Talk:Mata Hari/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch This article needs some work before it's ready to be promoted. The goal of GAN is to improve articles, so I will not fail it outright. Rather, I will state the criteria that must be met before a more detailed review will be done. If this is completed within seven days, I will do a thorough review of the prose.

1. The lead section is too short. It needs to summarize the entire article. According to Wikipedia:Lead section#Length, it should be two to three well-developed paragraphs.
2. The references are missing important information. At minimum, they should include a title, publisher, url, and accessdate. If a publication date and/or author is listed, this information should be included as well. See Wikipedia:Citing sources for the {{cite web}} template.
3. The lists in the "Legend and popular culture" section should be converted into prose.
4. If at all possible, the "Scientific research" section should be expanded, as it doesn't contain much depth.
5. The lengthy cut-and-pasted section in the "Eyewitness Execution" would be much better if it was rephrased. It may be public domain because of its age, but every time I've come across something like this, I've been told that Wikipedia policy states that copying a section of text of this size is frowned upon.
6. "Trial" would be a more formal section name than "Case", and the section would benefit from more information.
7. The article should be thoroughly sourced. There are many instances of uncited text, including entire sections.

If this work can be completed within a week, the review will continue. Any comments or questions can be left here, as I will place this page on my watchlist. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 23:23, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

A week has passed, and none of these suggestions have been implemented. I am failing the nomination, but I urge future editors to use this list to help guide their future editing. GaryColemanFan (talk) 18:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't remember where to find it but it is also frowned upon to use first names in the text... the last name should be used (see the section that mentions "Adam" when talking about her father). Also, some pretty poor writing. An example: We join his story as Mata Hari is awakened in the early morning of 15 October. It should be altered so that it is not in the passive tense.71.56.118.64 (talk) 09:31, 15 October 2008 (UTC)