Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Peer review/Washington Blade

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Washington Blade[edit]

So I've dumped a ton of effort into this to raise it from Stub to B, then per Dev920's comments on the talk page, I expanded it more to make it better situated for nomination for GA (and eventually FA). Now it's time for someone else's eyeballs to look at it. I think my citations might be off in a couple of places so any help to fix those would be great! Thanks!! jtowns 10:08, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From the talk page Hmm. This article does not appear to be the article I thought I looked at. :) But, if you're still interested in GA -

  • The lead needs to sum up the entire article. Ideally, it needs to be able to stand alone.
  • The references are not formatted properly, see WP:CITE for more.
  • How is the paper laid out? Formatted?
  • Tell me more about Bladewire. Who came up with it? What's its circulation?
  • Some questions: Has there been any controversies surrounding it? Has it ever won awards? What's the readership demographics? What's the editorial line? Any good scoops? Any competition?

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll review later. This is important what you're doing, btw, no LGBT newspaper has made it beyond a stub yet. If you can get this up to FA, we'll have a precedant to work from. Good luck! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article is starting to shape up nicely, though I'm worried about the proliferation of short sections. Anyway, here's an FA newspaper that I found that you may find helpful: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I think the lead needs work but you can go for GA after that, I think. Even if there's other stuff they want they'll put it on hold for you to fix. I'd just like to say, well done, this article has been so improved. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Dev, I'm concerned with the number of short sections. Here's some other things I've noticed:

  • Things look well-cited, which I like to see (I haven't verified any of them, but I don't see large chunks of text that are not cited).
  • "1969 to June 1974: The Gay Blade's Early Years" and "1950s to 1969: The Origins" could be combined.
  • Actually, all the history subsections seems somewhat arbitrary broken up.. The names don't seem terribly interesting, and don't really give me an idea what the section is really about. The names don't seem to be very encyclopedic.
  • The AIDS crisis was a big part of LGBT history. Is there any more information to how the paper responded to the crisis?
  • The reporting on AIDS is called "ground-breaking" in the article. This doesn't seem to be neutral point of view. Instead, give some examples on how it was ground-breaking and quote others who said it was ground-breaking.
  • Section titles do not follow the Manual of Style.
  • The history sections frequently reads as if each sentence is a bulleted list without the bullets.
  • It makes sense to move the BladeWire section as a subsection of "About".
  • The section name "About" should be something more informative.
  • Are Metro Weekly and The Advocate really competitors? Or are they just LGBT publications like the Washington Blade? Are they notable enough as competitors to be listed here? (Would we consider Gayly Oklahoman a competitor?) I think this section could be expanded or perhaps removed altogether.
  • The article should be named Washington Blade not The Washington Blade. (see WP:Manual of Style).
  • "Criticism & Controversy" section could work as its own section instead of being a subsection of History.
  • The "Archives" and "Awards" don't really belong as subsections of History.
  • One source with one person blogging and calling Washington Blade a "newspaper of record" does not mean we can say "The newspaper is sometimes referred to as America's gay newspaper of record". -- Ash Lux (talk | contribs) 23:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ashlux -- So I have eliminated many of the short sections, tightened up the history subsections, rearranged things as a suggested above. As for the 'About' section -- I'm not sure what better to call it. I used "General overview" which is used on The Washington Post. I also added more to the criticism and controversy section to make it able to stand on its own, and I have added another source for the newspaper of record comment. As for the AIDS crisis reporting, I removed the NPOV violated text, but I have been unable to locate additional sources to say it was ground-breaking coverage. On the point about competition, MetroWeekly is a direct competitor in the LGBT publication market in Washington DC. They compete directly for ad dollars and readers. And the only other GLBT newspaper i nthe US that has similar resources and reporting quality is the Bay Area Reporter out of SF. So they don't directly compete, but the Reporter and the Blade are competitors. I look forward to more feedback as it comes and more suggestions as you have them. Thanks! jtowns 06:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing -- I'm having a hard time coming up with sources for awards the paper has won. Any suggestions? I called the paper today and they just told me that they have won numerous awards but didn't have a list of them to give me for more info... jtowns 06:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok based upon this feedback and stuff on the talk page, I made changes and am now submitting this article for GA nomination. Therefore I am de-listing this as peer review. jtowns 02:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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