries...
  • Link FX.
  • Don't mix date formats in the references.
  • Ensure reference titles comply with MOS, e.g. avoid CAPITALS, en-dashes (see ref 41).

The Rambling Man (talk) 14:34, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: I have seen this episode, thanks for your work on the article. I agree with TRM's comments above - here are some more suggestions for improvement.

  • I would include a hat note for the album Days Gone By here, and put one for this article there
  • It seems odd to list the guest stars in the infobox, but not list Andrew Lincoln or the guy who plays Shane there, or mention Lincoln at all in the lead.
  • I am not sure the images from Comic Con are truly free - it seems to me as if they are of a tableaux in one case and in the other contain promotional art that would be copyrighted by AMC or the show - images will be reviewed at FAC, so they might be seen as WP:FAIR USE there.
  • The Accolades section is one sentence - seems as if it might be better if it were combined with the Critical reception section
  • There are free images of Kirkman and Darabont and of Andrew Lincoln and Jon Bernthal which might be used here - when this becomes an FA and appears on the Main Page, it helps to have a free image that can be shown on the Main Page
  • The most difficult criteria for most articles to meet at FAC is 1a, a professional level of English - see. This seems to me like it would have some difficulties at FAC with its prose. I will try to point out some examples, though this is not a complete list. This needs a serious copyedit.
  • Just in the lead "riddled with zombies" is awkward and he already knows where his home is, so he doesn't really have to locate it (he does need to locate his family) Realizing that the world has been riddled with zombies, Grimes ventures out to locate his home where his wife and son are.
  • Avoid passive voice where possible and tighten where possible Robert Kirkman, the creator of the series of comic books of the same name, initially considered the idea of creating a television show based on the comic series. However, such ideas were never pursued by Kirkman. could be something like Robert Kirkman, creator of the comic book series of the same name, considered creating a television show based on the comic, but never pursued it.
  • It is usually "expressed interest in" Frank Darabont later expressed interest of developing the series for television
  • This is unclear - was Hurd writer, director and exective producer too? This couls also be tightened In the announcement, the executives of the network stated that Darabont would serve as a writer, director, and an executive producer for the show alongside with Gale Anne Hurd. to something like The network executives announced that Darabont would serve as a writer and directorfor the show; Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd served as executive producers.
  • Having said it is is Atlanta, Georgia, I think the article can just use Atlanta thereafter
  • Is Hurd a man or a woman? He and she are used here Hurd recalled that he had heard of the comics before, and upon reading it, felt that it would be great for film.[3] She stated: "When I first read the book, I thought
  • Things are shot "on film" and CGI is used for effects, not really for editing It was wholly shot in 16 mm film, and was edited using computer-generated imagery.
  • This makes no sense - "following the months proceeding its release" - do you mean "in the months preceding its release" - "Day Gone Bye" was heavily promoted following the months proceeding its release;...
  • Again this does not make sense Several critics noted comparisons to the episode with those of Lost. perhaps "Several critics compared the show with the pilot for Lost."?
  • These are just examples from the lead - please get a copy edit before taking this to FAC
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:31, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Icelandic Phallological Museum

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review so I can find out the main problems with it before nominating for featured article.

Thanks, Pinkie Pie 09:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: A somewhat surprising topic that will bring smiles to many (and maybe tears to a few). I have been to Iceland; how did I miss this? Just a few questions:-

  • The lead is not adequate at present. It should be expanded into a summray of the whole article, briefly mentioning each of the salient areas of the article, including for example the museum's history.
  • The lead image description should be more informative. Is this the museum's official logo? It is described as the museum's "sign", but its location should be indicated.
Done by user:Snaevar Pinkie Pie 17:28, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What makes Salon.com a reliable source?
  • What is the language of the source in citation 8?
Icelandic, added to the citation. Pinkie Pie
  • The sentence: "The museum also has a "folklore section" exhibiting mythological penises; its online catalogue lists specimens taken from elves, trolls, kelpies, and "The Nasty Ghost of Snaefell" is cited to the online catalogue. Is it possible to make the citation a little more detailed, to assist in finding this information?
Also done by user:Snaevar. Pinkie Pie 17:28, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • As the precise address of the museum is included in the article, what is the justification for incuding geographic coordinates?
Shouldn't all landmarks have geographic coordinates, even if the address is included in the article? Pinkie Pie
Where does that idea come from?? Brianboulton (talk) 01:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it seems consistant from article to article. Pinkie Pie 10:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great work Brianboulton (talk) 00:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Binksternet comments
  • The cites are not consistent with how they say the language. There is (in Icelandic) and (Icelandic). The 2003 Jónsson cite should put the language in a cite parameter which would look like this: |language=Icelandic
Done! Wagner lol (talk) 17:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cite 13, the catalogue, should have its actual title displayed in the cite. When I clicked on it, the title was "Fréttir af Reðasafninu:"
  • The "size is everything" cite... who is the author? The byline says "AFP". Is AFP a person or a news agency?
AFP is Agence France-Presse, an agency. This is already in the citation. Wagner lol (talk) 17:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Binksternet (talk) 17:19, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Georg Solti

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What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom? This is yet another of my efforts on classical music's great and good. As usual, comments on balance, prose, proportion and anything else will be gratefully received. My first Solti concert was more than forty years ago, and I have admired him (not in all repertoire, it's true) ever since. I'd like him to have the best article that can be managed. (One punctuation point: I have made a small stand for British punctuation rather than American in such phrases as "In 1961 Solti went...", avoiding the comma evidently normal in American usage.) Tim riley (talk) 19:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: First instalment, to end of Munich and Frankfurt section. Mainly trivial:-

Lead
  • "...conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House." I'd avoid "conducting" in favour of "and conducted"
  • "By "remaking many of his earlier recordings" do you mean that he assembled the original forces and re-recorded the pieces, or that he simply made new recordings of pieces he had recorded earlier, during his "intense" period? If the latter, that's not really "remaking".
Early life
  • What is "Vérmező utca"? I couldn't find it in List of districts in Budapest
    • It comes up if you google it. It appears to be a street (I've an idea "utca" is Hungarian for "street") but whether (like, e.g. Knightsbridge) it also refers to an area I do not know. I got it from the ODNB, which says "Solti ... was born György Stern in Vérmezö utca, in the Buda district of Budapest." Oddly, the Independent article I cited in re his funeral says his birthplace is in "Maros Utca, a quiet backstreet down behind the castle mound in Buda". Should I leave it out, and just say "in the Buda district of Budapest", do you think? Tim riley (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "I learnt to swim with her". Oddly placed, if he meant that literally. Or did he mean that he became musically proficient with her.
    • The latter, I'm sure. I didn't boggle at it when I read and commandeered this quote, but each time I re-read it in my draft it looked odder and odder. I am reluctant to prune it. I think I might leave it for now and see if other reviewers agree that it looks odd. Tim riley (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In pursuit of a musical career..." At this stage, from what you've said about his lack of diligence in his piano studies, I doubt that Solti aged 10 was actually pursuing a music career; wasn't he simply doing his parents' bidding?
  • There's no mention of his completing his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy, or graduating. He was 18 at the most when he joined the Hungarian State Opera; this seems an early age to leave the academy. Is there any information on this?
    • He graduated all right. It seems that in the early 20th century and earlier music colleges took students of a younger age than they do now (cf Barbirolli at the RAM). Solti has a charming phrase in his memoirs "[I] wrote a string quartet as a graduation piece, thereby ending my career as a composer." I've added a phrase to the following section. Tim riley (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Répétiteur
  • Not an adequately descriptive section title, since the prose goes well beyond Solti's répétiteur role.
    • I thought the same when I was writing it, but I can't think of anything that covers it without being woolly, such as "First musical appointments". Any suggestions will be most gratefully received. Tim riley (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC) Later – I've settled for "Pianist and conductor", but am still open to suggestions for improvement. Tim riley (talk) 09:26, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Follows writes" Who he? Also, I wonder if this entirely factual information is worthy of a quote and formal attribution.
    • Oops! Blitzed Follows (he's the ODNB biographer) and rephrased without quotes.
  • "including restricting": I always try to avoid the dreaded "...ing ...ing" (especially with a third "ing" four words on.
  • On the "ing" question, two clauses in the next sentence begin, respectively, "making" and "conducting". The prose would read more smoothly if "making" became "where he made" . In the same sentence, the words "in the orchestra pit" seem unnecessary (where else would they be?)
Munich and Frankfurt

I will continue. I have a busy weekend ahead with my daughters, so my Wiki time will be rationed for a couple of days. Brianboulton (talk) 23:05, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! Thank you. Plenty for me to be getting on with here, and no hurry whatever for your second batch until you have world enough and time. Tim riley (talk) 23:32, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All your first batch of comments now dealt with. Some decided improvements there – thank you. I look forward to Round Two whenever it fits into your schedule. Tim riley (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A few more points to complete my review:-

Covent Garden
  • "The company's repertory in the 1960s combined the standard operatic works and less familiar pieces." You are the expert in the finer points of usage, but something tells me it should be "combined ... with" rather than "combined ... and"
  • "By the end of his time as music director at Covent Garden Solti had conducted the company in 33 operas by 13 composers." I see the list of operas in the footnote, but would it be possible to break this down and show, e.g. how many of the works were new to the company, how many were new productions, whether any were world premieres? Also, it is not clear from the text when "the end of his time" was; can this be clarified?
  • Doesn't "remarry" mean marry again the same person?
Chicago Symphony
  • "He introduced new works commissioned for the orchestra, such as Lutosławski's Third Symphony, and Tippett's Fourth Symphony, dedicated to Solti, and Byzantium, an orchestral song-cycle, premiered by Solti and the orchestra with Jessye Norman." The Byzantium song cycle is by Michael Tippett, but this isn't obvious from the text. In fact this whole sentence needs a bit of rephrasing - three "ands" at the moment. I suggest: "He introduced new works commissioned for the orchestra, such as Lutosławski's Third Symphony, and Tippett's Fourth Symphony which the composer dedicated to Solti. Another new work was Tippet's and Byzantium, an orchestral song-cycle, premiered by Solti and the orchestra with the soprano Jessye Norman."
  • "scheduled to be in" → "scheduled for"?
Later years
  • "...he formed the World Orchestra for Peace, which consisted of 81 musicians from 40 nations." A little more detail (this was presumably a temporary ensemble, but when/where/how often did it perform?) would be helpful.
  • Maybe the sentence about the tribute recording should be placed after rather than before his death?
Honours and memorials

No real problems with these points, but you may wish to consider them. Subject to a bit of tweaking the article looks pretty much ready for FAC. Brianboulton (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm most grateful for these points, with all of which I agree. I am in your debt, as usual. Happy to repay at next Boulton peer review, naturally. Tim riley (talk) 18:01, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Wehwalt
Lede:
  • I wonder if you should not have some mention of Solti's top accomplishments in the first paragraph.
    • I'm not good at leads, and am always open to suggestions. This is good, and I'll redraw accordingly.
  • ". His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis, and as a Jew he fled the increasingly restrictive anti-semitic laws in 1938, and conducted a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House." too many ands.
  • " He became a German citizen in 1953." You may wish to vary the phrasing used with the British acquisition, then.
  • It may help in the final paragraph of lede if you refer to him mellowing personally, professionally, or both.
Early years
  • "Solti supported himself" Well, he paid for his own musical education, anyway. I doubt he paid the landlord.
Pianist and conductor
Munich and Frankfurt
Covent Garden
Later years
  • "reinterpretations like that of Patrice Chéreau (Bayreuth 1976) " Can this not be handled better than the use of parentheses, especially since you mention Bayreuth immediately previously?
  • Dudley Moore. Perhaps "actor and composer Dudley Moore"?
  • "conducted his last symphony concert." Perhaps "conducted what proved to be his last ..." You have already mentioned that he had additional concerts planned, so it obviously wasn't known to be that at the time.
Honours and memorials.
  • You probably won't get away with the sculpture park, but perhaps you'll be in with a chance.
Very nice job, which the few comments also speaks to.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for these comments (and your kind remarks). I'll enjoy working through these points tomorrow. Tim riley (talk) 18:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with all but one of your suggestions, and I am most grateful to you, as always, for your unblinking editorial eye. Many thanks! Happy to reciprocate at PR/FAC, as I need hardly say. Tim riley (talk) 18:01, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Cassianto

Two comments I had have already been touched upon by Wehwalt, so the only drive-by comments I can offer are typo related:

  • Ref consistency - period after ref. 68
  • Missing period after footnote 4.

Nothing else obvious to me. A fascinating article about a man, whom I'm embarrassed to say, I knew very little about. -- Cassianto (talk) 23:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these, and for your kind words. I'll add the punctuation forthwith. Tim riley (talk) 18:01, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Italy

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review to get a wider perspective of particular areas where the article should be improved and perhaps expanded on. It would be very helpful if concrete suggestions were given so that a number of editors can tackle improving the article. Many thanks Connolly15 (talk) 13:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tim riley

I enjoyed this article. It is long (108 kilobytes of text), but not excessively so, I think. However, it is not at present in any state to be put forward for GA or FA. First, and most importantly, it is fatally lacking in references in far too many sections, which I have identified below. Secondly, the prose is generally fine but the spelling is all over the place, with UK English spellings in the lead, followed by a mixture of English and American spellings in the main article ("centre" but "defense", "organised" but "civilization" etc).

A less serious point is that for parenthetical dashes you need to standardise either on en dashes with spaces or em dashes without; at present you have a mixture of both and other variants.

Detailed comments:

  • Etymology
    • "the corpus of the solutions" – could be plainer.
  • Prehistory and antiquity
    • Refs 27 to 33 – are they all really needed? They do rather hit one in the eye.
    • "the ground that Western civilization is based upon" – "the ground on which Western civilization is based", perhaps?
  • Middle Ages
    • "Germanic Tribe" – capital T needed?
    • "Notable amongst them" – I never know what "amongst" has got that "among" hasn't, apart from two unnecessary letters
    • "that of Ferrara and of Mantua" – I think perhaps either "those of Ferrara and Mantua", or else "that of Ferrara and that of Mantua".
  • Italian unification and Liberal Italy
    • "during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870" – only "disastrous" from the French viewpoint.
  • Geography
    • "Although the country comprises the Italian peninsula and most of the southern Alpine basin, some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin" – some repetition of previous sentence here
    • "Herculanum" – shouldn't it be Herculaneum?
  • Environment
    • There are some statements in this section that could soon be out of date, and would benefit from being rewritten so that they will remain correct:
      • "it now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability" ("in 2012 it ranked...")
      • "In the last decade, Italy has become…)" ("In the decade from 2002 Italy became…)".
      • "Renewable energies now make up about 12%..."
  • Climate
    • "The climate of the "Po valley region [is] continental ... with harsh winters and hot summers"." As you give two citations it isn't clear whom you are quoting. (And does the direct speech add anything here?)
  • Government
    • "the Chamber of Deputies (that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio)" – "which" rather than "that", perhaps? The latter reads like a defining clause. Ditto for the Senate.
    • ""Mr. Berlusconi's cabinet." – the normal WP style is not to use "Mr." here.
  • Law and criminal justice
    • "which would later expand" – which later expanded?
    • "Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate" – another statement that would be better with a date.
  • Military
    • "From 1999, military service is voluntary" – has been voluntary, perhaps?
    • Second para has no references for its statements. Third para has only one. Fourth para has none.
  • Economy
    • "the biggest chunk of Italian public debt" – "chunk" seems a bit slangy for an encyclopaedia article.
  • Demographics
    • "…persisted until the 1970s, after which they start…" – tenses need to match
  • Religion
    • "although the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion – the church isn't a religion; Catholicism is. Suggest "although it is no longer officially the state religion."
    • Ref 138 – I'd be inclined to move it to the end of the sentence.
    • "Italian-Jews" – hyphen needed?
  • Education
    • The Wall Street Journal – should be italicised, I think
  • Culture
    • First, second and third paras are short of refs for some statements. Fourth, fifth and sixth and last have no refs at all.
  • Music
    • No refs in first two paras.
    • "Opera house" or "operahouse"? – you have both
    • Last para has no refs.
  • Cinema
    • Unreferenced statements in both paras
  • Science
    • No refs at all.
  • Cuisine
    • Second para has no refs.

I hope these points are useful. Happy to comment further if wished. – Tim riley (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sakib

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it needs some grammar and language check, also it needs some improvement.

Thanks, Historyfeelings - talk 07:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Reasonable structure to the article, suggest you look at similar FAs to see what level of detail is expected.
  • The Karak dab needs to be fixed.
  • The link to the name in Arabic shouldn't be a transwiki link, it should be a link to Arabic language followed by the translation.
  • A lot of copyediting needs to be done really, I'll point some out but suggest it goes to a good copyeditor as well.
  • In general, translate metric units (e.g. 8 km) into Imperial ones (e.g. 8 km (5 mi)).
  • A lot of the article is unreferenced, e.g. the "The name" section.
  • Per WP:HEAD, that section should just be called "Name" or even better, something like "Etymology"
  • Avoid linking very common terms like "water" and "rain" and "mountain" and "valley" for instance.
  • Don't link individual dates or years.
  • Fix the [citation needed] tag (and provide more citations throughout).
  • The various tables and graphs are somewhat messy, if you add more text throughout it might help reduce the clutter.
  • Hight should be Height.
  • " are: [12] [13] [14]" don't put a space between the colon and the ref, and don't put spaces between refs.
  • "maximum temperature Average(°C)" -> "Maximum temperature average (°C)"
  • Don't see a need to have the "hide" feature for the table.
  • "City is famous for its Olive, fig, Grape and " -> "The city is noted for its olive and fig trees..." no such thing as a Grape tree, avoid capitalising nouns which are not proper nouns.
  • Galleries generally avoided, if you expanded the article you could use one or two of these images in the expanded sections.
  • References need to be properly formatted, you could use the {{cite web}} template for a consistent look.

The Rambling Man (talk) 13:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

United States free speech exceptions

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to improve the prose of the article prior to another go at GA.

Thanks and best regards, Lord Roem (talk) 02:58, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do this PR. --Noleander (talk) 23:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Begin comments

  • "... that right a somewhat limited one." the word "somewhat" is too informal; could be deleted
  • "..Restrictions that are based off communicative impact .." - Poorly worded. Re-write
  • "but that still means .." phrase "still means" is too informal
  • " types of speech (e.g., political) are .." The abbreviation "e.g." should be avoided. Consider "for example" or "such as"
  • "Various intellectual property rights are speech restrictions, but are permissible" - Hard to read. Better is something like "Another class of permissible restrictions on speech are based on intellectual property rights".
  • "Threats of violence "directed ... to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death" are generally unprotected" - There is no need for a quote here. Quotes should be rarely used in WP encyclopedia articles - only when they original quote has some special or historical significance. That is not the case here. Just paraphrase the concept in plain english. Quotes in this article should only be used to quote a Supreme Court decision.
  • "... exceptions, as noted by Professor Eugene Volokh. "Threats may not be punished if a reasonable person would understand them as obvious hyperbole", he writes...". Remove mention of Eugene Volokh. There are many authors on this topic, and there is no need to single out one (that can be done in rare situations, but this sentence does not need a specific source named). Also, remove quotes from him.
  • "Main article: Virginia v. Black" - There are dozens of cases on this issue, I suppose. If Virginia v. Black is the most important one, it may be okay to refer to it, but use "See also" template, not "main" template.
  • ".... case involving "offensive speech"" - No need to enclose "offensive speech" in quote marks.
  • "..There is a fifth category of analysis highlighted by Professor Volokh. ..." - Remove all references to this one source. Continue using as a citation (footnote) but no need to name the source in the article.
  • Overall, the prose is not of the quality expected for GA quality.
  • Overall, the article is not very thorough: since this article was created independently from Freedom of speech in the United States, this needs to be especially comprehensive. Otherwise, why split it off?
  • I think the GA review for this article mentioned that there is a lot of overlap between this article and Freedom of speech in the United States. Rather than invest much work in this article, it is probably better to work on the "Exceptions" sections in that other article. After that is perfect, then consider splitting it off as a new article (see WP:CONTENT FORK and WP:SPLITTING).

End comments from Noleander --Noleander (talk) 23:21, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, Noleander! Lord Roem (talk) 00:35, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have finished the specific prose suggestions you listed above. I will look into expanding the article so it is more complete. Thanks again for your review, feel free to close the PR at your leisure. All the best, Lord Roem (talk) 01:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Darren Osborne

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I've listed this article for peer review because i am interested in getting the article to feature status. The article has recently been through two good article revies and is now at good article status. Any recommendations for improvement to the article would be appreciated.

Thanks, D4nnyw14 (talk) 16:34, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The alt text for the main image could be fixed. MayhemMario 12:45, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Im not sure the Alex Carter quote should be in the first part of the main lead. MayhemMario 14:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, reading the lead again, the Alex Carter part in my opinion is not meant to be in the first paragraphy, maybe the second or third? MayhemMario 13:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Removed it completely from the lead as the first part of the lead is about the actors who have played him and i don't think it would fit into any other part of the lead. D4nnyw14 (talk) 13:54, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Linked his father and the comparisons were criticising the storyline for echoing the case, i'll explain it in the lead D4nnyw14 (talk) 14:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In HO articles, do you not put the actor/actress name in brackets behind the characetrs name?
  • Maybe link "shotgun marriage".
Were to? D4nnyw14 (talk) 14:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Forced marriage#Shotgun wedding. MayhemMario 14:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thats about marriage because the woman is pregnant while Hannah wasn't pregnant, they just thought it'd be a good idea at the time and they were drunk. D4nnyw14 (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ashley Taylor Dawson has received numerous awards and nominations for his portrayal of Darren, no need to include full actor name, Dawson will be fine.
  • A lot of linking issues. By the time ive got down to the "fatherhood" section, I've forgotten who Suzanne is, etc. MayhemMario 13:47, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what can be done about this, were not supposed to link to the same article more than once, i might be wrong on that though. D4nnyw14 (talk) 17:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Metropolitan Railway

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like comments before nominating it for FA status.

Thanks, Edgepedia (talk) 20:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, using the automated tools I notice I need to add alt text to the images. Will do over the next few days. Edgepedia (talk) 20:15, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done already. Please comment on the text. Edgepedia (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by DThomsen8 (talk)
  • Very good work so far. I made some slight changes, but I make a comment:
  • In the lede, ... and King's Cross stations and the City. Londoners, and many others, know that the City means The City of London, the historic core of London and (by metonymy) the British financial services sector, quoting The City disambiguation article. For an encyclopedia, though, a link or some other explanation is needed. I leave it to your good judgment how to do that. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I've expanded the article and discribed the city as the historic core and trading and financial centre. . Not too happy with that at the moment, see if I can improve before a short description in the lead. Edgepedia (talk) 06:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments ---Thanks, I'm going to fix these in what may seem to be a random order! Edgepedia (talk) 12:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lead feels a little short for an article of this length.
  • Expanding it would also allow for a larger lead image, right now it's quite difficult to make much out of that map.
  • "The railway started to electrify its routes " no, the routes were electrified, the railway didn't do it to itself.

I'll get back to the lede  Done

  • Check that all King's Cross have an apostrophe.  Done One found
  • I normally expect off peak to be off-peak. Done Two found
  • No reason for "the Hammersmith and City Railway Company opened " to be in bold. Done
  • "The Metropolitan Railway in 1870" caption, second sentence needs a full stop. Done fixed a couple of captions that were sentences
  • Link Swiss Cottage in the prose. Done first occurance linked to station
  • "The Metropolitan & St. John’s Wood Railway" again, no need to bold this text.

---I merged Metropolitan & St. John's Wood Railway and this is now a redirect to the Extension line section. I'll read the MOS about this.

WP:REDIRECT#PLA says it may be appropriate. I'll consider this.
  • 3.75 vs 6½ - be consistent.  Done with {{frac}} and {{convert}} templates
  • "with plans to link it to the Circle line or to the Waterloo & City line, but these never came to fruition." is unreferenced. --- Good call, sure I've seen it, but the text is in the sub-article unreferenced. Looking in books... Done I've done it, but perhaps it needs a better reference.
  • Couple of really short paragraphs towards the tail-end of the article. Done tidied up a bit
  • "No 368 bogie " should that be "Number 368 bogie"? DonePreferred No. as an abbr of Number Done
  • "Electric Locomotives" ->"Electric locomotives" Done changed section title
  • 1922-1923, -> 1922–23. Done
  • "named after famous London residents" could you give a couple of examples of famous residents of the early 1920s? Done I listed (and linked) the names of the preserved units in the next para.
  • "Electric Multiple Units"->"Electric multiple units" Done changed section title
  • "7 x 8-coach " and throughout. I believe there's a "multiply" symbol you could use rather than just a plain x. Done
  • Ref 5: pp. 10-12. needs en-dash.
  • Ref 14: pp. 13,25. needs a space.
  • Ref 19: pp. 8-9. needs en-dash.
  • Refs 30 to 32: need en-dashes.
  • Same for refs 38 to 40.
  • Ref 55 needs publisher, author, accessdate, publication date information where appropriate. Done Replaced with a better source
  • Ref 58: pp. 206,207. needs a space.
  • So do 67 and 69.
  • Ref 71: pp. 12-13. needs en-dash.
  • So does ref 78.
  • And 94 and 101.  Done Hopefully fixed all multiple page references
  • Many books lacking comprehensive information e.g. ISBNs. Done fixed
  • First external link needs an en-dash.  Done Changed the format

The Rambling Man (talk) 11:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think that both in the intro and in the Metro-land section the article needs to be clearer that many of the developments were undertaken by the Metropolitan Railway itself, as is stated in the Wikipedia Metroland article: "In 1903 the Metropolitan developed a housing estate at Cecil Park, Pinner, the first of many such enterprises over the next thirty years. Overseen by the Metropolitan's general manager from 1908–30, Robert H Selbie, the railway formed its own Country Estates Company in 1919.".
  • In the intro, I think the wording "... connecting Great Western Railway's relatively remote terminus at Paddington with Euston and King's Cross stations and the financial heart in the City" is a bit clumsy towards the end; I think it should say something like: "... connecting the Great Western Railway's relatively remote terminus at Paddington with Euston and King's Cross stations and the City, the financial heart of London". re-writing lead

 Done I've re-written lead.

  • In the Metro-land section, only the 1st paragraph is actually about Metro-land. The remaining material is about locomotives, service patterns and new branches, and so should really be moved or given a separate heading.

Winstonsmith99 (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "Metro-land" 1915-33 section covers the period in the Met's history when it promoted the railway and the land with this name. Hopefully I've now clarified what this section is about.
  • There are quite a few things that I can see that are silent or missing. Having written a number of the existing London Underground featured articles, I have quite a few of the reference works, so I will make changes as I think are necessary to bring it into a degree of conformity with those. --DavidCane (talk) 01:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, checking if there was anything missing was something I was hoping from this peer review. I'll delay writting the lede. Edgepedia (talk) 15:02, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that after looking at Baker Street and Waterloo Railway I am currently expanding the the London Passenger Transport Board, 1933 section to add a Legacy section. Edgepedia (talk) 19:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)  Done[reply]
  • I've replaced the first image as I really wasn't happy with the map, the details were not clear at all. Had been hoping for something like Praed Street junction, found it on commons yesterday. Edgepedia (talk) 07:29, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling is that this peer review has now about run its course. I've rewritten the first paragraph and found a better image for the lead, which I hope addresses some of the comments here. I've also expanded some of the later sections. However some of the references could be better, so I'm going to look for these and DavidCane has suggested that he has some additional information, so I going to (hopefully) leave the article for a while before putting forward for FA, although I next may write on an article on Metropolitan Railway electric multiple units which should mean some of the nerdy detail on h.p. etc can come out of this section. Thanks everyone! Edgepedia (talk) 07:24, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good work; trying for FA would be a good thing, then on 11 December 2012 we can raise a TFA request for it to be TFA on 10 January 2013 - that will score 4 points for a semicentennial anniversary. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:59, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's my plan Redrose. I'm sure you know that according to unreliable sources some people have been playing with fire at Baker Street in prep for next year. Edgepedia (talk) 15:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's in the current (April 2012) issue of The Railway Magazine (pp. 6-7) --Redrose64 (talk) 15:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Free Culture (book)

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I've listed this article for peer review because it's an assigned article for Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (Michael Mandiberg) and, since an unaffiliated editor has markedly improved the page recently, I'd like to request comments as to what the students should focus on to possibly push the article up to featured article status. Thanks, Banaticus (talk) 22:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Maria

WP:FAC is a noble goal, but I think perhaps you should caution the students to think in terms of baby steps. Rome wasn't built in a day, etc. It's great that you've initiated a PR, but after this I would suggest maybe WP:GAC -- provided that the article is much improved from what I'm seeing now. (Note: my idea of "improved" may be different than your own.)

In its current form, the article seems like only a re-hashing of the book's outline. Other than a brief section on "Derivative works", the article is an outline and summary of the book. I suggest you alert the students to this proposed structure of a non-fiction book. As the page states, a general book article may contain:

  1. A brief lead (introduction) to the book and its writers (see also WP:LEAD)
  2. A book synopsis
  3. Information about its publication
  4. A balanced analysis regarding its reception (abiding by neutral point of view)
  5. Noteworthy citations and sources

The way I see it, the current "Synopsis" in the article is great -- keep that. But despite the amount of work and level of detail, the "Outline" is largely unnecessary and repetitive. Two important factors are currently missing from the article:

  • When was the book published? By whom? Why? The fact that it was published on the internet is notable, and should perhaps have been mentioned in news articles.
  • Was it popular? Did it sell well? What did the critics think about it? What effect has it had?

Another important point I want to make is the lack of reliable, secondary sources. The only reference I see is to Lessig's book: the book on which the article is based. This is a primary source. Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP: "Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible." Once you begin to research and add new info, unrelated to synopsis/summary, such as what I've suggested above, you should find outside sources to support that info. I see several sources listed at Lawrence Lessig that may prove helpful, but as an online ambassador, Banaticus, you should be able to point them in a more scholarly direction.

I hope these suggestions help. There's quite a bit of work to be done, but with some hard work I'm sure the article will be improved. María (yllosubmarine) 15:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note to other potential reviewers: the article is being worked on in a sandbox, so the current version of the article is probably not stable. (Would have been nice to know that before I reviewed, sigh.) As I stated here, the PR is rather premature. María (yllosubmarine) 16:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hedley Verity

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I've listed this article for peer review because I hope to take it to FAC soon. It had a thorough GA review and I'm interested in any prose clean-up required, cricketing jargon and any instances of over-detailing.

Thanks, Sarastro1 (talk) 22:58, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "in 40 Tests " link to Test cricket.
  • Should medium paced be medium-paced? Check all these, although I have to admit I'm not entirely ever sure about this!
  • "remains (as of 2011). " -> "which, as of 2012, remains."

"*Fixed (and reworked that part). --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • " over the next few years" -> "over the following years"?
  • " Source: [1], " in the infobox, would prefer "Source: [Crickinfo]"
  • Consider linking Sunday school in case that's not a universally common term.
  • "in total he took 29 wickets " you haven't said how many games he played so this "in total" is a little difficult to put into context.
  • You relink Yorkshire Country Cricket Club here but not bowling average. Is there a reason?
  • "By 1926, when he scored 488 runs and took 62 wickets " would be worth making it clear that this is what he managed to achieve during the entire season and not in some mega-match.
  • Aha, you do link bowling average, just quite a way down the paragraph.
  • "Professional cricketer" I think I count 8 consecutive sentences where you refer to him as Verity. Can we rework this a little for less jarring prose?
  • "Beginning to attract more notice" a bit odd-sounding, maybe "attract more attention"?
  • "and came top " -> "and finished top"?
  • "The senior professionals in the Yorkshire team, Rhodes and Emmott Robinson, discussed tactics with Verity and his friend and team-mate Bill Bowes, and analysed their errors." I don't know about you but there are quite a few "and"s in this sentence...
  • "to take ten wickets in a " maybe clarify that this was "all" ten wickets for those who aren't quite sure of the significance of this performance.
  • Observation - it rained a lot during Verity's career, didn't it?!
  • " Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)" you've already linked and abbreviated this.
  • "this remains the best analysis recorded in first-class cricket in 2011" not quite what you mean, perhaps "as of 2012, this remains the best bowling analysis recorded in first-class cricket."
  • "Chosen for the first " prefer the more conventional "Selected..."
  • "so that Verity bowled just five overs" -> "restricting Verity to five overs"?
  • "owing to England's Bodyline tactics." -> "as England once again resorted to Bodyline tactics" (as you've said they did it a couple of times already, I thought it might be nice to reflect that).
  • "he took part in partnerships" reads oddly to me, "he formed partnerships" perhaps?
  • " overs in the first innings,[29] In Australia's second innings" something not quite right...
  • "when he was permitted to use more attacking tactics" what does this mean, who gave him permission? Was it Bodyline spin?!
  • Could link West Indies cricket team.
  • "although other players declined " -> "although others declined..."
  • "the high number " not keen but brainfreeze stops me thinking of an alternative.
  • "HMS Verity" should be "HMS Verity".
  • You relink "Flight (cricket)" here, any reason?
  • I think for the benefit of the non-specialist; it's not obvious that "flight" as a skill and "flighting the ball" are the same thing, I don't think. But maybe I'm being dim. However, it was deliberate, whether it is right or not! --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could link "South Africa cricket team"?
  • Last seven sentences of "Career in the mid-1930s" has "Verity" nine times...
  • Who was Voce?
  • You link Leveson-Gower on only the third instance...
  • "the batsmen played in a negative fashion, despite pitches that were very good for batting. High scoring games " don't seem to go together for me...
  • Not quite sure what you mean. The batting was deadly dull, even though the pitches were really good and they could have scored quickly and safely. The result was big, slow scores and someone or other wrote that both sides took it all far too seriously. Should any of this go in to make it clearer?--Sarastro1 (talk) 21:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Egypt, Syria, we don't tend to link obvious country names any more.
  • Note 3, MCC or M.C.C.?
  • Ref 68 missing a full stop.
  • Ref 103 missing a pp.

The Rambling Man (talk) 12:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, very helpful. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Transitional fossil

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This is a very important topic, and the article could use improvement. I would like to one day bring this to GA and then FA status. It needs more review by relevant experts, since I am not a scientist myself and merely incorporated text from other sources. I would like a peer review to further show what those issues are so we can move forward. I know some sections need expanding and clarification. The article has just gone through a copy-edit. It includes some notes that may be useful:Talk:Transitional_fossil#GOCE_copy_edit.2C_February_2012

Thanks, Harizotoh9 (talk) 23:19, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I may have time to offer a thorough review soon, but just glancing over the page, I ask that you replace the Tiktaalik roseae reconstruction immediately. The first tetrapods were solely aquatic, and any image that suggests that they came onto land is outdated. Yes, I know the textbooks still use these images, but paleontologists who study tetrapod evolution will tell you these illustration only perpetuate myths. If you want better images, I suggest putting in a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Paleoart review. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. That is just the sort of commentary that is needed. I have also removed the image from the tiktaalik article (which is where I initially got it). I have replaced the image with another one from the tiktaalik article. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 03:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Although File:Tiktaalik BW.jpg is better, I still suggest having a new one made at the Paleoart review. The posture of the fish suggests it is holding itself up on land. It would be best to have it redrawn as a fish swimming in murky water. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
An alternative is using a picture of the fossil, like File:Tiktaalik belgium II.jpg. We could also need a better image of Thrinaxodon, preferably one showing wiskers, scale and some hairs here and there. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We can digitally remove the shadow on the current Tiktaalik image, which would make it look less like it's on land. FunkMonk (talk) 12:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I also just noticed that the NSF restoration has grass on it. *facepalm* -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway I'll try my hand at creating a restoration for Tiktaalik. Will post what I make in Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Paleoart review.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 01:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Paleoart_review#Tiktaalik Here is the link to the Tiktaalik Paleoart review. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 04:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking this on, Obsidian Soul. If you would like, I could try putting you in touch with an expert who is knowledgeable about the fish's anatomy in order to offer suggestions and critique your preliminary work. – VisionHolder « talk » 05:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment 2 : There really need to be more non-vertebrate examples. I'll look around a bit, since I actually have a bit of time, but my expertise lies with plants, not invertebrates. The fossil Archaeopteris (the tree, not the bird, note the different ending) is one of the classic examples, as its fragments were originally thought to belong to two completely separate divisions of plants, until Charles Beck found connected fossil material. The tree had gymnospermous wood, but the leaves produced spores like a fern, instead of seeds. The fossil Pleuromeia is also believed to be transitional between the giant scale trees of the carboniferous and the more modest-sized modern genus Isoetes (quillworts). --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We clearly need more plants! We should perhaps also include a human ancestor, I'm thinking Homo erectus specifically. The problem is that the example section can become overlong compared to the rest. Should we drop a couple of vertebrates? Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel that having all the current examples (plus a couple more) would be a problem. The strength of the article will lie in presenting examples, rather than in simply defining a term. If this were simply a definition, then it would be a Wiktionary entry. The current vertebrate listings are certainly spread out phylogenetically (ray-finned fish, early tetrapod, bird, mammal), so there's diversity present in the vertebrate selections. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My vote is to get rid of the "Examples" section. Instead, while discussing the topic, examples can be given in the text with illustrations nearby. If we really want to list examples, then maybe we should create a list article. From my experience, once you start listing examples, then everyone and their mother will want to list their favorite example. Again, it's better to work the examples into the text, with a preference for (up-to-date) textbook examples, particularly when explaining terms. For example, Tiktaalik and tetrapod evolution is a great case to bring up with discussing the incompleteness of the fossil record (due to the fossil footprints but lack of land-dwelling tetrapods in the fossil record at that time). Archaeopteris is good for discussing early discoveries, and how opinions change as we learn and uncover more fossils. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:47, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Right now the section seems like a bunch of random examples thrown together to prove a point that's already discussed in the proceeding sections. There's already a list of transitional fossils if readers want examples, and all the information in these examples can be found in their respective articles. Some of the more famous examples like Archaeopteryx can be discussed in a section about cultural perceptions. Smokeybjb (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Smokey, I don't see that your criticisms can be addressed. What would make any selection of examples not "random" (one of your criticisms). Why do you say they're "thrown together"? Why shouldn't examples be used to illustrate the point? Isn't that what a good article will do?
The problem with relying on the aforementioned "List" article is that it suffers from being a mass agglomeration of snippets that will presumably continue to grow randomly longer. By contrast, a small selection of examples included in this article can be written so as to illustrate carefully and clearly the current point. They also can be selected so as to present the more classic and clear-cut fossils, rather than a full list of all somewhat obscurely transitional and often argued-over fossils. Now, it might be possible, and even preferrable, to incoporate the selected list into the body text of the article, but we shouldn't leave readers having to go look everything up to figure out what is transitional about the fossils. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What's making the examples seem a little random to me is the placement of very famous fossils like Archaeopteryx with more obscure ones like Runcaria. If we are to keep an Examples section, I think there needs to be more explanation as to why they are notable, mentioning a bit about their discovery and cultural impact. A textbook source for all these examples might be a good idea.
Following what's been said, I think the best way in which examples can illustrate a point is to put them right next to the specific points, not group them by themselves in an Examples section (Archaeopteryx with Missing Links and the Polish tetrapod footprints with Limitations of the fossil record, for instance). Smokeybjb (talk) 05:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For a layman (which is what an encyclopdia is for) this article would be very dry and theoretical, and very hard to understand, without examples. Many a beginning reader would actually do better to read the examples first and the theoretical part afterwards. --Stfg (talk) 08:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For a layman, examples can be offered (in summary) in the lead, along with an opening illustration (example with an informative caption). If you throw the readers straight into examples in the body, you will be struggling to explain terms along the way. What better way to introduce both than to turn it around and illustrate theory with examples. An example of a featured article with this structure is Lemur. Not only does the lead list special lemur adaptations, but the body does *not* have a "Examples of lemur adaptations" section. Instead, examples are given throughout the "Anatomy and physiology", "Behavior", and "Ecology" sections. I still strongly believe that an article with an "Examples" section is just as unprofessionally written as an article with a "Images" or "Gallery" section. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote "examples", not "examples section". "Transitional fossil" is a more difficult concept than "lemur", but anyway, illustrating the concepts with examples at the point where the concepts are introduced, without a separate section, is fine. --Stfg (talk) 17:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the confusion. I'm glad we're on roughly the same page. – VisionHolder « talk » 18:45, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I like the idea of a cultural section, citing the classical "Icons of Evolution" like Archaeopteryx, Ichthyostega, Java man (or perhaps Lucy) and Cooksonia or Rhynia (just to have a plant). Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:32, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have started adding a history section, an alternative to the examples. Please have a look at it. Petter Bøckman (talk) 22:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First problem I see is that you're using the name Rhynia for a plant that is now called Aglaophyton. The story there is much more complicated by the fact that Rhynia is the name of a fossil vascular plant, but the fossils now called Aglaophyton, on reexamination, were found to lack vascular tissue. Also, you'll have to be more specific than Cooksonia, which has turned out to be a polyphyletic assemblage of several species and has undergone extensive reinterpretation in the past 15 years. It's also wrong to call it the "ancestor" of vascular plants. There still ought to be mention of Archaeopteris as a classical icon of evolution. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I was using Rhynia for Rhynia gwynne-vaughanii, which to the best of my knowledge is still called Rhynia. The reason I wanted it (over Archaeopteris) is that I am trying to make a section on the history of transitional fossils, and old Rhynia is very much an old classic. If you read what is now the history section in the article, you'll see what I'm after. Petter Bøckman (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then you'll need to completely rewrite that section, because what you've written describes Aglaophyton rather than R. gwynne-vaughanii. I still don't understand why you don't think Archaeopteris is a classic as well. It has been around for more than 60 years, and is included in introductory biology classes as a classic example of a transitional fossil. It's also much easier to explain why it's transitional than either Aglaophyton and Rhynia, since more people are familiar with ferns and gymnosperms than with the architecture of the bryophyte sporophyte or alternation of generations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I took what is in the section from the page on R. gwynne-vaughanii, so if what I wrote needs a complete rewrite, then so does the Rhynia article. Seeing that you are a botanist, would you have a look at it (I'm a zoologist I'm afraid)? I'm all for having more plants, but the reason I primarily wanted Rhynia is that my trusty old "Studies in Paleobotany" (1967) spends a whole chapter on it (Archaeopteris is mentioned in passim), and the little weed was still all the rage when I started studying biology in the early 1990s. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In 1967, Aglaophyton was still considered a species of Rhynia. The detailed studies of vascular tissue had not yet been completed. As I am rather busy offline for the forseeable future, the best person to have rework the information is either User:Peter coxhead or User:Smith609. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment 3 : The "Comparison with intermediate forms" looks suspect to me. I'm not sure this distinction in terminology is widespread, and I've certainly not seen it made in botanical papers. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We haven't been able to track down a source, and in zoology too, the two terms are used interchangeably a lot. The article will in my view not suffer in scope or clarity by removing it. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Scope

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Having thought things over, I feel the article misses some words as to the definition and cultural aspect of transitional fossils. First off, what's separating the examples we have from any other evolutionary transitions? Why is Tiktaalik more important than let's say Osteolepis, Panderichthys or Diplovertebron? And why is still Archaeopteryx the quintessential transitional, when there's been found a heap of other small feathery theropods? I believe both answers are firmly rooted in culture, and that this rather non-scientific aspect needs to be mentioned. Petter Bøckman (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps expand the role of media hype or mention that virtually all fossils represent transitional/intermediate forms? Some possible sources:
  • Tarver, J. E.; Donoghue, P. C. J.; Benton, M. J. (2010). "Is evolutionary history repeatedly rewritten in light of new fossil discoveries?". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 278 (1705): 599. doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0663.
  • Horenstein, S. (2009). "Paleontology and Evolution in the News". Evolution: Education and Outreach. 2 (2): 318–325. doi:10.1007/s12052-009-0130-7.
  • Evolution, missing links and climate change: recent advances in understanding transformational macroevolution (John Long)
  • Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs (Anthony J. Martin)
  • Ida: Humankind's Earliest Ancestor! (Not Really) (Michael Lemonick, TIME Science)
  • The Fossil Fallacy (Michael Shermer, Skeptic)
-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jordin Sparks discography

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to nominate it for FL. Any feedback and suggestions would be great! Thanks, Oz talk 22:09, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Otherwise, look forward to seeing it at FLC. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Michael Jester

  • Overall, an excellent article. Great work so far. I hope to see it in FLC soon. Anyway,
  • Some references (the Hung Medien-related ones) have lower case letters in the work parameter (e.g. australian-charts.com). While I don't particularly care too, too much about this, some users can be picky.  Done
  • Ref #14: According to Template:Cite news, a person should not be put as a publisher.  Done
  • Ref #38: Use {{-'}} to turn "' into "'  Done

Korban Olah

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I've listed this article for peer review because… it needs fixing. The subject of the article is the burnt offering in the case of Noah, Ancient Israel, mentioned under the term "burnt offering" in English language Bibles, English language Talmud, and academic works.

  • (1) it was created as a fork from holocaust (sacrifice) on Dec 7 2010, from which the deleted/moved material was then restored, creating duplication. Inevitably that means there's a clean up issue back there as well.
  • (2) the forked article was created using a WP:TITLE contrary to WP:COMMONNAME and WP:UE and with other POV problems. Same sort of oddness and circular POV problems created by entitling/creating e.g. fork of History of Roman Catholicism in Japan as Kirishitan, for example. The original Hebrew term is [olah], the term korban olah (WP:CAPS) is rarely used in English language texts.
  • (3) lack of any scholarly sources relevant to the actual historical period - added a WikiProject Ancient Near East banner.

Thanks, In ictu oculi (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've proposed a merge to pull back the forked duplication.. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comment: It appears to me that what you're really looking for is a dispute resolution rather than a peer review, which is meant for "high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work, often as a way of preparing a featured article candidate." Partly because of the unresolved dispute, the article in question has no immediate prospects of promotion to GA or higher. I see on the Korban Olah talk page that the idea of pursuing an RfC has come up. That's one of several possibilities mentioned at WP:DISPUTE. Whatever you decide, I'd suggest closing the PR. This is not the right venue for mediation. Finetooth (talk) 02:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Finetooth, if that's what you advise then so be it. I'd simply prefer to attract new editors to fix the article's problems, really do not want to get into dispute process, life is too short. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Street Children in Thailand

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I've listed this article for peer review because I would like some help with this article. I'm quite new with wikipedia. Thanks a lot!

Thanks, Ec3371ngo32 (talk) 04:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)EC3371ngo32[reply]

Finetooth comments: Thank you for your work on this article about an important topic. Here are a few suggestions for further improvement:

  • More details about these children would improve the article. What are their ages? How many are boys, and how many are girls? Where do they find places to sleep? What do they eat, and how do they get it? Are there any shelters for them? Is anyone working to help them? Have any books been written about them? Why are so many of these children non-nationals? How did they get from other countries to Thailand?
  • Perhaps a whole section called "Response" could be added that would elaborate on what the Thai government, NGOs, church groups, or anyone else is doing to address the problem.
  • Change the title to "Street children in Thailand" with a small "c" on "children".
  • Use the lead to provide a brief summary of the main text sections rather than making it an introductory paragraph with information that is not covered by the main text. WP:LEAD has details.
  • Combine the NGO definition with the "Categories" section to create a "Definition" section.
  • Use the statistical material from what is now the last part of the opening paragraph to create a "Description" section that follows the "Definition" section and explains who these children are and how many.
  • Instead of linking directly from within the text to an external site, use an inline citation. This would apply to the foundation linked to in the opening paragraph.
  • Use straight prose paragraphs rather than numbered or bulleted lists where feasible.
  • When a source is written in a language other than English, use the |format parameter in the "cite" family of templates and write the name of the language there.
  • "Perhaps most worrying of all,... " - Instead of editorial comments like this, it's best to stick with a strictly neutral statement unless you are directly quoting a reliable source. Better here would be "In addition,... "
  • Since you linked Thailand on first use, best to link things like Khmer and Burmese too.
  • Linked terms like "street child" that appear in the main text should not also appear in the "See also" section.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 23:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

William McKinley

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I've listed this article for peer review because… on behalf of Coemgenus and myself, because we plan to bring this to FAC soon and would be grateful for feedback

Thanks, Wehwalt (talk) 10:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Eisfbnore comments

  • "He defeated his Democratic-Populist rival, William Jennings Bryan, running a front porch campaign in which he demanded "sound money" (the gold standard unless altered by international agreement) and promised that high tariffs would restore prosperity." – you may call me unkind, but I could possibly argue that the sentence could imply that Bryan ran the campaign. I'd swap "running" for "on" or "in".
  • "Religiously, the family was staunchly Methodist and young William followed in that tradition, becoming active in the local Methodist church at the age of sixteen." – def article before "young William", ne?
I think that's OK. I've used similar constructions.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:14, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Hanna had come to admire McKinley, and in the years that followed, became a close adviser to him." – move the comma from after "McKinley" to after "and", as the parenthetical phrase is "in the years that followed".
  • "Instead, McKinley's wealthy supporters, including Hanna and Chicago publisher H. H. Kohlsaat became trustees of a fund from which the notes would be paid." – comma after "Kohlsaat".
  • "Morgan expects the debate over McKinley's actions to continue indefinitely without resolution, and notes that whatever however one judges McKinley's actions in American expansion, one of his motivations was to change the lives of Filipinos and Cubans for the better." – "whatever however"?
  • "Czolgosz was put on trial for murder nine days after McKinley's death, was found guilty, was sentenced to death on September 26, and was executed by electric chair on October 29, 1901." – I appreciate the grammatical parallelisms in the sentence, but I fear that there are a few too many 'was'es. Eisfbnore talk 13:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All valid points which I will deal with later in the day. Thank you.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Except as noted, those things are done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: My review will be somewhat fragmented due to time constraints, but I'll get through as much as I can before you feel you have to move forward:-

Image issue?
Because the USPS, a government owned corporation did not come into existence until 1971. Prior to that, the United States Post Office Department issued stamps, and their works are government works. Note that pre-1978 USPS issues are also PD as they did not put copyright notices on until then. USPOD stamps, of which this is one, are in the public domain.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:07, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
  • "In 1876, he was elected to Congress, where he became the party's leading expert on the protective tariff" Up to now you have only indirectly identified McKinley with the Republican Party, so "the party" should be clarified.
  • "He was elected Ohio's governor in 1891 and 1893, steering a moderate course between capital and labor interests." I think "steering a moderate course" is what he did in office, not what he did while being elected - or am I misunderstanding?
  • "...some historians argue he should be more highly regarded." I'm not sure that this is established in the text. One historian offers an explanation for McKinley's modest ranking, but that is about all.
Early life and family
Civil War
  • Over-use of "soon" in opening paragraph ("The men soon left...", "the men soon began training", "Delays in issuance of uniforms and weapons soon brought the men...") I also think the same word reappears rather too frequently in the subsequent text
  • Bearing in mind the overall length of the article, this section is one which I believe could be advantageously pruned without loss of significant information. To give just one example of sentences that could be substantially shortened:
Except for encounters with bushwhackers, they passed the next few months out of contact with the enemy until September, when the regiment encountered Confederates at Carnifex Ferry in present-day West Virginia and drove them back.

could become:-

Their first contact with the enemy came in September when they drove back Confederate troops at Carnifex Ferry in present-day West Virginia.
There are other examples where unnecessary details could be pared. I am unsure, as a general reader, of the extent to which McKinley's presidency, or indeed his political career, was particularly influenced by his Civil War experiences, and so wonder if the 1250 words devoted to this section are, as they say, "value for money".
I've trimmed this and some other parts. It's not the most important section as national events go, but those years were quite formative to McKinley and very relevant to his future political career. But, yes, it should be concise. --Coemgenus (talk) 11:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To be continued Brianboulton (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more

Legal career and marriage
  • "He soon formed a partnership..." - that word again
  • When Hayes was nominated for governor in 1867, McKinley made speeches on his behalf in Stark County, McKinley's first foray into politics." Rather clumsy close repetition of the name (which is mentioned eight times in this paragaph)
  • "As McKinley's professional career progressed, so too did his social life blossom, wooing Ida Saxton, the daughter of a prominent Canton family". It was him, not his social life, thay wooed Ida
Congressional career
  • Readers like me, unfamiliar with the workings of Congress, may wonder that McKinley, nominated for the House of Representatives in August 1876 and presumably elected that autumn, first took his seat eleven months later. Why the delay?
  • "Canton had become prosperous as a center for the manufacture of farm equipment because of protection." Surely not just Canton?
Leech is talking about what may have informed McKinley's views on the tariff; I've tied it to him a bit mroe closely.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:02, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The information dealing with McKinley's bid to become Speaker looks chronologically misplaced. We jump suddenly from 1880 to 1889, but the subsequent paragraph deals with events of the 1880s. Those events, however, seem to have little to do with McKinley's congressional career; hsould this be a separate subsection?ǏǏ
Gerrymandering
  • "The national party sent its legions to Canton..." Clarify that you mean the Republican party. Perhaps rather than the figurative "legions" you should more realistically say "leading figures"

Brianboulton (talk) 00:44, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've done the ones in the (now renamed and reorganized) Congressional career/gerrymander material.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:22, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A further instalment (to end of election campaign)

Governor of Ohio
  • Image caption: rather long, especially as the main subject is Blaine rather than McKinley; See MOS:CAPTION - "Captions should be succinct..." etc
  • Please clarify: "Sherman, with considerable assistance from Hanna, turned back a challenge by Foraker to win another term in the Senate". But weren't Sherman and Foraker members of the same party? Was Foraker's challenge merely for the nomination, and someone else was beaten in the general election?
It was a legislative election. The minority Democrats weren't going to get their guy elected, so they'd do a deal. And some of the Republicans were allied with Foraker ... he fell a few votes short. This sort of thing led to direct election of senators.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...the aging Blaine, Reed, and McKinley". Does the adjective apply just to Blaine, or to all three?
  • "Hanna established an unofficial McKinley headquarters..." At what specific point did Hanna align himself specifically to McKinley? The last we heard of him, he was assisting other candidates.
  • Slightly more detail required for what you mean by "business notes"
  • The McKinleys placed their property in the hands of trustees; a couple of senetences later we read: "All of the couple's property was returned to them". What is the timescale here? Was the property returned quickly, or years later?
  • Regrettably, here in the UK we don't know what a "railroad trestle" is. Some kind of metal girder bridge, perhaps?
  • This reads as clumsy: "The local sheriff wired McKinley using alarming terms, and the governor responded by sending a large force of militia, correctly assuming, based on his Civil War experience, that an overwhelming force would make violence unlikely." I would split this thus: "The local sheriff wired McKinley using alarming terms, and the governor responded by sending a large force of militia. Based on his Civil War experience he correctly assumed that an overwhelming show of force would make violence unlikely."
  • In the last sentence of this paragraph the word "However..." is not required
  • "His political efforts in Ohio were rewarded by the election of a Republican successor..." Successor as governor, presumably?
Obtaining the nomination
  • "Sherman did not run again after 1888": suggest "Sherman did not seek elective office after 1888"
He did, of course, for Senate (1892). I will clarify.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Lamented Platt in his memoirs..." Quirky; I would invert the first two words
  • "Ohio's vote gave McKinley the nomination": this could easily be misunderstood. I know you mean that in the alphabetic roll call of states, Ohio's delegates provided the necessary majority, but non-American readers may imagine that Ohio's delegates alone had the power to determine the nomination.
General election campaign
  • In the sentence beginning "Once Bryan's plans became clear" the second comma should be a semicolon and the third comma should be a colon
  • Examples of possible overdetailing (bearing in mind there is a linked article:-
  • "excepting three days in July when he fulfilled nonpolitical speaking engagements elsewhere in Ohio, and a weekend of rest in late August."
  • "If McKinley was still dealing with the previous delegation, they were halted on the far side of the arch from McKinley's home, and were offered their choice of beer or lemonade to refresh them as they waited."
Yeah, the section needs a little clipping. I'll cut it back.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The recording is brilliant!
I'll say. I'm not sure McKinley's style of speaking would go over well today, but he certainly had a way of speaking.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be back with more. Brianboulton (talk) 00:05, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your valiant efforts. Those are all done.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More: - (almost done)

Inauguration and appointments
  • I am not yet an images expert, but I am learning...I have a slight worry over File:McKinley sworn in.jpeg. I am fairly certain that colour photography didn't exist in 1901, the stated publication date. Thus the coloured version may not have been published until much later, and may thus still be under copyright. This is the kind of issue I always looked to Jappalang to pronounce on, but alas he is long gone.
Fear not, in this case the colorized versions are in the 1901 original book. There were a large number of bios written and sold, the attraction of Davis's book is the great images, including this colorized shot.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:50, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sentence "Sherman was not, however, McKinley's first choice for the position; he initially offered it to Senator Allison" should be the second sentence in this paragraph. Coming after the long account of Sherman's appointment, it has no impact.
  • This sentence definitely needs some attention: "Once in Cabinet office, Sherman's mental incapacity became increasingly apparent, and he was often bypassed by his first assistant, McKinley's Canton crony, Judge William Day, and by the somewhat-deaf second secretary, Alvey A. Adee, prior to Sherman's departure from office on the eve of war in 1898." Suggestion: "Once in Cabinet office, Sherman's mental incapacity became increasingly apparent. He was often bypassed by his first assistant, McKinley's Canton crony Judge William Day, and by the somewhat-deaf second secretary, Alvey A. Adee. Sherman eventually departed from office on the eve of war, in 1898." - though from a chronological viewpoint it might be better to defer the last part.
  • You mention there was speculation that McKinley might appoint a Gold Democrat as Secretary of the Treasury, but the only candidates mentioned in connection with the post seem to be Republicans.
  • Could some of the details of the machinations surrounding minor appointments be trimmed? Otherwise one tends to lose the more important threads, e.g. concerning Alger at the War Department.
War with Spain
  • Why no link to main article: Spanish–American War?
  • "an" war for Cuban independence?
  • The Maine "exploded and sank", not "exploded and sunk"
  • "the court ruled that the Maine was blown up by an underwater mine" → "...the Maine had been blown up by an underwater mine"
  • No mention of the Rough Riders (about all I can remember about the Spanish-American War]]?
Peace and territorial gain
  • Clarify from which royal government the Republic of Hawaii had broken away.
Expanding influence overseas
  • No particular points here.
Tariffs and bimetallism
  • "American negotiators soon concluded..." Why not provide a date?
  • "The Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, and his government showed some interest..." Technically there should be a comma after "government", but that would look very ugly. Why not shorten to: "The British government showed some interest..."? (and alter "he" to "they" later on)

One more heave and we're done. Brianboulton (talk) 23:44, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...and here it is:-

Civil rights
  • My problem with this section is the persistent use of "black" as a noun to describe Afro-Americans, and also the description "Negro leaders". Neither of these terms would be used in this fashion by any mainstream publications in the UK, and the majority of readers here will find such usage offensive. I am kind of surprised to find the terms used so freely, and can only assume that what causes offense here is largely acceptable elsewhere. Bearing in mind that the English Wikipedia is read widely outside America, I strongly advise use of alternative language. For what it's worth, I think that "black" as an adjective, e.g. in "black leaders" is generally accepted; the noun form is uncomfortably reminiscent of an earlier age. I also think that "Jim Crow laws" should be rendered within quotes.
Very well, I've changed those to "African American", I do not think Afro-American is that commonly used in the States. I would never use the word "Negro" in my own voice, the usages are in quotations, and I would hope people can understand that terminology in this area seems to evolve. However, I will look at them again.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:21, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
1900 election
  • No particular comment; admirably concise
Second term and assassination
  • I'm not sure that I can say the same about this section. Although it makes good reading, the existence of a main article provides the opportunity to be rather more concise. Here are examples of areas where I think trimming would be beneficial:-
  • "One man in the crowd, anarchist Leon Czolgosz, was not there to hear McKinley, but to kill him" A little dramatic or journalistic?
  • "He had initially decided to get near McKinley, on September 4, he decided to assassinate him." Well, why otherwise would he want to get near him? Czolgosz's further movements in this paargraph could easily be abbreviated.
  • I would also seek to summarise the next paragraph. Suggested:-
McKinley's concerns, after unsuccessfully trying to convince Cortelyou that he was not seriously wounded, were to urge his aides to break the news gently to Ida, and to ask that Czolgosz not be further assaulted by the mob—a request that may have saved his assassin's life.[224] McKinley was taken to the Exposition hospital, which had been set up to deal with the minor medical issues of fairgoers but was not equipped for major surgery and lacked experienced medical staff. Dr. Matthew D. Mann, who with other doctors had hastened to the scene, attempted to remove the bullet, but Mann had little experience in abdominal surgery or in dealing with gunshot wounds, and was unable to locate the bullet. Although a primitive X-ray machine was being exhibited on the Exposition grounds, it was not used. Mann carefully cleaned and closed the wound, after which McKinley was taken to the Milburn House, where the First Lady had taken the news calmly.[225]
  • A couple of minor niggles:-
  • "were to almost circle the nation..." Very awkward phrasing - a case here for not splitting the infinitive.
  • "Czolgosz lined up at the Temple of Music..." Is it possible for one man to "line up"?
Funeral, memorials, and legacy
  • I think the insertion of the word "alive" (2nd sentence, 2nd para) is inappropriate). You have made it clear that she did not die
Legacy and historical image
  • "pursuing the trusts" may be a little cryptic for most readers
  • As Phillips is a contemporary writer it would be more conventional to say "Phillipos writes..." and to adjust later tenses accordingly. The same applies to H. Wayne Morgan, who incidentally has not been properly introduced in the text; he is initially mentioned in the "Peace and territorial gain" section. In fact, at the end of the article you have "Morgan alludes..."

That concludes my review. To summarise, I would almost give the article its bronze star on the basis of that recording of McKinley speaking; a wonderful feature. I was also highly amused that a Supreme Court appointee had to go back to college to learn some law. Most of the points raised in the review are relatively minor; I will reiterate my two main concerns:-

  • I think there are opportunities for trimming the text, over and above the specific instances that I have mentioned. I acknowledge that the article has lost nearly 1000 words since I began reviewing, which is fine, but I think a reasonable target would be a max of 12000, which would align better with the existing president FAs.
  • As detailed above I do have a serious concern in the Civil rights section.

Brianboulton (talk) 17:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've addressed those concerns, perhaps the give and take of FAC will smooth out any further difficulties with terminology. Thank you for your clueful review. I think I have caught everything, and I've slimmed it down to 11,959. I will look for opportunities to bring it down a bit further as I'm sure Coemgenus will as well.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Foley Square trial

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Previous peer review
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I've listed this article for peer review because I'm planning on nominating it for Featured Article status. This article is currently wrapping-up a GA review, but the GA criteria do not scrutinize the prose with the same level of detail as an FA review. I'd appreciate it if the PR reviewer were someone familiar with the FAC process and the FA criteria, and is willing to nit-pick the prose.

This is really an interesting topic. You won't be disappointed if you take on this review! Thanks, Noleander (talk) 23:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Nikkimaria
Done --Noleander (talk) 04:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think "McCarthy era" or "McCartyite era" would be more correct that "McCarthyism era"
Done. Google hit count suggested "McCarthy era", so I went with that. --Noleander (talk) 04:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which advocated for radical restructuring the US government" - should be either "radical restructuring of" or "radically restructuring"
Done - Used former. --Noleander (talk) 04:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a phrasing that will avoid the "protesters...protested" repetition? Similarly "trial...trial" in the fourth paragraph
Done --Noleander (talk) 04:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done --Noleander (talk) 04:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent in use of US vs U.S.
Done --Noleander (talk) 04:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In general, there seems to be some unnecessary repetition, both in phrasing and in content. For example, you mention thrice in as many paragraphs that the USSR was a US ally in WWII. Another example is "Despite the relatively small size of the CPUSA, in 1945 the FBI and the Justice Department embarked on a campaign against the CPUSA" - no need to say CPUSA twice
Done --Noleander (talk) 04:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "ten month trial" -> "ten-month trial". Same also applies to other measurements used as adjectives
Done --Noleander (talk) 04:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the indictments might cause liberals voters to shift their support" - is that a US phrasing? I would be more accustomed to "liberal voters"
Done That was a typo. --Noleander (talk) 04:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What ended up happening with Foster, if he wasn't tried? Also, would he be considered a "defendant" despite not being tried?
Done - I added a sentence about his later life in the "Release from prison" section, where the other defendant's later lives are summarized. Regarding "defendant": Yes, I believe Foster was a defendant, because one becomes a defendant when formally charged, and he was indicted (charged).
  • Okay, I'm not used to US English, but isn't it "working-class"? Is the US convention to use fewer hyphens?
Done - It is used as an adjective, so the hyphen needed to be added. Thanks for catching that. --Noleander (talk) 04:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "it was the longest federal trial in history" - probably best to clarify US history, unless you actually mean worldwide
Done --04:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
  • "a conventional political Party" - why the caps?
Done - That was a typo. --Noleander (talk) 04:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a non-communist oath" is a bit ambiguous - do you mean "anti-communist", or that they were required to state they were not communists, or something else?
Done - Changed to "...required all faculty to take an oath asserting that they were not communists" --Noleander (talk) 04:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be careful about assuming a US reader - even when links are provided, a short gloss for terms/names like Alger Hiss would be helpful
Done - changed to "... government employee Alger Hiss was accused of being a communist". I'm not too sure where to draw the line on defining US-centric terms/persons/events: I don't want to go overboard (after all, the wikilinks mitigate the problem). If you can identify particular ones, I'll take care of them. --Noleander (talk) 04:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "after the revelations about Stalin" - you haven't yet mentioned what these were
Done - changed to "... after the revelation of Stalin's Great Purge" --Noleander (talk) 04:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spell out "%" in article text
Done --Noleander (talk) 05:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Step_by_step_greene.jpg needs author's date of death
The author/cartoonist was Sidney Joseph Greene, from New York. He was fairly minor (he is not Sid Greene) and I cannot find out when he died. According to [5] he was married in NY in 1916. So, I'm guessing he died sometime between 1930 and 1950. Since he was US, and the cartoon was published in the US, the US copyright laws apply, and I think anything prior to 1923 is now public domain. The Commons page [6] has a Australia/EU copyright box (in addition to the US box) so that is confusing, since the death of the author comes into play in Australia & EU, but not US. I think the picture is public domain, since it was published in 1919. Let me know if more needs to be done. --Noleander (talk) 05:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:William_z_foster.JPG: licensing tag used requires fair-use rationale and source/copyright info. You also have other images with that tag that are missing copyright info
Done - I removed the Foster pic from the article. Thanks for catching that. I see no other images with similar problems: the other pics are either public domain; or require fair-use rationale (and in those images, the fair use rationale is present and justified). --Noleander (talk) 05:24, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done - I replaced the pic of Douglas with one that is 100% public domain, so there is no issue there any longer. The original photo is from Library of Congress [7]. I updated the source link in the commons, so that is correct now. The LOC web site says "no known restrictions on copyright". --Noleander (talk) 05:30, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary separator

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(ec)Agree that the topic is interesting. Some question remain about the naming of a legal case after a courthouse where hundreds if not thousands of cases have been tried. Also, some quibbles with the impartiality of the article, considering the author used primarily journalists and not legal scholars. Hopefully that will get sorted out here. MathewTownsend (talk) 02:19, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MT: Thanks for the feedback. Could you be more specific regarding issues of impartiality? What specific words/phrases/sections need to be addressed? And why do you say "primarily journalists"? The sources are all reliable, neutral, and scholarly, with the exception of Victor Navasky's book, which is only used a few times, usually as background, and in conformance with WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. Could you be specific on the material that you think is from faulty sources? If you can be specific, I'll remedy any problems you identify. --Noleander (talk) 04:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My hesitations are voiced on the talk page by me and by others. I feel the article is not narrowly focused on the legal trial, as legal trial articles are, but describes a political and sociological period, including much that is exterior to the trial. If you changed the title to make it clear that this is not a legal article, it would be better. This article is not a legal analysis of the legal issues. As the templates at the bottom of the article indicate, this is not primarily about the law, nor specifically about the trial, but about political and historical issues regarding McCarthyism, the Cold War etc. I have no quibble with your sources for the political, sociological, historical angle, but they do take a particular point of view. To me, the trial is only part of the article, while the article wanders into "Aftermath", "Events outside the courtroom", "Prison", "Release from prison", "Rise of McCarthyism" etc., none of which have to do specifically with the trial. The first section under "Trial" gets into newspaper coverage, what was happening outside the courtroom etc. and is not about courtroom events. This was a very charged period in US history, and it still evokes emotional responses in many people. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:44, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detail. A few more questions so I can better understand your concerns: (1) Title of article: There are 3 candidate titles, all discussed in the Talk page: each has their own pros and cons. WP:TITLE suggests that the current title is best. What other title do you suggest, and which criteria in WP:TITLE support the alternative title? (2) ".. but they do take a particular point of view. " - Could you be more specific? Are you suggesting that there are other viewpoints that have been omitted? What viewpoints? What sources support those viewpoints? (3) "To me, the trial is only part of the article .." - The article covers all the material that the sources relate to the trial. The sources (not me) made the association of McCarthyism, etc to the trial. Can you identify some material in the article that the sources do not associate with the trial? Thanks for helping out ... if you could frame your answers in terms of what the sources say (rather than your personal gut feeling) that would be most helpful. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 20:17, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To be perfectly honest, I'm totally burned out on this article through my past engagement with it. I think I gave you quite a bit of feedback then, at Talk:Foley Square trial/GA1. I'm uncomfortable with the way this article is framed. Just because sources talk about a legal trial, that doesn't mean that an article focusing on the trial should include them. Previously I spent a great deal of time reading all the sources and looking for others. I just can't do more. I'm very sorry. I gave you my opinion above. That's all I can do. MathewTownsend (talk) 20:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry to hear you are burnt out. I'm trying to address your concerns, but so far you've been rather vague. Final questions: If you think the current title is deficient, could you at least identify a title that you think would be better (and state why)? One more thing: You say "Just because sources talk about a legal trial, that doesn't mean that an article focusing on the trial should include them." That seems to conflict with WP:OR and WP:V which say the opposite: that editors must put aside their own gut feelings and instead carefully follow the guidance of the sources. Can you name some specific section of the article that you think should be removed (and explain how it is not related to the trial)? Bottom line: I'll implement any specific changes you suggest (provided they are consistent with the sources). --Noleander (talk) 20:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry. Don't go by me. As I said, I'm burned out and can't go through the article again and do it justice. So don't worry about what I say! As for the title, you are naming a trial by its location, where hundreds if not thousands of trials have been held. Trials have a specific name xxx v. xxx (or whatever) that specifically identifies it. I'm not clear why this one doesn't have one. MathewTownsend (talk) 14:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I respect your opinion, and really appreciate the help you gave in the GA review. In fact, I've opened an RfC at the article, so we can get a few other editors to provide opinions.--Noleander (talk) 14:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dreamtime (Duerr book)

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I've listed this article for peer review because I believe it is of sufficient quality, covering all the available information on the subject.

Thanks, Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Malleus Fatuorum

Lead
  • "... with the aid of a hallucinogenic salve which the Christian authorities suppressed". How do you suppress a salve?
  • "... focusing on the shamanic use of hallucinogens and the experiences they induce." That's a little unclear. Are you talking about the experiences of the shamanic use of hallucinogens or the use of hallucinogens?
  • "... and that it is this process which both the shaman and the European witch undertook in their visionary journeys". I'm not certain that you can undertake a process?
  • "Both academic and press reviews in the Anglophone world were mixed, with critics opining that Duerr's case was unoriginal ...". "Both" stands out like a sore thumb there, and I just hate that "opining".
Background
  • "He had spent the day visiting the Puye Cliff Dwellings and was returning to the Alburquerque Greyhound Bus Station. Here he met a Tewa Native yerbatero buying a cup of coffee ...". That doesn't quite work; he was returning to the bus station when he met the native? Or did he meet the native at the bus station?
  • "Having taken a blow to his vanity, Duerr decided to travel to Arizona, and from this experience first thought about writing Dreamtime." That's altogether too flowery. And what is the experience anyway? The blow to his vanity or the trip to Arizona?
Cheers for this Malleus! I hope you will not mind if I take the liberty of crossing out each point as I deal with it in the text. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC))[reply]
Not at all; it's your review, do with it as you will. I'll do a bit more later this evening. Malleus Fatuorum 18:45, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Synopsis
  • What I think is missing is an introductory sentence or two outlining the range of topics discussed in the book, before diving into each chapter one by one.
  • "... arguing that in the Late Middle Ages society began to increasingly accept female nudity in art and fashion." Are you comfortable with split infinitives?
  • "... people have used hallucinogenic substances to reach states of consciousness outside of ordinary societal boundaries." I'm not terribly happy about "outside of", as the "of" always looks redundant to me. Could we say something like "beyond ordinary societal boundaries"?
  • "Instead he champions the idea that the visionary experiences of shamans should be treated as real rather than illusionary." I know that "illusionary" is a real word, but it seems a bit contrived to me; I'd prefer "illusory", or perhaps "illusional", but your choice. (Why do we have three words meaning essentially the same thing?)
Press reviews
  • "She also identified multiple influences over Duerr's thinking ...". Shouldn't that be on Duerr's thinking?
  • "Atchity ultimately considered Dreamtime to simply be an 'obscure essay on the human experience.'" Another split infinitive. Some people are quite relaxed about them, but I think they're best avoided.

Well, thank you very much for this Malleus; hopefully this article can now go on and attain GA status! --Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:02, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you should have too much trouble with this at GAN. I'm not sure what FAC might expect of an article on a textbook though, never having seen or reviewed one, but it'll be interesting to find out. Just one more thing I think needs attention:
Background
  • The first paragraph repeats itself a little: "According to his own account, the idea for writing Dreamtime first came to Duerr when he was in New Mexico in the middle of 1963 ... Duerr would later relate that this blow to his vanity first provided him with the idea of writing Dreamtime." Malleus Fatuorum

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa

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I think the article has all the relevant information that a film article should have. I'd like to get further inputs on improving the article and going for a GAN. Lynch7 17:08, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Lynch7 17:08, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redtigerxyz's Comments
Thank you for the comments! Something unexpected came up, and I don't think I will be able to attend to this for some weeks. I will surely work on it in some time (anyone else is welcome to take this up in the meanwhile!). Thanks again! Lynch7 13:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Thanks for your work on this article. Here are a few more suggestions for future improvement.

  • The prose in the existing article is generally clear. However, the lead includes several "with plus -ing" constructions that are awkward but fixable. Here is an example: "The film began its initial schedule in February 2009, following a mystery launch with a series of publicity posters being launched with no details of the cast or crew." This would be better recast as something like this: "Launched by a wave of publicity posters with no details about the cast and crew, the film began its initial run in February 2009." I'd suggest looking for "with plus -ing" sentences throughout the article and modifying them for concision and clarity.
  • Link Tamil on first use in the lead.
  • Spell out as well as abbreviate BAFTA on first use.
  • Link Goa on first use in the "Plot" section.
  • Try to keep images entirely within the sections they illustrate. File:Vtvfilm.jpg in the existing article overlaps a section boundary and displaces the edit buttons. I agree with Redtigerxyz that this particular image does not meet the non-free content requirements, so deleting it would solve two problems.
  • Readers from outside of India may not have any idea of how much "Rs.64,66,062" is or what a crore is. These should be explained or also given in dollars or euros, perhaps, or linked to explanations.
  • Rather than giving each critic a separate paragraph in the "Critical response" section, I'd merge some of the shorter ones to make a less choppy section.
  • Look through the article for overlinking. It's generally not necessary to link unusual terms more than once in the lead and perhaps once again in the main text. Its seems pointless, for example, to link Vijay Prakash four times in the "Awards and nominations" section.
  • Use consistent date formatting in the citations.
  • Italicize the names of newspapers such as The Times of India.
  • Use normal Wikipedia style rather than all caps for the title in citation 25.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 19:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lucius Arruntius the Younger

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I've listed this article for peer review because... I'd like to make it better and for it to achieve GA status and to learn more about how to write good articles.

Thanks, Flaviusvulso (talk) 05:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • A few things (not really a full review):
  • The article is rather short. What other information is available about this guy? For instance, more about any other offices held, what he did while in various offices, family life, and similar would be nice. During what times was he most popular? Any idea what his reaction was to the Senate's do-nothing attitude regarding the Tiber? (And are those Roman colonies that were objecting to diverting its tributaries?)
  • Is there more analysis available from historians' commentaries?
  • The alt text checker found that the pictures don't have alt text.
"alt text" added. Flaviusvulso (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have rated the article as initially Start-level, but it may well deserve a higher rating (especially when it's been modified as per the above). I encourage you to submit it to the Classical Greece and Rome WikiProject's assessment department for an updated assessment. I would say the same for the Biography WikiProject, except that they ask that any peer review for it be done before an assessment takes place. (I have tried to increase the likelihood of their peer-reviewing this work by making it show up in the listing of articles to be peer reviewed there.) Allens (talk | contribs) 01:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - predominantly technical issues but other stuff too.

  • I would agree it's rather slim. The lead of most GAs that I've ever reviewed is usually more than three sentences.
  • There may well be a decent infobox you can use in the lead. I note we have no "image" of Lucius but there may be something in a {{infobox person}} or similar that may embellish the article.
  • Look for context specific links, e.g. instead of just linking admiral, perhaps look for a way to link Roman navy?
  • "He was appointed consul..." the last person mentioned was his father, but I assume you didn't mean him?
  • Per WP:HEAD, things like "Life As A Senator" should be "Life as a senator" i.e. avoid unwarranted overcapitalisation.
  • ""a man of stainless virtues",[2], rich, daring, having brilliant accomplishments and corresponding popularity.[1]" no need for the comma after [2] but the "rich, daring, having brilliant accomplishments..." sounds more like another quote and should be in quote marks.
  • Don't force image sizes (other than lead images), just use thumb or thumb|upright for images (landscape and portrait respectively).
  • "Map showing the course of the Tiber river." isn't a complete sentence so no full stop needed.
  • Refs 9 and 10, you have pp. for a single page reference. This is usually caused by the parameter in the citation template saying pages= instead of page=
  • Don't think you need the 1st centry deaths category since you have a 37 deaths category which is more specific.

The Rambling Man (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'm working on a new version based on your suggestions.Flaviusvulso (talk) 08:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have substantially expanded and reworked the article now and updated the changes. Please have another look. Thanks. Flaviusvulso (talk) 04:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Neurotoxin

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I've listed this article for peer review because…

As a specialist in the field, I have made significant contributions to this article, improving it from just a few paragraphs to nearly its current form. It has been edited now for a few months by other users on Wikipedia, and I think it could now benefit from a review by those with significant knowledge in the field. I am specifically looking for comments about ways to improve the material presented. I have included what I believe to be a rather thorough presentation of the pathologies and treatments involved with each neurotoxin exposure, but I'm sure there is some primary research that will be missing. Suggestions on other material that should be included would be helpful (including other possible neurotoxins).

Thanks, Rysin (talk) 00:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • A few things, not a full review by any means:
    • The automated checker found a few things - I have to agree with it that the table of contents is too long, which in this case probably indicates a need to split the article up into subpages, with summaries of the subpages on the current page.
    • The alt text checker also found some images without alt text.
    • If you're wanting a review by others with knowledge in the field, this isn't the best place for that - try the pages of the neurology and toxicity task forces first, then the larger WikiProjects it's a part of.
    • Primary research is not what is emphasized on Wikipedia, but information interpreted by secondary research (e.g., review papers).
    • For ways to improve what's presented, you may wish to also check with the Guild of Copy-Editors (WP:GUILD).
  • Again, not a full review by any means. Allens (talk | contribs) 18:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh. One other thing. It is not clear exactly why "inhibitors" and "receptor antagonists" are divided into two sections. Receptor agonists are easily understandable as being separate (and admittedly there are compounds that act as both agonists and antagonists).Allens (talk | contribs) 21:00, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: I can't provide the kind of expert comment on the content that you would like, but I have a few suggestions for improvement. This is an interesting and important article with FA potential.

  • Claims in the lead generally do not need inline citations since the lead is a summary of the main text, where the claim is already supported or should be. For example, citations 6 and 91 support the claim that lead is a common neurotoxin. You don't need citation 6. I'm guessing that the same consideration (redundancy) applies to all of the citations in the lead, though I did not check each to be sure.
  • Technical terms are generally linked in this article in a helpful way, but I would unlink a few common words already well-known to most readers. Two candidates for unlinking in the lead are "cell" and "memory". Candidates for unlinking in the "Background" section are "plumbing networks", "brain", "blood" (which is linked twice), "scientist", "physician", "cell", and "skeleton". If you comb through the article looking for common words to unlink, you will find at least a few more such as "mouth" and "limb" in the "Tetrodotoxin" subsection, "arrow" and "dart" in the "Curare" subsection, and "paralysis" and "death" in the "Botulinum toxin" subsection.
  • I would add inline citations to reliable sources for all of the claims added to the ends of paragraphs that have sources that cover only the claims in the middle of the paragraph. Otherwise, these claims seem to be afterthoughts or conclusions coming from Wikipedia.
  • I enjoyed watching the external video about anatoxin-a. However, it probably belongs in the "External links" section rather than embedded in the main text. The Manual of Style advises against linking to an external site from within the main text. See WP:MOS#External links.

Background

  • "As a result, the nervous system has a number of mechanisms designed to protect it from internal, and external insults, including the blood brain barrier." Would something like "has evolved mechanisms that protect" be better? The word design might lead to a kerfuffle.
  • "Additionally, in-vitro systems have increased in use as they provide significant improvements over the more common in-vivo systems of the past." - Link and italicize in-vitro and in-vivo on first use. For many readers, an English translation in parentheses might also be helpful.

Applications

  • "As the nervous system in most organisms is both highly complex and necessary for survival, it has naturally become a target for attack by both predators and prey." - Perhaps "for attack by predators and defense by prey"?

Mechanisms of activity

  • "The time required for the onset of symptoms upon neurotoxin exposure can vary between different toxins, being on the order of hours for botulinum toxin and years for lead." - Tighten to "The time between exposure and the onset of symptoms varies among toxins; it may be hours for botulinum toxin and years for lead"?
  • The abbreviations in the table (K and so on) should be spelled out on first use, though you might also abbreviate them; i.e., "Potassium (K)".

Tetrodotoxin

  • "the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor Neostigmine or the acetylcholine antagonist Atropine," - Lowercase "neostigmine" and "atropine".

Tetraethylammonium

  • "in a manner similar to that of curare" - Link curare.
  • "Additionally, through chronic TEA administration, muscular atrophy would be induced." - Would this be better as "Additionally, chronic TEA administration induces muscular atrophy"?
  • "other ion channels such as voltage gated sodium channels" - Link and hyphenate voltage-gated sodium channel]]?

Curare

  • "though it has matured to specify a specific categorization of poisons" - Recast to avoid repeating "specific".

Conotoxin

  • "Conotoxins represent a category of poisons produced by the marine cone snail" - Link cone snail?

Botulinum toxin

  • "which are produced by the bacterium Clostridium Botulinum" - Lowercase "botulinum"?
  • "Botulinum Toxin" - The subhead says "Botulinum toxin" with a small "t". That looks right to me. If so, the big T should be changed in the first sentence of this subsection and in the associated image caption.
  • "to induce an insufficient tidal volume" - Link tidal volume?
  • Link tetany and unlink both instances of "muscular contractions"?

Anatoxin-a"

  • Rather than creating a text sandwich between images on opposite sides of a page, it's better to rearrange them. The subsection is big enough vertically to accommodate both without a sandwich effect.

Ammonia

  • "This mitochondrial transition is a direct result of glutamine activity a compound which forms from ammonia in-vivo." - This sentence does not make sense to me. Maybe it should be: "This mitochondrial transition results directly from the action of glutamine, a compound which forms from ammonia in-vivo." Or something like that.

Lead

Ethanol

  • File:Photo of baby with FAS.jpg needs a caption in the normal place (below the image). I'd be inclined to use image-manipulation software to clone out the caption that appears on the image itself and to replace it with "Baby with fetal alcohol syndrome" as a caption.

Endogenous neurotoxin sources

Notes

  • Citation 105 and 106 should include the author's name, Stephen McDonell
  • Citation 107 should include the publisher, Chicago Public Media, and This American Life should appear in italics.
  • I would use Occupational Safety & Health Administration for the publisher in citation 108.
  • Citation 108 needs a date of most recent access.
  • The date formatting in citations 105 through 108 should be consistent. Do them all the same way.

References

  • Since one of the books in this list has an ISBN with hyphens, the Yang book should probably have them too. A handy converter lives here.
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 03:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Elias Abraham Rosenberg

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This article is currently a GA and has been peer reviewed once before. It has been a kind of tricky article to get well sourced and flow well, but I think it is basically in good shape. I'd like to nominate it at WP:FAC, but I'm not sure it is FA quality yet and would like another review before I try. Any help weeding out issues that might cause oppose votes at FAC would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 00:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Nick-D This is an interesting article - you've made good use of the available references and the article is well paced and clear. My comments mainly relate to the article's wording:

  • As a general comment, the article's prose is, while generally good, a bit repetitive and wordy at times. I've highlighted some examples below, but it would benefit from a more detailed copy edit.
  • "He lived in San Francisco..." then "He worked there as a peddler" - starting two sentences with 'He' is repetitive
    • Changed the intro to second sentence.
  • "and developed a reputation as an eccentric in the local Jewish community" - should this be "as an eccentric among the local Jewish community"?
    • Yes, changed.
  • "This practice helped him become popular with locals; King Kalākaua learned of his popularity" - this is a bit awkward (use of both 'popular' and 'popularity' in the same sentence)
    • Good point, changed.
  • "After Rosenberg began making predictions about the King's future, the King was impressed" - King is repeated
    • Changed, hopefully it's clear now.
  • "A Torah and yad presented to the King by Rosenberg remained in the King's" - ditto
    • Rephrased.
  • "and later may have lived in England and Australia, where he might have collected emu eggs" - you should specify that the eggs would have been collected in Australia
    • Ok, had to break up the sentence.
  • For what it's worth, I searched for Rosenberg in the National Library of Australia's excellent Trove database of old newspapers, but it didn't find any references to him.
    • Thanks for doing that, I guess he kept a low profile at that time.
  • "he served as a director for the Chebra Beth Abraham benevolent society in San Francisco" - I don't think that you need to specify that he was in San Francisco here
    • Removed.
  • "He sold lottery tickets for a time, but ceased the practice after he attracted attention from the San Francisco Police Department." - what's meant by "he attracted attention from the San Francisco Police Department"? Was it illegal to sell lottery tickets?
    • Tried to clarify.
  • "Some residents nicknamed him "Rosey",[1] while some believed" - the second 'some' could be replaced with 'others' to avoid repetition
    • Good catch, changed.
  • "After Rosenberg became well known he came to the attention of King Kalākaua, who then met with him" - did the king really visit Rosenberg as this implies? Surely he would have been invited to meet the king?
    • Changed a bit, hope it works now.
  • "At that time, the King had sought instruction from several people he regarded as prophets." - this is a bit unclear. Was the king consulting with several people at the time, or had this occurred before he appointed Rosenberg one of his soothsayers?
    • Clarified.
  • "Rosenberg told him Bible stories,[15] read to him from the Talmud,[1] began to teach him basic Hebrew,[1][16] and also presented an ornate and well-crafted Torah[8] and yad,[10][B] that he had brought with him to Hawaii, as gifts to King Kalākaua." - this sentence is overlong and should be split into a couple of sentences (especially as who the 'him' is swaps around in the second half of the sentence). Also, try to cut down on the number of 'him's here as well as it's a bit repetitive.
    • Wow, that sentence was a quagmire. Gone to work on it.
  • "This claim encouraged the King" - to do what?
    • Tried to clarify a bit.
  • "Rosenberg then reported to Archibald Scott Cleghorn." - who was Cleghorn?
    • You don't know who Cleghorn is??? :)
  • "In March, April, and May, Rosenberg was paid $100, ostensibly for working as a guard at the Customs Office" - was this $100 per month, or $100 in total?
    • I guess that wasn't clear, changed.
  • Who is/was DeWitt Alexander?
    • Ahh, I had explained earlier but removed it while tightening.
  • " In 1967, Honolulu reported that few Hawaiians believed Rosenberg was the source of Kalākaua's Torah" - you should specify what Honolulu is/was, and the current wording implies that Rosenberg was well known at the time and most Hawaiians had an opinion on the source of the Torah, which seems unlikely. Nick-D (talk) 03:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Eisfbnore

  • I see that Nick's comments have alleviated some of the worst repetitiousness in the article, but I still have a few quibbles! :)
  • 'San Francisco' is mentioned four times in the lead paragraph. You could possibly slice one instance by making one of the sentences a parenthetical phrase inside another.
  • Tried to cut down on some, hope I did Ok.
  • Out of ten sentences in the San Fran section, you have six starting with 'He'. I repeat my advice regarding the parenthetical phrases.
  • Down to four now.
  • In the Hawaii sect., the three last paras all start with 'someone (subject) did something (predicate) to Rosenberg (object)'. Perhaps I am making myself scorned amongst Wikipedia's grammar ninjas, but I would perhaps let the passive voice sneak into some of the sentences.
    • Interesting, I took an initial try at it, will revisit. It is hoped that not much scorn is heaped upon you. :)
  • "The reverse side of the medal featured a profile of the King; a gold crown on the rim attached to a blue ribbon." – the last part of the sentence is a syntactical-descriptive phrase; therefore, the semicolon should be a colon.
    • Good point, done.
  • "This practice helped him become popular with locals; King Kalākaua learned of his reputation and met with him in 1886." – ditto
    • Also done.
  • "In the mid-1880s, Rosenberg traveled to Hawaii, claimed to be a fortune teller, and began offering to tell fortunes." – perhaps you would disagree, but I would have written "In the mid-1880s, Rosenberg traveled to Hawaii where he claimed to be a fortune teller, and offered to tell fortunes."
    • Ok, changed.
  • "In San Francisco, he worked as a peddler but encountered legal problems selling lottery tickets." – the flow might be enhanced if you put a 'with' or 'when' before 'selling'.
    • Ok, added "when".
  • "Rosenberg left a will in which he requested that his body be cremated using quicklime." – no suggestion for amelioration, just wanted to commend your use of the subjunctive mood. :)
    • Thanks, I'm glad you noticed :)
  • Check footnote B for erroneous use of 'due to'.
    • Ahh, well, only one this time, I'm getting better.
  • Whilst the article is pretty well-written, its prose suffers from too short sentences. I would use some semicolons and em-dashes to tie the sentences better together; please have some: ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;—————————————————
Eisfbnore (下さいて話し) 21:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So nice of you to share some with me :) Mark Arsten (talk) 23:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

LCD Soundsystem discography

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I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like input on how I can make this a Featured List soon.

Thanks, What a pro (talk, contribs) is on fire. 06:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments certainly a good start.

  • "consists of 3 studio albums, 2 extended plays..." would write all these numbers as words, even eighteen and fourteen. Just makes for more elegant prose.
  • I often recommend that we link "discography" too.
  • "The band first gained attention when it released the single "Losing My Edge" on his own DFA label..." The band... his label... Who is "his" here?
  • You link stuff like "disco" but not "indie".
  • Link "certified" in the lead.
  • " stated that he just wanted to make" unless you directly quote him lose the "just".
  • Shouldn't full length be full-length in "full length album"?
  • " of the Billboard 200" normally " of the Billboard 200".
  • "spawned 3 singles" three.
  • The 2010 album final cell of the table appears to be missing.
  • Where are the two non-charting EPs referenced?
  • Where are the remix albums referenced?
  • And the heading in that table shouldn't be "EP details" should it?
  • Where are the first three singles referenced?
  • Don't mix date formats in the refs.
  • Check WP:DASH in the ref titles (e.g. ref 30)

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:26, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. What a pro (talk, contribs) is on fire. 06:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Michael Jester

  • Is there a photo that will show the other members of the band?
  • "The album was certified gold in the UK,[5] but failed to chart on the US Billboard 200.[6]" no comma needed after UK
  • Italicize 45:33
  • "LCD Soundsystem's second full-length album, Sound of Silver, was released to extremely positive reviews from critics,[8] and peaked at number 46 on the Billboard 200." No comma needed after critics.
  • A big problem here is that the tables do not fit WP:ACCESS. The tables should use !scope="row" and !scope="col", as well as other things. Take a peek at WP:DISCOG and look at their table. It doesn't have to be exactly from there.
  • Abbreviations in the certification column should be from the provider (e.g. UK should be BPI)
  • In the tables, you have wikilinks like Fin and NZ, but they should really link to Fin and NZ—the chart itself or the chart provider.
  • I'd consider removing the US Heatseekers and Internet charts, since a majority of the albums have charted on the Billboard 200
  • Live albums table: is there a need for two references to show one chart position?
  • What does NA mean in the music videos table?
  • En-dash needed for ref#9. Same ref also have a different date system than the other refs.
  • Ref #22: Official Charts Company -> Official Charts Company; no italics needed


—Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 20:21, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, but are the tables okay now? What a pro (talk, contribs) is on fire. 01:58, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Giraffe

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I've listed this article for peer review because I had just did some re-paraphasing of the available sources and would like someone to do a spotcheck of atleast some sources to see if the paraphasing is good enough for FA. This cost it in the last FA review. Two of the books can be found here and here.

Thanks, LittleJerry (talk) 22:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Paraphases that I need checked:
  • Similarly, following their preferred habitat, African Giraffa entered Africa via Ethiopia about 7 Mya. vs From here, the genus Giraffa evolved and, around 7 mya, entered Africa though Ethiopia.
  • The giraffe has an enlongated jaw, with a grooved upper palate which has no front upper teeth. vs The upper jaw has a grooved palate and lacks front teeth.
  • When galloping, however, the two hinf legs are brough forward almost simultaneously and land outside of the front legs, which are then moved forward. vs When galloping, the hind legs move around the front legs before the latter move forward..
  • Giraffes can rest standing but prefer to lie with their legs fold beneath them; vs A giraffe rests by lying down with its body on top of its folded legs.
  • The dorsal spines of the anterior thoracies are long, forming the prominent hump on the upper back. They serve for the attachments of the large muscles and the nuchal ligament which support the head and neck. vs The giraffe's head and neck are held up by large muscles and a nuchal ligament, which are anchored by long dorsal spines on the anterior thoracic vertebrae, giving the animal a hump.
  • To enable the head to be lifted the first two vertebrae are articulated with ball and socket joints; in the giraffe this altas-axis joint is modified, allowing the head to tilt vertically. This, along with the long tongue, allows the animal to reach branches an extra metre above its head. vs The giraffe has a modified atlas-axis joint (C1 and C2), which functions like a ball and socket joint. This allows the animal to tilt its head vertically and reach more branches with the tongue.
  • Neck lengths also differ between sexes: male giraffe average about 30-40 cm longer and up to 1.7-fold heavier necks than same-age females. vs In support of this theory, necks are longer and heavier for males than females of the same age,..
  • Apart from an alarm snort, calves bleat and make a mooing/mewing call.... Moaning, snoring, hissing and flutelike sounds have also been reported. vs Calves will emit snorts, bleats and moo/mewing sounds. Other sounds made include snores, hisses, moans and flute-like sounds.
  • A strong maternal bond exists between the giraffe cow and calf until the cow's next calving. vs The bond a mother shares with its calf lasts until the former's next calving.
  • They continued sucking up to the age of 13 months and remained associated with their mothers for another 2–5 months. vs Calves are weaned after 13 months, however associations between mothers and offspring continue for another 2–5 months.
  • Ticks usually infest giraffe, particulary in the relatively thin-skinned area of the genitalia. vs They are often hosts for ticks, especially in the area around the genitals, which has thinner skin than other areas.
  • This period is when the giraffe appears with its own hieroglyph, with the Old Egyptian word for giraffe be 'sr' becoming 'mmy' in the later dynasties. vs The Egyptians gave the giraffe its own hieroglyph; its name being 'sr' in Old Egyptian and 'mmy' in later periods.
  • The Africans have always used parts of the giraffe-the flesh for meat; the skin for shields, sandals and drums; the tendons for stringed musical instruments; and the tail hairs for bracelets, flyswitches and thread. vs Different parts of their bodies were used for different purposes. Their meat used for food. The tail hairs served as flyswatters, braclets, necklaces and thread. [another source is used for necklaces] Shields, sandals and drums were made using the skin and the strings of musical instruments were from the tendons.
  • The traditional medicine men of Buganda prescribed smoke of burning giraffe skin as a cure for persistent nose bleeding. vs The smoke of burning giraffe skins was used by the medicine men of Buganda to treat nose bleeds.

LittleJerry (talk) 18:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Horseshoe Curve (Pennsylvania)

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I've listed this article for peer review because Horseshoe Curve is an important part of Pennsylvania history. It allowed quick [relatively] travel over the Allegheny Mountains for the first time. The curve became so vital to the industry of the United States that it was the target of sabotage by Nazi Germany in World War II. It's a unique bit of engineering technology and is still both a major rail line and, also, a tourist attraction. The eventual goal is FA and I believe it satisfies the required criteria, but any suggestions to make the article are better are most welcome.

Thanks, ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 20:20, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Arsenikk (talk)

That's pretty much what I can see in a short read-through; quite interesting article and I'm glad I read it. Arsenikk (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 00:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
More comments by DThomsen8 (talk)
  • Grade (slope) says that as a percentage, the grade is 100*rise/run, where according to the lede, the rise is 37 meters and the run is 720 meters (0.72 km * 1000). Therefore:
  • That is very interesting, however, all the published sources say 1.73%. There must have been a different method of calculating the grade; either different measurements or a different forumula. A result of 5% wouldn't make sense as its difficult for a train to traverse. Saluda Grade—the steepest railway grade in the U.S.—is around 4.7%. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 00:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You need to research the numbers for the lede. I am sure the grade is no where near 5%, but you need numbers which work out to the expected 2% or less. What do you think of the draft map?--DThomsen8 (talk) 00:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've revised to numbers to ones that make mathematical sense. The original length only accounts for the center portion of the curve, and a USGS topo map indicates that the ending elevation was too high. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 14:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

John Forrest (doctor)

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I've listed this article for peer review because I've followed the Wikipedia MOS and referenced all sources and hopefully created an article that is of good quality, but looking for feedback to see how it can be improved further.

Thanks, Gilesforrest (talk) 14:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for improvement

  1. The lead and the main body of the article need to stand separate. That's because in some usages, the lead is published without the article and vice versa. It should be a summary, so there should not be anything in the lead that is not covered in the article. (MOS:Lead)
  2. You need to add the information about his birth and its location into the first section.
  3. Move the family information up to the first and last sections so the article forms a chronological narrative.
  4. "Early military career" and "Later career" are just point lists. Rewrite in prose.
  5. Link military units. eg 23rd Foot
  6. He is not on the Physician to the Queen list
  7. I like the notes, but they are unsourced.

Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:42, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Group 12 element

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I've listed this article for peer review because I've expanded it and I want to know what is missing before putting it for GAN. Thanks, Nergaal (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

R8R Gtrs has some comments on the talk page (Talk:Group 12 element#A few ideas). The "Chemistry and compounds" sections would benefit from some more discussion IMHO (e.g. the organometallic chemistry) and some more references for the uncited sentences. The discussion on the inclusion of group 12 into the transition metals could be put into a separate section (see Group 3 element#Group borders). Double sharp (talk) 07:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This source may be useful: http://www.che.uc.edu/jensen/W.%20B.%20Jensen/Reprints/091.%20Zn-Cd-Hg.pdf Double sharp (talk) 12:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments more on the technical aspects than with any expertise on the subject itself.

  • MOS always used to suggest we avoided bold links e.g. zinc, cadmium etc in the lead.
  • Zinc, cadmium, mercury and copernicium are overlinked in the lead.
  • "none of its isotopes have been found occurring in nature" you said pretty much that in the preceding sentence.
  • Ensure tables are accessible to screen-readers by implementing row and col scopes as suggested by MOS:DTT.
  • "members of this family show " instead of "this family" reiterate "Group 12".
  • No need to relink the elements in the heading of the properties table.
  • What is "pm" in atomic radius?
  • Is it "Group 12" or "group 12"?
  • "bluish-white, lustrous[7]" shouldn't this be "bluish-white and lustrous,[7] ..."?
  • 150 °C. You link Celsius here but not in the table. Also, be consistent with conversions to Farhenheit. Convert all the time or never.
  • "ofcadmium and zinc" space needed, and try to stop relinking things per WP:OVERLINK!
  • In each new section, reiterate that you are talking about group 12 elements.
  • Organometallic compounds section is empty.
  • Image captions that are complete sentences need a period.
  • No need to link common terms like "Egyptian".
  • "This definition has since been changed (see krypton)." explain it, don't just say "see krypton".
  • Avoid bare URLs in the refs.
  • Don't mix date formats in the refs.
  • Check for WP:DASH e.g. ref 82 title should be A–Z and not A-Z.

The Rambling Man (talk) 08:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Harry Lee (cricketer)

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I've listed this article for peer review because having got the article promoted to good status, I am looking for comments and thoughts on how to improve the article to featured standard.

Thanks, Harrias talk 17:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: I have not found time to give a full review of the article. I have carried out a few minor copyedits in the lead and "Early life" sections, and have identified a few concerns:-

Early career
  • "Lee joined the MCC bowling staff in 1913..." You need to clarify that this did not affect his eligibility to play for Middlesex
  • It does seem extraordinary that he was given his county cap in 1913 after so few appearances and hardly any performances of note; I wonder what the story was, here. I'm also a bit confused by the fact that, in 1914, his first-class appearances "almost doubled". As you say he made 3 appearances in 1913, "almost doubled" presumably means five, but the last paragraph of the section indicates many more appearances than that in 1914.
First World War
  • It is not clear to me why, in an article on a professional cricketer, so much detail is given of his very brief (15 months) military career (or why this short span requires its own infobox). Lee's military service was honourable but in no way different from that of millions who served in the First World War, and does not really warrant more than a single short paragraph, I would have thought. Indeed, the whole connection with the MilHist project looks somewhat misplaced to me.

There is also the issue discussed on my talkpage, where I indicated that at least one of the county histories ought to be consulted. All in all, the article looks fairly well written, but I would advise another copyedit before taking it further. For example, phrasing such as "The Indian team did not have Test status, which was not attained until 1932" could definitely be improved.

My time is limited, but if I am able to revisit I will do so. Brianboulton (talk) 12:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kingfisher Airlines

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to nominate the artilce for GA in some time, and with all recent additions, woyld like to know what is best suited for the article.

Thanks, — Abhishek  Talk 15:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PR by AroundTheGlobe

Iv concentrated on the general aspects based on which:

  • Items in the lede need not be cited if they are cited later in the article
  • When was the airline established? Prose says 2003, category says 2004. All the reference states is the start date in 2005
  • A lot of uncited information throughout the article.
  • Statistics are uncited and updated only upto 2009 (Operational performance)
  • No need for 2 infoboxes
  • Quality tag needs to be looked into
  • Too many images clustered, refer MoS
  • I understand the need for the Kingfisher logo and fair use, however I fail to see the need for the Kingfisher red and King club logos (the latter is also without its usual crown). The red logo also sandwiches information, something that should be avoided
  • I would suggest that the awards and achievements section be rewritten either in prose or tabular form.
  • There are 3 templates at the bottom of the page, the see also section is not required as its been superseded by templates

Hope this helps! Cheers, Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 06:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Compdude123

You really have a lot of work to do before promoting this to GA-class. Some suggestions/improvements:

  • You don't need two infoboxes. Just keep the first infobox, {{Infobox airline}} and get rid of the second one. Some of the info from the first infobox is duplicated in the second infobox.
  • Expand the history section. Suggestions:
    • There's a section buried at the bottom of the article about the financial crisis. Move it into the history section.
    • Financial performance info needs to be cited or removed if no citations can be found.
    • Add info about Air Deccan acquisition and its renaming to Kingfisher Red, and add info about the creation of Kingfisher Xpress.
    • The history section should at least be as long as Virgin America#History. VX was also founded in 2004, but didn't start flying till 2007.
  • Create a corporate affairs section immediately after the history section with info about (and a photo of) the airline's headquarters, it's subsidiaries, and employees. Perhaps the financial performance table which I mentioned earlier could go here. This is done on many other airline articles.
  • Prose in the destinations section as well as the text at the beginning of the fleet section need sources.
  • The table says that it is "as of 15 August 2010:" Perhaps this could be updated to match when the ref was last updated.
  • New aircraft orders section:
    • Apparently that section needs to be rewritten. Please do so.
    • Sources are needed for some things.
    • "Kingfisher's first Airbus A330-200 was widely billed (according to the airline's press release) as the best A330-200 ever built by Airbus.[23]" That seems like mere marketing/PR and does NOT belong in an encyclopedia.
    • Is the aircraft delivery table really necessary? I don't think so...
  • Services section -- I have a long list of complaints about this one:
    • Take the chopping block to the cabin classes section. It looks like a travel guide, which Wikipedia is not. Why not cut/paste that entire section into Wikitravel? That's a great idea!
    • Why is the cargo section a subsection of the cabin classes section? You should move it to the aforementioned corporate affairs section.
    • IFE section - Shorten, and make less promotional sounding. But first cut and paste to Wikitravel.  :)
  • Awards and achievements - Change it from a list into prose. And move into corporate affairs section. Also, that entire section relies on a primary source from Kingfisher Airlines.
  • In the incidents section there is no need for bullet points since there's (currently) only one incident.

That's all for now. Hope this helps you. In return you should check out Alaska Airlines and comment on my peer review which I started by clicking here. Thanks, Compdude123 06:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Marshall Mathers LP

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I've listed this article for peer review because I plan to promote it to GA. :)

Thanks, Khanassassin ☪ 20:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "Released May 23, 2000" released on... but perhaps clumsy USEng now allows us to ignore basic grammar?!
  • "in its first week just in the US" -> "in the US in the first week alone."
  • Take both the above comments into account and write a nice sentence about how well it did in the first week following its release in the US....
  • Link "certified" in the lead.
  • "As of 2005 the album..." umm... it's 2012?
  • " by such magazines as " remove "such magazines as".
  • Avoid # for "number" in the prose.
  • "August 1999 - April 2000" see WP:DASH.
  • "In the album's title, The Marshall Mathers LP is a more serious and personal album than his major-label debut," don't know what this means. "In the album's title...." why does that make it more serious and personal?
  • " in both clean and explicit versions." suitable links for these kinds of releases?
  • Don't overlink The Slim Shady LP.
  • " ("Stan","I'm Back",& "Marshall Mathers")" spaces after commas!!
  • "Eminem went on to answer his critics more frequently in some of his later works." your opinion?
  • "Two lines in "Marshall Mathers" parody the song "Summer Girls" by LFO." ref?
  • "a few other words " not encyclopaedic.
  • "As of July 17, 2011" it's March 2012... any chance all of these "as of" can be updated to be more relevant?
  • "throat splitting" what is this?
  • Is the Track listing table compliant with MOS:DTT?
  • Samples, only one has a reference. Why?
  • Certifications table, put Hungary in the right place.
  • Don't mix date formats in the references.
  • Ensure ref titles meet WP:DASH.
  • Make sure refs have publisher, access dates, etc (e.g. see ref 81).
  • Check ref 43 as well. Odd stuff.
  • Foreign language sources need to use a lang= parameter.
  • Dead links.
  • Bare URLs.

The Rambling Man (talk) 19:41, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP Comments
  • There's probably going to be a few months to several before I can get to working on this article, so I thought since you're interested now, I should give you a few notes.
  • The article is fully referenced by web sources. I know it has potential to grow into a very comprehensive contribution, but there are several printed sources that should be considered. Here are some biographic options.
  • By the looks of it, the article's layout is generally good. A section discussing the writing and recording would vastly improve its quality and comprehensiveness. Here's a lovely article from MTV News' archives on "Stan".
  • Chart and certification tables must undergo WP:DTT.
  • Are you sure the Controversy section is a summary of the entire Misogyny in hip hop culture article? If there is a slight relevance, you may consider {{See also}} or {{Further information}} instead.
  • Much of the information is unsourced and citations need to be provided. Again, printed sources work well.
  • My talk page is open if you have questions. It's great that you're working on this article. Good luck with GA, but it's a long way. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 21:15, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hal Block

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I've listed this article for peer review because… I believe the article could potentially be a feature article. I previously nominated it, but I was far too inexperienced and it wasn't prepared. I would be interested in any help improving the article. One previous area of failure was the pictures. I've attempted to ensure all pictures now used are in the public domain. However, any advice on any of the sections would be welcomed. While I've been nearly the sole contributor, I'm not proprietary about the article so please feel free to say anything. Thanks, BashBrannigan (talk) 16:14, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. You contacted me about this peer review...hope it's ok to comment here. I just had a cursory look at the article - sorry it took me so long to get around to it. While I'm not well versed in what FA standards are, I think the content you have written so far is very, very good. There's only a few little tweaks I suggest (copy edit stuff, minor rephrasing - nothing major). Aside from that, all the content looks well sourced and very well presented. I have a two-week vacation from school coming up, so I'd be happy to help you with any tweaking, etc so you can get this passed to FA status. I don't want to muck it up too much because I do think you've done a bang up job thus far. Pinkadelica♣ 07:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Any help, opinions, etc. would be great. Thanks! BashBrannigan (talk) 03:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Infobox: be consistent with italics for the titles of television shows.
  • "Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois, USA California" what does that mean?
>>Fixed
  • The image needs to have specific fair use justification for inclusion in this specific article.
>>I thought it did. The image description page has fair use justification for use in this article.
  • Why not link What's My Line? the first time?
>>Fixed
  • "of What's My Line?." avoid these double periods.
>>OK.
  • As a non-American, I have no idea what USO is. Please expand it in the lead for the benefit of the rest of the world.
  • "Chicago Sun Times " Sun-Times appears to be hyphenated in our article.
>>fixed
  • "Block was suspended and then fired. Block left show"... no need to repeat Block. And what happened to Block afterwards? The lead is supposed to summarise the whole article.
  • Captions with more than one sentence should always end in a period.
>>Fixed
  • "Hal Block was born August 2, 1913 in Chicago, Illinois. Block was originally from the Hyde Park area of Chicago,[1] According" ouch. No need for "Hal", no need for the second "Block", use "He" and why is there a capital "A" after a comma?
>>fixed, except for use of "Hal". First use of name in beginning paragraph of article's body should use full name.
  • "TV game show" is a little colloquial, we'd normally say "television" in preference to TV.
>>fixed throughout article
  • "then the University of Chicago, graduating in 1935, where he majored in law" move "majored in law" bit to after "University of Chicago".
>>fixed
  • "fraternity [6][7] " no spaces between text or punctuation and refs.
>>fixed
  • "At just 21, Block " "just" awards undue weight, your POV to this situation.
  • " Block decided to change his career path and attempt to make a living writing" how many verbs? decide, change, attempt, make, write.... "Block changed his career path to attempt to make a living" is a bit better, but all in all, this sentence sucks...
  • "Hal Block was considered as one of the best writers" again, don't repeat Hal.
  • "The 1930s and 1940s was the Golden Age of radio" is this a quote? Where's the direct ref?
>> sorry, not sure I understand. The direct quote is in the notes to the citation at the end of the sentence.
  • "Block defied the odds" this is an encyclopaedia, not a newspaper.

That's halfway, there's a lot to do here. I suggest a good copyedit from WP:LOCE to ensure neutral prose. I suggest you also make sure you consider writing as a professional article rather than a (perhaps) fan page? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Rambling Man. BashBrannigan (talk) 09:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Order For Merit to the Fatherland

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I have recently created over 20 other phalerisitcs related articles and am in the process of creating over 50 more in the next weeks. Feedback in the form of constructive criticism would be appreciated as I am relatively new at this. It would also prevent too many future corrections should I be doing something wrong. Cheers!

Thanks, Fdutil (talk) 03:44, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Sort of depends what you hope to achieve with these kinds of article. Is it a GA or an FL or just a decent B-class article?
  • The lead is too short. It should summarise the whole article.
  • " re establishment " needs a hyphen.
  • "honorary title" is a disambiguation link so needs to be made more specific.
  • "The Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" is a mixed civilian and military order" -> "The Order For Merit to the Fatherland is awarded to both civilians and members of the military."
  • "These classes are awarded sequentially from the IV to the I class. " seems unnecessary.
  • "Order For Service to the Fatherland IV" Service or Merit?
  • 24mm, 40mm, convert to Imperial for our US and Brit readers.
  • Don't put spaces between punctuation and references.
  • Partial list of recipients is a partial gallery. You could make a table including these images and dates of award, reasons etc.
  • Heading : Award Description is unnecessarily over-captitalised, should just be Award description. Check others.

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oxford United F.C.

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I've listed this article for peer review because the article has been largely improved from the two failed FAC attempts, and i would like comments on what else needs to be done to get in to FA status (third-time lucky). Please be nit-picky. Thanks, Eddie6705 (talk) 16:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • I fixed some hyphen/en-dash issues using a script. For these kind of sports articles, WP:DASH compliance is a must.
  • Nicknames aren't referenced explicitly.
    • see below.
  • What does "(as Headington United)" mean after the last nickname?
    • see below.
  • " on 16 May 2010 " maybe a bit too detailed for the lead?
    • Changed.
  • Not arguing with the history section here, but consider branching off, expanding and making an entirely separate OUFC history article.
    • Will consider this over easter when i have some time. Is the history section to large for it to go FA?.
  • Shouldn't "Rev" have a full stop after it as an abbreviation?
    • Added.
  • "Saint Andrew's church" would normally expect that to be Church (most churches I know have it capitalised when it's the full name...)
    • Capitalised.
  • "Old Headington, " looks odd to me just linking Headington in part of this.
    • Linked both words.
  • "The first game played " cricket or football? Previous sentence obfuscates this a little bit.
    • Clarified.
  • "Road, but this was redeveloped " - why "but" ? Perhaps reinforce the redevelopment meant that OUFC had to leave or something?
    • Added.
  • " was finally found in" maybe lose "finally".
    • Removed.
  • "during the 1940s. In 1899, six years after their formation" mildly confusing to suddenly drop back in time a few decades.
    • Relocated
  • " The team spent two seasons" you mentioned two teams in the previous sentence...
    • Clarified.
  • "finishing fifth and fourth respectively." not sure this works, since you've just said "1940s". Respective to what?
    • Added actual years.
  • "considered during the second season. " what "second season"? Be specific.
    • Done.
  • " just one fewer vote" -> "just one vote fewer"
    • Rearranged.
  • "They played their first season" you mention multiple clubs in the previous sentence, and in the lead you were using the singular for OUFC, not the plural.
    • Changed.
  • "The club installed floodlights in 1950, the first professional club in Britain to do so,[8] and the first floodlit game was held on 18 December against Banbury Spencer.[9]" reads clumsily to me repeating club and effectively repeating floodlights in a single sentence.
    • Rephrased.
  • League position graph is five years out of date.
    • see below.
  • "thanks to a James Constable hat-trick" reads like a tabloid, and is there a link for hat-trick for our non-footy readers?
    • Slight rephrase and linked.
  • "Rugby Union matches" this isn't a proper noun, no need for over-caps.
    • Done.
  • Attendances graph needs an update too. And the caption needs a full stop.
    • see below.
  • "Former Directors Nick Merry (L) and Jim Smith (R)" no need to capitalise Director and put (left) and (right) instead of your (L) and (R).
    • Changed.
  • Remove the "Notable players" "section" altogether.
    • Removed. Moved link to List of Oxford United players to top of section.
  • Three refs for youth team coach? And most of the other staff unreferenced? WP:CITEKILL.
    • Removed.
  • Club officials, why are people's names in bold? no need.
    • Unbolded.
  • Make sure the managers' table complies with MOS:DTT for WP:ACCESS to screen readers.
    • see below.
  • Heading in that table - Notes should be Refs since these are references.
    • see below.
  • What's the point in having all the managers here since 1949 when you have a main manager's article?
    • see below.
  • "Pre-advent " and "Post-advent", what happened to "Before" and "Since"?
    • Changed

The Rambling Man (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments. A few points: The nickname boys from up the hill was only used when the club were called Headington United. Since the change of name to Oxford United, the other two nicknames have been used almost exclusively. Also i cant find reference that specifically states "Oxford United have the nicknames.....", but the U's and Yellow are used frequently within the two club books, and the boys from up the hill was the title of a book on the early history of Oxford United. I will update both the attendances and position graphs when i figure out how i made them again (lost the originals). Will remove the managers table tomorrow, it was there as prequel to the full managers article and was never removed. Will replace it with a short description of the managers history, similar to Gillingham's article.Eddie6705 (talk) 21:13, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Strikethough those done. Eddie6705 (talk) 16:28, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Passenger Pigeon

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… We've taken this article fairly far along. Citations (and links) are more or less complete. Would like to get a GA out of this. Taxonomy (and fossils) are beyond expertise (I guess) of present contributors. I think that the article is especially important and relevant to current extinction and enviromental issues. Also, this is a "CD" qualified article, so it needs to be really good. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:21, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments some reasonably quick things....

  • Four paras in the lead seems a little hefty for this reasonably brief article. But just check WP:LEAD in case...
  • Do you really think we need to link the word "bird" for normal English speakers?
  • "when it went extinct " it became extinct.
  • "due to hunting and habitat destruction." because it was hunted and had its habitat destroyed.
  • "a large fraction", what does that actually mean? 9/10? 1/3?
  • "time.[2][A][3]" put notes one end or the other of this.
  • Don't link common locations like United States.
  • Lead is a little bit mixed up, you seem to refer to the species' extinction twice, its massive flocking twice. You don't need a lead for the lead...
  • Some items in the lead are referenced and noted, others aren't. Since the lead is supposed to not include anything that isn't in the main body, I imagine you could move all these refs and notes to the main body.
  • Why is e.g. in italics?
  • " living relative were thought to be the Zenaida doves" either relatives or was.
  • "If anything, Ectopistes is closer to the former, but relationships within this Columbidae lineage are not fully resolved yet." ref?
  • "The generic epithet translates" sorry, no expert, but what "generic epithet"?
  • " as the pigeon migrator." ref?
  • Don't link "dictionary".
  • Don't squash text between images.
  • More of the prose needs examination.
  • Don't mix date formats in the refs.
  • Ensure you use en-dashes for page ranges per WP:DASH.

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Raiden (Metal Gear)

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've started editing this article some months ago considering the amount of sources I could find to expand the reception and creation sections. However, I have doubts about what does this article require before a copyedit and GA review, since it's still a C-Class. My main doubts are the organization and length from the sections.

Thanks, Tintor2 (talk) 23:12, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments some quick things...

  • "video game character" is a dab link.
  • The infobox image needs specific fair use justification for inclusion in this article.
  • The infobox image caption is an incomplete sentence so no need for a full stop.
  • Infobox, hyphens in the "affiliations" should be en-dashes.
  • I'd be happy for you to include "series" in the first wikilink of Metal Gear.
  • "came up with the idea of" just seems a little loose prose to me, not professional.
  • "white haired" should be hyphenated.
  • "sneaking suit" - this isn't common at all. What is this?
  • "which make him hard " makes?
  • LittleBigPlanet appears to be just one word.
  • Doctor Watson -> Dr. Watson.

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Made the changes.Tintor2 (talk) 20:58, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zombie (fictional)

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I have been consolidating its information for the last several weeks. I feel that a great deal of good work has been done by previous editors, and the information is of good quality and well-sourced. It was, however, poorly organised; spread over three different articles with much overlap and little clarity as to jurisdiction. Now that it has been brought together, I was wondering if it might eventually be promoted to a higher class, possibly GA.

Thanks, Serendipodous 22:14, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Lead's too short per WP:LEAD for an article of this length.
  • Avoid bold links in the lead per the MOS.
  • "Half Life" is a dab.
  • We shouldn't have inline external links like ""The Death of Halpin Frayser".
  • Our article just calls it the Epic of Gilgamesh, not The Epic of Gilgamesh.
  • "works couldn't be properly " avoid contractions.
  • Avoid overlinking, e.g. George A. Romero is linked twice in quick succession, as is his Night of the Living Dead...
  • Avoid linking common words like "disease".
  • Para starting "The 1954 publication ..." is entirely unreferenced.
  • Zombi II is (according to our article) actually Zombi 2.
  • "countries.)[23]" not sure that's where the full stop should go.
  • "RotLD " put this in parentheses after the expanded version if you're going to use (a non-standard!) abbreviation.
  • the Evil Dead series is actually The Evil Dead series.
  • Other paragraphs without reference, I would suggest for a GA that any sentence/para making a claim needs to be verifiable.
  • "the "zombie apocalypse", " no need for this text to be in bold.
  • "it wouldn't be " again, avoid contractions.
  • New York Times should be The New York Times.
  • War of the Worlds should be The War of the Worlds.
  • Similarly for the other literary titles.
  • In comics and In television sections are entirely unreferenced (apart from YuYu Hakusho which for some reason has three references).
  • "game - was an " should be an en-dash.
  • Fix the [when] tag".
  • In music section is borderline a list of trivia.
  • A zombie walk in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. no period required.
  • Avoid bare URLs in the refs.
  • "2011-10=02." should be a - not a =.
  • Online refs should have publisher, author, access date, publication date information where appropriate.
  • Don't mix date formats in the refs.
  • Check titles of refs for comlpliance with WP:DASH.
  • Be consistent with author names, either first last or last, first.

The Rambling Man (talk) 12:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sam and Diane

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I have created and expanded this article for one month and would like to know your suggestions to make this either a GA-, A-, or FA-class. It has real-world coverage and references, and I wonder if there are a lot more or less than this article deserves.

Thanks, George Ho (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{doing}} Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just briefly: ther are a lot of presumptions/synthesis that needs clarification. Subject titles in the first section are too long and sing-songy/stroy like and not encyclopaedic. Otherwise well sourced and should have no probs at GA soon when stuff is answered. (i tagged some of them that need answering)Lihaas (talk) 07:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
UPDATE: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Sam_and_Diane&diff=480212801&oldid=480108485 --George Ho (talk) 21:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Better but just check for overlink and fragments like the list of whio chose "According to the 1993 article from ..."Lihaas (talk) 00:53, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There have been updates: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Sam_and_Diane&diff=481599731&oldid=480222093. --George Ho (talk) 23:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this article. I think that it needs a lot more work before it would have a chance at FAC, though it is closer to GA; here are some suggestions for improvement.

  • One thing I was struck by right away was that the article seems to make at least one claim that sounds like original research and is not backed up by the sources cited as far as I could tell. There is a section titled "Inspiration of other couples" which claims that "Sam and Diane are considered inspiration of television couples of later era by media." but the quote is only Chemistry between two characters slowly catches on and is great for a couple seasons; then the network suits realize they have something and suddenly you can't get away from the "will they or won't they" hooplah of, for example, Ross and Rachel (Friends), Mulder and Scully (X-Files), or Sam and Diane (Cheers). [9] I read all the refs in this section and none of them say anything that Cheers inspired another show that I could see.
  • Another problem with the article is that the prose is awkward in places and sounds like it was perhaps written by someone whose primary language is not English - for example "Sam and Diane are considered inspiration of television couples of later era by media." this could be better as something like "Some media critics consider Sam and Diane to be the inspiration of later couples"
  • Or another example from the lead is The on-off romance between Sam, a working class, retired athlete turned bartender and ladies' man, and Diane, a college graduate and cocktail waitress,[1]... this makes it sound like Sam turned into a ladies' man after retiring, but I think the show made clear that he was always a ladies' man.  Fixed: [10] --George Ho (talk) 04:48, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Or organizationally, why are the show's creators Glen and Les Charles and James Burrows not even mentioned in the first paragraph of Creation and casting?  Fixed: [11] --George Ho (talk) 05:12, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Or the quote box from Ted Danson lists him as appearing just on NPR, but the transcript makes clear he was on the NPR show Fresh Air and I would specify that  Fixed: [12] --George Ho (talk) 05:12, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is the novel When Angels Fail to Fly a reliable critical source to be quoted in this article? Is the author a recognized critic? Is the novel notable? See WP:RS  Fixed into "Popular culture" section: [13]. --George Ho (talk) 04:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Avoid short (one or two sentence) paragraphs and sections - they are choppy and interrupt the narrative flow of the article. For example, the Janet ELdridge section is just one sentence In the three-part episode, "Strange Bedfellows" (1986), Sam dates an intellectual politician Janet Eldridge (Kate Mulgrew), a rival of Diane.
  • I would also keep the focus on Sam and Diane - what does the previous sectence really have to do with the two characters and their relationship?
  • What does this mean "even if it won"?? Because Cheers was perceived to be dominated by Sam and Diane during Season Two (1983–1984), even some people felt that Cheers, even if it won, did not deserve to win Outstanding Comedy Series of 1984 Emmy Awards.[28][29][30] Did it win or not? Surely almost two decades later the winner of the Emmy is known, this sounds like it was written before the winner was announced.  Fixed, I think: [14]. --George Ho (talk) 05:05, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would try to include more contemporary critical reaction (from the 1980s, when the shows were new)
  • This needs a copy edit
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:43, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Willow Grove Park Mall

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is currently a GA and I want to see what it needs to succeed at FAC

Thanks, Dough4872 04:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

The Rambling Man (talk) 17:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, I have replied to the above comments. Dough4872 01:42, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store

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Previous peer review
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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it recently passed a GA candidacy (and a GA review), along with the peer review that came before that. Now WWB and I wish to take it on to FA, but we want to have this peer review first to focus specifically on the Featured Article Criteria. The more we fix up now, the less we have to do at FAC, right?

Anyways, WWB has a large COI in this article and, as a member of Wikiproject Cooperation (as is he), i'm here to help assist in the improvement of this article. Depending on how extensive the improvements suggested in this peer review are, we may need to make a userspace version of the article so that WWB can help as well, since he will not be actively editing the mainspace version of the article. But, for now, I think it's best to see what sort of peer review responses we get.

Thanks, SilverserenC 05:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - lede says: "During the 1990s, the company was the subject of controversy for discriminatory practices against gay and African American employees."
  • However, the heading in the body is: "Alleged racial and sexual discrimination".
  • In reality it was sued for racial discrimination against employees and guests, and sexual harassment against employees, but never for discrimination against gays, as I recall. Just demonstrated against. "After demonstrations by gay rights groups the company ended its policy and stated it would not discriminate based on sexual orientation."
  • "Policy toward sexual orientation" section needs some minor rewording, so that it follows a chronological order and is not so clunky.
  • The lede needs correcting. MathewTownsend (talk) 13:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, i've changed the lede so that it discusses the sexual orientation policy change seperately from the discrimination against African-Americans and female employees. Also, i've tried to emphasize the dates and chronology in the policy section better. How does it look? SilverserenC 21:46, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have copy edited a little in the lede and the final section. I think the article is fine and covers the controversial issues, IMO. MathewTownsend (talk) 15:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. I noticed one dead link and marked it - ref 21, I think. MathewTownsend (talk) 15:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) That's good. Do you think there's anything else that they might be specifically looking for at AfD? Maybe something special added to the references? They always seem to say something about the reference format. :/ SilverserenC 15:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
K. I'll check it out. SilverserenC 15:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
...weird. A direct url link doesn't work, even when that's the url on the page when i'm looking right at the article in the Tennessean. Maybe i'll just use a mirror. SilverserenC 15:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AfD - Articles for deletion? I can't see any reason for that at all! MathewTownsend (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not AfD. *facepalms* Sorry, FAC, I meant to say. I'm kinda wrapped up in an AfD right now, so i'm a little distracted. SilverserenC 16:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hyderabad, India

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Previous peer review
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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because the article is now a GA and it has the potential to become an FA. Unless we kick start it with a PR, nothing can be done. The article is now comparable to other Indian FA's, and almost all possible fixes have been made. X.One SOS 06:45, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. Yet to meet FA criteria 1b (comprehensiveness). Specific areas to work on are as follows. (I had only a cursory glance on the article, so may have missed something, please excuse).

Demographics More data needed; just population is not enough. Sex ratio, literacy, density, religious break-up are needed. If available, data of slums (either from census or sample surveys) is needed. Among these data, if something is noticeably different from national or state data, an explanatory line may be added (not must though, just to quench the curiosity of the reader).

Culture Mention cinema, theater, literature, architecture, any idiosyncrasies or peculiarities of the city. I see some info on cinema and theater are there in Media section, but probably these are more suitable in culture. As of now, the Culture section is too much cuisine-heavy.

Other comments No data on healthcare. Data on crime is missing. May be incorporated in Demographics section. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:56, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Economy Some inline comments inserted. Please address. There is no mention of informal sector of economy; I think a large number of people in Hyderabad are involved in informal sector, right? Presently, the economy section is too much tech-heavy. At times, the section reads like advertisement brochure— 4th best city to live, best place to business!. You are not selling the city!! These are ok, but not everything. There are no poor people there? Any estimate of unemployment? Any percentage of population available who are in informal sector? (I understand not every data will be available, but as much as possible is warranted). Besides the recent tech developments, Hyderabad might house important national institutions, such as Andhra Bank. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 07:36, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Slum data :  Done
  • Sex ratio :  Done
  • Literacy rate :  Done

Will work on the others shortly. X.One SOS 07:40, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comment on demography. The growth rate between 2001 and 2011 is a phenomenal 87.2% !! I doubt if just population increase can cause that. There might have been increase in the area under Hyderabad city? What are the population densities in 2001 and 2011? If addition of newer areas under the city limit is a major reason for such population increase, that deserves a mention. If for some other reason, that also needs to be mentioned. 87% decennial growth rate for such a metropolitan city is unbelievable. --Dwaipayan (talk) 07:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

History The Telengana dispute deserves mention, as (IMHO) the disputeb and movement is actually quite old, although the agitation is new, right?--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ya, it deserves a mention. I'll see if I can sort this out soon. X.One SOS 11:10, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Telangana bit and density :  Done X.One SOS 11:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Education The following sentence "The International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT) since 1998 and the Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) since 2008 were set up with the technical and financial collaboration with the Government of Japan, as well as the Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) since 2008." So all the three institutes were in collaboration with Japan?

Also, Osmania Medical College deserves a mention as the article mentions relatively less significant institutes such as Wigan & Leigh College.--Dwaipayan (talk) 22:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Eisfbnore talk 13:25, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The city is one of the largest metropolitans of India with an area of 650 square kilometres (250 sq mi) having the population of 6,809,970 and 7,749,334 living in the metropolitan area, making Hyderabad the fourth most populous city and the sixth-most populous urban agglomeration in the country."—two participial constructions (-ing) in one sentence are disfavoured. I'd swap 'making' for 'which makes'.
  • "The Kakatiya dynasty's headquarters was at Warangal."—subject-verb agreement: the headquarters are plural.
  • "There are several movements to invalidate the merger of Telangana and Andhra; major being in 1969, 1972 and now."—what follows a semicolon must always be a complete sentence; try "the major were in 1969, 1972 and now."
  • "As of 2011, the movement continues with Hyderabad being major center of strikes and agitations."—"with" is a poor linking word, and the participial construction is not very elegant, so I would try something like "As of 2011, the movement continues; Hyderabad is a major center of strikes and agitations."
  • "The Greater Hyderabad, administered by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation was created in April 2007 following an order from the Government of Andhra Pradesh."—comma after "Corporation".
  • "Hyderabad Metro, the city's under-construction rapid transit system, is expected to operate three lines by 2014."—I'm not sure whether "under-construction" is an adjective. I would rephrase the parenthetical phrase to "the city's rapid transit system currently under construction".
  • "Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station, located at center of the city, is the main bus station of the city with 74 platforms for 89 buses, carrying 80,000–120,000 passengers in a day."—in the center of the city.
  • "Among the early newspapers in Hyderabad was The Deccan Times establish in the early 1780s." → "Among the early newspapers in Hyderabad was The Deccan Times which was established in the early 1780s."
  • "Ravindra Bharati, Shilpakala Vedika and Lalithakala Thoranam are well-known auditorium for theatre and performing arts in the city."—remove the hyphen from "well-known" as it is not an adjective but an adverb+participle. Eisfbnore talk 13:25, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (album)

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to take this article to FA status in the near future and fellow editors at peer review are always great at spotting things that may need improving .

Thanks, Pyrrhus16 18:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

National symbols of Argentina

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like input on how I can make this a Featured List soon.

Thanks, Bleff (talk) 03:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Lead is too long per WP:LEAD for an article of this length, wouldn't expect more than two paragraphs.
  • No reason for "National Flag" to be so capitalised.
  • Each symbol could be discussed, i.e. explain its relevance to Argentina.
  • Don't mix date formats in the refs.
  • Make sure all refs have publisher info, access dates etc.
  • Consider WP:ACCESS, i.e. ensure all images have descriptive alt text (not just the file names) and ensure the table is formatted per MOS:DTT.

The Rambling Man (talk) 17:22, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The list is too narrow right now, it should have one or two more columns. One should be a description, as pointed by Rambling Man, such as who was San Martín, what is a gaucho, what type of sport is pato, etc. In which places of Argentina can the animals, plants and minerals be found, or the circumstances of the creation of the flag, cockade and anthem. In most cases, English speaking people do not know about them, so they will see them as mere meaningful names.
Another field could be for the dates when the symbols were chosen as national symbols, or if they are defacto symbols, never officially selected as such.
The "symbol" field should be consistent in linking the generic ideas ("national anthem", father of the nation", "national personification", etc). In many cases they link the specific symbols ("Flag of Argentina", "Logo of Argentina", etc).
The anthem should link File:Himno Nacional Argentino short instrumental.ogg.
I don't think "former occupant Spain" is correct. Spain never invaded Argentina, Argentina (or what we would nowadays consider Argentina) was part of Spain and waged a war of independence to became a new country. Cambalachero (talk) 22:18, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Period 8 element

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to receive suggestions on how to improve it to GA.

Thanks, Double sharp (talk) 09:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Don't overlink "IUPAC systematic names" in the lead.
  • Define what IUPAC is before using the abbreviation.
  • Who is " Pekka Pyykkö" and why should I care about what he said or did?
  • Avoid overlinking in general.
  • You link "g-block" on the second usage, and have it bold in the first usage. Both need fixing.
  • What is "the Madelung rule"
  • Per WP:ACCESS you shouldn't use just colour to display a given property. You need a screen-readable symbol too.
  • What's GSI?
  • What's JINR?
  • Resolve the [dubious] tag.
  • "Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung" don't over link, and use this (or better, the English translation) in the first time instead of just GSI.
  • What's GANIL?
  • "quantum and relativistic effects the " both these terms are overlinked.
  • Pyykkö model section needs expanding.
  • Note 1 needs reference.
  • Electron configuration table should use col and row scopes for screenreaders per MOS:DTT.
  • Avoid bare URLs in the refs.
  • Format refs correctly (e.g. ref 28 has no title, author, publisher info etc.)

The Rambling Man (talk) 09:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A very first thought (didn't even read carefully): this article has an incorrect grouping (in sense of readability). "Elements" is a section to discuss physics and/or chemistry. Nucleosynthesis is the one to go alone (as it is so tedious to read and in fact boring for most people), not properties!--R8R Gtrs (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Racine Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…

I'm looking to improve the overall tone and style of the article.

Thank you very much, Heinl1cj (talk) 20:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Note: Peer review in this case is very premature. The process is intended for articles on which a considerable amount of work has already been done, not for articles in the first stages of development. Furthermore, articles with major cleanup banners are specifically excluded from the PR process. Personally I am surprised that the subject is considered notable enough to warrant a WP article; can you point to any similar ones? In any event, I suggest that you seek help, possibly from editors concerned with WP:WikiProject Wisconsin, or WP:WikiProject Scouting, in getting the article developed further. It may be advangeous for you to study some of the basic help guides, e.g. WP:DEV and the Manual of Style WP:MOS. Brianboulton (talk) 00:45, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Assassination of William McKinley

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I've listed this article for peer review because… I'd like to see if reviewers feel it meets FA criteria.

Thanks, Wehwalt (talk) 18:06, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do this. --Noleander (talk) 02:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wording - " just over a week later " - May be better to just state the number of days "eight days later ..."
  • Wording - "Czolgosz had searched for the reasons to explain the hard times .." - Searched strikes me as too literal. Perhaps "Disturbed by the economic Panic of 1893, C turned to ..." would be better.
  • Photos, maps, and quote boxes are excellent: good assortment, good quality.
  • The pics seem to missing "alt" text for seeing impaired. Not sure if that is required for FA, but if it is ...
It is not, presently, and my experience in the past with alt text, the confusion and pickiness of it, leave me disinclined to add it unless forced.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. Please view all my comments here as mere suggestions from a FAC amateur. --Noleander (talk) 13:41, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FAC is not handed down on stone tablets. I am glad for your clueful comments.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:14, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Book: The Man Who Shot McKinley - missing ISBN.
    fixed. Alarbus (talk) 03:24, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • See also section: I'd move it under the two large pics ... it gets lost where it is now.
  • Year needed: " Influenced by a speech he heard by fellow anarchist Emma Goldman, Czolgosz decided to kill McKinley, ..." I think the reader would want to know the year of that decision at this point in the lead.
  • Wording: "as infection within him turned to gangrene. " - word "within" seems odd to me. Maybe "As his infection became gangrenous" or similar.
  • Background section: Maybe split it into two subsections: one for Pres & one for Leon. Right now it is Pres/Leon/Pres. I'd prefer them separated. But maybe that is just me.
  • Section timeframe? - "McKinley gave only a short speech at his second inauguration." Sentence needs the year for context. In general, every section should start with a statement of the year/month within the first 2 or 3 sentences to give the reader the who/what/where/when context. The author of the article knows it all, of course, but readers tend to jump around.
  • "isolationism" - add link
  • "He was only just ahead of one ..." - not sure what that is saying? That he was standing in front? or that others followed him in tackling the assassin? Clarify the wording.
  • Overall, my impression so far is very, very positive. Excellent detail, nice prose. But I'll keep looking for nitpicks to ensure it has a smooth ride at FAC.
  • " out on a stretcher to an electric ambulance..." - Can the article define "electric ambulance"? I've never heard of that before. Is it a kind of electric car? or a gas-powered ambulance with electrical medical equipement in it?
It was electric-powered. Part of the point of the fair was to show off electric power (brought from Niagara, which was one reason why McKinley visited there) by using it any way they could. Thus the lighting of the fair at twilight was especially impressive for that time.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Word that he had admitted to being an anarchist led to attacks on his fellows: one was nearly lynched in Pittsburgh." - The word "fellows" is a bit ambiguous, some might think it means personal acquaintances. Maybe say " led to attacks on anarchists in several cities ..." or similar.
  • I checked the rights of all the images, and they appear to be okay: no fair use rationales are needed.
  • Readers would benefit from a small amount of material, perhaps in the Background section, on the prior history of US presidential assassination attempts. Maybe just one small paragraph. How many were there before? When? What security arrangement changes did the prior attempts lead to? After all, the article has a "Pres Assass" footer navBox, so it is reasonable to view this article as a "one in a series" article, which should give the reader the big picture before delving down into the details.
I don't know about a section, but I'll see if I can dig up a few sentences.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wording: " The procession of citizens greeting their Chief Executive ..." - Non US readers may not understand the term "Chief Ex". But the variation (vs President) is a good thing. Maybe link or define it here?
  • "... Czolgosz prepared to take a third shot. He was prevented when James Parker ..." - Maybe it is just me, but "He was prevented from doing so when ..." sounds better to my ears.
  • Dont lose importance: "For hundreds of years, abdominal gunshot wounds had meant death by gangrene or other infection, with doctors able to do little more than ease pain; only seventeen years previously, the first successful operation for such an injury had been performed". Those seem like two very important facts. Consider breaking into two sentences (each with own footnote & citation?) Also, clarify: "successful operation" meaning either (a) to cure/prevent/reverse gangrene? or (b) to fix/repair a gunshot wound in abdomen?
Repair without infection. In the days before penicillin and sulfa, obviously not easy given the bacteria our GI systems are filled with.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It appears that this episode happened right as medicine was transitioning from a cruder era into an era of x-Rays, anesthesia, antibiotics. Do any sources talk about the "If only the shot had been 5 years later, the medical field could have treated ...." ... if so, it may be good to include it.
Actually, the sources argue that if Park had operated, McKinley might have been saved. He performed a similar operation only two weeks later. I'll put in a mention.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chronology confusing: "At 2:15 am on Saturday, September 14, 1901, President McKinley died.[72] Vice President Roosevelt, 12 miles (19 km) from the nearest telegraph or telephone in the Adirondack wilderness, had been notified of McKinley's collapse by a park ranger sent to find him. At the time of McKinley's death, Roosevelt was on his return journey to Buffalo, ..." It took my brain a few seconds to get that sorted. I'd recommend stating the facts in strict chronological order: Collapse -> ranger find -> start return journey to Buffalo -> death
  • Wording: "Leech believed the nation marked a transition at McKinley's death:..." - Very, very key fact. Good way to end the article. Wording should be more direct, as in: "McKinley's death led to a momentous change in the character of the nation's leadership. In the words of Leech: ...."
I don't want to push it that far. And I'm really trying to keep the focus off Roosevelt, for once.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recommend a link to Anarchism in the United States somewhere. I know See Also sections are taboo in FAC; so perhaps put it either (1) within prose of Background section on Cz; (2) in the InfoBox under "political motivation" etc; (3) using a {{SeeAlso}} template under Background sec title.
  • Wording: "The President gave it to her, then resumed work without his trademark charm" - I initially read that as "he became grumpy and aloof after he gave it away." I had to think: okay, why did giving away the flower make him unhappy? Then it finally dawned on me. Suggest reword to " ..without his trademark" or " ..without his longstanding trademark"
  • Okay, I'm done for now. Let me know if you want me to make another pass through the article sometime.

End Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 02:58, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll work though these when I have had more coffee. Thanks for your hard work.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your work. I will probably not put this up for FAC until McKinley clears the page, or has enough support to pass. I will probably ask you to look in and comment at the FAC.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:13, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see McKinley is at FAC now. I'll go take a look at it. --Noleander (talk) 14:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've done (in some fashion) or commented on all of these.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:39, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Eisfbnore

  • "The President of the United States, William McKinley was visiting the Exposition, shaking hands with ordinary citizens at a public reception when he was fatally wounded by two shots from the gun of Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist." – a) missing comma after 'McKinley'; b) I'd reorder the last part of the sentence into "...from the gun of the anarchist Czolgosz"
I think that way of introducing Czolgosz is a little too direct for this particular setting.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:39, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Secretary to the President, George B. Cortelyou feared an assassination attempt would take place during the event at the Temple of Music, and twice took it off the schedule." – another missing comma (after 'Cortelyou')
  • "In so doing, he interested himself in anarchism." – would be more idiomatic with "In doing so,..." unless I'm missing a point in American usage
  • "Two American presidents had been assassinated in the 19th century—Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James Garfield in 1881 John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin, had been embittered by the Confederate defeat in the American Civil War; Charles Guiteau, who had killed Garfield, was an eccentric (possibly insane) who had been motivated by personal political and religious views." – missing full stop (period) after '1881'.
  • The section heading "Czolgosz stalks the President" sounds a bit gauche
  • "Upon arrival in Buffalo, the presidential party was driven though the fairgrounds on the way to the Milburn House, pausing for a moment at the Triumphal Bridge at the Exposition so the visitors could look upon the fair's attractions" – presumably the 'though' should be 'through'
  • "Cortelyou warned McKinley that many would be disappointed as the President would not have time to shake hands with all who would line up to meet him." – would be better if you'd swap 'as' for 'if'
  • I don't like the second sentence fragment in the caption text "Scene of the shooting inside the Temple of Music. Spot where McKinley was shot marked with an X." It would be better if you'd put an 'is' before 'marked' and a 'the' before 'Spot'
  • I must say I'm a bit surprised that you only have one citation to Johns' book, which, from the title, I'd guess to be the only book focussing solely on this assassination.

Nice work, and I can't help saying that I think it's a bit eerie that the French have such good articles about assassinations of US presidents... Eisfbnore (下さいて話し) 23:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be a translation, more or less of the old English article, which was reasonably good and I considered keeping parts of it but decided to rewrite almost all of it, for cohesion. The Johns cite is from a bit I did keep; I have it on order but it has not yet come in (hopefully sometime next week). The other bit which is "legacy" is the bit about the Secret Service at the end. Many thanks for the review, I will work through these tonight or tomorrow.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Except as noted, I've done those things. Thank you again for your thoughtful comments.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:39, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My thanks to all those who contributed. As apparently the McKinley article, my conom with Coemgenus, is just waiting for the paint to dry, I'm going to nom this for FA.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:35, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alliance for the Future of Austria

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I've listed this article for peer review because I want to make the article a "good" one.

Thanks, Xt-3 (talk) 18:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • At first glance, the best thing you could do would be to add more citations. Shoot for at least one per paragraph. In my experience, Google News is a good way to find articles to cite.
  • It would probably be a good idea to translate all the non-English text in the article.
  • The references should usually come right after the punctuation at the end of the sentence being cited.
  • I'm not sure the lead section lines up with the WP:LEAD guideline. The lead should summarize the text, there shouldn't be anything in the article that isn't broadly summarized in the lead.
  • I'm curious about the use of the coordinates in article, is 46.582389,14.28275 the location of their headquarters?
  • I'm not sure if all the small sections are a good idea, maybe try to expand or condense them? Mark Arsten (talk) 23:07, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks Mark, I know its not so easy on peer reviewing articles that are based on Austrian topics ,but I appreciate your support. Abut the coordinates, no they aren't. The closets is LAT: 48.205928 LON: 16.357913 Ok I could try to do some translation work it needs some time,but I can do that. Good idea the sections could get cut down if needed in other cased maybe its better to expand.

Lets do that.

The best thing would remove the coordinates first. I'm gonna do that now. --Xt-3 (talk) 18:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks I'm looking forward to do that. --Xt-3 (talk) 21:42, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ready Flowers

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I've listed this article for peer review because…

There seems to be a number of biased parties editing this article.

Thanks, FloristExpert (talk) 03:49, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Alright, will do a review soon. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:34, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, this is a pretty short article--the best thing that you could do for it would be to add sources and expand it. You should only expand it based on what you find in the sources though. As far as bias goes, try to just note the facts of what reliable sources say. That might make the article a bit short, but it will be hard for biased editors to argue with you if you are citing facts from reliable sources. Usually, the best way to expand an article like this is to do a Google News archive search. You might be able to find something on Google books too. You generally want to shoot for at least one citation per paragraph. Also, there shouldn't be spaces between citations. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, you only have to search for results after 2004, since they were founded the next year. That really narrows it down. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:55, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Carmen

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.

Carmen is one of the most popular of all operas, beloved not only of a worldwide public but of such masters of music as Wagner, Brahms and Tchaikovsky. When it played in Germany, Bismarck just couldn't keep away, and Friedrich Nietzsche said it made him a better person. I've done my best to make this into a worthy article, though much credit is due to earlier editors who provideda lot of excellent basic material which I have been happy to use. While this PR proceeds I will work on the list of recordings. All comments and suggestions keenly awaited. Brianboulton (talk) 19:09, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt
A fine effort. I've enjoyed Carmen many times over the years and am glad to see the article in such a fine condition. Ah, my customary list of nitpicks:


Lede
  • Is there any way to avoid the clash of the 36es in the first paragraph?
  • "Later commentators " This and the next sentence seem a bit misplaced where they are.
  • "has maintained its position" Possibly a "since" after "has" may help, but I won't mourn greatly if you disregard.
  • " there is still no standard edition of the opera" I would omit "still", which implies it may come to pass, about which I would not hold my breath.
Synopsis
  • "José arrives unobtrusively with the new guard" Unobtrusively? Given that directors seem wedded to staging that scene in a most spectacular manner, I'm not quite sure this is the proper term. Also some reference to the guard being changed might not go amiss.
  • In the many performances I've seen, although the guard and the children are presented in an elaborate spectacle, Jose enters without ceremony. However, I have removed "unobtrusively"
  • "The smuggler's hideout in the hills" Possibly "smugglers' "? I'm not certain on this.
  • "read the cards" Perhaps expand slightly.
  • "José is sent away to guard the contraband." This may slightly confuse the reader who has just had the booty come onstage. Jose is going to guard the approaches or some such rather than standing over it.
  • " Escamillo confesses" He's rather up front about it, actually.
  • toreador's song." You have called it the Toreador song, and have not referred to him directly as a toreador.
  • In fact he is called a toreador in the lead and in the roles table. I have standardised "toreador's song", removing the intrusive capital
  • You might want to mention in Act 4 that Carmen refuses to leave fatalistically or some such.
  • ", as the crowds flock from the arena to find him confessing to the murder of the woman he loved." Perhaps "as the crowd exits the arena, they find Jose standing over Carmen's body, and he confesses to killing the woman he loved."
Creation
  • " so there is" perhaps "resulting in"
  • The sentence about the librettists' prior relationships could benefit from being placed earlier in the paragraph.
  • The first sentence of the next paragraph would benefit from the loss of an "1873".
Characterization
  • "that would later find fuller expression" You could omit "later" without penalty.
  • "such as have deterred some of opera's most distinguished exponents." Perhaps, " ; this has deterred ..." And why exponents if they have been deterred? Consider the omission of the word "Even" in next sentence.
  • They are exponents of opera in general, rather than of this opera.
  • "Toreador's song" Suggest standardisation.
  • "Gounod" First usage, should be linked.
Performance history
  • "It was generally believed " Perhaps "at the time", for clarity, should be added.
  • " Drury Lane theatre" Is this the customary capitalisation? I see the redirect works.
  • "In the event ..." This sentence strikes me as a bit confusing.
  • "with the Viennese public" Perhaps avoid the word "Viennese" due to its proximity to "Vienna".
  • "was the springboard towards the opera's rapid ascent" I would say "began the opera's ..."
  • "among the first recorded instances " If you do not mean to say that they were recorded on media, suggest "recorded" be replaced with, perhaps, "known" or another synonym.
  • "the fate that she personifies" Death?
  • I think this is inferred.
  • " as Micaëla reappears and sings her duet with José " Pedantic, but it takes two people to sing a duet effectively.
Recordings
  • Afro-American. This term may ring oddly to American ears. Can it be worked around?
  • I'm not sure. Can you suggest an alternative (that would not sound strange to European ears)?
Well done, as always.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:09, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Gerda Arendt
love the opera, hear the music now, just a few comments:
lede
  • "tells the story of the downfall of Don José" - the novella is told by him, but the title figure is Carmen, could that show?
  • In fact, only chapter 3 of the novella is recounted by Jose. However, I am not quite certain of your point, here.
  • I think you got it below, thanks.
  • "brilliance of melody, harmony and orchestration" seems very general
  • The lead is a very general summary of the article. A fuller discussion of te music's character is given later.
  • Yes, but tells me about nothing, could be said about many pieces, nothing special Carmen. A little hint at Spanish flavour perhaps?
  • perhaps include "a drama with real men and women instead of the usual Opéra-Comique "puppets""?
  • Are you suggesting that de Banville's comment be repositioned into the lead? I don't think that would be at all appropriate.
Writing history
  • "Micaëla does not feature in Mérimée's version", - suggest to say that she was added by the librettist
Surely that is an obvious inference? It would be verbose to underline the point
  • I can't word it well but feel that it's strange to give a name that doesn't feature, could be Cinderella does not feature. I would instead like that the librettists invented a female counterpart, ... you name it.
Music
  • what is "full fortissimo"?
  • I have removed "full" and provided a more helpful link on "fortissimo"
Musical numbers
  • not really helpful if you don't read French, could be a table with translations, no?
  • I could add translations, though the object of this list is to indicate reference points rather than to relate the story. See, for example, Les pêcheurs de perles. On the other hand, we included translation in Tosca. What do other reviewers think?
other
  • It was in the article before I began my reconstruction. It's interesting, but pretty well indecipherable, even in its enlarged form. I think its function would be mainly decorative.
  • I don't really want to add any more detail to the adaptations section; if this is mentioned, why not others of the 70-odd films? I am anxious to keep the focus of the article on the opera. A separate listing of adaptations and derivations is being prepared as a subarticle, and this film will of course be listed there.Brianboulton (talk) 12:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for a great improvement! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • The point about Carmen's character s good, and I will address this in the "characterisation" section rather than the lead. Probbaly the significance of the habanera can be highlighted, too. I will work on this. Thank you, Gerda, for your other comments. Brianboulton (talk) 13:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note to reveiwers, 15 March: I am experiencing regular interruptions on my broadband connection (it disappeared for 12 hours yesterday) so my interactions here may be intermittent for a while (engineers due Monday 19th!). I will do my best to deal with your comments, so please keep them coming. Brianboulton (talk) 09:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC) (Problem under control at the moment)[reply]

Image layout: the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Location states: "Do not place images on the left at the start of any section or subsection. Images on the left must be placed somewhere after the first paragraph." There are currently four images positioned that way. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:44, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

:I have always understood this referred only to main sections, and that it was OK to have images at the top left of sub-sections. Though even then there are two images at the top left of main sections. Tim riley (talk) 12:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a guideline. It used to refer to left-aligned images placed under level-three headings, and was a bloody nuisance then. The guideline was removed, several years ago. Someone has restored it, in an even more prohibitative form, creating an even bigger nuisance. It may solve some problems, but it merely creates others and hampers sensible page design. Fortunately it remains a guideline, not a requirement. Brianboulton (talk) 13:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Tim riley

I've amended a few typos. Lest you think I've gone barmy, I have checked with the OED and Chambers and "tranquillity" is right, though it looks wrong. There is an "its" that longs to be an "it's", but as it is in a quote (from Massenet to Bizet) I didn't like to alter it.

I'm afraid I can't blame Massenet; the error was mine, alas.
  • Synopsis
    • "foresees a mutual night of dancing" – "mutual" isn't quite right here, I feel, but I can't suggest anything better.
  • Creation
    • "He was given assurances that the story would be toned down, that Carmen 's character would be softened, and offset by Micaëla, "a very innocent, very chaste young girl"." – Two questions: who gave him the assurances? And who is being quoted?
    • "Bizet appears to have resumed work on Carmen" – I take this to mean the opera, not the character, so itals wanted.
    • "During the period of rehearsals which began in the autumn" – comma wanted before "which", I think. And for "autumn", perhaps give the name of the month: antipodean readers' susceptibilities, you know.
    • "the conducting score used at the premiere diverges from each of these documents" – "diverge" means to go in different directions, which doesn't seem quite right here; perhaps just "differs"?
  • Characterisation
    • "Unusually in the opéra comique tradition, the characters in Carmen are drawn from proletarian life. However, most of them …are familiar types within the genre." – Mixed messages here: if they are unusual how are they also familiar?
    • "The dramatic personality of the character, and the range of moods she is required to express, call for exceptional acting and singing talents. This has deterred some of opera's most distinguished exponents" – according to whom?
      • According to whichever humble scribe wrote this note in the excellent Del Prado handbook. Unfortunately, writers are not specifically credited; there is a list of names given as responsible for "text". The name I have used in the citation is that of the series editor; I don't think I can be more specific.
  • Assembling the cast
    • "a staunch ally of Bizet's" – "a staunch ally of Bizet"?
  • Premiere and original run
    • "the last-named was overheard complaining bitterly that Bizet had stolen the music of Micaëla's Act 3 aria from him" – does anyone say which piece of Gounod's he accused Bizet of plagiarising? And if so was there any real similarity?
    • "his mentor, Nadezhda von Meck" – patroness, certainly, but mentor?
  • Early revivals
    • "…at Her Majesty's Theatre" – but earlier "Drury Lane theatre" has a lower-case "t". I see Wehwalt has already mentioned this and you have dealt with it. Tim riley (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Does ref 52 cover the Patti and Dublin statements as well as the US and Russia ones?
      • It covers everything back to the Belgian premiere
    • "where Chancellor Otto von Bismarck" – tabloidese? Perhaps " where the Chancellor …."?
  • Worldwide success
    • The second sentence, quote and all, lacks a citation
      • The quoted NYT notice is given in the Met's archive, which is the next citation given. As I have not seen the actual NYT issue, I can't cite it directly. I could cite the Met again, I suppose, but I tend to avoid successive citations to the same source.
    • "Caruso made numerous pencil sketches of the devastation before he and the company were rescued." – interesting, but is it relevant to Carmen?
  • Refs
    • The blue link for Edward Greenfield could be moved up to his first mention (The Penguin Guide to Opera on Compact Discs at ref 85)
  • Sources
    • A few oclc numbers missing
      • Yes, I've forgotten where to find these. Finetooth showed me once, but I can't remember. Can you remind me?

I greatly enjoyed this article, and learned a fair bit, too. I thought I knew Carmen pretty well, but I find I didn't. I shall now go and treat myself to a dip into the Beecham recording, recits and all. – Tim riley (talk) 12:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the review and the helpful comments. I have only responded when necessary; otherwise you may assume that I have followed (or as good as) your suggestions. Enjoy TB's version (is that with Victoria De los Angeles - he did it more than once?). I have been enjoying a slightly more recent version, from the Met in 1987, with Carreras and Agnes Baltsa. Great stuff. Brianboulton (talk) 22:38, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Cg2p0B0U8m

This reads very well and a lot of polish has gone into the revamp. I will type out my comments in the next few days. A couple to start: why is there a difference between the opening run of 36 in the introduction and 48 in premiere and initial run? Also, the scene settings in the synopsis are not correct according to the 1875 vocal score (see the two pdfs on IMSLP); they were correct prior to the revamp and to be accurate I suggest using those. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 23:42, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and I will look forward to your further comments. On these two points: first, the sources show that the total of 48 includes the additional 12 performances after the production was brought back in November 1875. I will look for a way of making this clearer. On the second point, I have deliberately made the scene settings less specific, since most productions depart significantly from the details given in the 1875 vocal score. I don't feel strongly about this, however, if it perceived as a problem. Brianboulton (talk) 12:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the danger is that if it departs from the established descriptions anyone can change these settings. My preference is to stick with Bizet's wording.Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, I will revert to the original scene settings. Brianboulton (talk) 00:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have some comments on the new synopsis. Although I understand that the intention has been to reduce it to around 800 words, (I am not proposing large restorations) I think many useful details which bring the characters and situations to life need some clarification to help the reader (I am using the Schott-Eulenberg full score with dialogue). My suggested changes are in bold:
Act 1

  • The men plead with her to say when she will love them (p97)
  • she throws a flower to Don José, who had been ignoring her but is now annoyed by her insolence.(113-166; he also calls her a witch)
  • Micaëla returns and gives José a letter and a kiss from his mother (p117 onwards – the kiss figures very strongly in the Duo)
  • José agrees to free her hands, and as she is led off to prison she pushes her escort to the ground and runs off laughing. (p192; the curtain then falls)

Act 2

  • Carmen is delighted to learn of José's release from (p224)
  • Escamillo ("Vivat, vivat le Toréro"). Invited in, he introduces himself
  • Carmen refuses – she is in love, and she wishes to wait for José.(p285)
  • but her song is joined by a distant bugle call from the barracks.(p307 this is one the mini masterstrokes of Bizet)

Act 3

  • that the cards are foretelling her death, and Don José’s.(p413 “moi d’abord, ensuite lui”)
  • Obviously a lot happens in the Duo; I would suggest amending ‘The pair fight, but are interrupted by the returning smugglers…’ to

José challenges Escamillo to a knife-fight. José finds himself at the mercy of Escamillo who releases him; when Escamillo's knife breaks, José is about to kill him, when Carmen rushes in and stops him (p480 ‘arrêtant le bras de Don José’ and Escamillo sings that she has saved his life)
Act 4

  • José is nearby, but Carmen is unafraid and says she will speak to him.(p572)
  • throws down the ring he gave her and tries to enter the arena.(p600-601 she attempts several times to get by)

Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 22:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I will look further at these, but in general I am not in agreement. Are you familiar with WP:PLOTSUM, which details Wikipedia's policy with regard to plot summaries for fictional works? This stipulates that the plot summary should provide a concise description of the work in question; the point is to explain the story, not to reproduce the experience. Specifically the policy says: "Do not attempt to recreate the emotional impact of the work through the plot summary". It seems to me that the additions you propose are contrary to this policy. Maybe they would add a little colour to the synopsis, but that is not its point. We could all find bits that could usefully be added in, if we were writing a full account of the opera story, but I am satisfied that the summary does its required job. It doesn't explain or cover everything, but I am quite sure that it gives the essence of the story to anyone approaching the opera for the first time. Brianboulton (talk) 01:15, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On another issue; while I understand that you are trying to improve the article, your practice of drip-feeding a few daily comments into this review, in no particular order, is not very helpful. I don't get any real sense that the article is being reviewed as a whole, rather that holes are being picked in it at random, with no particular end envisaged. I respect your knowledge, and have tried to accommodate most of your suggestions, but I think you have to accept that my approach is different from yours and that we will probably never agree on some details. Nor is it essential that we should. Brianboulton (talk) 01:15, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, we obviously disagree on how to ’explain the story’.
I am sorry that my method of adding comments is unhelpful. I am not picking holes at random. I printed out the article and went throughwriting on the things which struck me as needing change. I have then been typing out some (not all) of these, while checking them out at the same time. I thought it would be useful to add them as soon as I managed to finish type sections, but from now on I will type the remainging ones and post all here. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure you are not deliberately being unhelpful. But I am seeking to wrap this review up fairly soon; it has been open quite a while and the article has been pretty well gone over. I'll leave it open for a few more days, to give you a chance to post your final suggestions. Brianboulton (talk) 23:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On Performance history – Assembling the cast - My main comment here is that the information on Chapuy is confusingly London-centric – she was a rising star and her career was overwhelmingly in Paris, centred on the Opéra-Comique. The Mapleson quote is not really relevant, her retirement caused sadness in Paris too. However, it might have been nice to mention Deloffre’s fourth Bizet creation - and his last opera premiere before he too died just before the end of the first run. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as Chapuy is concerned, as she is only a marginal figure, I don't really want to extend this information, which is both accurate and reliably sourced. On Deloffre, if you can supply precise source details, I will add this information. Brianboulton (talk) 00:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your replies. Well the Chapuy is accurate and reliable, but it just seemed confusing to me in the context of this section of this article; I don't want more information added. Don't worry about Deloffre. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 19:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On Creation – characterisation - Sorry, but last two sentences of the third paragraph do not really make sense to me: is there evidence that Maria Callas (who is generally thought to have had 'exceptional acting and singing talent') was ‘deterred’ from appearing in it on stage? I also think the previous version of the article had something about different tessitura; along the lines that many opera singers have tried to sing it on stage even though it is not their range. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you say what it is that you don't understand? It seems clear enough. The exact wording of the source is: "There have been numerous singers who have dared to play the role only in the comfort of the recording studio, such as Jessye Norman or Maria Callas, even though the latter, with her formidable talent as an actress, could have given a spectacular stage performance". There was no mention of tessitura in the older version of the article. You may be thinking of the uncited sentence: "The singer must not only have a great range, but also exhibit superior dramatic skills in order to portray Carmen's complex character, and be able to dance convincingly on stage" - which is quite similar to the first of the two sentences to which you refer.Brianboulton (talk) 00:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I am not clear. This is the passage: "The dramatic personality of the character, and the range of moods she is required to express, call for exceptional acting and singing talents. This has deterred some of opera's most distinguished exponents; Maria Callas, though she recorded the part, never performed it on stage." As I wrote, is there evidence that Callas was 'deterred' from doing it on stage for the reason of the 'exceptional acting and singing' required, which she in any case possessed? Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 19:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The evidence is in the source and I think my wording is a reasonable reflection of that source. If you want to suggest a modification that still represents the source, please feel free. Brianboulton (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aleko: We have lost the mention of Rachmaninov’s opera in Professor Briggs’s article.(Briggs A D. "Did Carmen come from Russia?" in English National Opera programme, 2004; the poem also forms the basis of Rachmaninov’s one-act opera Aleko.) Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 22:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the Rachmaninov opera connection is really a little too marginal for inclusion. The article does of course mention the Pushkin poem as a possible source for the opera. Brianboulton (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Both of the capital’s state-funded opera houses... - I think this should be checked. The Théâtre-Italien also had a subsidy most of the time as did others, although all were dwarfed by the Opera. (I am afraid the best citation I can find to hand is in the introduction to Huebner’s book on Gounod – there must be somewhere better!). Also “largely excluded young native talent” is questionable/strong in respect of the Opéra Comique. See Soubies, Albert and Malherbe, Charles, Histoire de L'Opéra Comique, La Seconde Salle Favart, 1840- 1860. Flammarion, Paris, 1893. 351 works by 133 composers (some young and native) were performed from 1840-87; they give a list on page 443- (I don’t know what the position was at the Opera) Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 22:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have tweaked the "both" into "The capital's two main state-funded opera houses". I think "largely excluded young native talent" is justified by Winton Dean, p. 38. At the Opera, he says, the only French work of the smallest merit produced there between 1852 and 1870 was Thomas's Hamlet. "The Opera-Comique", he continues, "though it produced more native work, was in little better case." It had "ossified the idiom of the 1830s and reproduced it for the next forty years". However, I have softened the wording to: "which restricted opportunities for young native talent". Brianboulton (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links - On External links, the one that I am sorry has been lost is the School of Advanced Study one (http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/view/collections/fmc-carm.html). I don’t know what the rationale for that was, but it is a very useful well-presented collection of relevant contemporary articles for anyone wanting to look further at the reception of Carmen, and definitely worth keeping. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 22:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to add this back to the External links. Brianboulton (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On total of performances at the Opéra-Comique - I think it would be better to give a more recent figure than 1938. Wolff gives 2,607 up to 1950 (Wolff, Stéphane. Un demi-siècle d'Opéra-Comique 1900–1950. André Bonne, Paris, 1953 (p38-9).) If I can I will try to find the 2009 number after the production that year. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 17:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On Caruso in worldwide success - I don’t know why there are two long sentences on Caruso and an earthquake (more germane to the Caruso article?); like Mapleson it seems to be a slight tangent. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 17:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, thank you for these continuing comments. Briefly, the 1937 number is given because it was Bizet's centenary year; the exact number of performances thereafter is in my view a matter only for nerds. The Caruso story is admittedly a sideshow, but it is only brief, adds a bit of historical context, and I don't intend to remove it. Brianboulton (talk) 01:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nerds? I was simply offering a more recent figure from an impeccable source to assist readers of the article. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Final points from Cg2p0B0u8m

Three first paragraphs “the main character dies on stage” I suggest to change dies to ‘is killed’ ; also “differences of view exist as to what versions best express Bizet’s intentions” – if versions = original sources it is probably safe to say the 1875 vocal score is generally accepted as Bizet’s final view.

Premiere and initial run - Lecocq has gone from ‘leading musical figures’ at the premiere. Also there is nothing on accusations of Wagnerism?

I am not sure why the mention of the Spanish premieres was cut: The first performance in Spain was on 2 August 1881 at the Teatro Lirico Barcelona with Galli-Marié; Madrid saw it on 2 November 1887 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela.(Ref was = Kertesz E, Christoforidis M. Confronting Carmen beyond the Pyrenees: Bizet's opera in Madrid 1887–88. Cambridge Opera Journal, 20:1, March 2008, pp. 79–110. Contemporary Spanish critics condemned the 'Spanish' music in the opera.)

Worldwide success - Re Oeser – ‘…Dean’s view is “unsatisfactory”.’ In fact Dean describes the Oeser edition as “a musicological disaster of the first magnitude”.

Recordings, adaptations - I agree that if you include one you have to include more. Therefore I don’t think there is justification for having only Schedrin; one could argue that Carmen Jones, Petit’s Carmen, etc should be admitted.

For the section on music, there is lots of good information. But while it is fine to set out the subjective descriptive moods of the music, I think articles on a piece of classical music, should have some analysis on the mechanics (the 'how', as much as the 'what'): how the music achieves its effects of comedy or tragedy and supports the drama. An example: by repeating José's "Dût-il m'en couter la vie" up a semi-tone in G shortly after being in G-flat is a dramatic stroke.

  • I would agree with you if we were writing for a specifically musical or opera magazine. However, for a general encyclopedia I think a different tone is necessary, and that is what I have aimed to provide (as with other opera articles I've worked on), strictly on te basis of the sources I've used. I have, however, tweaked the section with some of your suggestions. Brianboulton (talk) 21:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not clear why we have lost a brief mention of the orchestral suites. Orchestration would be nice. a few things:

  • Prelude - Carmen’s ‘fate theme – the cellos are not ‘background’ (it all looks unison to me)
  • Act 1 - ‘exasperated A sharp shout’ – I think this depends on the singer
  • Act 2 – the way in which Carmen's castanet dance is barely scored, allowing the bugle summoning José to barracks to harmonize with her song, is worth mentioning.
  • Act 3 card trio ‘the fate motif heard in brass and wind’ – sorry, I can’t find this, I can only see it in the flute
  • Act 4 final – ‘As José kills Carmen, the fate motif, etc’ – should this not be ‘As José kills Carmen the chorus sing the refrain of the Toreador’s song off-stage’.

In Musical Numbers a few corrections,

  • Act 1 – 3rd number should be “Avec la garde montante” Seguidilla – should be “Près des ramparts…”
  • In Act 2 it should be “Les tringles des sistres…”. In act 2 bullets 7-9 are as one number in the 1875 score (or if not, José is missing from the number headed “Non! Tu ne m’aimes pas”.)
  • Micaela is missing from the Act 3 finale,
  • In Act 4 the final starts “C’est toi! C’est moi!” (reverse order, exclamation,not question)
  • The 2nd, 3rd and 4th orchestral pieces should all be entr’actes.
  • Perhaps it could be stated which score the numbers are taken from.

Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for your review and the many suggestions. You will find that, more often than not, I have followed your suggestions. In a few cases I'm not convinced of the need for change and have left things as they are; that is not to dismiss your points, merely to indicate that we see things a little differently when it comes to detail. I am assuming that your review is now complete; your interest in the article has undoubtedly helped to improve it and I am grateful for your knowledge and expertise. Brianboulton (talk) 21:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Smerus. Great article. I did some trivial copyediting. I would just mildly suggest that 'Bizet struggled to get his stage works performed, despite his status as a Prix de Rome laureate' could be a trifle misleading. Being a PdR laureate was never an automatic passport to getting works performed; 'despite' suggests that he was unusually discriminated against. Maybe 'Although he was a Prix de Rome laureate,Bizet struggled to get his stage works performed'? --Smerus (talk) 19:23, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed to your wording. Thanks. Brianboulton (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Media file review All the images and sound files are free. I wonder why File:Merimee sketch 001.png is not able to be moved to Commons - if it is really from 1850 and the artist was 20 then (born 1830) then even if the artist lived to be 100 years old (died 1930) it is over 70 years since his / her death. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC) PS I read the whole article and would be glad to support at FAC. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 19:03, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Irenaean theodicy

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Previous peer review
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I created and worked on this article near the end of last year and it acieved GA status in November. I've recently been working on it again and would like to get the article to FA at some point. I'm looking for any constructive feedback from editors to help me improve the article. Thank you. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 23:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Under present rules (see red highlight on WP:PR page) editors are restricted to one PR nomination. This is because too few editors are reviewing here, creating a lengthy backlog and long wait times for reviews. You should either close this review until the Augustinian theodicy review is complete, or close that one to allow this to proceed. Brianboulton (talk) 01:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry - I had meant to close the other one, but forgot. I'll do that now. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 14:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Cryptic C62
  • The first sentence should include an IPA pronunciation for "Irenaean". Not many readers will know how to correctly read that on sight.
    I have not included an IPA pronunciation as there is no established and agreed pronunciation.
    Well, is there a small number of pronunciations? That could still work. Caribbean is a good example of an article whose subject has multiple acceptable pronunciations. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 23:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first sentence introduces Irenaean theodicy in the singular, but the second sentence discusses them in the plural. This could lead some confusion as to what "they" refers to: perhaps the theodicies, perhaps to the people who created the theodicy. The confusion is compounded by the phrase "after whom the theodicy is named", where "the theodicy" suggests that there is only one.
  • "John Hick drew a link between the preceding theodicies" I'm not a fan of the phrase "drew a link", as it's a bit informal and perhaps somewhat ambiguous. How about "established a connection" instead? Maybe "John Hick discussed the similarities between the preceding theodicies" would be more correct.
  • "He supported the view that creation is incomplete and arguing that the world is best placed for the full moral development of humans" There are two ways to fix this sentence grammatically. The first is to replace "arguing" with "argued". The second is to replace the "and" with a comma, thereby setting off a new clause.
  • The verb "argue" is used 7 times in the lead and nearly 40 times overall. It would be nice to see some variety.
  • "The Irenaean theodicy is a response to the evidential problem of evil which raises the problem that" It is confusing to use the word "problem" twice in the same clause when both instances refer to the same problem. One way of dealing with this is to chop the sentence down and use a colon: "The Irenaean theodicy is a response to the evidential problem of evil: ..."
  • I am of the opinion that the Outline section should be expanded, particularly the Evidential problem of evil subsection. One avenue of expansion that seems reasonable to me would be to provide comparisons between the Irenaean view and the views of other philosophers for each subject.
  • On the other hand, it also appears to me that the Creation and development of humans and Greatest possible world subsections are largely redundant.
  • "Third century philosopher Irenaeus" Two problems here: First, for numbers that are close to zero, it becomes more important to specify A.D. versus B.C. Second, it would be nice to see a bit more context on Irenaeus. Even something as simple as his country of origin would work. "In the third century A.D., Roman philosopher Irenaeus..."

I may be back with more comments. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you find this sort of shenaniganry helpful. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments - I have made most of those changes. I have not included an IPA pronunciation as there is no established and agreed pronunciation. Thank you for the review; further comments from anyone would be appreciated. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 21:53, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Smith Act trials of communist party leaders

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I've listed this article for peer review because I'm planning on nominating it for Featured Article status soon, and want it ship-shape before then. It would be best if the reviewer were someone familiar with FA criteria, and is willing to nitpick the prose. Also, it would be appreciated if the reviewer could comment on an open RfC inquiring about how detailed the legal material in the article should be. Thanks, Noleander (talk) 17:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PS: There was a prior peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Foley Square trial/archive2 (the article has been renamed since then) but the article has been substantially improved since that review, so another review is warranted. --Noleander (talk) 20:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here's part 1 of my review, part 2 will follow likely later this weekend depending on how busy I am with other things. My major concern with the article is that it seems to accept as a historical fact that there seems to be a fairly strong pro-defense viewpoint in the article without sufficient balance from those who to whatever extent defend the trial or believe that the threat of communism in the late 1940s and early 1950s was real, or at least the US was justified in treating it as real. I suggest that efforts be made to provide balancing viewpoints. Aside from that it is quite good and while I suspect it needs some cleanup and a close check for MOS compliance, it should do fine at FAC in due course.

Specific things:


Lede
  • It is only necessary to reference within the lede if it is not supported elsewhere in the article. [Done - Noleander]
  • Shouldn't "Communist Party" be capped in the title of the article? [Done - Noleander]
  • I would keep McCarthy out of the lede. That's basically saying that the prosecutions were unjustified by more or less calling them McCarthyism. Remember, that's a loaded term today. [Done - changed to Cold War - Noleander]
  • "radical restructuring"? That makes it sound like they wanted to eliminate the department of Agriculture or something. You might do better to eliminate the second sentence of the lede entirely. [Done - Noleander]
  • I would state the years of the two SCOTUS cases in parens after you name them. [Done - Noleander]
  • I would avoid the bolding in the second paragraph. [Done - Noleander]
  • Did those who sought the defendants' conviction also demonstrate? If they did, you should mention both. [No sources yet on this yet. More research needed. - Noleander] [I've looked through several sources, and they only mention demonstrations by supporters of the communist defendants. The only mention I can find of counter-protests is the anti-communists who were involved in the Peekskill riots. Those latter disturbances are mentioned in the article already, but that was not located at the courthouse, of course. - Noleander]
  • Perhaps end the lede something like "could only prosecuted for their actions, not their beliefs." That way, you avoid the italics. [Done - Noleander]
Background
  • "Red Scare". I would put this in text, but very cautiously because the term's somewhat POV. Putting it in a hatnote gives a term which not all would use too much prominence. As the Cold War certainly influenced American views of communists, I would put that in text too. You might want to look at Jonathan Bell's book The Liberal State on Trial, which really deals with the political aspects of this. [Done - Noleander]
  • At some point in this background section, more needs to be said about the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, which certainly affected American views of communists. I would avoid the use of the word "appeasement"and perhaps more explicitly discuss the Yalta agreement. [Done - Noleander]
  • Were the people convicted under the Smith Act convicted because of failure to register or membership in some organization? Isn't this inconsistent with the government suspending its campaign for the duration? [The only persons convicted under the Smith Act during WW II were American Nazis, not Communist party members. I'll ensure the article clearly conveys that. Noleander]
  • The DOJ and FBI sound rather unreasonable and unthinking in "resuming their campaign". Maybe that's about the time you should mention Eastern Europe. [Done - Noleander]
  • " they would later regret" Wouldn't more standard American usage be "it" or possibly "its members"? [Done - Noleander]
  • Reasons why the US became more suspicious of communists are mentioned in three consecutive sections. Consolidate. [Done - Noleander]
  • "the Republican Party"? Really? Just the Republican Party? The Dems said many similar things. Even liberals. McCarran and Wood were Democrats, you know! [Done Removed mention of Rep party - Noleander]
1949 trial
  • "Despite the relatively small size of the CPUSA," delete. You've given the numbers, you should avoid characterizing them in this way. [Done - Noleander]
  • "embarked on a campaign" This language suggests an assault or similar and should be avoided "sought to prosecute" is probably more neutral. [Done - Noleander]
  • "Hollywood ten". Capitalize ten. [Done - Noleander]
  • It probably isn't necessary to call Foster a hardliner a second time. [Done - Noleander]
  • Why would waiting until the 1948 Democratic National Convention matter to liberal voters? They wouldn't vote until November. If there were fears about delegates, perhaps state it in terms of Truman's renomination. [Done - removed the sentence re the Dem Convention. - Noleander]
  • The focus on domestic events without regard to international ones makes it seem that the government was acting in an irrational manner. [TBS: more work needed here - Noleander]
The article now has 3 paragraphs that give the reader a good understanding of external events that led to anti-communist feelings in the US:
  • Section "Communist Party" … added entire paragraph about intenational events (incl Yalta & its consequences) that led to increased fear of communism within US.
  • Section "Events outside the courtroom" - mentions USSR atomic bomb & Chinese civil war
  • Section "Legal appeals of 1949 trial" - added entire new paragraph on international events 1950 to 1954, including First Indochina War, Rosenbergs, hydrogen bomb, & Korean war.
I think it now gives the reader the necessary context. But perhaps more is needed? A fresh pair of eyes (not mine :-) need to review the article for this issue one more time. --Noleander (talk) 01:49, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "level charges". I question the need for this phrase. Perhaps "bring charges", if you week to vary from the word "prosecute". [Done - Noleander]
  • Rather than "organization", perhaps abbreviate and say CPUSA. Note that I see that you are doing it alphabetically but there may be confusion on the ones who follow Potash that they were CPUSA, not Furrier's Union. [Done - Noleander]
  • "he professed to be unaffected and said" I would simply write "he stated" or similar. Saying that someone professes to do something implies doubt about their sincerity or veracity. [Done - Noleander]
  • " because the federal grand jury (which approved the indictments) was composed of wealthy, propertied persons, rather than a broad cross-section of the community (at the time, grand jury members had to meet a minimum property test, and were paid only $4 per day)." Perhaps "because at that time, a potential grand juror had to meet a minimum property requirement, effectively eliminating the less affluent from service". [Done - Noleander]
  • "who had been a judge for only 18 months" This seems to call into question whether he was competent to preside over such a trial. I would argue that he had been a judge for longer than Warren had been at the time of Brown. I would omit entirely except if you want to inline attribute.
Done - Removed "only" so it now reads ".... who had been a judge for 18 months when the trial began." The sources do mention this several times; and I read it not so much a statement about his quality, but rather "the lead judges stuck the new guy with the problematic trial". --Noleander (talk) 19:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did they really spell "Adolf" as "Adolph"? If they did, I would put a [sic] next to it as a non-standard spelling in this context. [Done - No, that was my misspelling. Noleander]
  • Isn't the fact that the Hiss trials were going on more or less simultaneous worth a mention? In the same courthouse? [Still TBD] [Done - Noleander]
  • The characterization of the prosecution evidence in the lede led to surprise when I discovered here that the informant gave live testimony testifying to the intent of the CPUSA. This was presumably more than mere interpretation of Marx and Engels. Perhaps that reference in the lede should be rewritten, and perhaps also you might revisit this section. Right now it leaves one with the reference that almost all of the prosecution case was someone saying that page 117 of this book means such and such and page 119 another thing. "She also testified that the CPUSA espoused violent revolution against the government and that the CPUSA had attempted to recruit members working in key war industries, on instructions from Moscow" argues that this was not so. [Done - Noleander]
  • Regarding the IWW, you might want to throw a pipe in here. Forgive me for being self-promotional. [Done - Noleander] If you are going to say they were arrested, you should also note that the vast majority were convicted. [Done - Noleander]
  • "The opinion of contemporary media was overwhelming in favor of conviction, but an editorial in the left-leaning The New Republic, written after the prosecution rested on May 19, 1949, wrote that the government had "failed to make out the overwhelming case that many people anticipated before the trial began".[36] Legal scholar Michal Belknap wrote in 1981 that the prosecution case "just did not add up to much".[37]" I think you are guiding the reader too strongly here with these quotes. You might want to reserve such characterizations for a more analytical section which could give the arguments on both sides. Definitely the prosecution's case was weak, but Belknap writes from the perspective of a civil libertarian, according to the review of his 1977 book I downloaded from JSTOR (if you email me, I will send it to you). [Done - Noleander]
  • "First, portraying the CPUSA as a conventional political party" There seems to be a grammatical problem here. Perhaps "First, they sought to portray ..." [Done - Noleander]
  • "labor defense" Twice in quotation marks. [Done - Noleander]
  • I suggest breaking up the defense section into smaller paragraphs. [Done - Noleander]
  • "judge Medina" Judge. [Done - Noleander]
  • Have any legal scholars taken the view that Medina presided over the trial fairly? It strikes me that this is a matter about which not all legal scholars would agree. It might be worth mentioning that Medina defended alleged traitors as a trial lawyer during World War II. Have you looked at his obits for when he died in 1990 to see if there are contrasting views? I saw an "appreciation" by a lawyer who knew him in the Columbia Law Review? [ TBS ... will return to this; more research needed] [Done - Added balancing material that presents Medina as fair. Removed some of the negative material. - Noleander].
Events outside the courtroom.
  • Consider moving this section up, to allow the reader to have the context of the trial before the trial. [Done - Noleander]
  • "government employee Alger Hiss was accused of being a communist" At that time, he had not been a government employee for several years. And he was convicted, after being tried for perjury. I do not ask you to get into that can of worms, but you should be accurate. [Done - But because that paragraph is describing events that transpired during the 1949 Smith Act trial, the emphasis remains on the first perjury trial of Hiss (hung jury), which was in 1949. The later conviction of Hiss was after the Smith Act trial. Noleander]
  • I think you are giving too much space to the Peekskill Riot in comparison to other events. Consider trimming. [Done - Noleander]

More later. Good work.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:31, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for the thoughtful and detailed comments. I'll be out of town, without computer access for the next couple of days, but as soon as I return, I'll start fixing these issues. Regarding the "pro defense" bias: I agree that is a concern, and I'll see what kind of balancing material I can dig up. Most of the modern sources do lean towards the defense in their analyses (as part of a general viewpoint that McCarthyism was not a good thing). It is easy to find sources from the 1950s and 1960s that say that the prosecution was doing the right thing. But I'll redouble my efforts and see if I can find some modern secondary sources that, at least, explain the motivation/rationale of the FBI & Dept of Justice. Thanks again. --Noleander (talk) 16:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like a wise course. Obviously do not use obsolete sources. We can all agree that McCarthyism was a bad thing as a historical view, and yet write dispassionately about it. If you send me an email I will send you those sources I mentioned. I can't attach anything if I just email you.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Email has been sent. I'm heading out the door now, so I won't be able to reply here or on email for next couple of days. Cheers. --Noleander (talk) 16:37, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you are enjoying your time away. Here's the rest of my review:


Convictions and sentencing
  • Is there context that the judge's instructions can be put in? Were they based on the language of the Smith Act or was the judge making it up as he went along? To a 21st century audience, obviously the judge is going to be seen as unreasonable; a more nuanced approach may be appropriate. [TBS ... will come back to this one] [Done - Re-worded the jury instruction sentence so it does not make the judge sound insensible - Noleander]
  • I would suggest that the reference to the future congressman be moved to someplace else. It doesn't seem terribly relevant to the contempt. [Done - moved to the "after prison" paragraph. - Noleander] Are hearings required to be held for summary contempt? [That is described in a bit more details in the article in the "Sacher v. United States" section. Judges, like Medina, can issue jail sentences to anyone in the courtroom without a hearing, provided they witnessed the transgressions themselves. I'll try to make that clearer in the text. - Noleander]
Aftermath
  • It sounds like only Hoover and Republicans supported anti-communism. Surely this was not so? (see comment in earlier section) [I think this is okay now: (1) the reference to Republican Party has been removed from the article; (2) the sources are making the valid point that Hoover personally had a lot of say in whether or not the DOJ went forward with additional prosecutions after the initial trial; and (3) I'll be adding some more balancing material soon that sheds light on why the US (government and media) were so worried about the Communists. Noleander]
  • "Subsequent high-profile hearings involving alleged communists included the 1950 trial of Alger Hiss" No, Hiss was found guilty (on retrial) in January 1950; both his trials started in 1949 and the hearings which prompted his perjury prosecutions were in 1948. In fact, he was being tried a floor up from the Smith Act defendants. [Done - Improved wording to indicate that he was convicted in 1950. The point of those sentences is to show that, after the conclusion of the 1949 trial, there were other, similar "anti communist" trials. - Noleander]
  • If Gus Hall had the highest visibility among the defendants, he probably should have been mentioned already. [Done - Noleander]
Legal appeals
  • I question the choice of the hatnote. I think it puts too much stress on the First Amendment claim. Putting it there is telling the reader in editorial voice that the defendants should be associated with the First Amendment, which of course everyone's for. Put it as a see also, I would. [Two other editors last month recommended very strongly that this article should contain more material about the legal issues, specifically the constitutional issues raised on appeal. I think all the legal scholars squarely characterize Dennis and Yates as "first amendment cases". I'm reluctant to remove any of the recently added legal/constitutional material since the other editors pushed so hard, and I don't want to backslide on that cooperation. The current link is already a mere "see also" link, not a "main" link, so it is not too emphatic. - Noleander]
  • Given Judge (again the caps!) Hand's prominence, it would be useful to have more from his opinion. [Done - Added three key (but small) quotes from his opinion. - Noleander]
  • The Korean War is only worth mentioning conversationally? Didn't it contribute to the negative perception of communists and lead to the passage (over Truman's veto in a Democrat-controlled Congress) of McCarran-Wood? [Done - Added an entire paragraph on Cold Ware developments in during the appeals process. - Noleander]
  • "The Supreme Court limited its decision " If you are saying that it only granted cert on that issue, I would say "consideration", not "decision". [Done - Noleander]
  • Given that you devote considerably more space to the dissent than to the majority, and don't even let Vinson complete his sentence, I think there's a tone issue here too. [Done - Added more detail from Vinson's opinion. - Noleander]
  • I think your use of the term "rationalize" is could be taken as POV. Rationalization (making excuses) [Done - Noleander]
Second tier and following
  • Where does the term green light come from? You should either inline attribute or avoid the quotation. [Done - The "green light" phrase was attributed in the footnote; but I've reworded the sentence to remove it. - Noleander]
  • Regarding Khrushchev, you should probably pipe "revealed" to Secret Speech. [Done - Noleander]
  • I question your choice to quote extensively from a concurring opinion (for which Black only spoke for himself and anyone who joined him) and relegate Harlan's majority opinion to a single sentence without a quote. Black probably makes for spicier reading, but that's not the court's opinion. Also, by blockquoting it, you are giving it additional impact. In the cases where there were dissents, a fair comment (that is, not a comment that will make the justice sound extreme) should be included. [Done - Removed quote & pic of concurring Black, and replaced with quote & pic of majority-writer Harlan. - Noleander]
  • Again, in Noto you are choosing to emphasize the (spicier) concurring opinions, while giving short shrift both to the majority view and any other concurring opinions. Black and Douglas were fairly to one side of the spectrum when it came to the First Amendment. By only quoting them, you're not giving the reader a full view. [Done - Added larger quote from majority opinion - Noleander]
  • In the last sentences of the article, you mention indictments and total years sentenced to, but fail to mention convictions. [The sources do not state the number of convictions. They only recite the number of indictments. I believe that is because the indictments were easier to find and count; whereas the convictions were harder to identify, particularly because so many cases were appealed. That is, there is an ambiguity about counting convictions: if the lower court convicts, then it is reversed on appeal, does that count as a conviction? - Noleander]
Then I would avoid connecting the two facts, because it's an apples and oranges situation. And did the sentences count if it was reversed on appeal? Does it mention total jail time served?--Wehwalt (talk) 14:13, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was not able to find a statistic on cumulative jail time served, but I was able to improve it to: "When the trials came to an end in 1958, 138 persons had been indicted, resulting in approximately 120 convictions with cumulative sentences totaling 418 years and $435,500 in fines." --Noleander (talk) 15:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds good.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:25, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I gather the Smith Act remains on the books? You should say so if so. [Done - Noleander]
General comment: It's generally quite good, and despite my comments, which I hope you don't consider harsh, with some cleanup it should do fine. I don't think there's any real question that there was an overreaction to the communist threat. But I think that if you state it dispassionately, giving equal time and tone (and equal opportunity to have the last word, for example), the reader can make his own judgment, and it probably won't be too different from yours, actually. But you should work to address the tone issue.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:10, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for these additional comments. I'll start working on all these now, top to bottom. After fixing the straightforward issues, I'll turn my attention to focusing on the balance/POV issue: removing some material, and hunting for more sources that provide more explanation of the prosecution viewpoint. PS: I received the email and will use those sources. Cheers. --Noleander (talk) 18:29, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at contemporary news coverage and it does look like if there were anti-communist protests, they didn't make the papers, whereas the ones supporting the defendants were mentioned prominently. Your changes to date have been quite good.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Communist Party in the title, maybe that should be capitalized.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:28, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I renamed the article so Communist Party is now capitalized. The text in the lede was also changed accordingly. I think the capitalization is good now for Judge & Party throughout the article. --Noleander (talk) 19:10, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, let me know when you are ready for me to take another run through.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:17, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It will probably be another 2 or 3 days. If you could comment on the Talk page issue Talk:Smith_Act_trials_of_communist_party_leaders#More_on_other_trials, that would be helpful, since that impacts the entire article. --Noleander (talk) 19:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've finished implementing all of the specific suggestions enumerated above. I'm now starting to make a top-to-bottom pass through the article focusing on neutrality and ensuring that the international context (explaining anti-communism) is properly presented. --Noleander (talk) 02:07, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wehwalt: I've finished my second pass through the article: I added more balancing material (explaining anti-communist attitudes); removed quite a bit of pro-defense POV material; and re-organized the sections in a more sensible fashion. Do you have time to scan the article one more time and see if I've overlooked anything or if the article appears unbalanced in any way? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 21:28, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

[edit]
Lede
  • A brief statement of what the Smith Act did would not go amiss in the early part of the lede. [Done - Noleander]
  • You use the word "trial" five times in the first two sentences of the second paragraph; seven times in the first three. Cut back on them. [Done - Noleander]
  • The second sentence of the third paragraphs should probably be divided or rephrased "and" "and". [Done - Noleander]
Background
  • Subsections consisting of a short paragraph should probably be combined. [Done - Noleander]
  • The word "numerous" can probably safely be omitted. [Done - Noleander]
  • Does the source say why the WWII case was not retried? [The source Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism In Modern American History suggests a few reasons: (1) WW II was drawing to a close; (2) case was very difficult to prosecute; and (3) not certain of a guilty verdict. Let me know if you think that kind of detail should go into this article ... also, that detail is not yet in the Smith Act article which covers the 1943 trial. - Noleander]
  • Placing the WWII midst bit where it is implies a connection. Probably there was, but I doubt if you want to spend the time discussing it. It might be wise to move the WWII to the passage of the Smith Act (on the eve of WWII or something like that). Note that the link is presently on the the second reference to WWII. You can probably get away with, say: [Done - Removed "midst" since it implies too much; fixed WW II link. Noleander]
  • I would suggest changing "an ally in World War II" to "then an ally". [Done - Noleander]
  • You are calling Foster a "hardline Stalinist" with editorial voice, but then allowing him to characterize Browder. There's a bit of a false comparison there, and also Foster's view may be colored somewhat. Suggest describing Browder yourself rather than letting Foster do it. [Done - Noleander]
  • The mention of the US being allied with the USSR seems redundant; you've already established that. [Done - Noleander]
  • "revelations of past instances of communist espionage in the US during 1930s and 1940s." I would strike the word "past", which may get you into debates you don't relish. [Done - Noleander] Also, the word "the" is missing near the end of the sentence. [Done - Noleander]
1949 trial
  • The first sentence can be deleted. The next sentence is a perfectly fine way to begin, and I think if you'll look, you'll see you don't lose anything [Done - Noleander]
  • "Also in 1948," Suggest, "The same year" or similar. Close proximity to another 1948. [Done - Noleander]
Start of the trial
  • "a judge" suggest "on the bench". [Done - Noleander]
  • I find it interesting the defts did not have to show up for court until March. You might want to mention their bail status. [ TBS ... thinking about where to put that out-on-bail info - Noleander]
  • "Magazines, newspapers ..." This sentence is a bit problematic, stories are not a publication and cannot be included in the manner you do. [Done - Noleander] You might also want to say who "The Little Comissar" referred to. [Done - Noleander]
  • The word "courthouse" occurs in three consecutive sentences ending with the congressional response. Perhaps the officers were assigned to "Foley Square"? [Done - Was able to eliminate one with " officers were assigned to the site", the other 2 seem essential. - Noleander]
  • "Before the 1949 trial began, supporters of the defendants hoped to gain an advantage by letter-writing and by public demonstrations:" Perhaps, "Before the trial began, supporters of the defendant decided on a campaign of letter-writing and demonstrations." The word "public" seems redundant. Since you've already mentioned the demonstrators, I would add this seems a bit out of order. [Done - Noleander]
  • "aggressive defense tactics". Out of order chronologically. [Done - Noleander]
  • ""Although twelve CPUSA members were indicted, only eleven were tried, because William Z. Foster was not brought to trial due to his ill health." unsourced. Suggest deleting as Foster's health and the reason he was not tried are covered in the laundry list of defendants. [Done - Noleander]
Events outside
  • I would not use the term Red Scare so boldly here. Perhaps "anti-communism (or, as some termed it, a Red Scare}" [Done - used anti-communism - Noleander]
  • "a trial held in the same building as the 1949 Smith Act trial – the Foley Square courthouse" How about "a trial also held at the Foley Square courthouse". [Done - Noleander]
  • "Chinese Communist party " Probably needs a cap. [Done - Noleander]
  • You may want to say up front which defts were involved in the Peekskill riots, rather than making the reader dig. [Done - Noleander]
  • "of communist defendants, including the 1949 trial defendants" Too many defendants. [Done - Noleander] Same with concerts in the next sentence. [Done - Noleander]
  • "were also personally guilty " Strike "also personally" [Done - Noleander]
  • "could never provide a fair outcome to" Maybe "could never produce a fair outcome for" [Done - Noleander]
  • "1935 Seventh World Congress of the Comintern, when the CPUSA rejected violence as a means of change." Perhaps rather than "when", put "after which" [Done - Noleander]
  • You use both "materials" and "material" close to each other. Watch the verb tenses if you change one. [Done - Noleander]
  • Probably the matter about the labor strategy should be placed with the other material about how they tried to influence public opinion, demonstrations etc. [TBS: Need to think about this one. "Labor defense" was a broad umbrella; under it was (1) demonstrations outside the courthouse; (2) telegrams and letter writing; (3) claims of fundamental unfairness & class oppression; and (4) antagonizing the judge during the trial. I'll see if I can improve the text to make it clearer. - Noleander]
  • " and that the they deliberately disrupted the trial " Perhaps "and that they deliberately were attempting to disrupt the trial". [Done - Noleander]
  • "pretrial activity" Probably not a legal term. [Done - Noleander]
  • If the judge who died hearing a Smith Act case was the one who died during WWII mentioned earlier, connect it up. If not, make it clear. [Done - He was the same. - Noleander]
  • "as well as contemporary media," Awkward. [Done - changed to "The opinion of the American public and the news media was .." - Noleander]
  • You might want to mention that in addition to the defense attorneys, Dennis was also sentenced for contempt. [Done - that was in the footnote; but I've moved it up to the text. - Noleander]
  • It would be worthwhile to know if Medina allowed them bail, or if they had to run to the Second Circuit. [I'll look through the sources again, but I don't recall any of them specifying when/how the defendants were permitted to get out on bail. It must have been early, because no source says "they went to jail" or "they were led away in handcuffs". - Noleander] Also, released is not the word I'd use. Maybe "allowed bail"? [Done - I reworded to "During the appeal process, the defendants were not in prison because they posted bail after sentencing" - Noleander]
Appeals
  • "Korean war" should be a capped W. [Done - Noleander] You should probably give the full name of the court, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but you can pipe for brevity. [Done - Noleander] Did you ever mention the court they were tried in, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York? Again, that can be piped and should be in an earlier section. [Done - Noleander]
  • "judge Learned Hand". Judge Learned Hand [Done - Noleander]
  • You might want to mention the date the 2nd Circuit came out with its opinion. [Done - Aug 1, 1950. Noleander]
  • "appealed the federal Appeals Court" Very appealing. Perhaps "appealed the Second Circuit's decision" ... [Done - Noleander]
  • You should clearly mention that Justice Douglas's opinion was a dissent when mentioning it in the quote box. [Done - Noleander]
  • Justice Robert Jackson? [Done - Noleander]
Second tier
  • " So when the " Too informal. [Done - Noleander]
  • Some sort of mention of who Dorothy Healey was is needed. The image isn't a substitute for that. [Done - Also did 2 other named persons. - Noleander]
  • "hear an appeal." Hear their appeals. [Done - Noleander]
  • I'm not sure your use of spaced dashes in the article (here and elsewhere in it) is proper. Have you checked WP:DASH? [Done - Changed those dashes to commas; but DASH does permit spaced n-dashes in lieu of commas. I like mixing them up, to vary things. - Noleander].
  • I appreciate what you are trying to do in not using "attorney" or "lawyer" too much. You can also use "counsel", i.e. "appoint unwilling counsel" [Done - Noleander]
Aftermath
  • "has not been repealed". Perhaps "remains on the statute books" You are sort of saying it ought to be, as it is now. [Done - Noleander]
  • "and ran for president of the US four times from 1972 to 1984, twice with Angela Davis as his vice presidential partner" I would delete "of the US" and put "running mate" for "vice presidential partner". [Done - Noleander]

That's about it. Good work, much better than it was. [preceding from user Wehwalt]

Roger that. I'll start implementing these improvements later today. Thanks again. --Noleander (talk) 15:15, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Berge Meere und Giganten

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I've listed this article for peer review because… ...it's just made good article status and I'd like to make it a featured article in the near future, if possible. The article is about the 1924 science fiction novel by Alfred Döblin, better known as the author of Berlin Alexanderplatz. Thanks, Sindinero (talk) 07:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Laser brain

General

  • You alternately use the terms "polities", "cityscapes", and "city-states" seemingly interchangably; this can get confusing as the reader might think they are different things. Perhaps they are—in which case it hasn't been adequately explained.

Lead

  • "Among critics, Berge Meere und Giganten has the reputation of being a difficult and polarizing novel, and has not received nearly as much attention as Döblin's following novel..." This reads as if the critics have said both that it's difficult and that it hasn't received as much attention. Is this accurate, or should the second clause be on its own?
  • The lead seems a bit light. I recommend comparing it to the leads from other featured literature articles to see what you might add. You have a bit of plot synopsis, one line of critical reception, and a bit of history. Perhaps summarize a bit more of the plot, mention the nine books, and mention some of the themes?

Plot

  • "the masses of the cities raise no objection" This is a bit awkward. It reads as if it is the cities that raise no objection.
  • "At the same time that it sees radical technological innovations" In constructions like this, the "that" isn't necessary.
  • "In an effort to maintain their rule, the ruling Senates of Europe agree" The word "ruling" is probably inferred since you've just said it.
  • Check the proper expression of the term "the west"; I think you might need to be more specific.
  • In "soft and restless", I don't understand how "soft" is being applied. Soft normally means weak-willed; if that's so, how did a spirit of resistance arise?
  • Explain "the machines" when you mention them in Second Book.
  • If you include a quotation from the book, make sure to modify it to match the tense used in the article text. See WP:MOSQUOTE.
  • "austerity and mistrust of the machines", I think.
  • Need to provide some context and background when you introduce characters like Marke, similar to what you did with Meki.
  • "Marine life and sea birds of all kinds are attracted towards them" Towards the ships, or towards the veils in particular?
  • "marked by a reconciled relationship with nature"
  • Recommend "To the north the giants, Delvil now among them..."

More soon. --Laser brain (talk) 17:51, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thematic and stylistic aspects

  • Do you mean "psychologically damaged veterans"?
  • I'm concerned that we don't seem to be representing a decent selection of literary analysis and criticism from academic journals. Have you conducted a search in library databases such as MLA International Bibliography to find such articles? I think the article will need to be expanded from such resources before it can become featured.

Critical reception

  • Likewise, this will need to be expanded from additional academic sources.
  • "The last few decades have however seen a resurgence of critical interest in the novel." This statement is not evidenced by the size of this section...

Good work so far. I am interested in reading the novel now. Please feel free to ping me after you've made the article more comprehensive; I would be happy to look at it again before you bring it to FAC. --Laser brain (talk) 18:35, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking this on, this is helpful. I'll drop you a line once I've made some changes to the article or if questions pop up along the way. -Sindinero (talk) 06:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Johann Sebastian Bach

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I've listed this article for peer review because… Thanks, 14jbella (talk) 01:11, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


I listed this for peer review because I am planning to submit it for good article review. I thought that it would probably be helpful to have it peer reviewed first, as I am not sure that I caught everything. Thanks for helping, 14jbella (talk) 01:11, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: It is good that someone is prepared to work on this article, which has languished somewhat while those of other, often lesser composers, have been the subject of devoted attention. I have not read the text in detail, but after a quickish survey I have a number of concerns:-

  • Since you began editing the article in mid-February, you have reduced the text by about 2,000 words. I wonder why you thought this necessary? I have not examined in detail what has been removed from where, but from a glance I would say that the section dealing with Bach's music (works, style etc) had been halved since you began editing.
  • With 4761 words, the article is way, way shorter than those of any of the major composers that have been developed into featured articles. Examples: Tchaikovsky 10871; Elgar 9899; Mahler 8861; Rimsky-Korsakov 7977. Even relatively minor figures (Delius, Smetana) have around 7500. I know wordcount isn't everything, but given Bach's status and the immense scope and range of his output, it is hard to believe that the article is a comprehensive account of the composer's life and works.
  • It is very hard to get an overview of the sources used in the article. There is a "Further reading" list which mixes cited and non-cited sources; these need to be separated. A bibliography of all the cited works, organised by author's surname, would be very helpful. Have you added any new sources during the course of your editing? Likewise, have you removed sources that were previously used?
  • The general organisation of the article looks odd with a Legacy section in the middle. The norm is for the composer's legacy to be discussed (not always under that title) after the consideration of his works, as a kind of tailpiece to the article – an evaluation of his/her lasting contribution to music.
  • In this respect, the Legacy section looks painfully thin, considering the immense influence of Bach on later music.
  • On relatively minor points, the referencing looks uneven; there are uncited assertions and, in particular, many paragraphs do not end with a citation. Some of the image choices look questionable, and their placement often results in the squeezing of text. Bullet-point format should not be used in the text.

I realise that this is not a full review, but these are all issues which I think you need to consider. Brianboulton (talk) 17:05, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tim riley
  • If you were looking to take the article to FAC there would still be a long way to go, IMO. As your sights are set on GA that's probably more realistic, but even so I agree with the comment, above, about the length of the article. I have looked back to the text before you started working on it, and I think you have cut quite a lot of uncited material from the Works section that ought to have been followed up and given references or replaced, rather than just being cut: there was a lot of good stuff in the Musical Style sub-section, for instance, that you could follow up.
  • The prose will probably suffice for GA, but if you had plans to take the article to FAC it would need a thorough copy edit. I noticed some rather odd phrasing: "because of his skill in voice" (he sang well), "the trip was likely taken mostly on foot" (he probably walked most of the way), "who both became important composers as well" (as well as what?), "the teachings of Isaac Newton" (he did practically everything except teach), and so on.
  • Italics are used too often, and inconsistently. BWV numbers certainly don't need to be italicised, and if "Cello Suites" don't need italics (which they don't), why italicise "Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello"? There are many similar examples.
  • There are too many references in the lead. If the lead and the main body of the text are properly constructed, all statements in the lead are backed up by referenced statements in the main text. See the Elgar, Delius or Grainger articles for examples. Occasionally a date may need a footnote, as in Tchaikovsky, but otherwise the lead is better with as few refs as possible. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#citations for guidance. As for content, the last sentence of the second paragraph of the lead is not something one would normally expect to find in a lead. The works mentioned in the lead should have blue links where available.
  • The text contains more images than it can comfortably accommodate. On my (newish, wide-ish) screen the text of the Leipzig section is sandwiched between images to left and to right. The same occurs in the Musical style section. The answer is probably not fewer images but more text. As a personal opinion, I don't think the sketch-map of JSB's residences adds anything useful.

Sorry if this list of objections is discouraging. I enjoyed the article, and it has the potential to go further. Tim riley (talk) 09:43, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ra.One

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Several editors have been working on this article for almost a year; in culmination of this, I would like to open a peer review to clean up any problems and issues this article faces before we go for a possible FAR. A few editors have noted that the article has a "way to go before being FA"; I would just like to finish up the loose ends as quickly as possible. Extensive copy-editing was performed by Baffle gab1978 while major contributors include myself, Meryam90, Karthik Nadar and X.One. The article has already undergone a review previously prior to its GAR but a much more detailed and fine-toothed analysis will be appreciated this time. Regards, ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 14:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Section by section organizing

This part deals with my organizing of each section of the article. I'm making all the sections chronologically ordered, and also related to each other as some sections seem to have wildly unrelated stuff all bunched up together (especially the Commercial analysis section, which looks messed up after the copy-edit drive). I'll mark  Done for each section completed.

  • Lead -  Done
  • Origins and Development -  Done
  • Casting and filming -  Done
  • Post-production -  Done
  • Visual effects -  Done
  • Promotions -  Done
  • Video games -  Done
  • Release -  Done
  • Critical reception
  • Box Office -  Done
  • Commercial analysis

Any section not mentioned means the section is too small and is properly done already. Note, any problems regarding the sections, comment underneath. I'm only adding this for organizing, not for full-check. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 15:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

General Comments

Guys, wouldn't it be better if a completely uninvolved editor review this article? I am not saying that you guys stop giving inputs, but a fully thorough and absolutely unbiased review can be given only by an external editor. I will approach somebody to review this article; if you find any problems, continue to point them out please. Cheers. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes please find someone else; I think its fine to have several reviewers. BollyJeff || talk 18:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I asked Grapple X, hopefully he'll respond soon. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 09:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Guys, sorry for late reply Ankit! You are doing a wonderful job dude. Just hoping Grapple X to respond soon. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 13:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm doing next to nothing, as you can see its all the others who are taking the pains to comb through this article :P. Yes, I hope he responds though he is very busy sending the WP:FILM newsletters to the subscribers. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 13:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really unsure as to what to do here, and I think the best thing to do would be to keep the infobox blank regarding the budget. Instead, we can discuss about multiple sources quoting various budgets. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:06, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PS, Enthiran had this exact same problem. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And, not only that, the same SRK, in a previous interview with the same paper, revealed that the budget was 150 crore. I suggest abandoning first party data. X.One SOS 10:52, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
SRK has been flipping on the budget for long. In a post-release interview it was him who said the budget was 125 crore. I think leaving the infobox blank is the best thing to do. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 18:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have come across a few Hollywood articles and I think this is perhaps the best solution: if you guys see several Disney productions do not have fixed budgets. Like Alice in Wonderland or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time or even Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. So its best to keep the budget as a range - ₹125 crores - ₹175 crores, with the US conversion in the next line. However, this way we won't be able to use the INRConvert template. We shall have to make some exception here. Can we agree on this? ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:49, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I believe we are deviating to WP:OSE here. No, a range would not be nice and not following INRConvert just for this would be haphazard as much as possible. My suggestion is to blank the infobox, list out the budgets in the "production" section. Secret of success (talk) 11:01, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh, again OSE. What is the problem with citing some examples? What I'm trying to say is that keeping ranges is allowed on Wikipedia infoboxes. No, just one deviation is not problematic. Do not nit-pick. I said that we will also add the US$ conversion but not using the INRConvert template. There is absolutely nothing wrong in this. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 13:41, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, you didn't get my point. I meant to say that the layout of the article will get affected if you do that! Would it look nice? What's the use of having an FA if it looks bad to read? Secret of success (talk) 15:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? Why will it become bad to read? Wait, I'll see it in my sandbox and see if its "bad to read". ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 17:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Too many quotes exist in the article. Other than in "Critical reception", they should be reduced, especially in "Commercial analysis". While some contain unnecessary info, some have been multiplied and written elsewhere or so, increasing the length of the article. Secret of success (talk) 09:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not really sure what "too many quotes" mean, but if any quotes are repeated then definitely we should remove them. But I didn't see repeated quotes as far as I;m concerned (though I may be wrong). The commercial analysis section needs the quotes, I really think we shouldn't remove them. The quotes contain a lot of info and without them the section would be half as useful. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 09:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
They might need to be converted to indirect speech. I'll try looking into it. Secret of success (talk) 09:37, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Many of them are better off as quotes; after all, it will look a bit awkward if the entire paragraph seems to be in indirect speech. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 09:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Section 1
  • Commercial analysis should perhaps not be under Box office section, but have its own section.
  • Too many reviews; probably the most of any film on WP. Isn't there a way to summarize the reception better without so many?
  • Too much detail in Box office - India section. Will we really care how much it made on its third day, fourth day, after nine days, etc. after a few years has passed?

BollyJeff || talk 16:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hmm, good idea. We should make the commercial analysis a separate section, its huge enough.
 Done. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 07:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes there are way too many reviews but all the reviews are notable and professional; I doubt we should remove any of them.
  • LOL, we may ideally mention its first few days and post 1 week, its better to keep second weekend, second week, third week and then total (as Ra.One didn't earn significantly post the third week). I'm not really sure of what the current format is, I'll check it.
Thanks for the pointers, X.One is also doing his bit so hopefully we'll have a great article on our hands soon. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 16:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You guyz are joking right? Why on earth should the BO figures be removed? It fails FA criteria of "Comprehensiveness" that way! X.One SOS 05:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure that "Comprehensiveness" means that every piece of data available must be there. Looking at the only Indian film FAs, Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Taare Zameen Par, comprehensiveness is achieved by covering every topic possible, without drowning the reader in detail on certain ones. BollyJeff || talk 06:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Bollyjef, if the data is notable then ideally it should be there; since Ra.One had a second-best first week we should detail upon its first week. I did shorten a bit about the second weekend by removing the unnecessary second Monday figure, but beyond that there really isn't anything that should be shortened. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 06:10, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the revenue section, there's more trimming that can be done. For example, the third day numbers are mentioned which honestly aren't important. The total for three days setting a record is important and should stay. Fourth day numbers add no value to the article. Same with 5th day, 9 days, etc. It's information overload - we should be summarizing, not putting every little detail in the article just because there's a source. Highlight the big stuff. Ravensfire (talk) 00:49, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, alright I'll start removing those stuff (provided somebody already hasn't). ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 09:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some trimming; can you guys take a look at it and see if its alright now? ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 14:56, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 07:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done. Added links to Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and AllRovi. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 07:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we're linking to the site as a reference, we shouldn't be also linking to it as an EL. That's for sites that aren't in the article but give some useful information or context to the subject. WP:FILMMOS suggests linking to the review aggregation sites to avoid linking to every single review. That may be something to consider here. Keep the EL's, but remove some of the reviews, especially if it's just saying the same thing in a slightly different way. Likewise, the link to BOI and BOM provide some summary of the revenue for the movie, allowing us to cut down on the details. Ravensfire (talk) 00:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not all the Rotten Tomatoes reviews are present in the article (not all RT reviews are reliable enough). So I think the RT EL is required. As far as I know, none of the reviews have RT as a reference. Indian reviews have no fixed database that keeps track of all the reviews, though undoubtedly the reviews section is quite long (But this is Ra.One, the way the film was promoted, having an overload of big reviews isn't unexpected). BOI doesn't summarize revenue, heck BOI hasn't updated their 2011 part at all. We have to depend solely on their news bulletins (and due references have been put). ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 09:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully none of the reviews use RT or Metacritic as a reference! I know the article uses the main RT and MC links as references for the overall % numbers, but from the film MOS and various other articles I looked at, makes sense to keep them as EL's. Ravensfire (talk) 16:47, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
LOL yes, I can't imagine anybody wishing to go through over 180 references just to check if there are any reference pointing to RT :D. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 17:14, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Has there been a final resolution to the controversy? It should be added or stated that it hasn't happened yet.
  • Hindi text not needed in plot section.
  • First paragraph of Box Office section. Why is it considered average by some?

BollyJeff || talk 18:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy? Pardon me, which controversy? The Hindi text should ideally be there as the viewers have to know the context in which that line is spoken and translation will not be the best option IMO. The average part - are you asking why, or are you asking for some reference? If why, well just see the film's budget and its India earnings, its not exactly earth-shattering. Hopefully there is a reference to that statement though. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 09:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Section Ra.One#Controversy says there was a temporary settlement. Has there been a final?
Hindi text provides no context for English speakers. We removed title scripts but we are keeping whole sentences in the plot? Makes no sense.
It should be stated why it is considered average. If its because of the huge budget, then say that. BollyJeff || talk 13:01, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There has unfortunately been no news on that issue. Especially since the issue was about the script, and the script of Ra.One wasn't exactly one of its positive talking points :P. Regarding Hindi, I strongly believe the sentence should be there though maybe we can fit a translation somehow. I'm not sure, but I feel we should not remove that line as it is very important in the film's context. Nobody will give as to why the performance was average, its the trade analysts job to report figures and give verdicts. The real reason is, of course, because of its budget but there will be no RS on this as analysts don't give the why, they just give the math. I can add the budget reason, but that may fall into WP:OR. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 13:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Section 2
  • I just caught sight of the critical reception section and I calculated the average rating from all the reviews; the average comes out as 2.95 (i.e almost 3). I doubt that can be called just mixed; it should ideally be mixed to positive. I know that a hell lot of problems appeared due to this issue, but we should tackle it. Thanks to the Don 2 ongoing review process, which reminded me of this. What should we do now? ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:56, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I trimmed the lead and removed the now-redundant Ra.One (character) link from the top. I request somebody to give it a final look and see if it is alright. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 07:54, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Brief comments by Baffle_gab1978

Hi all, I did some copy-editing on this article so I don't qualify as a neutral editor. Please note that these are just suggestions.

 Done. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 04:30, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you point out whichever references have any problem; going to the Checklinks part is reporting Malware warnings on www.filmfare.com, so its not opening. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 04:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt there are any dead links there, but it might be worthwhile visiting those that show as problematic; you can then use the open page to add author, date, acceassdate, work and publisher info to the citations. I'll get back to you later on the checklinks. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 16:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I hope there is another way to ind dead references, because Checklinks is still not opening. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 16:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent with citations; although FA doesn't require it, this article does use cite referencing - many lack source date, accessdate, author, publisher and works parameters.
  • Be consistent with date formatting - use either '1 December 2011', '2011-12-01', '01-12-2011' or the variant commonly used in India per WP:STRONGNAT.
I don't think the date part is a problem; some of the dates do have only month and yeear, but that's how it is reported. Can I call this as Done? ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 04:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well it's you're choice, I'm only suggesting these changes, but a proper FA reviewer will check for consistent referencing because that's part of the FA criteria. If the full date's missing on the source there's no problem, but date formatting will be commented on at FAR. Choose one format and stick with it - what format do you prefer to use? I may help you with this. I know it's a drag but it's worth doing now, IMO.Baffle gab1978 (talk) 16:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I always prefer MM-DD-YYYY. And at least I use that format consistently. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 16:37, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, some of the inconsistency was my fault, I prefer to use '1 December 2012', so I used that when I expanded a couple of references. But no worries, I'll start tidying it up later. at least we'll be on the same page! Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, let's roll up our sleeves :P. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 04:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This can easily be done with scripts; how do you want it? I think dmy is somewhat standard for Indian type articles. BollyJeff || talk 04:33, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, mdy looks better. But I don't have any particular problem with dmy either. Whatever the majority asks, we can go by that. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 04:40, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Me again. Most of the all-numeral dates, which seems to be more than half of those on the article, are in the YYYY-MM-DD format, so I think we should standardise on that as it's less work to convert. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 07:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? What? You mean "2012, December 1"? That looks absurd. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 07:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I mean that most are formatted 2012-12-01. "2012, December 1" would look silly :-) Baffle gab1978 (talk) 08:06, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you talking about the dates in the references, or in the article? ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:12, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well there was an editor going around putting yyy-mm-dd in the references, and either dmy or mdy in the article body. Its just not spelled out in the policies that it has to be a certain way, but he said you should not change it, if its already consistent per WP:DATERET. This one is not consistent at this point, so we can decide how it should be. I can easily change it to all dmy with one click per WP:STRONGNAT if you say so. BollyJeff || talk 13:39, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I really feel mdy would be best. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 18:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Done BollyJeff || talk 18:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, the references section looks much better now. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 20:02, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I started doing this using WebCite; 5 done, 175-ish to go! Hope it's ok, feel free to continue. :-) Baffle gab1978 (talk) 19:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You mean we need to archive each and every reference? -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 16:29, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise, I think the article is looking good and progressing well towards FA. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Critical reception section

I was going through this section and I found several serious errors in it. Advice is required.

  • The Gulf News review in the article shows a 4/5 rating; the original review has no rating.
  • The LA Times review in the article gives 4/5 rating; Rotten Tomatoes gives 4/5 but Metacritic is showing 100/100. The actual review is unrated.

What is to be done? ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 08:47, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guess it has been sorted. Secret of success (talk) 10:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You can remove Gulf News from the table, or leave it and say "favorable" instead of having stars. I have seen it before when not all ratings are in stars; they are in whatever 'units' the reviewer uses. For LA Times, its not in the table anyway, so what does it matter? The text makes no mention of stars, so it's okay. BollyJeff || talk 20:30, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The LA Times problem was corrected before you commented. The Gulf News part has also been corrected I believe. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 05:27, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Gulf source still does not say 4 stars. BollyJeff || talk 12:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1964 Summer Paralympics medal table

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I've listed this article for peer review because i want to get it to the FL status. It is similar to current FLs, which are 1968 Summer Paralympics medal table, 1972 Summer Paralympics medal table and 2000 Summer Paralympics medal table.

Thanks, :) ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ Talk Email 10:01, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Hey, great to see articles like this being put up for review. Couple of things strike me early on - one is that the lede is short compared to articles like 1968 Summer Paralympics medal table, 1972 Summer Paralympics medal table and 2000 Summer Paralympics medal table, can you give us some interesting content about some of the things that happened at the games? At the moment it's a bit of a 'insert number here' template. Also 'Did not won any medal' -> 'Did not win any medal'. Finally it would look nicer to me if the countries column of the table was left-aligned so the flags matched up (like 1992_Summer_Paralympics_medal_table). Hope this helps Fayedizard (talk) 20:10, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done :) ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ Talk Email 05:51, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aalen

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
Hi, this is a translation of the de.wp Good Article[15] de:Aalen, and the German version has undergone de.wp peer review[16]. I’m curious to know wether eyes of English-speaking people see different weak or good points in this article, and if it qualifies for GA here too. As yet, the article’s structure is close to the original, but it doesn’t necessarily have to stay that way. I’m not a native speaker so I definitely brought in many language flaws, but as I can see the article has been visited and improved by obvious native speakers since I’ve done my main translation work.

Thanks, dealerofsalvation 16:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this article. Sounds like a lovely town, but I do not think the article is anywhere near ready for GAN yet. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

  • A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow/ There are many FAs on cities that seem as if they would be useful models. See Category:FA-Class WikiProject Cities articles
  • The biggest problem I see with the article is that it needs more references, for example the whole Designation as Imperial Town section has zero references and there are many other paragraphs and sentences that need refs but lack them.
  • Or only two of the many Persons connected to Aalen have refs - all should
  • My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
  • The references that are there need to be formatted consistently so as to provide all needed information. For example, Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
  • I also note that the article's references seem to depend pretty heavily on aalen.de (at least 22 of the 70 references cited). As much as possible, it should use refs from reliable, independent third-party sources.
  • Some refs that are from aalen.de are not identified as such (i.e. current ref 37 is "Stadt gedenkt der Opfer der Luftangriffe" (in German). Stadt Aalen. Retrieved 29 March 2011.
  • The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article - I think the current lead is too short and it could be expanded to up to 4 paragraphs per WP:LEAD.
  • When expanding, nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself
  • My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way
  • The article may need fewer sections / header too. Avoid short (one or two sentence) paragraphs and sections as these interrupt the narrative flow. So do we really need a one sentence section on Other christian communities? Or does Godparenthood (which no one reading this in English will understand as a section header) really need its own section?
  • Section headers do not follow WP:HEAD in places - avoid repeating the name of the article in headers. So "Persons connected to Aalen" could just be something like "Notable residents"
  • Be consistent on little things - is Große Kreisstadt italicized or not?
  • Also be careful about translating German words and phrases - most are translated, but a few are not.
  • The English is understandable, but needs a copy edit to sound more like something written by a native speaker.
  • Nice photos
  • Several dead external links here
  • Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:30, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bunkers in Albania

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I've listed this article for peer review because i want to see what must be improved on the article.

Thanks, Vinie007 18:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Texas State University–San Marcos

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Late last year this article was nominated for GA by an uninvolved editor. GA was declined but resulted in good feedback making me wonder if GA is a real possibility for the article. I have just finished a pass through the article performing a major rewrite of pretty much the entire article. I'd like to get a pair of experienced eyes to look at it and see what improvements need to be done in hope of moving towards another shot at a GA nomination in the future.

Thanks, --TreyGeek (talk) 03:32, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Nikkimaria

I did not check for potential plagiarism, but would recommend you do so, particularly for parts of the article you did not write. I'm watchlisting this review, so feel free to reply here if you have any questions.

  • I think the plagerism and copyright violation issues have been taken care of. The article was nearly entirely rewritten with the edits I made the first part of the year. Other parts were rewritten back in 2009 when the initial mass copy/pasting from the University's website was discovered. A spot check of the last few sentences looks clean in a Google search. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TreyGeek (talk • contribs)
  • File:HigherEduPlaque.jpg: under US law, you also need to identify the creator and copyright info for the plaque itself, not just the photo
  • I might have to remove the image from the article then. I'm unable to find any information on who created the plaque. The most substantial information I can find is here which is basically nothing. This is the first I've seen that pictures of art/sculptures/etc need to have the artist's information as well. It's good to know because there are a number of statues that have had pictures in this article over the years. Now I know to keep a look out for that and update the image information if I can.
  • Since the US doesn't have freedom of panorama for artworks, pictures like this need to account for the copyright of both the photo and the work itself. It can be tricky to find that information - you might consider contacting the school directly to see if they have any information. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fair enough, I still haven't been able to find anything on my own. I submitted a request to the University's "Pride and Tranditions" committee to see if they can provide that information. --TreyGeek (talk) 02:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Platopainting.jpg needs US PD tag
  • Can you clarify this? The image is added to the article via {{Portal|Austin|Texas<!--State institution-->|University}}. Are you saying the image over on commons needs to have the Template:PD-US added to it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TreyGeek (talk • contribs)
  • Fixed Added the template to the image on commons.
  • "457-acre (1.85 km2) of hills": measurement isn't adjectival here
  • Fixed (in two places)
  • Dead links should be resolved where possible
  • Fixed
  • Don't use contractions except in direct quotes
  • Fixed
  • Only full dates need commas
  • Fixed
  • Needs some general copyediting to catch errors like "which was part of the his Great Society"
  • Fixed (from what I could find in latest read through)
  • Rather short history section - is more information available?
  • There is likely a lot more that can be written in the History section. I punted on that during the rewrite and forgot about revisiting it. The difficulty may be finding sources to cite that isn't from the Texas State website. I'll see what I can do though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TreyGeek (talk • contribs)
  • Citation needed tag should be addressed
  • Fixed (With the exception of {{cite court}} which doesn't require publisher information.)
  • I'll read through the article to do copyedits and other prose edits you've noted above (I'll do that within the next couple of days if I don't get to it tonight). Thanks for the review! --TreyGeek (talk) 16:29, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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