Talk:Norman Wengert/GA1

GA Review

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GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   • Move the infobox to the top, and put the image in the infobox. Also, include much more information in the infobox. ME: MOS not required for good article review, but figured out how to do it and moved it nonetheless.
   • The lead needs to be considerably longer, at least three times as long. ME: Not required even by MOS; only suggested there. CT: I think the lead is a reasonable length for an article of this length.
   • All information in the lead should be repeated in the body. That included birth and death information. ME: MOS? Not required for good article review. CT: Fixed.
   • Do not use US Postal abbreviations, since no-one outside the US actually knows what they stand for. ME: MOS? Not required for good article review. CT: Exaggeration; some people outside the US know them. Thanks for pointing it out, though. Fixed.
   • Indicate what country the person comes from. ME: This was clearly indicated, consistent with Wikipedia coding for "American" in the first sentence of the lead.
   • The first sentence is incorrectly formatted, and far too long. It should be <Name> (<birth> – <death>) is ... Move parent information out of the first sentence. MOS not required for good article review. Changed anyway.
   • There is no such this as '--'. Instead, use an emdash (—). ME: MOS not required for good article review. CT: Have converted many hyphens to ndashes. Not sure if mdash required somewhere. I think I got the emdashes covered.
   • Year ranges should be using an endash (–), not a hyphen (-). ME: MOS not required for good article review. CT: fixed.
   • The 'personal life and education' section seems completely scrambled around. Nothing occurs in chronological order, and it is very difficult to follow. ME: fixed.
   • What is a J.D. and Ph.D.? On Wikipedia, when using abbreviations, which only occurs after the first use has been written out in full, with the abbreviation following in brackets, there is no periods in the abbreviation. ME: MOS not required for good article review. Fixed.
   • Do not include 'Inc.' and similar suffixes when referring to companies. ME: MOS not required for good article review. CT: Fixed.
   • Organizations are not to be in italics. ME: MOS not required for good article review. CT: Seems to have been fixed.
   • This is not a full sentence: "providing money for land acquisition." ME: Fixed by changing a period to a comma, which reviewer could have done.
   • Use straight, not curly, quotation marks. ME: MOS not required for good article review. CT: seems to have been fixed.
   • "Never shy about poking holes in other people’s balloons," is not encyclopedic. Fixed, although it takes a little colloquial color out of the article. CT: could perhaps be kept as a quote?
   • "served for many years" is not accurate enough. Which years did he serve? ME: Years provided. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 16:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
   • The 'Honors and recognition' section is very short. Perhaps it could be incorporated into a different section. ME: Made it longer with more explanation.
   • Quotes such as "American politicians will get as much as they can for their constituents, with only casual attention to the merits of the case and to the extent that they are not likely to be held directly accountable for costs." are not understandable by lay readers. Remember: Wikipedia is a general audience work, and all articles should be understood by a lay high school student without particular knowledge in the field in question. ME: Anyone who understands English in the ordinary meaning of plain language can figure out what this says, and explaining it more would probably have been tagged as "original research." CT: sounds OK to me
   • He should not be in the 'Lawyers' and 'Educators' categories. As faculty member, he is presumed an educator, while as lawyer he should be in lawyer by country category. ME: He is BOTH a lawyer and an educator, as the article makes clear. The intricacies of category usage are somewhat subjective and not at all clear to this editor, but this comment appears to be either the reviewer expressing a personal preference or else it is MOS not required for good article review.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   • The dating format 1-28-09 is not permitted on Wikipedia. Either use 28 January 2009; January 28, 2009; or 2009-01-28 (the latter being the ISO standard). ME: MOS not required for good article review. CT: fixed.
   • The formatting of the references is not impressive; for instance the URLs should not be by them selves, but be a link from the title. ME: MOS not required for good article review. CT: urls fixed
   • "16 U.S. Code § 1600." is not sufficient reference, since it is not possible to search it up without knowing what it refers to. All references need a title and an author (or reliable publisher), plus a date or URL. ME: All references have a title and author except the official government version of the codified laws of the United States (U.S. Code), which are familiar in international usage to most persons. This is also MOS not required for good article review. Nonetheless, I added the title of the statute. Who would the author be, the U.S. Congress or the President of the United States,or both? Most students in international business would know this.
   • Cannot say "probably best know for" and then quote the article in question. If he is most known for something, then find a sources that says he is most known for it. ME: Statements of fact for which reliable sources were provided within 24 hours of review.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   • Though there are some clues, I do not really understand what field he worked in. There is very little discussion of his academic work in general. The section dedicated to this focus only upon examples of his work, instead of trying to first make a general statement about the areas he worked in, and then go into detail about the individually important issues. For an academic notable enough for a Wikipedia entry, there must be considerable more discussion of his contributions to the academic field.

ME: It seemed pretty evident from the statement about subject matter in the lead paragraph and the titles of Wengert's publications in the article what "areas he worked in." Nonetheless, some additional information with reliable sources was added to lengthen the lead section and provide more explanation. The reviewer seems oblivious of the fact that in academe, authors write about scholarly research topics rather than about each other, so notable individuals are often very well known in their fields without others writing much about them, at least until they've been dead 100 years. This notability would be evident in the number of times one's publications were cited in the publications of others, but providing that data here would almost certainly be considered original research. Academics do not normally publish such information about themselves or about others, because publishers find actual scholarship more interesting and saleable.

When academics evaluate other academics for purposes of hiring, tenure and promotion, what they look at is precisely how many publications one has in peer-reviewed outlets, and what positions one has held previously. Unless biographies of most living academics are to be banned from Wikipedia, either factual statements from knowledgable individuals or original research will have to suffice in this area.

1. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

2. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

3. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

4. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Unfortunetly, I am going to fail the article. There are the workings of an emerging good article, but there are a lot of issues that need sorting out. The desicive matter is that his academic work is not covered well enough, and that his impact on the field of study is not covered at all. This will require a full rewrite of the section. The best of luck on improving the article. Arsenikk ^(talk) 11:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• In the material above, ME = Mervyn Emrys comment. In view of the foregoing responses to the review, this last paragraph and the quick fail are incomprehensible.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 20:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

  I added some comments marked "CT". I hope that's OK. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 02:09, 15 March 2009 (UTC)