Talk:Dox (poet)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Brigade Piron (talk · contribs) 19:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• Hi, I'm happy to review this. WP:Africa has a real problem with finding enough GA reviewers and I'm appalled that this has been waiting since September. That's even longer than mine! —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for reviewing! I got so busy IRL the past several months that I'm glad this review is coming now. Sadly, for the first time ever, I was totally unable to follow through on a FAC (for one of only two Madagascar Vital Articles, no less) and feel pretty unhappy about that. Which article of yours is waiting for review? I'll see if I can do it while I'm on vacation here in Seattle - going back to Pakistan on Jan 5. Best wishes of the season to you and your family, and happy new year! - Lemurbaby (talk) 18:10, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

• Not a problem! I'd have held the review a bit anyway. Best of luck if you try to re-try the FAR, let me know if I can help. I'm still waiting for Congolese Independence Speech and South Kasai to be reviewed if you have a moment! I've put the columns in (revert if desired) and I'm satisfied the other non-cosmetic stuff has been dealt with. The sfn citations are worth looking into further (the coding is exactly the same - adding |ref={{harvid|Surname|year}} into the citation) but are non-essential.

Comments (chronologically through article):

• Lead
  • Having citations in the introduction is not usual and against the MOS' comments that a lead should be, above all, a summary. Can the cited text be integrated into the body of the article please?

• Frankly this isn't like me - I must have intended to rewrite the lead knowing it would take ages to get a review on this article, and then the real world took over. Fixing now.

• • The article could certainly benefit from a picture and it would be perfectly OK to claim fair use as it's a biography. I'd suggest one of these here.

• Added.

• • I suggest a rework of the first sentence to be more immediately clear and encyclopaedic. "Literary artist" also sounds a bit strange and his exact birthplace is not the most immediately important detail to the casual reader. I'd suggest something like: "Dox, born Jean Verdi Salomon Razakandrainy, (1913-1978) was an Malagasy writer and poet considered one of the most important literary figures in the country's history."

• Done

• • I also have concerns that the lead does not really summarise the full content of the article. Perhaps consider a rework?

• Done

• Childhood
  • Link on "royal family line"?

• There are a lot of noble families in Madagascar and there is little to no documentation on them - only broad oral histories. They typically get a one word mention in longer works on the history of Madagascar. If I can ever gather together enough information to write an article about his line, or even find out specifically which one it is, I can add a link later.

• That sounds fine.

• • The phrasing seems a bit clumsy here. "He also taught him the history of their royal family line and life in the Anjanapara valley in southern Imerina, and instilled in the child a traditional love of the land, respect for ancestral traditions and appreciation for the beauty of the Malagasy countryside" Perhaps split?

• Split

• • Link on Ox?

• Done

• • "Centre Culturel Albert Camus" in italics?

• Done

• Early period
  • "simpler life"? Consider rephrase.

• changed to agriculture

• • "Mouvement démocratique de la rénovation malgache" to italics?

• Done

• • A cite on the sentence beginning "In 1932..."?

• Done

• Late period
  • "Death struck Dox's family hard in the subsequent decade." This doesn't sound too encyclopedic - perhaps consider a rephrase to something more neutral?

• Reworded

• • "Komitin'ny Artista Malagasy Mitambatra" to italics? You also do not need the definite article ("le/la") on the French translations in the section

• Italicized. But what does the second comment refer to - could you provide an example?

• "l'Union des Poètes". The L' is an abbreviation for "La" (infront of a vowel) and is pretty redundant for the reasons given in WP:THE.

• Works
  • I don't think it's normal to include biographies in the article itself unless they are notable in their own right. Create a "further reading" section perhaps?

• Done

• • Perhaps bring in columns into this section?

• Ooh... not sure how to do that. Could you link an example of what you have in mind?

• Have added one way of dealing with this to the article. Revert if needed. It is certainly not essential!

• Citations and the rest
  • Why is the template:sfn used for books, but not for articles? (I can understand not using it for websites, but the Razaimiandrisoa article appears to be from a peer-review journal which has the same "status" as a book, surely?)

• Just a habit - I think the coding is slightly different and I haven't learned it yet. Do you have a link to a page that explains the coding?

• It should be the same way as for books, using the |ref={{harvid|Name|year}} parameter. Do let me know if this doesn't work!

• • I'd suggest very short explanations of the entries in the see also (ie. "Jacques Rabemananjara - Malagasy playwright and poet of the Négritude movement")

• I haven't seen that done on other articles yet. My preference would be to leave it as is, unless there's a precedent. If you can link an article that exemplifies how it should look, I can take a shot at it.

• I don't think there's any guidance on it - I'd suggest Congo Crisis#See also for one way to do it. I just guess it makes it easy for people who are new to the subject (and to whom the names alone mean nothing) to navigate.

Virtually all of these suggested changes are basically cosmetic and should be easy to resolve. All best, —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:17, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you so much for taking the time to review this! And please let me know which article you have waiting for review as well. All the best in the New Year! - Lemurbaby (talk) 18:10, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks! I've added comments above too, but I'm very happy to pass the article. Congratulations! —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:19, 26 December 2014 (UTC)