Talk:Texarkana Moonlight Murders/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 23:38, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be glad to take this review. Initial comments to follow in the next 1-3 days. Thanks in advance for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:38, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This article is packed with information and is clearly intensively researched; I really appreciate all your work on it. I do feel like this has some more areas where it needs work to fulfill the Good Article criteria, which I've noted below:

All quotations need to be followed by an inline citation per criterion 2b. There are many here that don't.
A second major issue is the level of detail in the article. At 67kb of readable prose, this is extremely long for a minor event. (No disrepect to the victims; I'm just talking on an encyclopedic scale.) To pick one section at random, we don't need the names of the men who found the saxophone, or a quotation of what they said to each other on finding it, or the titles of music found within the case; this discovery doesn't appear to need a full subsection at all. The lengthy descriptions of the investigators, big block quotations of minor press releases, and even the locations of their tombstones are again excessive detail.

At this length, the article becomes difficult to use for all but the most dedicated readers--those willing to spend an hour or more reading it, which isn't the typical Wikipedia user. This is inevitable for a sprawling topic like History of West Africa, but a topic this limited could make far better use of summary style (criterion 3b). Looking over what's here, I would suggest that this article be cut by as much as half.

Sentences like " A 1945 Texarkana City Directory indicates that the residential development of Beverly stopped in about the 600 block of Richmond road, which means the attack occurred somewhere near Taylor street; contrary to the belief that it happened near the intersection of Richmond and Robison." sound very much like original research. (Also note that this sentence should have a comma rather than a semicolon, which generally requires a complete sentence on both sides).
Bare URLs should be turned into fuller citations using a template like Template:Cite web.
External links such as the Google Maps link at "to a Beverly residence at 805 Blanton street" should not be embedded with the article text but moved to the references or external links section.
For such a lengthy article, it strangely omits information about the lead suspect and other theories about the murders; this is a main aspect that should be covered under criterion 3a. FWIW, I agree with the merge suggestion that the article on the unknown killer should be part of the article on the killings.
The lead should better summarize the article's contents, and should present no new information (see WP:LEAD).

Since this one seems to require substantial further work, I'm not listing this as a Good Article at this time. I do wish you luck though and hope you'll find some of the above suggestions helpful. Thanks again for your efforts on these famous crimes! -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Review response

I took care of the first bullet.
I disagree with the second bullet. In my opinion, an "encyclopedia" includes comprehensive information on a topic. My goal is to make this article the most definitive account of the subject and get it to "Featured Article" status. The following article is very lengthy; it has reached "FA" status and it is only about a single song: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
I took care of the third bullet's suggestion of the semicolon. As for the "original research", this was needed to be done to figure out where the exact location of the crime occurred.
I haven't worked on the fourth bullet yet.
I disagree with the fifth bullet. No one will understand what the link is for and I believe it works well within the text.
As for the sixth bullet, I understand it is missing information. I'm still working on it. That is why I only nominated it for "Good Article" instead of "A" or "Featured". If I had added all this information, I would have nominated it for a higher rank; but I do believe so far, it has reached GA status.
I worked on the last bullet.

Thanks for the compliments. I've worked very hard on all of this. JeremeK (talk) 07:01, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And thank you again for your work! If you disagree with my review, I wouldn't be at all offended if you resubmit the article for a second opinion; GA reviewing is never an exact science. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:26, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]