Talk:Seth Kinman/GA1

GA Review

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Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of December 30, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: The article is almost totally comprised of short paragraphs (2–3 sentences) with few if any segues between them. Consider paragraphs 2 through 5 of the "Presidential chairs and later life" section. Paragraph 2 is a description of the subject. Paragraph 3 relates a land purchase he made. Paragraph 4 asserts his heroism in a shipwreck. Paragraph 5 has him presenting a chair to President Lincoln. None of those events are connected to each other by any details. Also, the "Early life" section is only one paragraph, while the "Presidential chairs and later life" section comprises the rest of the article. A better balance is desirable.

There are also some awkward places in the prose. A couple of examples:

• In the lead, the first sentence is about Kinman. The second is about presidents. The third begins with the word "he", leaving the antecedent unclear. (The reader can make the determination pretty easily, but grammatically, it's a bit jarring.)
• The first paragraph of the "Presidential chairs and later life" section begins "Inspired by the election of a fellow Pennsylvanian to the presidency" It is not until the second sentence that we discover that this president was "Buchanan", and we have to refer back to the lead to discover that it was James Buchanan. (Not all Wikipedians are familiar with US Presidents.)

Finally, there are several places where citations are inexplicably put in the middle of sentences. Cites should be at the end of sentences; if the facts in the sentence are attributable to multiple sources, put all the cites at the end of the sentence. Also, consider putting the works cited into a reference section and use a notation like "Shinn, pp. 94–95" for your inline cites.

2. Factually accurate?: The sourcing looks pretty good, with no major claims left uncited. All sources look to be reliable, with the possible exception of Find-A-Grave.

The first quote is set up appropriately, but the second two are kind of left hanging. At the very least, I suggest putting the author of the quote and the work in which it appears in the quote template itself. Some lead-up to the circumstances of the quote, etc., as with the first one by Fitzgerald, would be even better.

3. Broad in coverage?: Parts of the article leave the reader with a lot of questions. In Paragraph 3 of the aforementioned section, Where is this land purchase in relation to where Kinman was living at the time? Did he relocate to this land or was it just an investment? If he relocated, why? In Paragraph 4, Why was Kinman aboard this ship? Where was the ship when it was caught in the gale? How many passengers did he save, and how many were aboard to begin with? How did he save them? Maybe these details aren't available. If so, this should at least be noted in the prose. Without answering at least some of these questions (and others left unanswered by other sections of the article) I'm not sure this article will make GA. (I know it's frustrating when that happens, but sometimes there just isn't enough information out there to provide broad coverage. See Alney McLean and Edward Rumsey for examples of when this has happened to me.)

4. Neutral point of view?: The only possible hint of POV that I detect is the use of "tour de force" in describing the chair made for President Johnson. The quote seems to support this claim, but some nit-picky editors may not think that is sufficient. You might just try to reword to avoid that term.

5. Article stability? This is a very young article; it does not appear to have been the subject of an edit war at any time.

6. Images?: The number and quality of images available is impressive, but for the length of the article, it is too much. (On my display, which is an admittedly atypical 17" widescreen at 1440x900, the pictures extend farther down the page than the prose and sources combined!) It would be great if the article were expanded enough to accommodate all the images used.

I really hate to fail this article because the subject is certainly an interesting one, but it just isn't GA quality yet. From the quantity and quality of sources already cited, I have no doubt that improvements can and will be made, and I wish you the best of luck in getting the article promoted at some future time.

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it have it reassessed. Thank you for your work so far.— Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 14:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)