Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mitt Romney/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 00:01, 2 November 2012 [1].

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Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Mitt Romney/archive1
• Featured article candidates/Mitt Romney/archive2

Nominator(s): Wasted Time R (talk) 03:23, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The nominee of the Republican Party in the 2012 U.S. presidential election currently taking place. In case you're wondering if it's a good idea to promote a BLP of a high-profile, active candidate like this, there is strong precedent for it. In 2008, the Barack Obama article was FA through the campaign, and the John McCain article became FA during August of election year (and both remain FA to this day). Indeed, on the night of the November 4, 2008, general election, they went up together as dual featured articles on the main page. It was seen as a testament to WP's ability to present current and potentially controversial subject matter at the highest level, and it's a worthy goal to be able to do that again. This article has been through one prior FAC and a peer review, and content-wise has reached an agreeable, stable point to a number of different editors with different perspectives. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:23, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - can you add a "note" for the name "Willard Mitt Romney" as a person who isn't from US or is not knowledgeable would get confused about his real name (I'm currently). Is his first name Mitt or Willard? A note would be great. TheSpecialUser ^TSU 03:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I think this is already covered in the "Heritage and youth" section:

He was named after family friend, hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, and his father's cousin, Milton "Mitt" Romney, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears.[16] He was called "Billy" until kindergarten, when he indicated a preference for "Mitt".[17]

In other words, Mitt was his middle name at birth, but it's the one he has gone by ever since he was young. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:42, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Queries.

• Why no retrieval dates on (almost) all sources that are linked online? hamiltonstone (talk) 04:57, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This article never uses retrieval dates unless it's a web-only reference with no publication date. I'm of the school that holds that retrieval dates give no value to the reader and indeed add visual confusion to the publication date and drive up load times. WP:CITE says that retrieval dates are only required of web pages and only "if the publication date is unknown". Other articles have reached FA that use the same practice, for example the George W. Romney article. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, I wondered if something like that was the answer, and if it's per WP:CITE, then fine, ta. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Why the big linkfarm at the end, when the article is so closely and extensively referenced? I don't think we need links to collections of material at the Post, C-SPAN etc in an article with nearly 400 specific cites and a 'further reading' list. I'd be inclined to reduce it to his own site, the finance / campaign sites, and the Open Directory, or something like that.hamiltonstone (talk) 01:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

If you edit the "External links" section, you'll see that all of those links come out of two standard templates that are used in the "External links" section of most American political BLPs. I'm just following that practice here. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Review by GabeMc

General

• Stability. - Can an article that's currently on probation truly be considered stable enough for an FAC?

Yes. There are other featured articles under probation. See Category:Articles on probation. For example, Barack Obama is now undergoing featured article review while under probation. Probation really says nothing about the quality of an article, but rather is a way of ensuring non-disruption.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned somewhere below, the probation was fallout from edit warring at the Paul Ryan article, and not due to what was happening here. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

So, edit-warring at another page caused probation here, even though there was no recent edit-warring at Mitt Romney? If this is the case then the probation should be lifted here so this FAC can proceed unencumbered. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:12, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I would think protection of high-visibility articles takes precedence over FAC attempts. But this is a question for the admins, not us mortals. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why this article should be burdened by this restriction when edit-warring has not been an issue here lately. I think this restriction is unfair to the nominator and it should be lifted during the FAC. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:24, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The restriction is no problem to me. Some articles are under these kinds of restrictions on a permanent basis. Doesn't mean article improvement can't take place. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:42, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Even if probation were lifted, there would still be semi-protection I presume, so either way it's less than a perfect world. Maybe it would be best to leave it be for now, though I wouldn't object to removing probation either.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Length. The article is over 11,000 words and 68kb, are you sure there isn't more info that could be farmed out?

This is best responded to in terms of the whole article. Yes, it is long, but then long articles have been the trend in FA; there are a number of FA articles at this length or longer. Yes, most of the sections of this article do have associated subarticles with additional material, but readership of them is generally low, sometimes extremely low. Editors know this, and thus want material they consider important kept in the main article. And frankly, after much experience with articles like this, length is a good thing. Everybody gets to 'see' the subject they think they know, and they also get introduced to things and perspectives they didn't know. I have in fact trimmed parts of certain sections over the last few months, but at this point I'm content with the length as it stands now.

Fair enough, I tend to agree with you. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:28, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• WP:OVERCITE - The first graph has 14 cites for five sentences. This came up during the last failed FAC. Are you still of the opinion that the article is not suffering from cite clutter? Why does the first sentence of basic biographical detail need 5 cites?

Also a point that relates to the article as a whole. I did do a lot of duplicate cite weeding out the last time around. But it's very laborious and error-prone and I think I reached the point of diminishing returns. So anything that still has multiple cites is probably because there are multiple facts being collected in a sentence and/or because a statement is possibly contentious and needs extra sourcing. I also think this is only something us editors see as a problem; regular readers have long since learned to visually ignore the little blue superscripts as they are reading, and aren't bothered by it. So in sum, I plan to leave the citation density the way it is. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I tend to disagree here a bit. An FA should look organised, right now, the article looks disorganised. Really, 5 cites for a basic biographical sentence? Why? Sometimes less is more, and there is no need for 2 or 3 cites where one will do. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:31, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Would you consider bundling the cites with notes for which cite sources which claim? Right now its like finding a needle in a haystack to find which source is citing which fact. An FA's sourcing should not be this confusing and disorganised. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm not going to do cite bundling. That's a whole different citation architecture that I don't want to get into here. If anybody feels strongly about this, they can oppose the FAC and I will understand.

I respect your artistic license, however: "If a page has extra citations ... they contribute nothing to its reliability while acting as a detriment to its readability." ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:49, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Going back to your specific example of the first sentence, I realize two of the five cites were to support text that is no longer there. I have removed them. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for being willing to reduce the clutter, but as you said, this applies to the entire article, not just the first section. Where one good cite will do, there is no need for 3,4 or 5. Please consider going through the article top-to-bottom, removing redundant or obsolete cites where you can. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

WTR has now made sure that no sentence has more than three footnotes.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:39, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• The current note system uses hash marks. Try {{refn|group=nb|}} instead of {{#tag:ref||group="nb"}}

Why? Who cares? They come out looking the same. Hash marks are using in the wiki writeup already, for linking to sections within an article. What's so bad about them?

Right, and when linking to sections that's a perfectly good use of them. However, they should be avoided where possible in the mark-up, as with notes. Anyway, the system I suggested is more concise. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:38, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Show me the WP guideline that says not to use what I'm using. In general, WP gives wide latitude towards different citation implementation styles - no cite templates, citation template, cite xxxx templates, different ways of citing books, "ref name=..." vs the "r" template, etc etc. If the guidelines mandated one precise set of citation usages that everyone is supposed to use, it would be a different story. But it's pretty much "main author chooses, other editors follow". Wasted Time R (talk) 23:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Early life and education

Heritage and youth

• Passive voice. - Please review this section for overuse of the passive voice: "was born", "was named", "was called", "was elected", "was re-elected", "was involved".

I don't see these as objectionable. Google Books has 89 million hits for "was born", 7 million hits for "was named", and so forth. I think this is a misreading of the 'avoid passive voice' guidance.

Sure, Google turns up the phrase, what does that prove? Its not that you can never use it, its that you use it 7 times in the section, which is textbook overuse of the passive voice. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

See English passive voice - "its usefulness is recognized in cases where the theme (receiver of the action) is more important than the agent". That's the case here. It doesn't matter who was calling him "Billy", just that people were.

I think you are misunderstanding the point. All style guides advise against overuse with exceptions made for effect. Such as "the mouse was eaten by the cat" which speaks to the experience of the mouse, whereas "the cat ate the mouse" speaks to the cat. Exceptions are made based on the desired point of view. However, "Romney was involved" and "Romney became involved" does not change the point of view but it does avoid the passive voice. If you can avoid the pasive voice without changing the desired point of view, then you should. "Was born" is more difficult. "Born in 1947, Romney ..." "Was named" could be "His parents named him". Again, I'm not suggesting that you can never use the passive, but IMO, and I think others will agree, you are overusing it in this section. Try and break it up by avoiding 2 or 3 of the 7 uses. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

In other reviews, no one's shown concern about this. We'll see if anyone else does here.

I don't think "Romney was involved" and "Romney became involved" are interchangeable. The latter implies there was a change at some point, which is not the intent. I don't even think this use of 'was' should count as a passive voice - it's just standard narrative past tense. "From 1910 to 1914, Jones was president of the company." That's not passive to me. Hamiltonstone says a couple of the passives here do strike him as something that should be changed, maybe he can say what those are.

We seem to have a fundamental disagreement about what contitutes proper use of the passive voice. Grab a style guide or two and you will see that my above explanation is quite accurate. "Romney was involved" and "Romney became involved" are indeed interchangeable, as the point of view remains unchanged. Superior writing avoids the passive voice whenever possible, as with my suggestion. Inferior writing uses the passive voice without purpose, as with the example above. Since featured articles are supposed to represent the very best of Wikipedia, indeed the prose is expected to be "brilliant", this is most certainly a FAC issue, especially when you consider how easily this actionable objection could be resolved. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:45, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Since you say "others will agree," I thought I'd jump in here, since I don't (at least not fully). In my opinion, all of the passives in this section sound natural. There is a difference between "avoid overuse" and "avoid when at all possible" (see the MWDEU for some history of the debate). True, there are 7 uses in this section, but I estimate there are at least 50 total verbs, so 14% or less, which is not that much. Changing "Romney was born in 1947, the youngest child of..." to "Born is 1947, Romney was the youngest child of..." hardly effects the brilliance of the prose. That said, the section's prose is a little boring, and changing (for instance) "was named" to "his parents named him" might provide some needed variation. Lesgles (talk) 00:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I should say others will agree, other will disagree. It seems we agree in principle. I've now edited out all but one instance of the passive voice from the section. Do you miss it in any places? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. "the youngest child of George W. Romney, at the time an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), at the time a homemaker." Try "the youngest child of automobile executive George W. Romney, and homemaker Lenore Romney (née LaFount)."

This is intentional, because I'm only giving their occupations at the time he was born. Later, both went on to do much more, but those developments are integrated into Mitt's narrative, because they affected him.

Even if its intentionally awkward, it needs to be fixed. When we write "he was born to a Catholic family" it means the family was Catholic when he was born, not that they were always Catholic. "He was born to an Evangelical preacher" means that when he was born, his parent was a preacher. They can stop preaching later and this is still a true statement. Its awkward and its contibuting to some clumsy prose not suitable for a FA. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

If you look through the article history, you'll see several cases where other editors have stuck in "AMC CEO, Governor, Sec HUD" and "First Lady, Senate candidate" here and I had to revert it. The "at the time" keeps them from doing that. When your wording can be edited by anybody, sometimes it has to serve a defensive purpose.

Well, I'm sure you have a perfectly good reason for it, but its still an awful sentence IMO, and not FA quality writing. Every little bit helps, and every little poor construction makes the article read less polished overall. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:47, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've written it the better way, but I've added comments to say that the later positions should not be added there since they are described later. That probably won't do any good - drive-by editors tend to blow by comments, but we'll see.

• Awkward. "and his father was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, to American parents." Try, "and his father was born to American parents in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico."

Done.

• Vague. "He is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry." Omit the word "more" as a vague and unneeded modifier.
• Comma use. Ibid.

Done and done.

• Awkard. "A great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, converted to the faith in its first decade, and another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt ..." Try, "His great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, converted to the faith in its first decade, and his great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt ..."

This is intentional, to give prose variety by avoiding the pronoun and also because he had a number of other ggf's, these are just two of them.

I still say its awkward and could be improved. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

I merged two sentences so it reads: "A fifth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), his great-great-grandfather Miles Romney converted to the faith in its first decade, and another great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was one of the top early leaders in the church during the same time.[9][10][11]"Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:22, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Word choice. - "Parley P. Pratt, was an important early leader" instead of "important" try "prominent".

You think he wasn't important?

Sure he was, but aren't all leaders important? Prominent implies his special standing without impling the other church leaders were not important. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Kim Kardashian is prominent, doesn't mean she's important. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Right, but Kim K is not a leader. Important and leader are redundant here. All leaders are relatively important but not all leaders are prominent. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked (without mentioning Kardashian).Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:15, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "Romney followed his three siblings – Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott – after a gap of nearly six years." Where did he follow them? This needs to be improved.

This came out of one of the recent reviews. Most people will know what it means, but I've simplified it by chopping out the six year gap part, which is no longer significant given other things that have been chopped out of this section.

I think the text string you are looking for is: "Preceeded in birth by his three siblings, Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I've adopted this, except that I used "Romney" instead of "Mitt", because the "Billy"-to-"Mitt" change is explained a couple of sentences later.

• Missing article. - "He was named after family friend" try "He was named after a family friend".

Done.

• Clarify/improve. - "In 1954, his father became the chairman and CEO of American Motors, helping the company avoid bankruptcy and return to profitability." Did AM avoid bancruptcy and return to profitablity all in 1954, or is that when George was hired, the turn-around occuring a year or two later?

Added 'soon' to clarify.

• Clarify. "where many students came from backgrounds even more privileged than his" The article has not yet established that Mitt was privileged, or to what degree he was privileged, so this seems a bit awkward and out-of-place.

By then his father was chief executive of a big company, so you assume that gave him a privileged upbringing.

• Relevance. "when his moderate father battled conservative party nominee Barry Goldwater over issues of civil rights and ideological extremism" This article is about Mitt, not George, consider trimming this out as excess, as it seems little more than a plug for how moderate George was at the time.

Is relevant to what Mitt learned about going against the party and how he later chose a different path.

Perhaps, but that is not made clear here. Either remove this here and tie this point in later when you discuss Mitt's politics, or tie it in now explicating what is was that Mitt learned from this. The reader needs to know why this is notable to Mitt, since as it stands now it seems a random datum about George. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:24, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

It gets tied in as part of Note 15.

Material in the article body should never rely on a note to make sense. Consider clarifing in-line. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I consider this relevant, regardless of whether it gets referred back to later or not. Growing up with a father who's involved in the middle of a heated battle in presidential politics has got to make a difference. Other editors think the same; in fact, if you go back to the Cranbrook incident discussions, you'll see that one editor thought this was the only thing worth keeping in this section, and that the rest was trivia.

You are misunderstanding me here. I don't think it needs to be removed per se, I think its relevance needs explicating. Try, "this later influenced Mitt's political persuasion in this way, x,y and z", or something better but to that effect. Its just sitting there on its own without any frame of reference as to why this is relevant to Mitt, not just George. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

This is related to Mitt following his father's example of not publicly protesting civil rights within the church. We really ought to be careful not to portray the son as a racist for not publicly protesting his church.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I think this item is now taken care of. The article no longer says "when his moderate father battled conservative party nominee...." and the bit about protesting the church is now in a note.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Redundancy. - "during his final year" appears twice in three sentences, consider a re-phrase.

Changed one to 'senior year'.

• Comma use. - "During his final year at Cranbook, he improved academically, but was still not a star pupil."

Fixed.

• Clarity. - "He won an award for those "whose contributions to school life are often not fully recognized through already existing channels" What does this mean exactly, its too vague to be useful.

That's a close paraphrase of what the award was.

A close paraphrase? From who, its in quotes. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:24, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Umm, yes, you're right, that's what the award description said. It meant he wasn't a star jock or a student council president or anything like that, but still made his presence felt.

Yeah, I know, but it doesn't change the fact that the whole bit is vague, illuminating little about Mitt's HS performance. On page 20 of KH are several quotes from teachers which would do a better job of explicating this point without confusion. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the award entirely. If it's this hard to understand, it doesn't belong.

• Comma use. - "He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs, and started the Blue Key Club booster group."

Hmm. I know what you mean but I think this one actually reads better this way after the below change.

• Clumsy. - "At Cranbrook, Romney was a manager for the ice hockey team and a member of the pep squad,[21] and during his final year joined the cross country running team.[17] He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs, and started the Blue Key Club booster group." Why mention three groups, then start a new sentence about 11 groups? Are the first three included in the 11? This should be reworked, perhaps into one sentence that covers his school participation.

Clarified to say the eleven is 'overall'.

• Comma use. - "He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs overall, and started the Blue Key Club booster group." Try: "He belonged to eleven school organizations and school clubs overall, starting the Blue Key Club booster group."

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Preposition use, poor grammar. - "Romney was involved in many pranks, some of which he later said may have gone too far and apologized for." Please fix this. Also, did he apologise for a specific prank, or for several that may have gone too far? Clarify.

See Common English usage misconceptions - it's okay to end a sentence with a preposition. As for the rest of it, this is a compromise wording worked out after four or five Talk archives' worth of heavy discussion, the early parts of which you were involved in too. I'm not going to change a word of it! ;-) Wasted Time R (talk) 01:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, its a poor quality sentence, and I had no part of the formulation even if I was involved in the discussion. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:24, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's poor quality, and yes the compromise happened after you left the article. But this is one can of worms I'm not going to open back up. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:51, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Who said anything about opening the can? "some of which he later said may have gone too far and apologized for" is quite bad. Try: "Romney became involved in several pranks while attending Cranbrook. He has since apologized, stating that some of the pranks may have gone too far." ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I've further tweaked this per my comments here. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. - "informally agreed to marriage" try "became informally engaged".

Engagement is inherently a formal thing. I think it's better as it is.

So they informally agreed to marry, but how does that make the agreement to marry an informal one? If they agreed to get married, that's engaged, formal announcement or not. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I just don't think it was that. I've never seen the term 'engaged' use to describe them during this period, and I don't want to introduce something that's not in the sources.

When I google "Mitt Ann 'informally engaged'" a bunch of reliable sources pop up. So, I'll change to "informally engaged". This small tweak shouldn't cause anyone heartburn, because it's fairly trivial.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:32, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I would normally think "informally engaged" is an oxymoron, but it turns out that Ann was wearing a ring on her engagement finger while Mitt was away, and when George asked her about it, she said it meant that. So the term I guess fits. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:38, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Done.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• How/where did he and Ann meet?

Hah! In one of the crazier moments here, that got suppressed out of the article due to the couple's age difference. C'est la vie ...

You could certainly mention how and when Mitt met his wife without details about her age. Can a bio be comprehensive if it does not mention how the subject met his only spouse? Should the Jerry Lee Lewis article evade this point as well? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The implication in the text now is that they went to a joint school and thus were in the same circles, which is good enough. The backstory of how they had once known each other in elementary school, then got reintroduced at a mutual friend's birthday party, was earlier removed from the article due to brevity concerns, or would be too detailed to add. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:45, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. I'm sure in an 11,000 word article we can make room to explain how the subject of the article met his wife, the mother of his children. This speaks more to comrehensivness than brevity. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:24, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to go with WTR on this one. If we say where and when they first met, that seems no more important than saying where and when they first met romantically, and of course then there's the matter of when and where they first....you know. The article is already pretty clear that she attended a sister school, which amply explains how they became close.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:49, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Mitt's birthdate is found only in the lead, this should also be in the article body.

It used to be that BLP's didn't do that, but now I see that some do, so now done here.

• Clarify. "He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel academically", this implies that he eventually did excell academically, but according to Kranish-Helman, though much improved by his senior year, at no point in HS did Mitt excell academically.

Good point. I've removed the 'at first'.

• Chronology inconsistency. The article says Mitt "began commuting to Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills ... in the seventh grade" before it says George was elected Governor. Why would Mitt commute to a school in the same city in which he was living at the time? According to Kranish-Helman, Mitt was a day student there for three years before his father was elected, then George started spending time in Detroit, and Mitt began boarding, but not until after three years at Cranbrook, while the Romney's were still living in Bloomfield, not in seventh grade as the article currently states. If Mitt was born in 1947, then he would have been around 15 when George was elected, or about 10th grade, not 7th grade. I think substituting "began commuting" with "began attending" should fix the error.

Since "commuting" seems to give the wrong impression, I've changed it to 'enrolled as a day student at ...'. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

University, France mission, marriage, and children

1965–1975

• Passive voice. There are 8 instances of the passive voice in this section. Please consider breaking up a few of them to improve the overall quality of the prose.
• Awkward, confusing. - "Romney attended Stanford University in 1965–1966 for a year." How can he attend for one year during two calender years? Try: "Romney attended Stanford University for one academic year, during 1965–1966."

Reworded to "... during the academic year of 1965–1966".

• Word choice. - "Although the campus and environs were becoming radicalized", 1) environs is a bit archaic, try something more familiar to readers. 2) Campus is singular and environs is plural, which makes for an awkward construction here.

Removed environs. (Just for the record, Google News Archives shows 77,000 hits for that word in the last 20 years.)

Which only supports my assertion that the word is jargon or archaic. 77,000 hits for google means that it is barely used. Anyway, the issue with juxtaposing a plural noun with a singular one was even more pressing. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:02, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

News stories, not web page hits. For news stories, that's a lot.

The issue of juxtaposing a plural noun with a singular one was even more pressing. "Although the campus environ was becoming radicalized" would have solved the issue just as well, if you are intent on retaining the term. Please keep in mind, this was only a suggestion, and not at all an actionable objection that would hold up promotion. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Confusing. - "Although the campus and environs were becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and participated in pre-"Big Game" customs involving the Stanford Axe", Why would the radicalization affect his campus participation in the named activities? This needs further clarification, many students were both hippies and active campus leaders, so it does not follow that school activites were catagorically dismayed by the radical movement of the time.

Activities like Big Game hijinks and radicalization were in fact pretty mutually exclusive.

Perhaps, but this article does not explain the point at all, so its an assumption that readers will make the connection however strong you think it is. Many hippes attended football games and took part in established campus activites. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:05, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think any hippies took part on the Stanford Axe shenanigans. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this.

Those shenanigans do not exactly illustrate being well-groomed. Per cited source: "In faded Levi’s jeans, a heavy wool work jacket, and well-worn moccasins, Mitt infiltrated the rival campus." I've rewritten a bit: "Although the campus was becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance, and he also participated in pranks involving the Stanford Axe.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Since you're now characterizing the Stanford Axe actions as a prank (fair enough, that's what one of the sources does), I think we should treat this similarly to the Cranbrook pranks, and move the details of the pranks into a Note. I've done so, restoring a bit of the "Big Game" context. Even better, we can now move the Stanford 'dressing as police officer' implicit mention and cite out of the Cranbrook Note and into this one. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:55, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice, again. - "In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in at the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests" Try: " ... he participated in a counter-protest".

Changed - this is one I agree with.

• Clarify. - "In July 1966, he left for a thirty-month stay in France as a Mormon missionary" He left where? Try: "In July 1966, he left Stanford (or college) for a ...".

It used to say "left the country", then someone else removed it as redundant. I've put it back. So it goes.

• Excess detail. - "a traditional rite of passage for which his father and many other relatives had volunteered", why is the material on his father and uncles needed? In a massive article like this that is already pushing the limits, this wold be a good place to trim. Try "a traditional rite of passage for Mormons", since we have already established that his family is Mormon, there is no need to tell us that his family did this.

Strongly disagree. Romney sometimes gets attacked on the Internet for going on a mission just to avoid the draft. This material shows that missionary stints were and are common practice in his family, and that he very likely would have gone on one even if there had been no war. This was discussed in a Talk archive a while back.

Like I said, the fact that he is a Mormon explicates the why. There is no need for background on his father and uncles. Consider trimming as excess detail not related to Mitt's bio. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Not all Mormons go on missions. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:48, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Well done. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:44, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "He arrived in Le Havre with ideas about how to change and promote the French Mission, while facing physical and economic deprivation in their cramped quarters" Did he have ideas about change due to the deprivation? Also, why mentin that he arrived with ideas but not mention the ideas themselves. Expand or trim.

To me it's significant that he came there with ideas for change, instead of just following along with whatever they were doing. But it's not worth expanding upon, given the desire to cut down the article, so in the spirit of cooperation, I've removed it.

• Clarify. - "The nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people were especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol" Is nominally the right word here? Seems like OR. Also, are you implying that Catholics cannot abstain from drinking alcohol outside church services? This seems dubious and stereotypical, consider a rephrase or trim.

This to me shows how hard his task was. And it's not OR - it's directly paraphrased from the sources given. But regretfully, I'm removing it. (Some base cites will be lost, but a bot will come along and rebase them.)

I went overboard on removing missionary material from the article before. It's clear now that we've gone all the way throught that we aren't doing a major size reduction - nor do I think we should be, as I state up top. Also I was in a foul state of mind at the time. This is one of the most important periods of Mitt's life, and some things that were removed really belong. So I'm restoring the Note with Mitt's quote about difficulty, which you didn't object to, and adding to that Note a shorter and hopefully clearer mention that Mormonism in France is a tough sell. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "He became demoralized and later recalled it as the only time when "most of what I was trying to do was rejected." This is confusing here juxtaposed with the previous sentence about wine. Was Romney's main mission to stop French people from drinking alcohol? Because as its currently constructed that is what in being implied. Either state Romney's specific aversion to alcohol or clarify that he was demoralised by the process in general, and not just the drinking part.

The alcohol is gone, so this should no longer be confusing.

• Excess. - "In Nantes, he suffered a bruised jaw while defending two female missionaries who were being bothered by a group of local rugby players" This seem slike trivial excess that is better suited for notes.

Previous reviewers have requested no expansion of Notes. So removed.

• Contradiction. - "He gained recognition within the mission for the many homes he called on and the repeat visits he was granted" This seems to contradict the previous assertion that he was demoralised by his lack of success.

Disagree. This shows he was persevering and overcoming his initial demorialization. And another reviewer requested it, to indicate why he got promoted. But in the spirit of cooperation, removed.

Per the above, I'm also restoring this, because it's important to state why he got his promotions. I've changed the earlier "became demoralized" to "initially became demoralized". Wasted Time R (talk) 16:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Seasonal reference. - "then in the spring of that year", avoid seasonal references per the MoS.

Changed to "soon thereafter".

• Confusing. - "[Romney] became assistant to the mission president in Paris, the highest position for a missionary" Is it higher than president? Seems like its not really the highest, unless the president of the mission is not actually considered a missionary.

That's what the source says. But "Highest position" clause now removed.

• Awkward. - "In the Mission Home in Paris he enjoyed far more comfortable accommodations" More comfortable than what? Its been a while since you've mentioned the depravation, so this needs soem clarification. Try: "more comfortable accommodations than he endured in Le Havre".

Added "than before", since it covers other stops besides Le Havre.

• Fix. - "Romney's support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War" U.S. should be US.

Can you point me to the guideline that says that, for a U.S.-centric article?

I stand corrected, both U.S. and US are acceptable per this guideline. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:20, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Grammar. - "Romney's support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War was only reinforced when the French greeted him with hostility over the matter and he debated them in return." An wkward, poor grammatical construction that needs rephrasing. Also, "greeted him with hostility" is a bit odd. Kinda like "lavished him with derision", the verb and the adjective are not a good pairing.

I thought this was engaging prose, just like the FAC criteria ask for.

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:15, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I've now tweaked this sentence per my comments here. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:18, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "He witnessed the May 1968 general strike and student uprisings and was upset by the breakdown in social order." What about the breakdown upset him, this is too vague to be useful in its current construction. Expand or trim.

To those who lived in the era, France May 1968 is self-explanatory - it was one of the signal events of the entire decade, anywhere. But I guess most of our readers are a lot younger than I am, and have no clue. And we don't have space to expand, so very regretfully I'm removing this and the references back to it later.

• Non sequitur. - "Romney, who was not at fault in the accident,[nb 6] became co-acting president of a mission demoralized and disorganized by the May civil disturbances and by the car accident." What does his not being at fault have to do with his becoming acting-president? This should be broken into two sentences.

Now split and reduced.

• Run-on. - "He rallied and motivated the others and they met an ambitious goal of 200 baptisms for the year, the most for the mission in a decade."

Now cut down.

And in reference to the above three items, I'm restoring a mention of the general strike, not in terms of Mitt's reaction, but that of the whole mission's work, which is clearly stated by the source. I'm also restored a rephrased version of Mitt rallying the demoralized and disorganized others. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Redundancy. - "By the end of his stint in December 1968, he was overseeing the work of 175 fellow members." Is "fellow" needed, seems redundant at this point.

Changed to "others".

• Comma usage, awkward construction. - "Romney developed a lifelong affection for France and its people, and speaks French"

This is at the level of character detail that we're removing now, so I'm removing this.

• Pronoun useage. - "The experience in the country instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose." Try "His experience". Also, "life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose" is not encyclopedia. This reads like an essay and would be better conveyed with a direct quote.

There is no good quote for this - it was the analysis of several high-quality sources. I disagree about it not being encyclopedic - I think it's things like this that give the article value and the reader a deeper understanding of the subject than just who-what-where. But I'm likely in the minority, so with regret I'm removing it.

Sounds like a WP:SYNTH to me. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. - "It also represented a crucible, after having been an indifferent Mormon growing up: "On a mission, your faith in Jesus Christ either evaporates or it becomes much deeper ... For me it became much deeper." What "represented a crucible"? The experience? Re-phrase as awkward. Also, "For me it became much deeper" made more sense whan the article explicated that Romney was a "like-warm" Mormon at the start of the Mission. Restore background or trim.

This could be a self-serving quote from Romney. We really need something he said at the time, not something he said years later when he was a politician. Removing it. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "While he was away, Ann Davies had converted to the Mormon faith" Why is this important to Mitt? Perhaps some explication that Mitt and Ann could not marry under Mormon standards until she coverted.

Moved to a parenthetical re the Temple wedding, which should get the idea across.

• Unencyclopedic prose. - "Romney was nervous that she had been wooed by others while he was away, and indeed she had sent him a "Dear John letter" of sorts, greatly upsetting him; he wrote to her in an attempt to win her back". Rephrase, "wooed", "'"Dear John letter"'" (scare quotes), "of sorts", "win her back". Also, "greatly upsetting him" would be better as just "upsetting him".

Removed the whole thing.

• Clarify. - "but subsequently agreed to wait three months to appease their parents" Why did they need to appease their parents? They were both adults at this point so why exactly did they wait. What was the specific issue with their parents?

This is a level of detail another editor was insistent upon, but I think he or she has left the building. Removed.

• Improper use of given name. - "At Ann's request" should read "at Davies' request".

No longer there.

• Awkward. - "At Ann's request, Romney began attending BYU, in February 1969." Sounds like he bagan attending "BYU in February 1969" not just BYU. Try: "In February 1969, at Ann's request, Romney began attending BYU."

No longer there.

• Clarify. - "The following day, the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple" Try, "The following day, the couple flew to Utah for a Mormon wedding ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple".

Done.

• Wordy. "Romney had missed much of the tumultuous American anti-Vietnam War movement while away and was surprised to learn that his father had turned against the effort during his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign."

Seems okay to me.

Shortened a little.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I've now tweaked this, breaking it into two and rewording to avoid the passive voice. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Name use confusion. - "Romney had missed ... George was now serving". Try "George Romney" or "Mitt had missed ... George was now".

Latter done.

• Vague modifier. - "a sincere attempt to bring the war to a quicker conclusion." Omit "quicker" as vague.

Not so sure, but done.

• Unencyclopedic prose. - "Regarding the military draft". This needs reworking as it is putting Wikipedia's voice first.

So? Everything is in our voice. "Smith was born in 1963." Who is saying that?

Perhaps I misspoke. The "Regarding the military draft" is unencyclodedic because it is editorialising. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

No it's not, it's just a transition phrase. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

I don't understand why it could be editorializing. Please explain or strike out.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

This is not the kind of writing one would expect in an encyclopedia, it reads like a letter. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:42, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:11, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "When those ran out, his high number in the December 1969 draft lottery (300) ensured that he would not be selected". This needs explicating, since the average reader will be aware of draft rules. Exaplain why his high number was unlikely to be drawn.

Changed to "(300 out of 365)".

You missed the point. You are assuming that readers will understand why a high number reduces your chances of being drafted, they won't. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

If high numbers mean you don't get drafted, then low numbers mean you do. 300 out of 365 is high. Self-explanatory. The first reader who posts something on the talk page saying they don't understand it, then I'll add extra text. For now, not warranted.v

I think readers will understand, but on the other hand it seems unnecessary to clutter the minds of readers with the mechanics of how a draft lottery works. I will tweak accordingly.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:23, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

AYW, your description was incorrect - nobody gets 'chosen' for the draft during the lottery itself, it just determines call-up order for those eligible for selection - and your 'fortunate' is true but editorializing. I've replaced it with "When those ran out, the result of the December 1969 draft lottery ensured he would not be selected." But there's a lot of interest in this subject on the Talk page and I predict someone will want the 300 put back in. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:53, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, your change is fine with me. If some insane talk-page draft fanatics want the numbers back in, then perhaps a note would do.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. The numbers have been removed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "Romney remained isolated from much of the upheaval of the era." I assume you mean the 1960s, but this could be improved by clarifing that point.

Changed to "the late 1960s/early 1970s era", but I bet some other reviewer won't like that.

• Vague. - "He did not join in some protests there against the LDS Church's policy at the time of denying the lay priesthood, and some sacraments, to blacks." If he did not join in "some protests", did he join in others? If Mitt never protested the Church's stance on race then just say that.

"Some" removed.

• Language. - I'm not sure your use of "blacks" here is entirely respectful. Try "african Americans" for a more PC approach.

"Blacks" is still fully permissible in PC writing, especially in writing about this era. Show me the WP guideline that says we can't use it.

This is a strange place to take a stand, but okay. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Try: "denying the lay priesthood, and some sacraments, to black people". Its less offensive. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

For example: "There are 3 million blacks in Detroit" or "There are three million black people in Detroit." One seems less offensive to me. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:33, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

It now says "black people". But I think this sentence is a serious problem in this article. We say that Romney did not publicly protest LDS racial discrimination, but Romney did not publicly protest lots and lots of things (RFK assassination, Manson murders, Roman Polanski's sex life, et cetera). We are giving great weight to public inaction. Romney's father was a strong civil rights proponent, but he too declined to publicly criticize his church. I think that this bit about Mitt ought to go into the note about similarities between father and son.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:46, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I changed "black people" to "black members". Wasted Time R (talk) 01:39, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the general issue, this has been one of the most troublesome parts of the article. The Talk pages have gone around and around on this - whether to include, how to describe the policy, how much family or historical context to give, etc. I'm okay with what's there now, and I think moving the 1978/2007 reaction to a Note is a good change. But I'd also be okay with removing the whole matter entirely. It definitely belongs in the articles about George and Lenore, because they were political officeholders and officeseekers at the time. But Mitt was not - he was in his twenties and just a student. To me, that makes a difference. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

It's wildly prejudicial against Romney. There's no evidence whatsoever that he supported the policy, or that his father's emphasis on quiet diplomacy was unwise or ineffective. Yet here we are hanging it all around Mitt Romney's neck. I don't know which Wikipedia policies apply (Coatrack, BLP, etc) but I do know this is highly f---ed up. Complete removal of this into about what Mitt did not do would create article instability (i.e. bogus whitewashing charges) so I plan on moving it to the note about father-son similarities, if no one beats me to it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree fully with you Anythingyouwant. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:41, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. It's moved to a note (#13).Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Misuse of parenthesis. - "(In 1978, the church announced the reversal of its policy; in 2007, Romney said he had been so anxious for the policy to change that when he heard the news while driving at the time he had pulled over and wept.[33][54])" If this entire statement in parenthentical then pehaps this would be better suited for a note. Or work into prose.

Show me the WP guideline that says we can't use sentences in parentheses. It's one of the tools for indicating subordinate importance.

This should be moved to notes as excessive detail for the article body. Also, its not related in any way to Mitt Romney, its purely a datum about the Mormon Church. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

You've been away for a while. We had a long discussion in Talk about this fairly recently, and this is what was worked out. I do not believe it should be changed.

I've moved this to notes for two reasons: 1) The first clause is a datum about Mormon church policy, 2) the second clause is a self-serving anecdote from Romney. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:41, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Moving this to notes would be okay if the accompanying stuff were also moved to notes. As I explained a few sentences up, the stuff about Mitt Romney's public inaction re. LDS discrimination needs to be handled carefully. Moving the 1978 and 2007 info may be appropriate, except that it exacerbates the problem of giving undue weight to inaction.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with moving all this contentious stuff to notes. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:41, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. It's moved to a note (#13).Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "Romney became president of, and an innovative fundraiser for, the all-male Cougar Club booster organization and showed a new-found discipline in his studies." What was innovative about his fundraising?

Not worth going into, I've removed the subclause.

• Language. - "In his senior year, he took a leave to work as driver and advance man". Try "During his senior year".

There's another reviewer out there who wants instances of "During" changed to "In". Oh joy. But done.

• Awkward. - "He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with highest honors in 1971, and gave commencement addresses to both the College of Humanities and to the whole of BYU." Try: "In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English".

Disagree. Lots of sentences start with "In <year>", it's good to vary them.

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:54, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Excess. - "The Romneys' first son, Taggart (known as "Tagg"), was born in 1970 ... Ann subsequently gave birth to Matthew ("Matt", 1971), Joshua ("Josh", 1975), Benjamin ("Ben", 1978), and Craig (1981)." Do we really need the nicknames of all their children? The article does not currently explain how the couple met, so this seems excessive.

I think you're fixated on the meeting, and I disagree with removing the nicknames (especially the first), but in the spirit of cooperation I have.

When a biography of someone does not even mention how he met his wife, there is an obvious error of ommision. I am not fixated on the point Wasted, and I will again ask you to please not use such accusatory and abusive language against reviewers. If how Mitt and Ann met is not notable enough for inclusion in the article then I don't see how his kids nicknames are. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

If you want to add how they met, go ahead yourself and do it. The stripping out of the age difference left me feeling ill about this whole part of the article.

I know how they met, that's not the point. The point is a bio on Romney needs to include a brief description of how Mitt met Ann. This is actionable IMO, as the article cannot be said to be comprehensive while this important piece of info is missing. I'm sure you could avoid revealing their age difference, or that Mitt was over 18 and dating a minor. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

For God's sake, there is nothing wrong in what they were doing!! This one drives me insane. A high school senior going out with a high school sophomore is not illegal improper or anything and happens all the time. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:42, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Wasted, I never said there was anything wrong with their relationship. I don't think there was. I assumed it was removed specifically because of their age difference (see whitewashing). I am suggesting now that this info should be restored, avoiding the issue of age if needed. E.g. "Mitt and Ann met at a ... They began dating shortly after." See, its easy, and you don't have to go into the age difference. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:52, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

So put it in yourself, such that you're satisfied. No point in us trying to guess how you want it to read. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:57, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Chronolgy issue. In the section summarising events up to 1975 you have: "Benjamin ("Ben", 1978), and Craig (1981)". As these date fall outside 1975 this needs to be fixed.

Disagree; it's more convenient to put them here. Chronological organization does not have to be an absolute straightjacket.

• Clarify. - "Her work as a homemaker would enable her husband to pursue his career." How so, and why is this notable? Did sho ay the bills while Mitt's wasn't earning? Staying home and taking care of children is not unique to Ann, so why is this needed? Again, this article is massive, and any trims of unneeded prose will improve the readability.

Call me foolish, but I think it's worth mentioning about all women who work in homemaking. What they do has value, even if it isn't "notable". Removed.

I never said it wasn't important, I asked why it was notable, e.g. Did she pay the bills while Mitt was up-and-coming? What's special about what she did compared to any other wife of a businessman? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not any more important than any other wife, but they're all important. Moot point anyway. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I think you are confusing "important" with "notable". E.g. "Mitt's automobile allowed him to drive to work." A statement of fact, and its certainly important to have a car when you need to drive to work, but why is this notable? E.g. "Mitt's flying car allowed him to get to work faster than most." Now that would be notable. I'm not in anyway trying to minimise Ann's important role. I was merely asking why this was particularly notable, and worthy of inclusion. Did she do anything above what any housewife would have done that explicitly enabled Mitt to work? One could argue that without their children, her contribution to his ability to work is next to nill, but she gave birth to said children, so she cannot really be said to have enabled him to work by caring for their (read her), children. What she did was not unique to their family. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:01, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "Romney still wanted to pursue a business path, but his father advised him that a law degree would be valuable to his career". "Still wanted" implies that the reader should know that he wanted to, but I don't see this explicated in the previous text. Also, did George want Mitt to become a lawyer, or to use a law degree to improve his business ability? How would this be valuable to his business career?

Good catch on "still", the antecedant to this got yanked in one of the previous cutdowns. Now removed. I've added "even if he did not become a lawyer". Why having training in both is left as an exercise to the reader.

• Comma use. - "Thus he became one of only fifteen students to enroll". Use commas after intorductory phrase, in this case, "thus".

I'm not convinced everyone follows this anymore, but done.

• Wordy. - "Thus he became one of only fifteen students to enroll at the recently created joint Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration four-year program coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School". Consider a trim, or breaking the sentence into two.

Disagree.

Tweaked. See edit summary for explanation.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Subject without a verb modifing it. - "Fellow students considered him guilelessly optimistic, noting his solid work ethic and buttoned-down demeanor and appearance".

See next.

• Improve word choice. - "guilelessly optimistic" (peacock), "solid work ethic" (unencyclopedic), "buttoned-down demeanor", how can a demeanor be buttoned-down? an appearance sure, but not a deameanor, consider recasting this.

Character description, now nuked.

• Improve wording. - "He ... participated in class well". Try: "He actively participated in class"

See below.

• Vague. - "and led a study group whom he pushed to get all A's". Did they get all A's or did he just push them toward that goal. Also, "all A's" may not hold much meaning for non-American readers. Try: "top marks" or something to that effect.

Nuked everythig but the first clause.

• Awkward construction. - "He had a different social experience from most of his classmates, since he lived in a Belmont, Massachusetts house with Ann and two children." Try: "Living in a Belmont, Massachusetts house with Ann and two children, he had a different social experience from most of his classmates." Or even better: ""Living in a Belmont, Massachusetts house with Ann and their two children, his social experience in college differed from most of his classmates."

Changed to the latter.

• Spelling. - "He was non-ideological". Try "nonideological", there should not be a hyphen used here.

My guess is both are permitted, but changed.

• Awkward. - "and did not involve himself in the political or social issues of the day". This seems awkward in light of the most recent topic sentence: "He had a different social experience". Were students at Harvard typically nonpolitical at the time?

Removed "or social". Wasted Time R (talk) 01:43, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Missing article. - "breakdown in social order". Try "breakdown in the social order".
• Subject/verb agreement. - "The couple were married on March 21, 1969". Try: "The couple was married on March 21, 1969" or even better: "The couple married on March 21, 1969".

Unresolved. In American English its "was" not "were". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Punctuation. - "In the Mission Home in Paris he enjoyed far more comfortable accommodations". The apositive "in Paris", within an introductory phrase needs a comma.

Unresolved. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC).

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Run-on. - "Romney's support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War was only reinforced when the French greeted him with hostility over the matter and he debated them in return".
• Comma use. - "He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with highest honors in 1971, and gave commencement addresses to both the College of Humanities and to the whole of BYU".

Unresolved. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Commas splice. - "Ann subsequently gave birth to Matthew ("Matt", 1971), Joshua ("Josh", 1975), Benjamin ("Ben", 1978), and Craig (1981)."
• Redundant prepostion. - "Romney, who was not at fault in the accident, became co-acting president of a mission demoralized and disorganized by the May civil disturbances and by the car accident." Omit the second "by".
• Wordy. - "Romney had missed much of the tumultuous American anti-Vietnam War movement while away and was surprised to learn that his father had turned against the effort during his unsuccessful 1968 presidential campaign." Break into two sentences.

Unresolved. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Further tweaked. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:54, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comma use. - "Romney developed a lifelong affection for France and its people, and speaks French."
• Spelling. - "counter-protest" should be "counterprotest".

I think the hyphen is okay. See counter-protest.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:37, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Spelling. - "co-acting" shoud be "coacting".

Changed to "co-president" per cited WaPo source.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:37, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Word choice. - "By the end of his stint in December." Consider a more encylcopedic word choice here.

When you get the Counter-protest article renamed, I'll take out the hyphen. Show me the WP guideline that says that "stint" isn't acceptable. I think there's more range of acceptable usage than you do. Anyway, a lot of the above items have already been nuked, so they are moot points. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, some word pairs need hyphen and others don't. "Stint" is not encyclopedic. I've indicated which of the above items that are now resolved an which aren't. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Here is a Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of "stint". Definition 1b of the noun form says "a period of time spent at a particular activity", which is exactly the meaning it is used in here. There is nothing to indicate it is slang, vulgar, foreign, or anything else that would disqualify it for use. I've checked a print dictionary here, same story. I've used "stint" in a dozen articles and you're the first person to say it couldn't be used. I think you are wrong on this. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, as I said above, not all of theses comments are actionable objections to the promotion. Some are just suggestions to be considered. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:33, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I !vote for "stint". It seems fine in this context.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:24, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

While I would personally like to see a more encyclopedic term used, I am fine with it and won't belabour the point further. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:29, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Business career

I've commented on the content and structural issues for this section below. I'll let Anythingyouwant deal with the prose issues, since he is the #2 editor on the article and seems to be on a closer wavelength with you than I am. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you now refusing to address comments by reviewers? After two days? If you are going to encourage Anythingyouwant to deal with this multitude of grammatical errors then I strongly suggest you ask them to add themselves as a co-nominator. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:22, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

First of all, under no circumstances will I accept any conomination. Second, I really don't want to get involved with further sections unless the bit about not protesting is resolved. And lastly, I kindly ask WTR to try his best to resolve the issues listed here. I only deal in lost and hopeless causes.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

OK no problem, as I said on your talk page. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:11, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Management consulting

• Confusing modifier. - "in Massachusetts" could define both clauses in the sentence and is therefore squinting.

Removed - 'Boston' makes it self-evident.

• Passive voice. - "Romney was recruited by several firms ..." Try: "Recruited by several firms, Romney ... " Also, "He was viewed as having a bright future there". Try: "BCG execs viewed Romney as having a bright future there". And, "a management consulting firm in Boston that had been formed". Try: "a management consulting firm in Boston, formed ..." And, "Within a few years, he was considered one of their best". Try: "Within a few years, they considered him one of their best ". And, "Romney was recruited by several firms and chose", try: "Recruited by several firms, Romney chose". There are 6 examples of the passive voice in this short paragraph. Please break-up a couple of them to improve the quality of the prose.

All now reworked I think.

• Word choice. - "rather than join a major company directly". Try "leading" instead of "major".

Changed to "large".

• Word choice. - "a management consultant to a variety of companies". Try: "a management consultant for (or with) a variety of companies".

Changed to "for".

• Awkward. - "Unlike other consulting firms, which issued recommendations and then left, Bain & Company had a practice, that Romney learned, of immersing itself in a client's business and working with them until changes were implemented." Try: "Consulting firms typically issue recommendations but do not follow-up. Bain & Company had a practice of immersing itself in a client's business and working with them until changes were implemented."

Shortened a different way.

• Comma use. - "Romney became a vice-president of the firm in 1978[15] and worked with clients". We need a comma after the introductory phrase.

Done.

• Awkward. - "Within a few years, he was considered one of their best consultants and at times sought by clients over more senior partners." Try: "Within a few years, they considered him of their best consultants and clients sometimes sought his advice over more senior partners."

Changed to this with a few tweaks. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:31, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Excess. - "Two family incidents during this time later came to light during Romney's political career: a confrontation with a park ranger in 1981,[nb 8] and persistent interest in a 1983 episode in which Romney kept his family dog on the roof of his car during a long road trip." The park ranger incident should be removed to notes and the dog incident removed entirely as not notable except as political fodder. Since many more notable political stories have surfaced that would justify inclusion over this trivial datum.

The park ranger incident is in a Note, this is just the lead-in so that people realize there is a Note to read. The dog on the roof story has become, for better or worse, one of the most well-known stories about Romney. It has spanned two presidential campaigns and is the constant fodder for late-night jokes, political cartoons, negative ads, psychological analyses, and so forth. Mention of it here, with a link to the separate article dedicated to it, needs to be here and I strongly disagree with any effort to take it out. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:05, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I've shortened the dog text to read: "and persistent interest in a 1983 road trip with a dog on the roof."Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:13, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Private equity

• Passive voice. - There are 8 instances of the passive voice in theis sub-section. Please consider reducing this by 2 or 3.
• Word choice. - "Romney initially had the titles of president and managing general partner". Try: "Romney initially held the titles".

Done.

• Editorialising. - "In any case, maximizing the value of". "In any case" is unencyclopedic.

It's a transition phrase, not editorializing, but removed anyway.

• Adjective, adverb use, passive voice. - "Romney was generally data-driven, and often played the role of a devil's advocate during exhaustive analysis of whether a deal should be done." Try: "Generally data-driven, Romney often played the role of a devil's advocate during exhaustive analysis of whether a deal should be done."

Done.

• Awkward. - "a deal should be done" is unencyclopedic and poor writing.

Disagree, but changed to "whether to go forward with a deal".

• Confusing modifier. - "Bain Capital lawyers asked him not to get involved, although he did meet with the workers to tell them he had no position of active authority in the matter." Its not clear which clause is being defined by "with the workers".

Changed to "with the strikers".

The modifier is still defining more than one clause and is therefore squinting. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the word "with" so it says he "did meet the strikers". Does that address the issue?Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

This looks good now. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Pronoun use. - "he did meet with the workers to tell them he" "them he" is too many pronouns, recast. Try: "Romney met with the workers, explaining that he had no authority to act on the matter."

Rephrased.

• Clumsy. - "He later became referred to as managing director or CEO as well." Try: "They also referred to him as managing director or CEO."

I want to move some of this to a Note, will get back to it later.

I've tweaked this. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Who is the mysterious "they"? No clear referent. There really are times when the passive voice is better. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Changed "they" to "employees". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

That's dubious to me. It could have been an outside PR firm hired to do press releases, for instance, that came up with the wrong variant of a title. I've changed it to 'publications', which is about all we can say for sure. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:14, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comma splice. - "Romney was on the board of directors of Damon Corporation, a medical testing company later found guilty of defrauding the government".
• Excess parenthesis. - "(He had initially refrained from accepting Bill Bain's offer to head the new venture, until Bain re-arranged the terms in a complicated partnership structure so that there was no financial or professional risk to Romney.) Why is this even in parentheses?

Because it happened in 1983, a bit out of chrono with the narrative. Came out like this from the peer review, or the GAR, I forget which.

Well, a peer review and/or GAR does not trump FAC. Issues missed in the PR and/or GAR are not therefore "pre-approved" for FA compliance. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I removed the parens. As explained in edit summary, a full sentence in parens is ordinarily deeper into a section, whereas this is only the second sentence of the section. It reads fine without them.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unnecessarry modifier. - "Romney was generally data-driven"

Removed.

• Spelling. - "re-arranged". There should be no hyphen here.

Fixed.

• Vague. - "during the first two years, very few were done". Omit "very".

Removed.

• Prose. "during the first two years, few were done". "few were done" is not encyclopedic, try: "few were finalized" or something to that effect.

Changed to "few were approved."Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Word choice. - "The firm's first big success". Try "significant" instead of "big".

Done.

• Awkward topic sentence. "At first, Bain Capital focused on venture capital opportunities. Romney set up a system in which any partner could veto a potential investment, and he personally saw weak spots in so many potential deals that during the first two years, very few were done." The topic sentence does not seem to relate to the following sentence.

Disagree. Venture capital means you go out and look for companies you might think will succeed and invest in them. If you find weak spots in all the companies you look at, you won't be investing in many companies.

I suggest that we say this: "At first, Bain Capital focused on venture capital investments. Romney set up a system in which any partner could veto one of these potential opportunities, and he personally saw so many weaknesses that few venture capital investments were approved in the initial two years."Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I think AYW's construction is superior to the current text. I would suggest swapping "At first" with "initially", and if the sources support it, I would add "only venture capital opportunities". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've put in "initially", but I don't see that the source supports "only".Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Poor quality prose. - "he personally saw weak spots in so many potential deals". "weak spots" and "so many potential deals" are unencyclopedia and need recasting.

Changed the first to "weaknesses", disagree on the second. Dictionary definitons 3:1a, 3:1c, and 3:4 all apply here re "Deal". "Potential" is clearly an acceptable modifier of "Deal". More later. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:50, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

This seems to have been resolved as described in the previous item above.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:28, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Poor quality prose. - "and selling them off in a few years." 1) "selling them off" is unencyclopedia, 2) "in a few years" is vague.

"Off" removed. Disagree on second. The source says "in just a few years". The dictionary definition 2:2 says "at least some but indeterminately small in number". I think that's the case here.

"few years" is vague, and needs clarifing. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The source says in a few years. You want me to make up something, like "one to three years"? You want me to do some general research on LBO firms and find a figure, that may or may not apply to this time and context, and synth it in? A Google Books search has literally millions of hits for "in a few years". Why is it good enough for all those publishing house editors but not for you? You'll say it's not encyclopedic. Okay, let's add that to this new Google Books search and we still have half a million hits. I respectfully believe you are wrong on this one. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The cited NY Times article says: "He made his money mainly through leveraged buyouts — essentially, mortgaging companies to take them over in the hope of reselling them at big profits in just a few years." We could change "few" to "several" but either way seems okay to me.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:57, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Right, its not encyclopedic, its vague and we should strive for better prose than the NYT, no offense intended to fans, thats a newspaper, we are an encyclopedia. How about "and selling them in the short-term", or "and selling them quickly" or "with hopes of selling them as soon as a they realize a profit"? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

"Short-term" and "quickly" both imply weeks or months or quarters, not years. "Soon as they realize a profit" is not what the source says and probably not what they did. Show me the WP guideline that says "in a few years" is not encyclopedic. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I've rewritten as follows: "Romney soon switched Bain Capital's focus from startups to the relatively new business of leveraged buyouts: buying existing companies with money mostly borrowed from banking institutions using the newly bought companies' assets as collateral, then taking steps to improve the companies' value, and finally selling those companies once their value is maximized, usually within a few years." This is much less vague.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:55, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Well done, this is no longer vague and it reads much more smoothly. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "Bain Capital lost most of its money in many of its early leveraged buyouts, but then started finding deals that made large returns". Try: "Bain Capital lost money in many of its early leveraged buyouts, but eventually found deals that earned large returns".

Done, but with "then" instead of "eventually", because the latter implies a longer time gap than occurred.

• Clarify. - "as well as lesser-known companies in the industrial and medical sectors". Did Bain specifically seek out lesser-known firms in theses field? Try: "as well as several lesser-known companies in the industrial and medical sectors".

Added "some" not "several".

• Clarify. - "He wanted to drop a Bain Capital hedge fund that initially lost money, but other partners prevailed and it eventually gained billions." Did other partners prevail over Romney's disagreement or in the investment in general, or both?

Changed "prevailed" to "disagreed with him".

• Excess verbiage. - "He also personally opted out of the Artisan Entertainment deal". Try: "He opted out of the Artisan Entertainment deal".

Done.

• Excess. - "In some cases, Romney had little involvement with a company once acquired". This is excess that could be trimmed. Of course not every member of the firm was active with every client. This goes without saying and is a fine place to trimm an especially long article.

Normally I would agree. But Romney gets hung out to dry for every bad thing that ever happened to any company that Bain Capital did a deal with. Due to that, this might be warranted. We'll see what Anythingyouwant thinks. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I agree that the section is too long, but removing this short sentence would have a de minimis effect on section length. The source says: "Romney’s role with companies varied. With Staples, he sat on the company board for more than a decade. With many others, he left oversight and daily management to his associates appointed to company boards and executives running the businesses, said Wolpow. Executives of several companies bought by Bain said they had little or no interaction with Romney." In addition to the rationale given by WTR, I think this sentence indicates that Romney is not a micromanager, which is useful to know.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:08, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

This seems like a detail better suited for the Bain article, or the article on Romney's business career. As it stands, it appears to be a type of disclaimer that leads the reader to think that not all of the shady deals Bain involved itself in can be tied to Romney. However, as the CEO and sole shareholder, the buck certainly stopped at Romney. The captain is to blame for anything that his crew does, even things he didn't personally manage. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

You're looking at this through a different filter. I wrote it two or three years ago, looking through a business filter - what kind of executive was he? It's more about Romney than Bain Capital per se so it belongs here, not there. The Business career of Mitt Romney article is a non-factor: it got 3,552 views in September, while Mitt Romney got 1,440,651 views, meaning out of every 400 people who look at the main article, only 1 looks at the subarticle. In other words, moving something to there is tantamount to deletion. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the source was saying Romney is not responsible for decisions of his underlings. If the source was saying that, then the source would have been (1) editorializing, and (2) wrong. The question of Romney's responsibility is mainly directed at the time when he was running the Olympics while technically still CEO of Bain Capital. There is no substantial question that he was responsible for everything Bain did before the Olympics.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Removing it would also have a de minimis effect on the reader's comprehension of Romney's role at Bain, therefore it is excess. A note perhaps. It is safe to assume that readers will understand that Romney didn't work at Bain alone, and he did not handle every deal himself. We would not need to clarify that a lawyer didn't handle every single case at their law firm. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:31, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

At a typical law firm, no single person is in charge. It's just a bunch of partners. At Bain Capital, however, Romney was CEO. Many CEO's have their hands into everything. Some presidents too (see Jimmy Carter).Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I've worked for some CEO's who were micromanagers and were involved in every deal, every new hire, etc. It makes a big difference (usually for the worse). Wasted Time R (talk) 04:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "Bain Capital's leveraged buyouts sometimes led to layoffs, either soon after acquisition or later after the firm had left." Clarify/Wikify "after the firm had left". "Left" imples the firm had relocated somewhere.

Changed "left" to "departed".

Is "departed" the best way to cast that Bain no longer provided its service? Does a lawyer "depart" a client after a trial? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Changed to "concluded its role". Wasted Time R (talk) 01:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Nice, even better! ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward/verbose. - "How jobs added compared to those lost due to these investments and buyouts is unknown, due to a lack of records and Bain Capital's penchant for privacy on behalf of itself and its investors." Try: "Exactly how many jobs Bain Capital added compared to those lost due to these investments and buyouts is unknown due to a lack of records and Bain Capital's penchant for privacy."

Did the first part, but kept "on behalf of itself and its investors" at the end because that's an important additional consideration they face when dealing with inquiries.

• Editorialising. - "In any case, maximizing the value" Try: "Maximizing the value ... "

Looks like this has already been addressed, both above and in the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Excess. - "as it was for most private equity operations". This should be trimmed as excess detail about private equity firms in general and not related to Bain per se.

Normally I would agree. But so much political focus has been put on what happened at Bain Capital, from the 1994 election to the present, that I think some mention of typical private equity practices is warranted. Again, see what AYW thinks. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Its still a datum about other PEFs, so why is this relevant here? Also, make sure this isn't WP:OR. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

One of the cited sources says:

“ Increasing value means boosting profits. That can require a range of approaches including cost-cutting, modernizing plants, adding products, expanding into new markets, and acquiring similar companies. Bain employed all these strategies under Romney. It's impossible to say precisely if more jobs were created than cut by Bain since the firm does not track employment in its investments. But Bain officials say the companies in which they invested added more jobs than they cut. Geoffrey Rehnert, a former Bain partner, said Bain often increased employment to boost the value of the company. In one of its first deals, for example, Bain acquired an Illinois manufacturer of medical diagnostic trailers that travel from hospital to hospital, and quickly expanded its national sales force. Sales tripled and employment grew to roughly 150 from 90 in the 27 months that Bain owned it, said Rehnert. "The profit improvements which Bain companies generated were driven mostly by growth, and not slash and burn cost cutting," said Rehnert, now co-chief executive at another Boston investment firm, Audax Group. "While it wasn't the primary objective, there was actually a very strong record of job creation across Bain Capital's portfolio." The primary objective, of course, was to make money. That meant every job couldn't be saved. Some strategies, such as a roll-ups, are designed at the outset to cut jobs. ”

I don't see anything here about how "most" private equity firms operate. Maybe I'm missing something.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I'm convinced now, I've removed this clause. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - There are several uses of "but" in this sub-secion. Consider recasting a few of them as "however".

I try to avoid or minimize uses of "however" because some editors consider it on the words-to-avoid list. I'll try to remove "but" completely in a few places.

• Clumsy. - "Bain was among the private equity firms that took the most fees in such cases". Try: "Bain received higher than average fees in such cases".

That would eliminate the comparison to other firms of this type. Let me do some more research on this one - there's another source on the subject that I meant to incorporate but didn't get around to.

"higher than average" applies to other firms so the comparison is retained. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The whole question of Bain Capital fees is a valid one, but is hard to summarize in a little space here (see this NYT story that I alluded to). I think it should be tackled at the Bain Capital article, not here, so I've removed the existing text in question. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Overuse of the passive voice. - "In 1990, Romney was asked to return to Bain & Company, which was facing financial collapse." Try: "In 1990, facing financial collapse, Bain & Company asked Romney to return."

So changed.

• Comma use. The introductory phrase: "He was announced as its new CEO in January 1991" needs a comma after it.

Done.

• Clarify. - "while rallying the firm's thousand employees". Try: "while rallying the firm's one thousand employees".

I think the two usages are equivalent, but done.

• Clarify. - "Within about a year, he had led Bain & Company through a turnaround and returned the firm to profitability without further layoffs or partner defections." While the graph previously mentions Bain & Company's pending financial collapse, it does not mention any layoffs or partner defections.

Disagree. This is a concise way of indicating what had been going on during the near collapse, and that it no more of those things happened.

The prose should avoid the text string: "without further layoffs" since no initial Bain layoffs are discussed. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I've removed "without further layoffs or partner defections". There's a revisionist article in Rolling Stone recently published that challenges aspects of the standard account of Romney saving Bain & Co, and while its value as a RS is borderline, maybe the less heroism here the better. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:28, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Cite clutter. - "Romney took a leave of absence from Bain Capital from November 1993[89] to November 1994[45] in order to run for the U.S. Senate." This is a prime example of where cites [89] and [45] should be bundled and placed at the end of the sentence, or at least placed at the end if not bundled as well. Readability is certainly suffering from all these citations. Please clean some of them up.

Continue to disagree about bundling. That's an architectural change and a lot of work that isn't warranted here. Anyone who reads WP articles about active U.S. presidential candidates is going to see tons of little blue superscripts. They'll just have to ignore them, whether there are 400 instances in the article or 500. Moving to end of the sentence is okay with me. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The best thing is to move cites to the end of sentences. If that means more than three cites at the end of a sentence, then maybe the sentence needs to be broken up, or some cites are redundant. Normally, the cites at the end of a sentence should be in an order that corresponds to what they're citing in the sentence. In this instance, I've moved the two cites to the end of sentence.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The ordering thing doesn't work because, alas, there is a bot that reorders the cites such that consecutive footnotes are always in ascending numerical order. (I argued against that once, to no avail.) My general approach is to put cites after a clause if it's something especially important/counterintuitive/contentious, but to collect them at the end of the sentence otherwise. I probably haven't followed that practice rigorously, though. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I know there's a nobots tag. Maybe that tag can be specialized to ward off a particular bot. We can contact Lawrence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves for details (a Matrix reference). Seriously, I think the syntax is {{bots|deny=[name of bothersome bot]}}.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "By 1999, Bain Capital was on its way to being one of the top private equity firms in the nation". Try: "By 1999, Bain Capital was on its way to becoming one of the top private equity firms in the nation".

Changed to "towards becoming".

• Word choice. - "Bain Capital was on its way to being one of the top private equity firms". Try "leading" instead of "top".

Disagree. "Leading" has possible additional connotations (Bain Capital keeps a low profile and isn't really a leader in that sense); and the source uses "top". Dictionary definition 3:2 applies here.

The lead says they are one of the largest such firms in the US. Are you saying that they are one of the largest but not a leading firm? Leading does not imply leadership per se. Hasbro is a leading toy manufacturer but are they leaders in the field of toy production? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Anyone have a problem with "foremost"? I'll give that a try.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "Bain Capital's approach of applying consulting expertise to the companies it invested in became widely copied within the private equity industry." Do other private equity firms not apply consulting expertise to the companies they invest in? What's is so special about the "Bain way"?

Correct. Some just buy companies that they think will improve on their own, then sell them when and if they do. The different approach Bain Capital took was to couple the "Bain way" methodology (which is their approach to doing management consulting) of Bain & Company with the VC or LBO action. That is the connection between the two Bain firms. The Boston Globe series Part 3 story makes this clear. This section used to make this clear too, until successive editors removed the term "Bain way" (POV allegedly) and removed the supposedly 'obvious' description that Bain techniques would be used (that editor didn't really understand the difference between the two Bains). I didn't have numbers on the Talk page, so out went the clarity. So it goes. This text you are calling out is left over from what used to be here, and now doesn't have an antecedent. So I'm removing it. All of this does remain at the Bain Capital article, fortunately.

• Clarify. - "Economist Steven Kaplan would later say, "[Romney] came up with a model that was very successful and very innovative and that now everybody uses." What "model" exactly? The article does not explicate why his approach was novel, so why are we mentioning it here in a vague and ambiguous way?

Same story. I'm removing this too.

• Overuse of the passive voice. - "He was not involved in day-to-day operations of the firm, nor was he involved in investment decisions for Bain Capital's new private equity funds". Try: "He did not involve himself with the firm's day-to-day operations or any investment decisions for Bain Capital's new private equity funds."

Here and below, I want to see if I can get most of this separation period material into a Note. It's really undue weight where it is, but it was a compromise during the period of time a couple of months ago when this was in the news. Now that 47% and other stuff dominates the news, maybe I can handle this appropriately without catching flak. More later. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:40, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

After thinking about it some, I've decided not to move this to a Note. I'd rather stick with the compromises that have been worked out for now, and then possibly revisit this sometime after the election. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The one above has now been reworded.

• Passive voice. - "He was announced as its new CEO in January 1991". Try "Bain announced Romney (him) as its new CEO in January 1991".

Rephrased differently.

• Vague. "Within about a year", Is it 11 months or 13 months? Be as specific as the sourcing allows.

I removed it. But I was about to change the "fewer than ten" to "seven" later in the same sentence. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:19, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Still there. "Within about a year, he had led Bain & Company through a turnaround "

• Tie-in with previous sentence. - "He retained his position on several boards of directors during this time and regularly returned to Massachusetts to attend meetings". Try: "However, he did retain his position on several boards of directors during this time, regularly returning to Massachusetts to attend meetings."

Disagree. The board memberships were separate from his Bain Capital position, so they aren't connected as much as a 'however' would indicate.

The cited source says that his acknowledgment that he served on boards of directors "does not directly contradict Romney’s claims that he was not involved in Bain Capital as a manager following his departure to lead the Olympic committee." So WTR is probably correct that we don't want to give the impression of a contradiction.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Reword for clarity, flow, avoid passive voice. - "In August 2001, Romney announced that he would not return to Bain Capital.[98] His separation from the firm was finalized in early 2002;[93] he transferred his ownership to other partners and negotiated an agreement that allowed him to receive a passive profit share as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities, including buyout and investment funds." Try: "In August 2001, Romney announced that he would not return to Bain Capital; his separation from the firm finalized in early 2002.[98][93] He then transferred his ownership to other partners and negotiated an agreement that allowed him to receive a passive profit share as a retired partner in some Bain Capital entities, including buyout and investment funds."

I changed the "was finalized" to "finalized", but left the sentence and semicolon splits where they were. It makes more sense to me for 2001 to be in one sentence and 2002 to be in one sentence.

• Prose. - "Because the private equity business continued to thrive, this deal brings him millions of dollars in annual income." Try: "The private equity business continued to thrive, earning him millions of dollars in annual income."

Don't see an improvement in anything, but done. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't you think "earning him millions" is better than "this deal brings him millions"? Also, generally avoid using "because" to start a sentence. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Personal wealth

• Confusing modifier, prose. - "The trust, created in 1995, allows the Romneys to transfer money to their heirs outside their estate, taking advantage of sophisticated tax planning techniques used by high-net-worth families to defer or reduce taxes." Try: "The trust, created in 1995, allows the Romneys to transfer money to heirs outside their estate, taking advantage of sophisticated tax planning techniques often used by high-net-worth families in an effort to defer or reduce their tax burden."

Done, except for the "often", which isn't in the source that I can see.

• Comma use. - "The couple's net worth remained in the same range as of 2011, and is still held in blind trusts."

Moot.

• Comma use. - "In 2010, Romney and his wife received $21.7 million in income, almost all of it from investments such as such as dividends, capital gains, and carried interest."

Disagree. All these commas look correct to me.

The comma after "capital gains" is excess.

See MOS:Serial. This comma is called a "serial comma". The general rule (see MOS) is to be consistent within an article, and only make exceptions when necessary.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, the standard preference in American English is to omit the serial comma. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Run-on. - "For the years 1990–2009, his lowest effective rate was 13.7 percent and the average of his effective rates was 20.2 percent."

Disagree. We need to indicate that what Romney released was an average of averages, not an average over sums.

It was a run-on because you need a comma before the co-ordinating conjunction "and" in "percent and the average". AYW's reconstruction (see below) eliminated the issue. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Rephrased to "For the years 1990–2009, his effective rates were at least 13.7 percent with an average effective rate of 20.2 percent."Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:27, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unneeded modifier. - "with some of it going to organizations that fight specific diseases such as cystic fibrosis and multiple sclerosis." Omit "specific".

Done.

• Passive voice. - "The couple's net worth remained in the same range as of 2011, and is still held in blind trusts." Try: "The couple's net worth, held in blind trusts, remained in the same range as of 2011."

Done, but kept the "still".

"Still" is an excess modifier here and adds nothing to the readers comprehension. The end of the sentence makes clear how recent this was the case. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Disagree. Your wording makes it sound like this sentence wasn't aware of the previous sentence. It would be like writing "Jones was in the train station. An hour later, Jones was in the train station." We could rework the pair of sentences to avoid this, but as it stands the "still" is a necessary bit of contextual connection. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:57, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Gabe's version is fine, except the commas should be removed to fix the problem identified by WTR. I've changed it to this: "As a result of his business career, by 2007, Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts since 2003.[98] Their net worth held in blind trusts remained in that same range as of 2011."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I've tweaked this further and it looks good now. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, your last tweak gave a misimpression about the 2011 figures. I've reworded the whole thing to make it simpler, see what you think. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Even better, well done! ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "An additional blind trust exists in the name of the Romneys' sons that was valued at $100 million in 2012." Try: "An additional blind trust, valued at $100 million in 2012, exists in the name of the Romneys' children."

Done.

While I realise that the Romney's have only male children, I think it would be better writing to use "children" instead of "sons", which may confuse some readers that there are females heirs not covered in the trust plan. Children covers "sons", but "sons" does not cover children if you are not that aware that they have only boys.

I changed "sons" to "children".Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "A portion of Romney's financial assets are held in offshore accounts and investments." Try: "Romney holds a portion of his financial assets in offshore accounts and investments."

Disagree - that makes it sound actively in Romney's control. If you read the source, some of these offshore investments were created by Romney and transferred to the blind trust, while others were the idea of the trustee in the first place. Do we want to explain all this? No, because the space needed to do so would give it undue weight - as it is, there are several editors who don't think mention of this belongs at all. I think here the passive voice is the best solution. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:47, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Good point Wasted. I agree, and fantastic work BTW. I predict this article will one of, if not the best FA of 2012! ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Local LDS Church leadership

There are only three misuses of the passive voice in this section, and like most, they are easily fixed, as I demonstrate below.

• Missing article. "a more flexible application of doctrine". The noun needs an article, or try: "a more flexible application of Church doctrine".

Changed from "doctrine" to "religious doctrine".Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Well done, your reconstruction also avoids the redundancy of "church". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unnecessarry modifier. - "Romney held several specific positions". Omit "specific".

Done.

• Unnecessarry modifier. - "He generally refrained from overnight business". Avoid "generally".

Disagree. That would imply he never once stayed away overnight, which is a pretty absolute statement that the source does not explicitly make.

The source says: "He was so dedicated to his church responsibilities that he wouldn't travel anywhere that kept him from getting back to Boston for the night, Clark said." Kim Clark, president of Brigham Young University-Idaho, was a member of the congregation at the time. How about: "He had a reputation for avoiding any overnight travel that might interfere with his church responsibilities." I'll give this a try.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Your wording seems weaker to me. "Reputation" might have a connotation that it might not be true. And "avoiding any overnight travel that might interfere with his church responsibilities" suggests that he did do overnight travel as long as it didn't conflict with something he was planning to do for the church, while the source quote indicates he did not do overnight travel at all. In other words, I think he wanted to be close by in case anything unexpected came up. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The source doesn't say it's true.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:20, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

This most recent construction is superior to the former, and without grammatical concerns. I've changed "had a reputation" to "earned a reputation" to improve the active voice. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Overuse of the passive voice, prose. - "He forged links with other religious institutions in the area when the Belmont meetinghouse was destroyed by a fire of suspicious origins in 1984; the congregation rotated its meetings to other houses of worship while the structure was rebuilt." Try: "After the destruction of the Belmont meetinghouse by a fire of suspicious origins in 1984, he forged links with other religious institutions, allowing the congregation to rotate its meetings to other houses of worship during the reconstruction of their building."

Done.

• Passive voice. - "Some others were rankled by his leadership style and desired a more consensus-based approach." Try: "Others, rankled by his leadership style, desired a more consensus-based approach."

Done.

• Prose. - "During his years in business". Try: "During his years career".

Huh? You must have typo'd your suggestion. The point here is to indicate to the reader that this section overlaps the "Business career" section in terms of chronology, which this wording does.

Changed to "During his business career...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:57, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Correct, I typoed. Thanks AYW for your accurate translation. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify language. - "which consists of worthy males over the age of 12." What's a "worthy male"?

This was someone else's idea. I'd rather let the link explain how the LDS Church lay clergy works. I've removed it.

Agree. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "Around 1977, he became a counselor to the president of the Boston Stake." If the exact year in unknown, use "In the late 1970s".

Disagree. "Around 1977" is the phrase the Kranish-Helman book uses. That would indicate 1976-1978, while "in the late 1970s" would indicate 1977-1979. Let's stick with what the source says.

It was in 1977, per WaPo: "In 1977, Romney’s mentor and former bishop, Gordon Williams, had risen to stake president. Concerned primarily with safeguarding the flock’s youth in the face of Boston’s escalating drug and alcohol problems, Williams called on his youth-oriented protégé to sit beside him as one of his two counselors."[2] Will fix.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Wasted, please be sure to double-check your sourcing before you disagree out-of-hand. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I did double-check K-H, which was the source, before making my comment. If that had been the only source available, my formulation would have been better than yours. As it happens, AYW found a better source, one that I had never seen (I've read Jason Horowitz's other WaPo bio profiles, including of course the one that broke the Cranbrook incident, but I had missed this one.) Wasted Time R (talk) 00:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Vague. "with about 4,000 church members". If the number is less than 4,000, use: "with almost 4,000". If the number is greater than 4,000, use: "with more than 4,000".

Source says almost 4,000, so I've changed it to use that. Should have written that in the first place, don't know why I didn't.

• Peacock. - "he became known for his tireless energy in the role". "Tireless" is peacockery exaggeration, try "considerable", "significant", even "impressive".

Changed to "considerable".

• Typo? - "efforts in- and outside homes"

Intentional but not graceful. Rephrased.

• Redundancy. - "counseling troubled or burdened church members". "troubled" and "burdened" mean almost the same thing.

Removed "troubled".

• POV. - "Romney tried to balance the conservative dogma insisted upon by the church leadership in Utah with the desire of some Massachusetts members to have a more flexible application of doctrine." 1) To call the Church doctrine "dogma" is not wise. 2) This implies Romney was less conservative then the Mormon Church, but this has no frame of reference and the reader will not understand what this means.

Disagree re "dogma". Dictionary definition 2 applies here: "a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church". It's not pejorative. Also disagree re implication: All this is saying is that the Massachusetts congregation tended to be more liberal than the Utah leadership, and Romney was trying to balance between two sets of responsibilities. This sentence doesn't say anything about Romney himself.

It has connotations. "Dogmatic" often means "asserting opinions in a doctrinaire or arrogant manner; opinionated." Will rephrase.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks AYW! You and WTR are proving to be an excellent team. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:19, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "In particular, he counseled women not to have abortions". Try: "In particular, he advised women to not have abortions".

Disagree. Dictionary definition of 'counsel' shows it perfectly suitable here.

I am forbidden to comment on this item.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clumsy and verbose. - "encouraged single women facing unplanned pregnancies to give up the baby for adoption." Try: "he also encouraged single women facing unplanned pregnancies to give up the baby for adoption."

Done.

• Excess. - "in accordance with church policy also encouraged single women". Why the unneeded qualifier, "in accordance with church policy"? The reader will understand that since he was acting in a Church leadership role, his actions were in accordance with the Church. Trim this out as an excess disclaimer.

Done. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward and verbose. - "people struggling in economically difficult circumstances". Try: "people struggling economically".

Changed to "people struggling financially", which is closest to the source.

• Awkward and clumsy. - "those going through problematic family situations". Try: "those with family problems".

Done.

1994 U.S. senatorial campaign

• Comma use. - "For much of his business career, Romney did not take public political stances." The co-ordinate adjectives "public" and "political" requires a comma between them.

Done.

• Comma use. - "During the long and controversial approval and construction process for the $30 million Mormon temple in Belmont, he feared that as a political figure who had opposed Kennedy, he would become a focal point for opposition to the structure." The interrupter: "as a political figure who had opposed Kennedy" needs to be set aside by commas. Try "for the $30 million Mormon temple in Belmont, he feared that, as a political figure who had opposed Kennedy,".

Done.

• Wordy. - "Kennedy responded with a series of ads that focused on Romney's seemingly shifting political views on issues such as abortion and on layoffs of workers at the Ampad plant owned by Romney's Bain Capital." Consider breaking this into two sentences.

Done.

• Redundant prepostion. - "Romney's seemingly shifting political views on issues such as abortion and on layoffs of workers at the Ampad plant". Omit the second "on".

Moot.

• Passive voice. - "He was registered as an Independent".

Changed.

• Passive voice, awkward construction. - "Kennedy was potentially vulnerable that year". Potentially vulnerable needs a recast.

Removed "potentially".Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "businessman John Lakian finished a distant second and Jeghelian was eliminated."

Disagree. This is standard writing in sports and politics, nothing wrong with it: "Jane Topspin was eliminated in the second round of Wimbledon this year, but made it to the quarterfinals in the U.S. Open."

Try "Eliminated in the second round of Wimbledon this year, Jane Topspin made it to the quarterfinals in the U.S. Open." ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I've tweaked this. See what you think. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "would irk him for decades".

Disagree. Supported by the sources and engaging. More later. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

WTR is right to some extent; the source does say that what happened to his father grated on him for decades. And I also agree with WTR that the word "irked" is engaging. The problem I see (and to which Gabe may be referring) is that we're at the year 1994 in the chronology and yet we're saying that the father's experience "would" irk him. But at that point it already had been irking him for a quarter century. There are other problems with that same paragraph (e.g. repetition of "Democratic"), and so I've edited to read like this: "For much of his business career, Romney did not take public, political stances.[115][116] He had kept abreast of national politics since college,[33] though, and the circumstances of his father's presidential campaign loss had irked him for decades.[24] He registered as an Independent[45] and voted in the 1992 presidential primaries for the Democratic former senator from Massachusetts, Paul Tsongas.[115][117]"Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "Kennedy was potentially vulnerable".

I don't think this is passive voice - there's no action here - this is like "The sea was green."

It is, and you use it in two consequetive sentences. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Reworded as: "Political pundits viewed Kennedy as vulnerable that year". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "with over 80 percent of the vote". Try "with more than 80 percent of the vote".

Done.

• Prose. - "Romney ran as a fresh face". Fine for political articles, but not for an encyclodepdia.

Removed.

• Prose. - "but had trouble establishing its own positions in a consistent manner." Try "but had trouble consistently establishing its own positions."

Not equivalent. The first says he could establish positions, but they weren't consistent with each other. The second says he could not always establish positions.

I've changed it: "but had trouble establishing its own consistent positions". I don't think readers would necessarily infer this from the sentence as previously written.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. - "Kennedy and Romney held a widely watched late October debate without a clear winner, but by then, Kennedy had pulled ahead in polls and stayed ahead afterward". Maybe break in to two, but please fix the juxtaposition of the modifer "without a clear winner", since it sounds like its part of the name of the dabate, not the outcome.

Changed to "that had no clear winner".

• Confusing. - "Ted Kennedy, who was seeking re-election for the sixth time." then "the smallest margin in Kennedy's eight re-election campaigns for the Senate". I realize Ted ran once more after defeating Romney, but this will come across as a potential mistake to some readers.

Changed to "the smallest margin in any of Kennedy's re-election campaigns for the Senate".

• Awkward. - "Romney returned to Bain Capital the day after the election". Try "The day after the election, Romney returned to Bain Capital".

I think it reads better the other way, but changed anyway.

• Relevence. - "When his father died in 1995, Mitt donated his inheritance to BYU's George W. Romney Institute of Public Management." How does this pretain to the Senate race, other than the chronology. This shoud be moved to Personal Wealth.

Discussed near the beginning above. The article is organized chronologically, and the section headers reflect the main subject of that section, but sometimes other things are fit in too. This happens in several places, and this is such a case. It doesn't belong in "Personal wealth" because, in fact, all of Romney's personal wealth comes from his own efforts and none was inherited. (Of course the environment he grew up in was very beneficial.)

I have modified the heading to read, "1994 U.S. senatorial campaign and remainder of decade". Also moved some material from next section into this section.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:48, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Your section title doesn't work because this does not contain all of the "remainder of decade" material - most of that is in the Business career section, and then he starts the Olympics at the beginning of 1999. There is some inevitable overlap of chronology right in this part of the article. Well, it could be dealt with by splitting the business career section into pre-1994 and post-1994 sections, but that is very difficult to do because most of the sources describing his Bain Capital career don't distinguish between those two periods, but rather sum up what happened over all of it. And doing it that way would get very choppy. So the idea has been that the 1994 campaign section contains some of the non-Bain Capital aftermath to the loss - George had reemerged to the public during the campaign, then he died; the Belmont temple issue was flavored by Mitt now being a politician. So I've changed the section title to say "and aftermath". Ann's MS, on the other hand, is the lead-in to the Olympics position, because one of the reasons he took the post was to be in Utah, where her therapies were working better. So I've restored that text back there. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:56, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Aftermath seems fine.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. - "His mother died in 1998." This is sitting all alone and is akward and jarring. Flesh out what effect this had and tie-in to another sentence.

It's part of the sense of an era passing and Romney wanted to make his mark in something other than business.

Right, but that's not my point. Which is the sentence is sitting alone with no tie-in. Its clumsy and awkward. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Moved this down, so it now reads: "Lenore Romney died in 1998, and later that year Ann Romney learned that she had multiple sclerosis."Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It's even worse down there, where it gets in the way of the Ann MS introduction. I've removed it completely; if inspiration strikes me later as to how to weave it in, I'll restore it. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The sources say that he was still in mourning for his mother when his wife got the MS diagnosis. They belong together, IMO, and it seems odd to mention father's passing without mentioning mother's. Her stroke was not caused by his Senate loss, so it's not really part of the "aftermath". Incidentally, she died on 67th anniversary.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm certainly not trying to ignore Lenore ... I'm the one that wrote her whole article and brought it to GA. (One of my ultimate research goals is to find a full list of the Hollywood movies she was a bit player in.) We just need to work the transition in so it makes sense to be somewhere. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

1) We must mention Lenore's passing. 2) I agree it should be tied-in with Ann's MS diagnoses per AYW and sources. How about "Still mourning the 1998 death of Mitt's mother, the Romney's learned that Ann had multiple sclerosis"? Or similar. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "the goal of simply making more money was losing its appeal to him" 1) "simply making more money" should be recast, perhaps omit the modifier "simply" as a start, 2) "was losing its appeal to him". This is confusing, did he not continue to earn over $10 million per year? If he was truly not interested in making more money than he would not accept $10-15 million each year, but would rather give it away. Clarify this point, it sounds like the benevolent millionare who really doesn't even try to earn millions each year. Also, the fact that he hides money in overseas accounts (with the goal of paying less US taxes)would seem to blow this point out of the water.

It's all relative. He'd have a lot more money now if he'd remained in business, because (if he stayed at Bain Capital) he'd own many more investment funds. By leaving the business world 13 years ago he blew his chance at becoming a billioniare, for example, which he might well be by now. True, he hasn't gone on poor street, but there are lots of wealthy people whose main goal in life is to get even more wealthy. He wasn't one of them. As for overseas accounts, it's not clear how much money is in them or whether he's paying less taxes from them. He's mostly paying less taxes than us normal folks because in our wisdom, us normal folks, through our elected legislators, decided to tax investment income at a much lower rate than salaried income. So the problem isn't him, it's us.

The word "simply" seems important here. He wanted to continue to make money, but not to simply make money. In other words, he wanted to do more. I have clarified the sentence: "Romney felt restless as the decade neared a close; the goal of simply making more money was becoming insufficient for him."Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Disagree with revised wording - this makes it sound like he figured out a way to keep making the same amount of money as before, and additionally do something else on the side. In fact, Romney has sacrificed money - he's been basically living on a sort of rich peoples' "fixed income" since 1999/2002, with no new salary or investment source to augment it. Obviously, sacrificing being a billionaire isn't one of the great sacrifices in the world, but to the Texas oilmen's club, where wealth is counted in "units" of $100M apiece, Romney is probably considered a chump. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Will change "insufficient" to "inadequate", which makes it sound less like you say it sounds.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Re the offshore accounts that Gabe mentioned, this NYT story from today adds to the picture. Need to re-read it tonight to draw any conclusions. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Redundant, needs ce. - "He no longer had a church leadership position, although he still taught Sunday School" comes after "he stepped down from his church leadership role in 1994". Combine.

Changed to "Without another church leadership position ..." The point is the stepping down in 1994 was due to the campaign. With the campaign over, he could have resumed a leadership role, but he didn't. Two different things.

The revised sentence is not a complete sentence. I have revised: "Although no longer leading his congregation, he still taught Sunday School."Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That refers back to his being bishop of the ward, but we need something that also refers back to his having also been stake president, so I further changed this to "Although no longer in a leadership position in his church, ..." Wasted Time R (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "he stepped down from his church leadership role in 1994". This is a good place to swap "but" with "however", or any other way "but" could be avoided here.

But...there's no "but" there.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:03, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Scare quotes. - "'Mitt's Temple'". I know locals used the term, but this quote needs in-line attribution to the source. Ala, "writes WashPo", or whoever.

Disagree. It's not a quote, it's an informal name, and it's not the Washington Post calling it "Mitt's Temple", it's the Washington Post reporting that locals call it "Mitt's Temple". That doesn't need inline attribution any more than anything else the Washington Post reports. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Italics might be better, but why include this quote anyway? Here's what the source says: "'Mitt’s Temple,' some local residents called it derisively." This is a very vague attribution. Some residents? More than three? Less than a hundred thousand? The source gives no clue, and I think we'd be better off limiting derisive quotes to known sources. So, I've removed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Just for the record, there was a second source for that too, the WBUR story: "It’s sometimes called “Mitt’s Temple” by people in Belmont." So I wasn't single-sourcing it. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The quotes are fine if they include an in-line attribution per WP:QUOTE: "Attribution should be provided in the text of the article, not exclusively in a footnote or citation." ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

2002 Winter Olympics

• Passive voice. - There are 8 misuses in this section.
• Misuse of a subordinating conjunction. - "the chair of the organizing committee, later said that 'It". Do not use a sub-ordinating conjunction before a quote, omit "that".

Done.

• Confusing modifer. - "When the offer came for her husband to take over the troubled organization for the 2002 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, to be held in Salt Lake City in Utah, she urged him to take it; eager for a new challenge, as well as another chance to prove himself in public life, he accepted." "for her husband" could be defining more then one clause and is therefore squinting. Try "When Mitt received the offer ... "

Changed along these lines.

• Run-on, pronoun use. "Romney and his wife contributed $1 million to the Olympics, and he donated to charity the $1.4 million in salary and severance payments he received for his three years as president and CEO." You need a comma before the co-ordinating conjunction "in salary and severance payments". Also, the pronoun "he" is awkward, since Ann in the last person referred to in the sentence. Clarify.

Chopped and reordered.

• Run-on, wordy. "Utah Senator Bob Bennett said that much of the needed federal money was already in place and an analysis by The Boston Globe stated that the committee already had nearly $1 billion in committed revenues."

Chopped and reworded in part.

• Redundant preposition. - "Romney was chosen by Utah figures looking for someone with expertise in business and law and with connections to the state and the LDS Church."

Removed.

• Passive voice. - "Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998". Try "Doctors diagnosed Ann Romney with multiple sclerosis in 1998".

How do we know it was plural? Maybe only one doctor did the diagnosis.

How about "Ann Romney's doctor diagnosed her with multiple sclerosis in 1998".

Changed to "Ann Romney learned that she had multiple sclerosis".Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voie. - "On February 11, 1999, Romney was hired as the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002." Try "On February 11, 1999, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002 hired Romney as president and CEO."

Done along these lines.

• Passive voice. - "Plans were being made to scale back the Games". Try "Officials had made plans to scale back the Games."

Done.

• Passive voice, vague. - "Joklik and committee vice president Dave Johnson were forced to resign." Try "Officials forced Joklik and committee vice president Dave Johnson to resign."

What officials? I'm not sure who forced them out. It could have been politicians, the press, public pressure, or some combination of these. The point is, it doesn't matter. The important point is that Romney was taking over for people who had exited in disgrace. This is a case where passive is better.

Surely a source says who forced them to resign. Clarify. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The Salt Lake Organizing Committee fired Joklik. Edited article accordingly.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice, word choice. - "Romney was chosen by Utah figures looking for someone with expertise in business and law and with connections to the state and the LDS Church." Try "Utah leaders chose Romney based on his expertise in business and law and his connections to the state and the LDS Church". Try "leaders" instead of "figures".

The source says "Utah power brokers", which is not really equivalent to "leaders" - it could be behind-the-scenes types. I agree that "figures" isn't great either, but saying "power brokers" would run too close to a copyvio.

Well, I'm not sure that "power brokers" is creatively unique enough for us to be concerned with a copyvio. How about "Influential Utah business people"?

Changed to "Utahns chose Romney based on his business and legal expertise as well as his connections to both the state and the LDS Church."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

This makes it sound like he was picked by the electorate - the same 'Utahns' term is later used for the poll result. I'm changing it to 'Utah power brokers'. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Confusing. - "Utah power brokers chose Romney based on his business and legal expertise as well as his connections to both the state and the LDS Church". Is there a "state" church that Romney had ties to? Clarify.

Changed to "both the LDS Church and the state".Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "Romney was praised for his efforts by President George W. Bush and his performance as Olympics head was rated positively by 87 percent of Utahns." Try "President George W. Bush praised Romney for his efforts and 87 percent of Utahns approved of his performance as Olympics head."

Done. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:15, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "He was mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office in both Massachusetts and Utah, and also as possibly joining the Bush administration." Try "Mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office in both Massachusetts and Utah, the press speculated that he would join the Bush administration".

Changed to: "The press speculated that he might run for U.S. Senate from Utah, or perhaps Governor of Massachusetts."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Vague speculation. - Ibid. Which "statewide" elections and for which office? Did he ever serve in the Bush administration? This could likely be trimmed out as vague excess that adds little. Maybe state that in a more general way that people began to consider him for political office, avoiding specifc rumours that never materialised.

See immediately preceding comment by Gabe.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm reversing myself on this - I added the original text, but re-reading the sources now, Utah senator was never a realistic prospect since there were two incumbents who were pretty solid at the time. And in general for the sake of brevity I've followed a practice in this article of not including career choices that Romney didn't take (a job during the Bain years, a Mass. run after 1994, the Tiger thing after 2008, etc). So that should be followed here, and I've removed this. (That he was recruited for the Mass. gov run in 2002 is already described in the section that follows this.) Wasted Time R (talk) 13:13, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clumsy prose, excess detail. - "After two years of severe difficulties with the disease, she found – while living in Park City, Utah, where the couple had built a vacation home – a mixture of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that gave her a lifestyle mostly without limitations." Try "After suffering for two years with the disease, she began using a combination of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that enabled her lead a life with minimal limitations".

Did some of this - kept "severe difficulties" because it's not an exaggeration and "suffering" could mean anything.

Why is there a need for the excess detail: "while living in Park City, Utah, where the couple had built a vacation home"? Shouldnt't this be at Lenore Romney? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

You're mixing up Lenore (his mother) with Ann (his wife). Since Mitt lived in Park City, it seems okay to me.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Right, I said Lenore, I meant Ann. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Mitt sometimes gets criticized for owning a lot of homes, but a lot of that has to do locations where Ann gets good therapy results and/or locations where they can be near their children and grandchildren. So the article covers these aspects. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, that seems reasonable enough to me. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Jargon. - "Before Romney took the position, the event was running $379 million short of its revenue benchmarks" Will most readers understand what "revenue benchmarks" are? Try "budget goals" or similar.

Changed to "revenue goals".

• Awkward. - "The Games had also been damaged by allegations of bribery". How can "The Games" be damaged by words? Do you mean the reputation of the committee? Clarify.

Changed to "The image of the Games ...".

Looks better, but do we need "also"? What else was damaged? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Changed to "Additionally, the image of the Games had been damaged...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clumsy. - "or gave the Games too Mormon an image." Improve.

Changed to "made the Games seem too Mormon-dominated".

• Verbose. - "Romney and his wife contributed $1 million to the Olympics". Try "The Romneys ..."

It says "He and his wife ...", to avoid too many "Romney" occurrences nearby.

Merged two sentences: "Romney donated to charity the $1.4 million in salary and severance payments he received for his three years as president and CEO, and also contributed $1 million to the Olympics."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Vague prose. - "Romney revamped the organization's leadership" Did he clean house? Restructure? Motivate?

Someone else has changed it as requested. It now says: "Romney restructured the organization's leadership and policies."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. - "Romney revamped the organization's leadership and policies, reduced budgets, and boosted fundraising, alleviated the concerns of corporate sponsors and recruited many new ones." Try "Romney restructured the organization's leadership, improved policies, reduced its budget, and increased fundraising, alleviating the concerns of corporate sponsors while recruiting new ones."

That double 'while' is awkward too. I tried a different way.

Even better, well done. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Consistency. - "the Games". Shouldn't this be "The Games"?

Very funny :-)

I thought you might like that. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea what you two are talking about. Who's on the same wavelength now, WTR?  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

You don't want to know, trust me! :-) Wasted Time R (talk) 11:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Redundancy. - "Overall, he oversaw a $1.32 billion budget". Recast to avoid "over" at least once there. In fact, you could likely just drop "overall" as unneeded.

Changed to "He oversaw a $1.32 billion total budget".

• Prose. - "The federal government provided between approximately $400 million and $600 million". The juxtaposition "between approximately" is jarring, smooth this out.

Changed to: "The federal government provided approximately $400 million[143][149][150] to $600 million[151][152] of that budget".Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "An additional $1.1 billion of indirect federal funding came in the form of highway and transit projects." Came in to whom? The Games? Utah? It says above that Romney's budget was $1.32 billion, but with $1.1 billion in addition this could be confusing to some readers. Did the $1.1B come to Utah or Romney's budget for roads and transit?

It came to the state. I've written: "federal funding came to the state...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "Romney emerged as the public face of the Olympic effort". Where? In Utah or nationwide?

Added "local".

• Redundancy. - "the needed federal money was already in place and an analysis by The Boston Globe stated that the committee already had nearly $1 billion" Drop an "already".

Dropped second one.

• Unencyclopedic and verbose. - "the Games themselves ended up clearing a profit" Try "the Games earned a profit".

Reworded using "surplus", which seems more apt here.

Good point on "surplus" versus "profit". "themselves" should be dropped as excess. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

"Themselves" has been cast into the void.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Cite clutter, attribution. - A prime example: "It solidified his reputation as a "turnaround artist"[141][156][157]" Why would we need three cites for an eight word sentence? Also, you must attribute "turnaround artist" in-line.

Because an editor objected to this being there and wanted to see additional sources. This kind of characterization usually does require multiple citing, to demonstrate it isn't just a one-off opinion.

Fair enough, but really, one good cite for "turnaround artist" would do.

You must not edit political articles much :-) Wasted Time R (talk) 11:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

No I don't, but still, one reliable sources is enough. Does anyone really debate this aspect of Romney's career? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:04, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "Harvard Business School taught a case study based around his actions" Try "Professors at Harvard Business School taught a case study based on Romney's performance."

I don't know if it was one professor or multiple. From a curriculum perspective, you can say that a school teaches something. Will get back to some of the above items that I skipped later. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

If we don't know how many professors taught it, then I agree it's acceptable to say that the school taught it. WTR, I'm sorry if I deprived you of the opportunity to go back to some of the above items that you skipped.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for the help. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Governor of Massachusetts

2002 gubernatorial campaign

• I've taken the liberty of editing out the passive voice, and correcting a few minor errors. I would make more effort if the page wasn't so ridiculously slow and labourious to edit. Overall, this section looks good; a few minor points below:

• Vague. "One poll taken at that time". Why not tell us which poll?

It was a Boston Herald poll, but why does it matter which one? That seems like introduction of excessive detail to me.

I suggest mentioning the poll by name so the readers can judge how reliable it was. Afterall, it could have been a poll conducted by Romney's exploratory committee. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I've put in "Boston Herald". Romney was doing internal polling so this is a valid distinction.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I think this item is resolved, right?Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:59, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clumsy. - "contributed to his being behind his Democratic opponent"

I've restructed the sentence a bit, see what you think.

I tweaked this a bit further, looks good now. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. "Romney contributed over $6 million" Try "Romney contributed more than $6 million".

Done. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

What goes slowly is the reload after "Save". That's because all the caches have been invalidated at that point due to the change. Sometimes it's faster to load the page again from another window, and use that for the next edit, than to wait for the saved page to reload. The good news is that normal readers don't get hit with this, because loading is faster for non-registered users and because they typically won't be loading right after a change whereas we often are. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Tenure, 2003–2007

• I've taken the liberty of editing out the passive voice and correcting some minor errors. Overall, its an excellent section; a few minor points below:
• Length. This section is over 1,400 words long. This might be a good place to trim for brevity.

See my comments up top about article length. If Romney loses the election next month, this will be the only political office he ever held, so it seems reasonable to give it some room. But any particular suggestions on what should be trimmed down?

You make a good point above for detail. I just thought I would throw it out there. If you do find anything that seems excessive maybe you could demote it to notes, if not, its a fine section even if a bit long. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:26, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, there is a lot that was left out - the Governorship of Mitt Romney daughter article is almost as long as this one, at 10,454 words! Wasted Time R (talk) 01:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Right on. That looks like a fine article also BTW, would make a great FA, especially if Romney prevails next month. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Wordy sentence. "Faced with the dilemma of choosing between same-sex marriage and civil unions after the November 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision legalizing same-sex marriages (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health), Romney reluctantly backed a state constitutional amendment in February 2004 that would have banned same-sex marriage but still allowed civil unions, viewing it as the only feasible way to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts." Break into two.

Restructured into two.

• Vague modifier. - "Romney generally used the bully pulpit approach". Generally avoid "generally".

Removed.

• Clarify. - "He declined a governor's salary during his term". How much?

Added ($135K).

• Clarify/jargon. - "Upon entering office in the middle of a fiscal year" Not all readers will know what a fiscal year is.

I've linked it. The existing Note gives the start/end dates of it. To explain this in the main text would be too unwieldy, I think.

I agree. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "the state ran surpluses". Try "the state achieved surpluses".

Done.

• Vague. - "surpluses of around $600–700 million". The range is already $100M, do we really need to say "around"?

The actual figures in the Note are $594 and $721 million, so 'around' is appropriate.

• Clarify. - "$500 million in unanticipated federal grants" What's an unanticipated federal grant?

Unexpected, but that word was used right before, so I chose this one here.

I can't help but feel this is a confusing point. Not many readers will be familiar with an unexpected grant of Federal money. Can you explicate this point? Perhaps in a note? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Have changed "unanticipated" to "new" because I cannot find any elaboration about what "unanticipated" or "unexpected" means. Were the grants unexpected by the press, or by Romney, or by someone else? Was it unexpected that Romney would be able to obtain these grants, or did the grants instead take him by surprise? Without this change, this sentence seems potentially misleading because it's so vague. Also, this 500 million is not mentioned in the sub-article which seems problematic, and yet it is mentioned in the lead of this main article. I think changing to the word "new" mostly takes care of the problem.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:14, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. - "during Romney's last two full fiscal years in office". Can we just say "last two years in office" for brevity?

No, I think it's better this way. The state's fiscal year is six months off from the calendar year, so it's a significant difference.

• Confusing. - "The state legislature, with the governor's support" Shouldn't we call him Romney here, it's clear that he is also the governor.

I was looking for a way to not be saying "Romney" or "he" all the time, and this is a technique that other articles use, including FA John McCain.

Seems awkward to me, but its not a major point. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Undue weight. - "Romney sought to bring near-universal health insurance coverage to the state. This came after Staples founder Stemberg told him". Was Stemberg really that instrumental to "Romney Care"? Seems dubious.

Multiple accounts mention him as an inspiration. It also shows a biographical thread between Romney's Bain Capital days and his governorship. More later. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "he had not campaigned on the idea of universal health insurance" Try "his campaign had not focused on universal health insurance".

That might suggest he had proposed it but not emphasized it, which is not the case. What's wrong with the existing text?

Well, for me its the text string: "had not campaigned on the idea of", which is vague and clumsy. How about "his campaign avoided the issue of universal health insurance"? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The source says, "During the 2002 campaign, the issue was background noise. By Romney’s count, he made 93 campaign promises, and expanding health coverage was not one of them." So, I have modified the article to say, "Although the idea of universal health insurance had not come to the fore during the campaign...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• OR, SYTH, or close paraphrase? - "Romney decided that because people without insurance still received expensive health care, the money spent by the state for such care could be better used to subsidize insurance for the poor".

Quotes from the BG story source: "More than $1 billion was being spent annually to provide “free’’ care to the state’s uninsured, and the number was growing. Recalling his “aha moment,’’ Romney said: “If we could get our hands on that resource to help people buy insurance instead, it would be less expensive.’’ ... By the end of 2004, Romney’s team had built the framework for its health care bill, proposing to convert the Medicaid waiver money and much of the funding for “free’’ hospital care into an insurance program to subsidize the working poor."

• Awkward. - "After positing that any measure adopted not raise taxes and not resemble the previous decade's failed "Hillarycare" proposal, Romney formed a team of consultants from diverse political backgrounds." Try "Determined that the health insurance measure not raise taxes or resemble the previous decade's failed "Hillarycare" proposal, Romney formed a team of consultants from diverse political backgrounds."

Not equivalent. The first clause is a directive that he gave to the team formed in the second clause. You wording doesn't get that across.

Changed to: "Determined that a new Massachusetts health insurance measure not raise taxes or resemble the previous decade's failed "Hillarycare" proposal at the federal level, Romney formed a team of consultants from diverse political backgrounds to apply those principles."Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:41, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unencyclopedic prose. - "they came up with a set of proposals".

Changed to "devised".

• Jargon. "logjam"

Disagree. Dictionary definition doesn't indicate slang, informal, technical, or anything that would prevent its use. And it's more engaging.

Agree with WTR on this. Cluster**** would be unacceptable, but logjam is okay.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unencyclopedic prose. - "by wresting control of the project from". reword to avoid "wresting".

Disagree. Dictionary definition gives as example "He tried to wrest control of the company from his uncle", which is exactly the same meaning as used here.

• Awkward. - "Romney pulled Massachusetts out of it shortly before its signing". Reword, "out of the deal" or similar.

Changed to "out of the initiative". Wasted Time R (talk) 01:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

2008 presidential campaign

• I've taken the liberty of editing out the passive voice.
• Cite clutter. This section is quite bad in that regard.

This is the section that covers the great ideological shift he undertook and the consequences thereof, so yes it requires heavier citation.

• Monotony. - There are 9 paragraphs in the section and 6 of them begin with "Romney". Break up a few.

Changed three of them.

• Misuse of a subordinating conjunction. - "Instead of discussing the specific tenets of his faith, he said that he would be informed by it and that, "Freedom requires religion". Avoid a subordinating conjunction (that) before a direct quote.

Removed.

No, it wasn't. Its the second (that) which needed to be removed, as the subordinating conjunction immediately preceeding a direct quote. I snagged it. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Faulty parallelism. - "But he took second in both, losing Iowa to a vastly outspent Huckabee, who gained much more of the evangelical Christian vote" Change either "losing" or "gained" so that the verb tenses are compatible.

Reworded to omit the verb.

• Run-on. - "Romney's staff suffered from internal strife and the candidate himself was indecisive at times, constantly asking for more data before making a decision."

Rephrased using semicolon.

• Jargon. - "constantly asking for more data before making a decision". Try "constantly asking for more information before making a decision".

Changed "data" to "information" though I wouldn't call "data" jargon, exactly. The change is harmless, and I do agree that "data" usually relates to raw numbers rather than more general information.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The source says data: "He would wait and wait ... ordering up more and more data." That might well be raw numbers of private polls, demographic breakdowns in key states, fundraising reports, etc. Earlier in the "Business career" section we say he's data-driven. Here's a chance to show he's still data-driven in his presidential campaign, and instead we change it to something else that isn't in the source - why?? Wasted Time R (talk) 01:48, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I changed it back to "data".Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Conjunction abuse. - "But persistent questions about the role of religion in Romney's life". Avoid beginning a sentence with a conjunction.

I'm of the school that allows this. See this piece on it, among many others.

I don't think we need to be ultra-conservative about this. But let's not overdo it either. In other words, I'm okay with this "but", but not the next "but".Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Conjunction abuse. "But he took second in both" Ibid.

Ditto.

Changed to "However, he took second place...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unneeded modifers. - "Romney has generally avoided speaking publicly about specific Mormon doctrines".

Don't quite agree - what's left is an absolutist statement that someone will find a counterexample for - but done.

They don't understand proper grammar. To say he avoided the topic is not the same as saying he never spoke of it in public. You could add back the "generally" if you think its important. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. - "Romney assembled for his campaign a veteran group of Republican staffers, consultants, and pollsters." Try "For his campaign, Romney assembled a group of veteran Republican staffers, consultants, and pollsters."

Done.

• Clarify. - "He was little-known nationally, though, and stayed around the 10 percent range in Republican preference polls". Ten percent of what?

Changed to "support range".

• Unnecessary modifer. - "Instead of discussing the specific tenets of his faith". Omit "specific".

Here he did allude to some general tenets, I think, so the 'specific' should stay.

In that case, I would tend to agree. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "Academics would later study the role religion had played in the campaign". Who and where?

Explained in the attached Note; this is just to text lead-in to that.

• Unnecessary vague modifer. "who gained much more of the evangelical Christian vote". Omit "much".

Disagree. The article used to break this down - "Of the 60 percent of caucus-goers who were evangelical Christians, Huckabee was supported by about half of them while Romney by only a fifth.[193]" - but during a big size reduction I did of this section about a month ago, I summarized this. A 50%-20% advantage is "much more". Something like a 30%-20% advantage would be "more".

Changed to: "losing Iowa to a vastly outspent Huckabee who received more than twice the evangelical Christian votes...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unencyclopedic. - "set up a climactic battle"

Engaging.

Yes, it's engaging, and not inherently unencyclopedic, but I changed it to "pivotal" anyway, which seems like an engaging word too. Anyway, the November election was the real climax. Moreover, Romney did not pull out when Florida voted, so it couldn't have been entirely climactic.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:27, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clarify. - "but McCain won more and larger states". Clarify "larger states", did McCain win Alaska?

I don't think anyone would read this to mean area, but changed to "in more and in larger-population ones". Wasted Time R (talk) 02:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Activity between presidential campaigns

• Comma use. "A January 2010 National Journal survey of political insiders found that a majority of Republican insiders, and a plurality of Democratic insiders, predicted Romney would be the party's 2012 nominee."

Don't see it.

Its the one after "insiders". Fixed. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Unnecessary infinite phrases. "Following the election, Romney paved the way for a possible 2012 presidential campaign by using his Free and Strong America political action committee (PAC) to raise money for other Republican candidates and to pay his existing political staff's salaries and consulting fees." "to raise" "to pay".

Removed to the second "to", but first seems necessary.

• Wordy. - "The San Diego home was beneficial in location and climate for Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her late 2008 diagnosis and lumpectomy for mammary ductal carcinoma in situ."

Rephrased.

Nice. Much better. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Wordy, unnecessary modifer. "While acknowledging that his plan was an imperfect work in progress, Romney did not back away from it, consistently defending the state-level health insurance mandate that underpinned it and saying it was the right answer to Massachusetts' specific problems at the time." Break into two and omit "specific".

Done.

• Clarify. - "Following the election". While the section follows the 2008 race, it's still best to not assume thereader has read the above section, as thay may have skipped to the section. Try "Following the 2008 election".

Done.

• Unencyclopedic. - "Romney paved the way". Try "Romney layed the groundwork" or "Romney set the stage".

These are all idiomatic metaphors, why is mine worse?

Yours conjures images of a road crew fixing a highway. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I've changed it to "Romney kept his options open...." This seems most appropriate given that running again was far from a sure thing.[3]Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Disagree. Romney was always going to run again. Everything he did from the moment he pulled out in 2008 was directed towards running again. Any of Gabe's alternatives is better than "kept his options open". Wasted Time R (talk) 01:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we should say that he was keeping his options open. That's what Romney himself said:

“ Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney again kept open the door to a second bid for the Republican presidential nomination in an interview scheduled to air Wednesday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” “It’s always a possibility, and you keep the options open, but, you concentrate on the task ahead, for me that’s trying to get some good people elected in 2010. And, I know once that’s done the next item on the agenda is what’s 2012 going to be; and, Ann and I will give that some thought and make the decision then.” ”

Tom Beaumont, “Romney: 2012 Always a Possibility”, Des Moines Register (January 25, 2012). Also see here. NPR has reported as follows:

“ By all accounts, the Romneys consult each other on everything. So after a bruising campaign in 2008 that left Mrs. Romney openly disgusted by the process and vowing she would never do it again, it looked like that might be it for Mitt. ”

Tovia Smith. Ann Romney Adds Fire, Faith To Husband's Campaign, NPR (August 20, 2012). I know that some sources say he had made his decision as early as Christmas 2008. But there are also nontrivial sources that say his mind was not 100% made up until later (such as the sources I've just referred to). Given that Romney is data-driven and wants to postpone decisions until he has more data, it seems plausible to me that Romney and his wife were truthful about the decision to run in 2012. In order to address your concern and expedite things, WTR, it now reads: "Following the 2008 election, Romney laid the groundwork for a likely 2012 presidential campaign...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:32, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Vague. - "An informal network of former staff and supporters around the nation were eager for him to run again." Informal?

Removed "informal".

• Awkward. - "He continued to give speeches and raise funds for Republicans,[265] but turned down many potential media appearances, fearing overexposure." Try, "He continued to give speeches and raise funds for Republicans, but fearing overexposure, turned down many potential media appearances".

Done.

• Parenthesis. - "(He had earlier served on it from 1993 to 2002,[267] during most of which time he was a member of, and for six years chair of, the board's audit committee.[268] During his time on that committee, Marriott implemented the Son of BOSS tax shelter scheme, which resulted in the company claiming $71 million in losses that federal courts later ruled never existed.[268][269])" Either move to notes, or move from brackets into text.

This is to indicate that the material is out of chronological sequence. You still haven't shown me any WP guideline that prohibits sentences inside parentheses.

To me, this seems like a note that you are forcing into the article body using parenthesis. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I shortened it and removed it from parentheses. According to the cited sources, "Experts disagree on whether the corporate board would have known about the deal and had the chance to question it. The company neither confirmed nor denied that the board approved the transaction. At some point, the board would have approved filings that included the fraudulent losses, but it’s unclear whether Romney specifically favored the tax move." So, what I wrote is this: "He had served on the Marriott Board before, including in 1994 when Marriott implemented the Son of BOSS tax shelter scheme, but it is not clear whether Romney specifically approved that tax move which federal courts eventually ruled illegal in 2008 and 2009."Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

You took out too much when you did this - the years of the first stint, that he was chair of the audit committee, etc. I've restored all that, retained what you added, and moved the whole thing to a Note, which I had been tempted to do back when it was first added. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

But now see Talk:Mitt_Romney#.22Half_true.22. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "which they had bought the year before" Try "which they had purchased the year before".

Done.

• Awkward. - "Beginning in early 2011, Romney presented a more relaxed visual image, including rarely wearing a necktie." Does the article establish that Mitt used to always wear a tie? This is a bit confusing, please clarify.

No, but you can presume it from this statement. Saying earlier that he wore a suit just to set this up later would give this more weight than it deserves. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

He also took to wearing blue jeans a lot, and wearing a casual jacket. So, instead of focusing on the necktie, I rephrased: "Beginning in early 2011, Romney presented a more relaxed visual image, including more casual attire." People will infer that the necktie bit the dust.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

2012 presidential campaign

• I would be happy to make an effort to resolve some of these myself, but it appears that WTR has followed behind my recent edits correcting preceived mistakes, so perhaps its better to just let WTR deal with the issues themselves.
• Length. This section is more than 1,200 words long.

I'll give it a reworking after the election is over, and then another reworking next year when books detailing the campaign come out. For now, by definition, it's a work in progress.

Fair enough, I agree. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. There are eight uses of the passive voice in this section. Please break-up a few of them.
• Misuse of a subordinating conjunction. - "Romney declared in November 2011 that "I've been as consistent as human beings can be." Avoid "that" before a direct quote.

Something seems needed, so I replaced with a colon.

• Faulty parallelism. - "The campaign has been dominated by negative ads from both sides, with Obama ads proclaiming that Romney shipped jobs overseas while at Bain Capital and has kept his own money in offshore tax havens and Swiss bank accounts." "Shipped" and "has" do not make chronological sense.

'Shipped' is past tense because it happened while Romney was at Bain Capital, while 'has kept' is past-through-to-present tense because the funds are still there.

Someone (not me) changed this to "Negative ads from both sides dominated the campaign, with Obama's proclaiming that Romney shipped jobs overseas while at Bain Capital and keeps money in offshore tax havens and Swiss bank accounts." I further changed "keeps" to "kept" because the beginning of the sentence indicates past tense ("dominated"). Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Missing verb. "Romney has faced demands from Democrats to release additional years of his tax returns, an action a number of Republicans also think would be wise; after being adamant that he would not, he released summaries of them in late September." The conditional verb "would" needs a main verb after it.

Added "do so".

• Comma use. - "Perry faded after poor performances in those debates, while Herman Cain's 'long-shot' bid gained popularity until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed it."

Intentional - two separate clauses, essentially unrelated.

• Run-on. - "Romney's double-digit lead in state polls evaporated and he lost to Gingrich by 13 points in the January 21 primary."

Changed to use semicolon.

• Redundant preposition. "In the final month before voting began, Newt Gingrich had a major surge, taking a solid lead in national polls and in most of the early caucus and primary states".

Removed.

• Prose. - "the Massachusetts health care reform law that he had shepherded five years earlier" Is "shepherded" the best encyclopedic word we can use here? Sounds biblical.

Dictionary definition 2:2 gives example "shepherded the bill through Congress", exactly the same meaning as used here.

Dictionary says, "to guide or guard in the manner of a shepherd <shepherded the bill through Congress>". So, it could be appropriate, but was Romney's role with respect to this particular legislation really to guide or guard it? Yes, I think he at least guided it. So, I have no problem with using the word "shepherd" here (note that there were a few biblical shepherds but there have been way more real-life non-biblical ones).Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:32, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Vague modifier. - "Polls have shown a generally tight race for the November general election." Omit "generally".

There have been times when Obama's opened up a bit of a non-tight lead, but removed.

• Passive voice. - "The field was finally settled by the October 2011 decisions of Chris Christie and Sarah Palin not to run."

This one should stay. To reverse it is to imply that Christie and Palin were trying to settle the field, which is not the case.

Changed to "The October 2011 decisions of Chris Christie and Sarah Palin not to run effectively settled the field of candidates". The word "effectively" removes the implication mentioned by WTR.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "Romney was announced as having won on the election night with 25 percent of the vote".

Done.

• Passive voice. - "Santorum was certified as the winner by a 34-vote margin".

Done.

• Passive voice. - "Romney could prove his claim that 100,000 jobs were created during that time."

Does no harm - the active action in this sentence is Palin questioning, not this historical claim.

Your text: "Sarah Palin questioned whether Romney could prove his claim that 100,000 jobs were created during that time."

My text: "Sarah Palin pressed Romney to prove his claim that he (or Bain) created 100,000 jobs." ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "The campaign has been dominated by negative ads from both sides".

Done.

• Passive voice. - "A related issue has been whether Romney was responsible for actions at Bain Capital after taking the Olympics post". Try "A related issue deals with Romney's responsibility for actions at Bain Capital after taking the Olympics post"

Changed "has been" to "dealt with". But your wording tends to imply Romney has some responsibility, which is what is at issue.

"was responsible" is the offending passive voice. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Changed to "A related issue dealt with Romney's purported responsibility for actions at Bain Capital after taking the Olympics post."Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "In Israel, Romney was embraced by Israeli Prime Minister (and former BCG colleague) Benjamin Netanyahu". Try "Israeli Prime Minister (and former BCG colleague) Benjamin Netanyahu embraced Romney during his vist to Israel".

Doing so messes up the 'he' in the next clause (depassivizing often makes ambiguous subsequent pronouns).

Tweaked with no pronoun confusion. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "though he was criticized by some Palestinians for suggesting that Israel's greater economic success was due to "culture"."

Done.

Tweaked to avoid second passive voice in text string. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Scare quotes. - "Israel's greater economic success was due to "culture"." If "culture" needs quotes then it alos needs in-line attribution.

It's a the specific word that Romney used, which is clear from the text.

Tweaked. There is no need for quotes around the word. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Vague term. - "Newt Gingrich had a major surge". Try "Newt Gingrich experienced a significant surge"

Done.

• Weak prose. - "Romney's admitted bad week represented".

Changed to "poor".

• Weak prose. - "Romney had a big spending advantage".

Changed to "large".

• Word choice. - "including a narrow victory in Ohio over a greatly outspent Santorum". Try "including a narrow victory in Ohio over a vastly outspent Santorum".

Done.

• Clumsy. - "Romney announced in a video taped outdoors" They videotaped his announcement but he did not announce in a video.

Reworked.

• Attribution. - "A Quinnipiac University political science professor stated" We should mention the professor by name.

Done.

• Scare quotes. - "thus appeared to be "next in line" to be chosen." This quote must be attributed in-line.

Quotes removed.

• Excess. - "As many potential Republican candidates decided not to run (including Mike Pence, John Thune, Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, and Mitch Daniels)" Why are we mentioning all these candidate who didn't run? Bono didn't run either, should we mention him? Try "As many potential Republican candidates decided not to run, Republican party figures searched for plausible alternatives to Romney."

Because one of the salient features of this campaign was that Romney beat a very weak field, and it was weak because some of the more substantial candidates decided not to run.

I don't think that listing those names necessarily gets across the point that WTR would like to make. I changed it to: "As many potential Republican candidates with star power and fundraising ability decided not to run, Republican party figures searched for plausible alternatives to Romney."Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:04, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I completely disagree with this change. Specific names are better in this case. You can combine the names with what you added, if you want (although 'star power' is a stretch for some of them), but it's vacuous without saying who they were. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

No problem, I put the names back in, together with what I added. But if the length of this article needs to be substantially reduced, I would get rid of the names rather than getting rid of what I added.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:41, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward. "Speaking on a farm in Stratham, New Hampshire, he focused on the economy and criticized President Obama's handling of it." Try "Speaking on a farm in Stratham, New Hampshire, he focused President Obama's mishandling of the economy."

Your version implies that Obama has in fact mishandled the economy, which is of course at issue.

You were correct to omit "mis". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• Vague modifier. - "Romney raised $56 million during 2011, far more than any of his Republican opponents". Omit "far".

Disagree. This is indicating, without going into unnecessary detail by listing out who came second and with how much, that he raised much more than anyone else, rather than just modestly more. See above for my previous response to similar item.

I will change this to "more than double". According to one source: "He brought in $56.5 million in 2011, compared to Paul's $26 million, Gingrich's $12.6 million and Santorum's $2.2 million."Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:54, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Verbose. - "and refrained from spending any of his own money on his campaign". Try "and refrained from spending his own money on his campaign".

Done.

• Jarring. - "Michele Bachmann staged a brief surge in polls". This comes out of nowhere. Will readers know who she is?

That's what links are for. It't not out of nowhere, it's part of showing that this weak field took turns jumping to the front as the next possible Not-Romney.

• Verbose, passive, recentism. - "then by September 2011, Romney's chief rival in polls was a recent entrant, Texas Governor Rick Perry". Try "then by September 2011, Texas Governor Rick Perry became Romney's chief rival in the polls".

"Recent entrant" is part of the chronology - Perry was actually the biggest threat to Romney the whole time.

And "recent" can be used in historical narrative - it refers to something happening just before the time being described. "In 1840, Governor Smoog hired a recent graduate of Yale to become his chief of staff." You're think of when IP editors use "recent" to mean relative to the time of their edit. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:57, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The word "recent" may or may not be okay, but I've rephrased in a way that happens to avoid that issue. Changed to: "Michele Bachmann staged a brief surge in polls, which preceded a poll surge in September 2011 by Rick Perry who had entered the race the month before." I think it goes without saying that whoever is surging is the chief rival. At the end, it was Santorum.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Nicely done! ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Titles. - Why is only Perry afforded a title, i.e. "governor"?

Good point, removed.

• Cite clutter. - "'I've been as consistent as human beings can be.'[309][310][311]" Is the quote really found in all three cites and why do we need three cites here?

The multiple cites are for the first clause, about accumulating charges of flip-flopping, not the quote.

How will readers know this? There aren't any notes deliniating which cites source what. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

My suggestion remains to put all footnotes at the end of sentences, and to order the footnotes so they correspond to the order of stuff in the sentence. If there is a nasty bot that wants to disrupt this procedure, then we can ward off the bot with a tag like {{bots|deny=[name of bothersome bot]}}. I think WTR might want to choose between this proposal of mine on the one hand, and cite bundling on the other hand, or (on the third hand) if there are three or less footnotes then it might not kill the reader to search through each of them.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Almost anything would be an improvement over the current "system". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "Newt Gingrich had a major surge" Try "Newt Gingrich made a major surge".

See above.

• Wordy. - "In the final month before voting began, Newt Gingrich had a major surge, taking a solid lead in national polls and in most of the early caucus and primary states, before settling back into parity or worse with Romney following a barrage of negative ads from Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney Super PAC".

Used dashes to help separate.

• Confusing. - "In the initial 2012 Iowa caucuses of January 3" Was there more than one Iowa caucus?

Clarified.

• Passive voice, wordy. - "In the initial 2012 Iowa caucuses of January 3, Romney was announced as having won on the election night with 25 percent of the vote, edging out a late-gaining Rick Santorum by eight votes (with an also-strong Ron Paul finishing third), but sixteen days later, Santorum was certified as the winner by a 34-vote margin." Try "The press declared Romney the winner of the 2012 Iowa caucuses of January 3, with 25 percent of the vote, edging out a late-gaining Rick Santorum by eight votes (with an also-strong Ron Paul finishing third). However, sixteen days later, the election committee (or whoever it was) certified Santorum as the winner by a 34-vote margin."

Reworked a different way.

• Clarify. - "Romney decidedly won the New Hampshire primary the following week earning 39 percent of the vote".

Reworded.

• Dubious. - "Many conservatives rallied in defense of Romney, rejecting what they inferred as criticism of free-market capitalism." Did Gingrich, Perry and Palin really criticise free-market capitalism?

Perry did for sure, and Gingrich somewhat. Santorum did not. Palin was just (correctly) questioning whether Romney could back up his jobs claim (he can't).

• Clarify. - "During two debates, Romney fumbled questions about releasing his income tax returns". Which two debates?

Added "in the state".

• Prose. - "and he decided to release two years of his tax returns quickly" Try "and he quickly decided to release two years of his tax returns".

Done.

• Prose. - "Romney unleashed a concerted, unrelenting attack on Gingrich's past record". "Unleashed" and "attack" should be recast to something more encyclopedic.

Disagree. It was concerted, and it was an attack (the colloquialism the media used was "carpetbombed"). Please point me to the WP Official List of Unencyclopedic Words, I'm still having trouble finding it.

WTR, I know exactly where that list is located but, unfortunately, it would be unencyclopedic for me to explicitly say where that is. Seriously, I have rephrased to "Romney launched a sustained barrage against...." because you already use "attack" many other times in the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:46, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Prose. - "Romney had a big spending advantage from both his campaign and his aligned Super PAC". Try "Romney enjoyed a significant spending advantage from both his campaign and his aligned Super PAC".

Hah! I originally wrote "enjoyed", then another reviewer changed it to "had". So it goes.

• Confusing. - "and after a record-breaking rate of negative ads from both sides". Clarify "a record-breaking rate of negative ads".

Percentage of all ads that were negative.

Will the reader understand that? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Passive voice. - "There were several caucuses and primaries during February". Try "Several caucuses and primaries took place during February".

Done.

• Prose. - "Romney's main rival". Try "Romney's chief rival".

Done.

• Awkward. - "and although he failed to win decisively enough to end the race".

Reads okay to me.

Try "and although he failed to achieve a victory decisive enough to end the race".

Changed to "although his victories were not enough to end the race they were enough to establish a two-to-one delegate lead over Santorum".Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:54, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Clumsy. - "still held a more than two-to-one edge over Santorum in delegates". Try "still held a more than two-to-one delegate lead over Santorum".

See immediately preceding comment.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:10, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Wikify, improve prose. - "the Republican National Committee put its resources behind Romney". Recast to avoid "put its resources behind".

Already linked. Don't see what's wrong with this.

"put its resources behind" is not encyclopedic. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Changed to "put its resources to work for Romney...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Awkward, vague modififer. - "Polls have shown a generally tight race for the November general election". Try "Polls predict a tight race for the November general election".

Polls don't predict per se, they just indicate what the vote would be if held today. And "have shown" incorporates both past and present, which is what is needed here.

Try "Polls indicate a tight race for the November general election". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Changed to "Polls have consistently indicated a tight race for the November election". It seems worthwhile to thusly describe not just polls now, but also polls earlier in the race.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Nice work again, it looks great. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Redundant preposition. - "and Poland to meet leaders to raise his credibility as a world statesman". Try "and Poland, meeting leaders in an effort to raise his credibility as a world statesman".

Done. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:41, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Political positions

• Confusing modifier. - "Romney has identified himself as "pro-life" since 2005: having previously favored access to abortion during his Massachusetts runs for the U.S. Senate and governorship, he now opposes access to abortion "except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother." The modifier, "previously", is defining more than one clause and is therefore squinting.

Removed.

• Split infinitive. - "He has promised to nominate Supreme Court justices who would help overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing states to individually decide on the legality of abortion." The infinitive verb "to" has been split by the modifier "individually".

Changed to "... allowing each state to decide on ...".

• Prose. - "nominate Supreme Court justices" or "appoint Supreme Court justices"?

They are equivalent. I did a Google News Archive search and both come up about the same number of times. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Split infinitive. - "He has signed a pledge promising to seek passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to legally define marriage as "the union of one man and one woman." The infinitive verb "to" has been split by the modifier "legally". Try "amendment to the U.S. Constitution that legally defines marriage" or "amendment to the U.S. Constitution legally defining marriage".

Removed "legally" as redundant.

• Split infinitive. - "He wants to see a repeal of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, with plans to eventually replace them with a "streamlined, modern regulatory framework". "to" is splitting "eventually".

Removed "eventually" as redundant.

• Unnecessary infinite phrase. - "He favors substantial increases in military spending and has promised to invest more heavily in military weapons programs and to increase the number of active-duty military personnel." Reword to avoid "to increase the number", instead using a finite verb. Try "He ... promised to invest more heavily in military weapons programs while increasing the number of active-duty military personnel."

Done.

• Awkward. - "Romney has said he would seek income tax law reforms that he says would help lower federal deficits and would stimulate economic growth."

Changed to "Romney desires income tax law reforms ...".

• Unnecessary modifer. "but has said that that aspect of the plan cannot be evaluated yet due to lack of specific details." Omit specific.

Removed.

• Vague word. - "which he has said prevented the U.S. financial system from completely collapsing." Omit "completely".

Removed.

• Attribution. - "he now opposes access to abortion 'except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother.'" Who is being directly quoted here? Add an in-line attribution.

Quotes removed, rephrased as "except in cases of incest, rape, and where the life of the mother is at stake."

• Redundancy. - "During the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010, he opposed a bailout of the American automotive industry in the form of direct government intervention".

Reworded.

• Attribution. - "to legally define marriage as 'the union of one man and one woman.'" Where does the quote come from exactly? Attibute direct quotes in-line.

Quotes removed.

• WP:CRYSTALBALL. - "If elected president, Romney says he will lead an effort to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")". Wasn't the 4th richest president bit removed for this very reason? That RfC was not concluded properly BTW.

Reordered - I think this was mostly just an attempt to avoid having every paragraph start with "Romney".

Good point, as of now, 5 of 7 start with Romney. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:14, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Mononony. - 5 of 7 paragraphs in this section begin with "Romney". Please consider breaking a few of these up.

I changed one in the middle, that should be enough. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Sentence fragments. - "Among the series of tax changes he has proposed are: reducing individual income tax rates across the board by 20 percent, maintaining the Bush administration-era tax rate of 15 percent on investment income from dividends and capital gains (and eliminating this tax entirely for those with annual incomes less than $200,000), cutting the top tax rate on corporations from 35 to 25 percent, and eliminating the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax."

Not sure what your objection here is.

The sentence is quite wordy. Consider breaking into two. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:14, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a single train of explication. Every now and then, a very long sentence is justified. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Wordy. - "He has promised that the loss of government revenue from these tax cuts would be offset by closing loopholes and placing limits on tax deductions and credits available to taxpayers with the highest incomes, but has said that that aspect of the plan cannot be evaluated yet due to lack of specific details."

It's a wordy position he has (see below re 'dubious'). I can't think of a way to condense this, maybe AYW can. His most recent proposal involves a deductions cap, actual number yet to be determined; this would be even harder to explain succinctly.

• Vague. "makes health insurance premiums tax-advantaged for individuals in the same way they are for businesses". This will not make any sense to some readers. Clarify.

I can't think of any concise way to explain the financial and tax underpinnings of the U.S. employer-based health insurance system, maybe AYW can. Unfortunately I couldn't find any article or section in WP that really focuses on this, otherwise I would link to it.

• Extremely dubious. - "reducing individual income tax rates across the board by 20 percent" Highly unlikely if not downright impossible. I am sure he has claimed this, but should Wikipedia repeat blatant falsehoods?

This was the subject of much of the debate the other night. True, Romney's numbers don't add up. But the purpose of this section, especially in summary form, is to state positions, not argue them. We have to trust that any sentient reader will understand that just because a politician says X should be done, that does not mean that X is either attainable or desirable.

• Unencyclopedic prose. "He wants to see a repeal of"

Changed to "favors repeal".

• Attribution needed. "with plans to eventually replace them with a 'streamlined, modern regulatory framework'."

To me it's implicit that these are Romney's words, but changed to make explicit.

• Confusing. "He plans to label China a currency manipulator and take associated counteractions unless that country changes its trade practices". Hasn't he already labeled them as such?

Changed to "He plans to formally label China ..." Wasted Time R (talk) 11:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Verbose. This could be better. Try "He plans to pressure China to stop manipulating its currency and to reform its trade practices."

Not the same. Labeling a country a currency manipulator is a formal act that the U.S. Treasury Department does, that leads to specific consequences regarding tariffs, currency, etc. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Awards and honors

• This section looks good. I can detect no outstanding issues.

Are you feeling okay?Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:23, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Never better. You? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Your review is pretty amazing. I've never seen such a one. But you missed a nasty little case of passive voice in this section (I fixed it). As for how I'm feeling, I did one of the stupidest things ever today; I got to the airport and realized that I left my wallet at home. I blame this squarely on losing sleep due to, well, using the computer too much. Fortunately, I will be able to get to my destination in time on another flight. Cheers.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much! In the past, I have overly relied on the reviews of others and thought I had better give back. Nice catch and fix on the passive voice, my eyes must have been tired, probably for the same reason you lost sleep! Glad to hear another flight will deliver you safely. Nice work on the article BTW. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

End review by GabeMc. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support from contributor - An excellent contribution to Wikipedia, the article is well-written, well-researched, comprehensive and refreshingly neutral. The prose is engaging and the level of detail is in balance with the concerns of summary style. Nicely done Wasted Time R! You should be quite proud. Thanks and cheers! ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your epic review and support. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:42, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

GabeMc, let's cut to the chase. You and I have disagreed from the first time you came here, during the previous FAC and then after it, about what this article should look like. Some of the smaller things you point out now are good catches, but most of the things you bring up I'm going to disagree with this time around again. We just see things very differently. I'm not willing to change the citation structure or writing style or other aspects of this article to match what you want - especially when other reviewers have not been concerned about those things - but by the same token there's no reason you should agree to support something that you don't think is FA quality. I've known from the get-go that you would oppose this second FAC too. So I suggest you just go ahead and formally do that, and save both of us lots of effort and typing. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:13, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

1) You should know me better than that by now, or at least AGF. 2) I didn't oppose the first FAC, it was shut down in the wake of the Cranbrook scandal, no fault of yours or the reviewers. 3) I would not oppose any article based on my personal citation preference, or any personal preference, but I do reserve the right to attempt to persuade you a bit, don't I? 4) I have no pre-intention of opposing the nom, I am strongly leaning toward support and barring anything unforeseen, I predict that I will eventually support, assuming you do your job as the nominator and you don't ignore my comments. 6) I am a bit saddened that you would think that of me. 7) I never said I thought the article wasn't FA quality, I said certain awkward constructions and overuse of the passive voice is not ideal in terms of FA. I havn't been through it all yet, as I've only reviewed the first section, but it sure looks to be on the road to FA to me. Of course some little things need tweaking, its not like its perfect right now. Having said that, I certainly know how you feel, FAC can be a dysfunctional process whereby reviewers are sometimes passive-aggresive or borderline abusive. But this works both ways. That you would accuse me of that is quite disappointing, and tantamount to a personal attack, and one with absolutely no evidence. Please consider retracting your last point, you are absolutely wrong, and its not right for you to smear my name without cause. Wasted, if want this FAC nom to pass, you had better reconsider your general tone, since after less than 24 hours in you are already lashing out at a good-faith reviewer unprovoked. It does not bode well long-term. Again, please redact your accusation that I intended to oppose from the start. Many people will see this nom, and to leave an unsubstantiated smear there is poor form. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:38, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

You're imagining criticisms of you that I'm not making, but I should have expanded my comment a bit fuller, to give you a better idea of where I'm coming from, and I apologize for not doing that. I'm not saying your comments are in poor faith or invalid, I'm simply saying we're not going to be able to agree, and lengthy disagreements are going to be counterproductive. For the record, the first FAC did not fail because of the Cranbrook incident - that wasn't published in WaPo until May 10, and has only one passing mention in the FAC, which was closed on May 12. The first one failed because so many comments were coming in on other aspects that the FAC delegate decided the article wasn't ready and should go back to the drawing board. Well, at the current rate of your comments - 25 for one section, with nine more sections to go - the same thing will happen again. And there isn't much latitude for changes this time around - along with the other prez and veep candidate articles, this article is on community sanctions probation, which effectively means that we can't revert each other, which is what happened the last time we got into stylistic disagreements and the like. It also means that this article can't have substantial content changes either, or anything else that might lead to an edit battle. And I readily acknowledge that for the article to have gotten this far, compromises have had to be made. Some things that may look peculiar are in there to keep the peace. So this isn't fully like a normal FAC. Basically, my thought was to give the community a chance to say, yes this is worthy (possibly with some small-scale changes) of FA before the election (which to me makes WP look good, although others may be legitimately indifferent to that as a goal), or no it isn't. If the consensus is 'no', I can live with that. In other words, this isn't going to be the kind of FAC like you had with the McCartney article where what came out at the end with the gold star looked very different from what went in at the beginning. So all I was trying to do is ring you up as a 'no' on this proposition, but I should have explained that better. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:15, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

What? Sounds like you want an free pass from the delegates and expect all comments to be kept at a minimum. Why? Are you suggesting that no material can be added or substantively changed? Huh? Are you saying political articles are immune from extensive vetting? Says who? If anything, an article about a man who may lead the free world next year, and who has millions of lives in his hand, and who will perhaps influence the course of world politics, should be vetted at least as heavily as an article about a musician, right? I seriously doubt you are gonna get that kind of FAC here with this article. Again, please redact the personal attack you made against me above, its the right thing to do, you know that. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:23, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I didn't make any personal attack on you, so I have nothing to redact. I do apologize if my first go at the wording made you think that. If there's one thing I don't want, it's any drama! I've been doing WP for almost eight years, and I've come to some conclusions. In particular, I think sometimes there are good editors who just can't agree, and I try to find solutions for that. For example, I left the entire U2 project, where I had been an active editor with several GA's to my name, a couple of years ago because there were two other equally credentialed editors there and I just wasn't seeing eye to eye with them. The simplest solution there was for me to depart. In this case, I don't think we're ever going to see eye to eye on this article, so I thought the simplest solution was for me to accept your opposition, and then move on to see what other reviewers had to say. If this action has caused drama, which it seems to have, then I've blundered. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:44, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a personal attack: "I've known from the get-go that you would oppose this second FAC too." 1) It implies that I am a vindictive person who would sabotage an FAC for spite, though I still don't know where the spite is supposedly coming from, we have no issues that I am aware of. 2) You are impling that I opposed an earlier FAC, which is false, misleading and needs to be redacted for the sake of civility. At this point, you may even get a few arbitrary opposes due to your accusatory attitude. Really, I will lose much respect for you if you refuse to redact, leaving an unfounded insinuation about motives and an utter untruth. Fact: I have never opposed any FAC for any article you have ever nomed. I hope you aren't interested in giving false impressions to other people when you could so easily avoid it with a simple redaction. If you need it spelled out for you: Per WP:NPA, Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence are personal attacks. Yours also includes an undeniable error of fact. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, the "too" in my remark was technically inaccurate, since you never cast an 'Oppose' on the first FAC, but I thought in the spirit accurate, since you put out a long list of comments and things you didn't like, which in the end helped doom it. Which is fine! Years ago I once opposed an FAC on fundamental grounds, and the nom would have been quite fair to say that I would have opposed it again on a second try, since there was nothing they could realistically do to get me to support it. Again, all I was trying to do is save us from going around and around and around in circles, like we were starting to do in the comment exchanges above. No vindictiveness or sabotage or anything else was meant. I honestly thought that we were so far apart on this that your support was not a possibility. And I accepted that as one of those things that happens, and move on. I don't know what else I can say on this. Had I known you would have this interpretation of it, I wouldn't have done it. This is drama, and I hate drama. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I never intended to oppose the first nom. I thought reviewers were supposed to review the article, otherwise we wouldn't call them "reviewers", we would just call them "!voters". All I was doing was reviewing the article, in both cases. I am surprised that you would oppose based on something arbitrary, that's not in the proper spirit of FAC IMO. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Striking out all my remarks from last night. In the human condition, sometimes things go off kilter. I ended up doing exactly what I didn't want to do, and I became the person I least wanted to be. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

(ec) As for vetting, I would claim that this article has vetted in terms of content. By rough count about 20 different editors, of all different perspectives, have been active on its content during the last two months, with maybe a third of those being heavily active. Delicate compromises and wordings have been worked out that all are in agreement with (or at least can live with). Given the sanctions that have recently been imposed (not due to any fault of this article, they came about due to massive edit warring at the Paul Ryan article and then were extended to all of them), I don't think it's realistic or wise to expect that significant content changes can be made during this FAC. If that blows the FAC out of the water, I can accept that, but I thought it was worth a try. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:07, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I guess I'm confused then. Because I havn't asked for any significant content changes whatsoever. Below are four examples where you told me I was wrong, using this arbitrary "political" excuse to not have to work with my suggestions. Its really quite dismissive, and you seem to be hiding behind this line of bull about an easy FAC for the maybe next president. See below:

• Your text: "Romney followed his three siblings – Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott – after a gap of nearly six years."
• My text: "Preceeded in birth by his three siblings – Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott – Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years".

• Your text: "Romney was involved in many pranks, some of which he later said may have gone too far and apologized for."
• My text: "Romney became involved in several pranks while attending Cranbrook. He has since apologized, stating that some of the pranks may have gone too far."

• Your text: "the youngest child of George W. Romney, at the time an automobile executive, and Lenore Romney (née LaFount), at the time a homemaker."
• My text: "the youngest child of automobile executive George W. Romney, and homemaker Lenore Romney (née LaFount)."

• Your text: "Romney was involved" - The inferior passive voice.
• My text: "Romney became involved" - The superior active voice.

Where are the substantive changes that cannot be implemented due to the high importance of your nom and the "goes without saying" vetting of others? So yeah, several editors have vetted the article in composition, now several more are going to vett it in FAC. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• FTR, I tried to have this discussion at Wasted's talk page but they preferred to have it here. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The second one is not quite equivalent. Not all the pranks took place at Cranbrook, and one kind extended to Stanford (the wording we have deliberately lets this in, without explicitly saying so). He hasn't apologized for all of them, and "admitted" sounds like too much like a legal term and misrepresents Romney's reaction. Again, the talk on this literally dominated a span of four Talk archives, which lots of people getting upset and so forth. We finally found a wording that everyone could live with, using some of the same techniques that diplomatic communiques are written in. I don't want to revisit all that misery by opening it back up. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:31, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought you might say that. However, the pranks to which we are referring, the ones he apologised for, were the Cranbrook ones not the college ones. Switch "admitted" with "suggested", and your problem is solved. Now you have a grammatically correct and pleasing construction with no substantive changes. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Wasted, nobody's gonna tell you your "pranks" prose is better than mine, or the "sibling" prose, just admit it and redact your accusations please. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

"Suggested" has connotations too that should be avoided here. Look, we aren't going to agree on this. There was a long process and at the end of it there was a !vote which solidly approved the current wording. I don't think that wording is bad, and in any case, I want to keep the wording that was approved by the !vote. It's that simple. Regarding the other items immediately above, the first and the third have now largely been changed to what you wanted. The fourth is another change to the Cranbrook incident text that I don't want to make, and also per a comment up above I think you are casting the net too wide against 'was'. But out of time this morning, back tonight. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:28, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The sentence structure of the pranks prose is horrible, horrifying, and horrific. The problem is not really a dangling preposition, but rather that Romney was the one doing the apologizing, rather than the pranks doing the apologizing. I was involved in trying to improve this sentence structure (as an IP), so you can weigh in my lingering bitterness about it.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:51, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Wasted, switch "suggesting" with "stating" and this new issue is completely resolved. How is this in anyway a substantive change that introduces bias or leading prose? This seems more like an arbitrary power struggle at this point then a genuine attempt to compose neutral languge. Your current construction is quite poor, awful actually, and not at all writing worthy of a FA. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:30, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• I don't really know anything about this but can something about this be added to the article? TheSpecialUser ^TSU 11:53, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

This Wikipedia article already says: "In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in...." If I correctly recall a photo of a sign he was carrying, his position was that the group should feel free to speak, but should not physically block other people. So Romney seems to have been protesting mainly against the disruption, as opposed to protesting in favor of the war, regardless of his personal views about the war. I'm sure WTR can provide more perspective on this.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The request is "The particular area I was interested in was about his protest in favor of the Vietnam War and the context of all of the national considerations for and against that war." The latter is out of scope of this article - see Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and a bunch of other related articles. Regarding this particular protest, Anythingyouwant is correct, this was mainly a protest against sit-ins as a political tactic and in support of Stanford's president. So I don't think any change to the article is warranted. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:37, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• Gabe, you've probably noticed that I have jumped in with a bunch of article edits, to help address some of your comments above. When you get a chance, would you please identify whether there are any remaining sticking points among your comments above? Also, some subheadings would be nice at this page. It is a [rhymes with witch] to scroll down this page on my iPhone screen. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Nice work Anythingyouwant! I've stricken the comments you resolved, please let me know if I missed any. Cheers! ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I hope it's okay with WTR. The goal here was to alleviate a little bit of his burden. Also, for reasons I explained at your talk page, Gabe, I hope that some consideration might be given to moving the stuff about not publicly protesting into the note about similarities between father and son. And special thanks for the subheadings. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• I see three sentences with more than three footnotes each:

1) "Bain and Romney spent a year raising the $37 million in funds needed to start the new operation, which had fewer than ten employees.[54][57][63][69]"

2) "He touted his private sector experience as qualifying him for addressing the state's fiscal problems[164] and stressed his ability to obtain federal funds for the state, giving his Olympics record as evidence.[148][151][169]"

3) "Moreover, a number of commentators noted that with his square jaw and ample hair graying at the temples, the 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m)[231] Romney – referred to as handsome in scores of media stories[232] – physically matched one of the common images of what some believed a president should look like.[67][233][234][235]"

Can we scale back to three footnotes per sentence? This could be done by splitting sentences, or by scrapping footnotes, or by merging footnotes (e.g. appending the info in one footnote as a "see also" in another footnote).Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

On #1, dropped two of them (they may have been there as fallout from some prior rearrangement). On #2, dropped the final one (less useful due to no link). On #3, rephrased and split into two sentences; cites are now two and three. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Thx.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Would it be possible to make a list of the sentences where it would not be okay to move all footnotes to the end of the sentence?Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
• Gabe and WTR, you two seem to be cruising along nicely now, so I'm going to take a break for awhile.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help AYW. Hope to see you back here soon. Cheers! ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm baaaack. I took care of a bunch of stuff up to (but not including) the Governorship section. I'll wait until WTR takes a first crack at the rest, before working my wikimagic. I'm traveling the next few days, but will probably be able to get to a computer.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• WTR, would you please scrap one of the four footnotes at the end of the sentence that says Romney "matched one of the common images"? Thanks.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, I removed the one that had no link.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• I've commented up to (but not including) the 2012 campaign section. Before looking at that section, I will wait to see which of his comments Gabe doesn't strike through.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment Can the stubby "He embraced the Paul Ryan Budget" sentence be expanded? When did he embrace it or when was the budget created? What did the budget contain?—indopug (talk)

This is a compromise text after a lot of discussion; see Talk:Mitt Romney/Archive 18#Ryan Plan and Talk:Mitt Romney/Archive 20#"a supporter of the directions of the federal Paul Ryan Budget"?. It's difficult to summarize succinctly either the Ryan budget or Romney's reactions to it. At times Romney indicated he was enthusiastic about it, but at other times he put some distance between himself and it. Furthermore there have been multiple Ryan budgets, which further complicates the picture. In reality, everything in this section is kind of stubby; the idea is that the Political positions of Mitt Romney daughter article will deal with his positions in much greater length. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:54, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: will try to review this within the next week. Kick me on my talk page if I forget. Mark Arsten (talk) 15:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
• Ok, here's the first few comments, most of the things I saw were copyediting issues and I just made the fixes myself. I've read his pre-political stuff and the lead thus far:
• You probably want to double check for compliance with MOS:YEAR.

If you mean writing 1963–69 instead of 1963–1969, I've never liked the former, and I thought the choice was up to authorial discretion, although the MoS makes it sound a little more mandatory than that. Or do you mean something else?

That is what I meant, but I won't insist on it if you find it distasteful. Mark Arsten (talk) 14:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

In the scheme of things it's not so bad, so I've gone ahead and done it. If the other main editors don't like the way it looks, they can revert it. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:20, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• "When the French expressed opposition to the U.S. role in the Vietnam War, Romney debated them in return, and if the French said to get out of Vietnam and slammed their doors shut then that reinforced Romney's support for it" The end of this sentence "and if..." reads a little awkwardly to me, I'd suggest rephrasing.

I've shortened this to "... and their hostility on the subject reinforced Romney's support for the U.S. effort."

• Check for consistency with the serial comma.

My intent is to use it. I've just fixed three places where I didn't. If you happen to see any others, let me know.

• "As a result of his stay, Romney developed a lifelong affection for France and its people, and speaks French." There's a change in tense in this sentence, best to avoid that.

Rephrased to "... and continued to speak French."

Might be better to say that he continued to be fluent in French, or something like that. Saying that he continued to speak French makes it sound like he forgot how to speak English, or at least preferred French. Not that there's anything wrong with that.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:10, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Bien sûr que non. I've added a cite for currently being fluent, since the existing one didn't quite say that. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Plus ça change. Ici nous sommes encore. C'est la même chose. I guess I'll hang around until the election to help make sure the article doesn't get screwed over.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• In the second paragraph of "Heritage and youth" you start a few sentences pretty similarly, I suggest trying for some more variation "In 1953... In 1954... By 1959..." Mark Arsten (talk) 15:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I rephrased the middle one. Thanks for your comments as always. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• My apologies for taking so long with this review... I must be real pain in the ass to wait for :)

Thanks for the comments. Looks like WTR went away for a few days. So, I'll try to address your comments later today, Mark.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for stepping in, AYW. Sometimes real life intervenes ... Wasted Time R (talk) 10:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• "He was very supportive of the directions taken by the budget proposals of Paul Ryan, although he later proposed his own budget plan." How similar was his to Ryan's? I don't think you need to say much here, but a word or two of comparison would probably be good.

Expanded so it now says: "He was very supportive of the directions taken by the budget proposals of Paul Ryan, although he later proposed his own budget plan which, for example, lowers tax rates by 20 percent instead of adopting Ryan's idea of collapsing the current six income tax brackets into two."Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:45, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• "Romney attributed his conversion to an interaction with Harvard University biologist Douglas Melton, an expert on embryonic stem cell biology, although Melton vehemently disputes Romney's recollection of their conversation.[210] Romney subsequently vetoed" There's a tense switch here that should probably be avoided if you can.

This particular item is not one that I am going to edit, because of past controversies. Either you ought to edit it, or you can wait for WTR to return. Besides the tense switch, one might also want to check how it matches up with the cited source, Anyway, it's not my department.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:55, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• In the paragraph that begins "At the beginning of his governorship..." there's a lot of repetition of "same-sex", some of it is unavoidable, but try to cut some out if you can.

Four instances of "same-sex" removed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• In the paragraph that begins "Romney supported raising various fees..." and the subsequent one there's some repetition of "also".

Edited so there's now only one "also" in each of those paragraphs.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm curious about how Romney was selected to lead the Olympics. Was he connected with organizers? Or was it a more random offer?

The Wikipedia article said: "Utah power brokers chose Romney based on his business and legal expertise as well as his connections to both the LDS Church and the state." Here's a quote from a book that touches on the subject: “The boy wonder image enjoyed by [Utah Governor Mike] Leavitt, in line to become chairman of the National Governors Association, was tarnished by the Olympics bribery scandal…. Leavitt and his colleagues scoured the ranks of Mormon business celebrities to find a Mr. Clean to be the new president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. They ended up recruiting Mitt Romney….” This is from Ostling, Richard and Ostling, Joan. Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, page 134 (HarperCollins 2000). So, I'll edit the Wikipedia article to mention Leavitt: "Utah power brokers including Governor Mike Leavitt searched for a Mr. Clean to take charge of the Olympics, and chose Romney based on his business and legal expertise as well as his connections to both the LDS Church and the state."Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

"a Mr. Clean" seems too informal and/or a reference to an American consumer product that will mystify foreign readers, so I changed this to "someone with a scandal-free reputation". Wasted Time R (talk) 03:23, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Should there be endashes or hyphens here? "Bain Capital's overall success–to–failure ratio was about even."

Changed to hyphens.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• The "Political positions" subsection suffers from short paragraphs and similar sentence openings/structures... some of that is unavoidable of course.

I've just improved the section in this regard.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• Also, should "Political positions" be a subsection of the 2012 campaign section? It deals with political positions well before that, as well.

Yes, it should be a subsection of the 2012 campaign section. This was recently discussed at the article talk page. Basically, the article is written chronologically, so a notable position from, say, 1999, is covered in the section that covers 1999. The same rationale explains why there is no "Personal life" section in this article. If any political positions before 2012 are redundantly included in this 2012 subsection, then they should be removed, IMHO. I think all of it has been removed as of right now, thanks to a recent edit by another editor (i.e. Dezastru).Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

As it stands right now, there's one sentence in the abortion material that refers to old views, but as a practical matter it's going to be impossible to keep that out, at least until after the election. But everything else is forward-looking positions now, I believe. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• "continued use of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and use of enhanced interrogation techniques" repetition of "use" here.

Fixed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:33, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• "in behind-doors sessions with the state legislature" Not a big deal, but I would have put "closed-door sessions" here.

Fixed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• "Instead, he endorsed a ballot initiative led by the Coalition for Marriage and Family that would have banned same-sex marriage and made no provisions for civil unions." Might want to note what the Coalition for Marriage and Family is (a conservative lobbying group, I presume?)

I inserted a parenthetical: "(an alliance of socially conservative organizations)".Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:10, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• I haven't read the notes sections, but otherwise, this is the rest of my comments. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again for your comments. WTR says he will be back in a few days, at which time he may have further replies. Feel free to cross out any comments that you feel have been adequately addressed. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

• "the governor instructed town clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. However, citing a 1913 law that barred out-of-state residents from getting married in Massachusetts if their union would be illegal in their home state, he said no marriage licenses were to be issued to out-of-state same-sex couples not planning to move to Massachusetts" I dimly recall that some town clerks may not have followed this order, if this was the case it might be good to note.

This comment is a bit unclear. Town clerks may not have followed the order to issue the licenses, or town clerks may not have followed the order to deny the licenses to out-of-staters? In either case, I'm not aware of substantial refusal by town clerks. The 1913 law was repealed in 2008, but that seems outside the scope of this article, though it is properly wikilinked.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm just going by my recollections of WBZ segments from years ago here, I may be mistaken. I thought what happened was the Romney told the clerks not to give licenses to out of state couples, but a lot of clerks went and did it anyway. The article seems to state that he prevented out of staters from getting licenses. (Which may actually be true). Mark Arsten (talk) 23:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

According to Massachusetts 1913 law, 13 town and city clerks challenged the constitutionality of the 1913 statute, but the Massachusetts superior court said the statute was legit. WTR may know more about it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll withdraw this concern then. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

According to an AP story used in the Governorship of Mitt Romney article, most of the town clerks halted doing it on their own once the state attorney general gave them a warning. I think this is a detail best handled in that daughter article or in the law's article. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Would it be possible to add an appraisal of the effects of the Mass health law on Massachusetts? Maybe a paragraph summary of Massachusetts_health_care_reform#Outcomes?

Hmm, we already say: "Romney won the 2002 gubernatorial election in Massachusetts, and as Governor helped develop and enact into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, which provided near-universal health insurance access through state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance." That seems like enough to me. The present-day popularity of the program, the changes to it since Romney was Governor, and a comparison of costs between Massachusetts citizens versus citizens of other states seems important and interesting, but maybe beyond the scope of the present article. We provide the wikilink though. Also, please keep in mind that this is already a very long Wikipedia article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand your point, but I think it would be nice to have a note that "The law increased/decreased costs by X% and resulted in a Y% increase/decrease in ER visits" or something like that. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

There already was a Note that got into the effects of the law, so I've added to that Note statistics on these two items that you suggested (I had been on the fence about doing this before). Wasted Time R (talk) 11:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, sounds good. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, it got reverted by another editor, and AYW's attempt to rephrase it to satisfy that editor got reverted too. So it goes. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support Alright, I'm very impressed with this article, it's both well written and very neutral. It's impossible to make everyone happy, and there are a few consensus-based decisions on the page that I would do differently. I believe that it is as good as we could ask though, and firmly meets the FA criteria. I have a couple suggestions for improvement just above, but they don't affect my support for this article. Thanks to everyone who worked on making such a high-profile article high quality! Mark Arsten (talk) 23:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your comments, your accurate perception of the editing environment, and your support. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: having stumbled back into the role of "major contributor" to this article, I decided to go through it top to bottom and check that it's "unimprovable". That top-to-bottom check is done now.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
• Support from contributor. This article is in pretty good shape now, mainly due to very diligent work by Wasted Time R over the course of many months and years. It seems to meet most (if not all) of the featured article criteria, though one might quibble about length. During the past five years, a lot of crapola has made its way into this article. I remember especially the extensive material about polygamy, and the gratuitous photo linking the subject to Richard Nixon via the subject's father. Anyway, that stuff is now gone. The article is pretty much neutral, though I am not commenting about the abortion material, which is necessarily outside the scope of my "support" (due to inanity that I need not elaborate about here). So, a hearty congratulations to WTR, and I hope this article gets the star, in the tradition of Wikipedia's quadrennial presidential election BLPs.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your support and your continuing work on the article and in this review. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:00, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Comments about the lead

• "In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University." → "In 1971, he earned a BA from Brigham Young University and, in 1975, a joint Juris Doctor and MBA from Harvard." BA and MBA are well-known enough to exist without the expansions, and that Harvard is a univ is clear enough. This way you can save space for more important stuff later.

Looking around other FA article leads, I don't see many that use abbreviations for degrees - they either spell it out or don't mention the degree at all. 'Harvard University' I think should be presented in full. In any case, I don't think the space saved here would make much of a difference for your later points.

• The third paragraph is extremely abrupt, jumping from Mormon work to senator elections to Salt Lake CEO. This can be fixed by preceding the latter two sentences with a little flavour: "Eager to follow in his father's footsteps, Romney ran as the Republican candidate..." and "Followed this setback, Romney continued to head Bain, until he was hired..." (I'm not saying that you use exactly these sentences, but that you should try to create a narrative)

I actually like creating a narrative, but most other WP editors don't. And they especially don't in leads. So the "Eager to follow in his father's footsteps" transition has no hope of staying in. I have however added that he resumed his position at Bain Capital after the Kennedy loss, since that wasn't otherwise clear.

• Governorship: I'd make the whole thing more chronological to avoid that abrupt first sentence. Start with "Following his election as GoM in 2006, he presided..." and finally "Romney didn't seek re-election in 2006, and instead ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, which he lost to John McCain." (Don't think his winning primaries is that important)

Good idea on moving the decision not to seek a second term down to the end of the governorship material and flowing it into the 2008 presidential campaign, since that's what happened. I've made that change. However, saying he won several primaries and caucuses is important because most presidential candidates never even accomplish that (only 8 out of 27 in the last two cycles).

• Why does the lead then devote so much space to say that he won the nomination (announcement+date, presumptive+date, official+detailed-date)? By shortening this to just saying that he ran for the R-nomination and won, you create space to name his running mate and the person he's running against, as well as the key platform he's running on—the incumbent's alleged economic mismanagement.

When someone becomes the presumptive nominee is sort of a metric of how easily they dominated their opponents in the primaries, so I think it merits a mention, but you're right that all this can be shorter. I've rewritten this part to match what the FA John McCain article had at this time four years ago, which means Ryan is now added. I've also added that he faces Obama in the general election, which may seem obvious to some but deserves inclusion for foreign readers and the like.

TL;DR: enhance the lead's narrative quality to cut down on abruptness and increase readability.—indopug (talk) 14:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, you brought up some good points ... Wasted Time R (talk) 11:28, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Support Comments. After the thorough reviews above, there's not too much left to say. I think these comments are original, but if one's already been covered, please disregard. Likewise, I understand that many sentences are the product of endless negotiation and compromise, so I'm not trying to unpick that, just tweak a few things. So:

• In "Heritage and youth", I think "newly-elected" shouldn't have a hyphen.

You're right, per MOS:HYPHEN; I've removed it.

• Under "University, France mission..." this sentence seems less formal than the rest of the article: "When the French expressed opposition to the U.S. role in the Vietnam War, Romney debated them in return, and if the French said to get out of Vietnam and slammed their doors shut then that reinforced Romney's support for it." Perhaps something like "When the French expressed opposition to the U.S. role in the Vietnam War, Romney debated them in return, with their opposition reinforcing Romney's support for the war." would be better, if the sources support it.

See change just made above in response to Mark Arsten's comment on the same item.

• Same section: where you say "He became president of the all-male Cougar Club": is "all-male" necessary?

One of the sources used makes a point of saying that, but the other source, with the more detailed description, doesn't, so I've removed it.

• Under "Tenure, 2003–2007", I'd make this one sentence, but that's just a personal preference: "Romney sought to bring near-universal health insurance coverage to the state. This came after Staples founder Stemberg told him at the start of his term that doing so would be the best way he could help people." Perhaps --->"Romney sought to bring near-universal health insurance coverage to the state after Staples founder Stemberg told him that doing so would be the best way he could help people."

If this was the only factor, maybe, but the third sentence introduces the other factor that led to this (Medicaid funding). That's too long to all combine as one sentence, and I'd rather not give extra weight to the Stemberg cause (which another reviewer thought might be a bit overplayed) but moving it into the first sentence.

That's all I have. Very nicely done, overall. The 2012 section, in particular, is a finely wrought synopsis that couldn't have been easy to agree on. --Coemgenus (talk) 00:34, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your review and kind words. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:59, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - This article has undergone some substantive changes since I reviewed it last week.

My main substantive concern is that stuff has been added to the "Political positions" subsection that is redundant to stuff covered earlier in the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:37, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

AYW, I think I like the idea of moving "Political positions" under the 2012 campaign. The past positions on a certain subject can be moved to the extent needed into earlier sections. The positions on TARP and the auto bailout can be moved to the "Activity between campaigns" section. Everything else I think is current to the 2012 campaign. Unless you see something else. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

That would be great. I hope you don't mind doing it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Now done, we'll see what people think. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:25, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• Non sequitur. - "Romney did not seek re-election in 2006, instead running for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election." This implies he could not have done both, which is not true at all. He could have ran for Mass. Gov. in 2006, and also ran for the Republican nomination in the 2008. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:57, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I've changed it to "Romney ... instead focusing on his campaign for the Republican nomination...."Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Nice fix. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Gabe, the problem with your lead change is that your usual trick to avoid the passive voice in cases like this is to combine the clause with the next clause or sentence. That was okay in the previous lead, where the next clause was his not running for a second term in 2006. The second clause naturally matched the first. But one of the more recent reviewers objected to that, correctly I think, and the 'not running' was moved down to the end of the gubernatorial material. Given that, I wrote "Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002." I think this is the natural topic sentence and should not be combined with anything else. If you really can't stand the "was", I suggest a change to "Voters elected Romney Governor of Massachusetts in 2002." or perhaps "The voters of Massachusetts elected Romney their governor in 2002." or something like that. But I feel strongly that "Elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he presided over <describe one thing, chosen over all others>" is not the way to go. And if we had to pick one thing to go into that preferred slot, it should be the healthcare plan, which is more significant in the long run than the budget deficit closure. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:05, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand your concerns and I've made an edit to address them, please tell me what you think. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:17, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

No, you've just made it less bad. What's wrong with a simple topic sentence? The sentence structure should not be sacrificed just because of your passion against the passive voice. Elimination of the passive voice is not an FA requirement! For example, the leads for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, John McCain, and Barack Obama all use the passive voice, and all are FA. For that matter, you used the passive voice in your lead for FA Pink Floyd ("They were inducted into ...") But I'm even willing to concede this just to get a decent topic sentence here. How about "Massachusetts voters elected Romney their governor in 2002." What's wrong with that? Then we can proceed with what he did (I would put deficit closure first in this case, because it happened first. As long as they aren't part of the topic sentence, the order doesn't promote one of them above the other). Wasted Time R (talk) 03:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

"Elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002," is a topic clause, there is no need for a full topic sentence here. I think it reads quite well as it is now. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:33, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, it promotes something else into the topic sentence. There is nothing wrong with occasional use of the passive voice! I've counted three instances in your Pink Floyd article and they haven't even gotten a record contract yet. Why does this article have to live up to a non-existent absolute standard that even you don't follow? Wasted Time R (talk) 03:39, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Look at the two versions side-by-side. Which seems like better prose to you? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

The first sentence in your version is much worse. The elimination of the Massachusetts budget detail in your version I'm personally fine with, but it was in there as part of a compromise with Dezastru and Cwobeel. I try to honor past compromises with other editors, but I guess if they don't jump in here, it's gone gone gone. Your second passive voice rephrase introduces a pointless redundancy - "The Republican Party formally nominated Romney and his chosen running mate, Representative Paul Ryan, at the 2012 Republican National Convention ..." - what other party would have nominated him at the Republican National Convention? Wasted Time R (talk) 03:54, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

This edit you just made to the Pink Floyd article exemplifies this folly. You've taken two perfectly fine sentences about two completely separate things (induction into Halls of Fame, number of records sold) and combined them into one. Now readers will get the idea that the two are linked, which is not the case - there are plenty of acts in the R&R HoF that never sold much and some acts (especially in prog rock) that have sold zillions that are not in. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Why do you keep talking about other articles I've edited? Passive is inferior, active is superior, its just the way it is. I think one of these versions is superior. UniHC was Romney's most notable accomplishment as Gov. of Mass., it should be mentioned first. Its good that the $3B figure is now a lower estimate, and more realisticaly accreditable to Romney's direct actions. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:13, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

There are many authorities on English grammar and writing who do not agree with your absolutist position. Not to mention all the other editors and all the other reviewers on these other, similar FA articles that I referred to. You just happen to be a better writer than all of them, eh? Wasted Time R (talk) 04:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

This is 99% moot. It's been addressed in the body of the article. Let's not get hung up on the 1%.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps, but one of these things is superior to the other. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:44, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Comments: Just a few points on prose from the lede:

• "In 1969, he married Ann Davies, and the couple had five children together." The wording of this statement feels awkward for reasons I can't quite explain (implying perhaps that they no longer have five children?); could it be better as "[...] with whom he has had five children." ?

Both "had" and "has" have been tried in the past here. I've put in your variation, we'll see what others think. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• "He ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 U.S. Senate election, in Massachusetts;", should not have a comma I'm almost certain.
• "Cofounded" > "Co-founded"? For consistency with "re-election" if nothing else? The MoS on this seems less than decisive though.

Otherwise, great article on an important subject. All the best with the nomination! MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 20:39, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I removed the comma. Regarding "cofounded" and "re-election", notice that the letter after the second hyphen is a vowel, which means that there is no inconsistency. Regarding the "In 1969...." sentence, I will remove the word "together". Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• Redundancy, chronological issue. - The first paragraph of the lead states: "From 2003 to 2007, he served as the 70th Governor of Massachusetts", then in the fourth paragraph: "Romney won the 2002 gubernatorial election in Massachusetts". ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:38, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I doubt that it's a problem, because certain particular types of redundancy are okay in a Wikipedia article. For example, stuff in the lead is inevitably repeated in the body of an article. Likewise, stuff in the opening paragraph is often repeated later in a lead. Per WP:Lead, "The first paragraph should define the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being overly specific." So, subsequent paragraphs of the lead often are more specific than the opening paragraph, while covering the same ground.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:23, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

More comments: I've ventured beyond the lede and a few points struck me:

• "homemaker Lenore Romney (née LaFount)". It strikes me as strange that we would list non-formal employment. Does the source specifically refer to her as this, and is it vital that we know?

I don't think the source uses that term per se, but that's what she was at that time. Since she played a major part in forming Mitt's personality (he's reserved like her, not a force of personality like George), I feel it's important to say what she was when he was growing up, especially since later we allude to her entering politics. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• "Preceded in birth by his three siblings – Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott – Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years." The term "preceded in birth" is one that I can't find in any another Biography article. "The youngest of four children"?

This is another construct that's been through several rewordings here. There are some usages of it found by this Google Books search, so it's not a complete invention. I'm not sure how your suggestion would work into a full sentence that mentions the other three names and the age gap. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC).

How about simply replacing "preceded in birth by" with "Younger than"?Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Done.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:09, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• "People called Mitt "Billy" until kindergarten". People seems redundant unless specified, perhaps: "Mitt was referred to as "Billy" until kindergarten".

I totally agree with you, but see disputes above re use of the passive voice. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I've changed this in the interests of compromise and consensus. I wasn't saying there should be no uses of the passive voice in the article, I was saying that the uses should be justified in terms of grammar, comprehension and intended perspective. This seems like a perfectly good use of it, as the POV is actually more focused on Mitt with the passive voice. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:57, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• "Despite increasing radicalization on campus with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance." Complete non sequitur, unless well-groomed has some other meaning.

This is trying to get across succinctly what the Boston Globe series part 1 piece is saying. Read the two paragraphs here, beginning with the "Sheltered from a storm" subheading. But I had to take out the word "environs" due to an earlier review comment, and what's there now isn't really accurate regarding just the campus. Hmm. I've now changed this sentence to "He was not part of the counterculture of the 1960s then taking form in the San Francisco Bay Area.[17]" I think this should get the idea across without bogging down in details about why exactly he was viewed as a square. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• RE: the earlier discussion of "co-founded" and "re-election"; your rationale is fine, but I noticed "co-found" used under Business Career > Private Equity. Inconsistency?

This dictionary listing clearly says it should be without a hyphen, so I've removed it from the other uses. "Re-elect" is a tough one; style guides split on it, but at least we're consistent here in this article. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 09:17, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your continuing comments. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support – After reading through the article twice, and going over the extensive reviews above, I am convinced that this article satisfies the criteria. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 02:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your support. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support on prose. TBrandley 03:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your support. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comment by Jesse V.

• I noticed that this article has a deadlink and other redirect issues. Please see its Checklinks entry. • Jesse V.^(talk) 00:42, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I ran all the tools when I submitted the FAC. The one deadlink must have happened since then, and I have now fixed it. The dablinks tool flags the two disambig pages linked to by the hatnote at the top, but I don't know how that can be avoided. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose A FA needs to be comprehensive, and considering his close ties to his church I find it severely unbalanced the fact that tithe-ing is not discussed at all. Nergaal (talk) 03:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The article says: "Romney has donated to the LDS Church regularly, and to LDS Church-owned BYU. In 2010, for example, he and his wife gave $1.5 million to the church."Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:23, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I had seen that before opposing, yet I believe it is definitely POVing. Tithe is a compulsory requirement to be a member of the church and the text in the current form only makes him look like he is an incredible benefactor, without portraying the requirements that the church imploses in exchange for membership. Nergaal (talk) 03:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The thing is that he has given money to the church in the form of tithing plus further contributions on top of that. So I used the word "donate" which links to our tithing article. No POVing was intended at all. If you think it's really important that we spell this out then we can, but keep in mind that church membership itself is voluntary, so it's kind of a fine distinction between tithing and donating further funds. Another advantage of the present approach is that it avoids jargon, but we can put the jargon back in if you think it advisable.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Tithing is not jargon, it's a Biblical concept understood across multiple religions. This article has long said, "Romney has regularly tithed to the LDS Church." You messed that up earlier today as part of your unilateral "undue weight" edits, and now you managed to earn the article an 'oppose'. Good work. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:04, 21 October 2012 (UTC).

I've reinserted the word "tithe" explicitly. I don't recall, WTR, that that was among the changes you requested today in that subsection. Anyway, perhaps Nergaal will reconsider his oppose, and perhaps did not realize that tithing has always been wikilinked in the article. I was merely seeking a verb that would apply both to his tithing and to his donations to BYU. Frankly, I've never heard of an editor insisting on opposing a FAC after his objection about a single word has been fully addressed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:10, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The new "donated (for example tithed)" construct makes no sense to me. I would suggest changing this to something like "Romney has tithed to the LDS Church regularly, and has donated to LDS Church-owned BYU." Wasted Time R (talk) 04:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. Incidentally, I know well that "tithing" is not a term limited to Mormonism. Still, it is religious jargon, according to people like Reverend William Rich, Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston.[4]Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Continued Oppose I find the discussion on his relationship with his church unsatisfactory. For example there are 5 very-long paragraphs on his successful winter olympics achievements (which took about 4 years), while his relationship with the church (which he has been heavily involved his all life) is only 3 paragraphs long. I bet that there will be multiple readers wondering about his church relationship (more than for example the 2002 games), and this article, in the current state, does not satisfy that curiosity even partially. Just look at Barack_Obama#Family_and_personal_life and see how much more details are presented there (while he did not spend over a year as a missionary). I think his relationship with the church is similarly ?controversial? as Obama's so I believe it requires a similar amount of discussion. Nergaal (talk) 00:43, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

You have counted the paragraphs about Romney's local church leadership (which happened in his spare time during his business career from 1977 to 1994). But you have not counted the paragraphs about his full-time work as a missionary in France. The info about Romney's relationship with his church is distributed chronologically throughout the article, whereas the Obama article is not written chronologically, which makes a comparison a bit more difficult. Perhaps there is some important fact about Romney's reliogiosity that you think is missing?Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I count about nine religion-related paragraphs overall: one in "Heritage and youth" that gives his background, much of which is Mormon-related; two in "University, France mission, marriage, and children: 1965–75" about his missionary stint, and one right after that about his marriage and wife's conversion; most of one in "Personal wealth" about his tithing; three in "Local LDS Church leadership"; one in "2008 presidential campaign" about his religion in politics speech. And I would echo what Anythingyouwant said - what about his church do you think is missing? And while I don't think comparisons with the Obama article are especially useful (one is a sitting president, one is not, which makes a big different in article structure), there are only three paragraphs in Barack Obama#Religious views. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Like the article editors, I would want some suggestion as to what information about his church role etc might be missing? It seemed fine when I read through it (admittedly several weeks ago now). hamiltonstone (talk) 04:09, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought this article handled his faith pretty solidly too. Comparing paragraph counts between this and Obama's article is clearly a case of other candidates exist :) Mark Arsten (talk) 03:59, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Question where are his religious beliefs/views covered? Nergaal (talk) 18:58, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I did a word search for "Mormon" and got 45 hits in this article, plus five hits for "Jesus Christ". I don't think it's necessary for the article to elaborate about what Mormons generally believe, because wikilinks are provided for that; also, as the Wikipedia article says, "During all of his political campaigns, Romney has avoided speaking publicly about Mormon doctrines...."

As WTR mentioned above, nine paragraphs of the article detail the role of religion in his life. They are as complete and comprehensive as possible.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your point, why would the Obama article contain a separate section on his religious beliefs and the Romney one not? Nergaal (talk) 00:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming that Wasted Time R is stuck in Hurricane Sandy right now, so I guess it's okay for me to take the lead in responding. The "religious views" subsection of the Obama article is part of the section titled "Family and personal life" which is entirely segregated from the chronological material of preceding sections. In contrast, the Mitt Romney article has a different structure, integrating information about family and personal life throughout the article chronologically. This is not an uncommon way to organize a featured BLP. See, for example, John McCain.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I've read both and I think the way this article handles religion flows much better than Obama's article. Having a separate section breaks the flow to some extent, it's better to work it into the narrative. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm still not clear on what Nergaal thinks is missing from the article. It doesn't matter that the two articles handle the subject differently - that isn't an issue for the FAC criteria. What would matter is if there is important information in reliable sources that has been omitted. Nergaal, do you think there's some information missing? His religious beliefs and activities appear covered. Is there something in the sources you are aware of that isn't here? hamiltonstone (talk) 11:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

After reading the article I am still not convinced this is really FA-worthy. For how controversial this public person is, it is hard to understand how can an article read so positively about the person and not be some campaign-driven PR stunt. I would love to have another double-TFA like we did in 2008 on the election day, but I really do think this article needs a large shift to a more neutral tone before deserving an FA star. Nergaal (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I hope you can understand how frustrating this must be for editors who have been hammering away at this for weeks / months (and I'm saying that because I'm not one of them). Can you list some specific examples that are actionable? I have no skin in this game, not being an American (though the whole world gets touched - and often pestered - by American foreign policy, so I would hardly claim to be uninterested). My reading is that this is incredibly carefully constructed, with four hundred citations. The Salt Lake City section for example, quotes extensively the views of those who basically say "he didn't do as much as he claimed, but used it as a platform", while attempting to report the financial facts of the case very objectively. I also think the suggestion that this is could be a "campaign-driven PR stunt" is incredibly insulting to Wasted Time and his colleagues, and completely unwarranted given their track record at WP. On a related point, I've left a message at the proect talk page, asking if a delegate might drop in and indicate if there are particular issues they are watching for here. hamiltonstone (talk) 22:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. - If there is any truth to the claim that Mitt spent much of his missonary time in Paris living in the Fitch Mansion, then I think the text string: "At the Mission Home, he enjoyed far more comfortable accommodations than he previously had elsewhere in the country" should be edited to be more specific and revealing. Was the "Mission Home" the text refers to the Fitch Mansion? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Mission Home was originally built by Douglas Fitch in the nineteenth century. I think Romney was there for six of his 30 months in France. But it seems kind of tangential to discuss who built the house, and I don't see that there's any Wikipedia article about a Fitch Mansion. I'm sure WTR will be able to enlighten us further.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

My main point here is that "the Mission Home" does not conjure images of one of the finest Mansions in Paris. It matters little that Fitch built the Rue de Lota, but readers ought to know that when we say "Mission Home" we are actually talking about a Mansion. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:30, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I edited so it reads as follows: "Residing at the Mission Home for several months, he enjoyed a mansion far more comfortable than the accommodations he previously had elsewhere in the country."Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

What is the Fitch Mansion? This Daily Telegraph story is what we use to cite the Mission Home he stayed in. For a long time the article said, "In the Mission Home in Paris he enjoyed palace-like accommodations." I would be content to go back to that. I think AYW's "for several months" is misleading, because it was for the better part of a year. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The cited source says "mansion", Gabe said "mansion", "mansion" is accurate, so I put in "mansion". It was not a palace, so I object to such hyperbole. And as far as I know, six months is better described by "several months" than by "the better part of a year".Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Wasted, nobody calls it the "Fitch mansion", but its certainly a mansion, and it was built by a man named Fitch. They now call it Rue de Lota, and the building has an estimated value of more than $12 million US. Also, I agree with AYW, "several months" is a better way to describe six months than "the better part of a year", which I would reserve for 7 or 8 months minimum. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec)The source quotes the son of the Mission president saying it was 'like a palace', but I'm fine with 'mansion' too. I've never seen a firm date on when he arrived there, but one source says effectively soon after early 1968 and this source says spring 1968, weeks before the May disturbances, which started first week of May. So figure around maybe late March. And he leaves just before Christmas. So that sounds like nine months in the Mission Home to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal is very specific that it was only six months.[5]Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

There's no fresh reporting in that WSJ piece, it's just a recap of the Daily Telegraph piece and maybe something the campaign told them. Based upon what I've seen elsewhere, I think they have it wrong. But this is supposedly damaging (it's not, but people are silly) and since BLP's are supposed to be conservative, we'll go with 'several'. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose This article is not comprehensive. It whitewashes his extreme religious beliefs and his right-wing politics. How can you state that Romney plans to lower individual income tax by 20% when that is clearly impossible, as has been reported by reliable sources. An article full of lies is not FA quality, sorry. 74.115.210.45 (talk) 00:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

IP74, thank you very much for commenting. You object on two grounds: (1) we whitewash his extreme religious views, and (2) we whitewash his extreme politics like his impossible 20% tax cut.

Regarding the first of these two whitewashes, it would be very helpful if you could specify what we omit about his religious views. It's true that we could say something like the following, but we could say it of most any Christian:

Romney believes that there is a spirit in the sky who created the universe in less than a week, and who had a son that lived on Earth amongst humans. And humans who believe in this story will exist after they die, transported to a very comfortable place called "heaven" where the spirit in the sky lives together with winged creatures called "angels".

The problem with us writing such a thing in this Wikipedia article is that Romney has never himself said anything like this in public, nor do we write other BLPs of Christians in that manner. The Romney article presently says "Mormon" 45 times (forty-five times!), and has nine paragraphs (9!) about the role of religion in his life. What more can we do? Are you objecting because we don't say enough that he's Christian, or because we don't say enough that he's Mormon? Please be specific.

Regarding our second purported whitewash, we say this:

“ He has also promised to seek income tax law changes that he says would help to lower federal deficits and would stimulate economic growth. These include: reducing individual income tax rates across the board by 20 percent, maintaining the Bush administration-era tax rate of 15 percent on investment income from dividends and capital gains (and eliminating this tax entirely for those with annual incomes less than $200,000), cutting the top tax rate on corporations from 35 to 25 percent, and eliminating the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax.[366][367] He has promised that the loss of government revenue from these tax cuts would be offset by closing loopholes and placing limits on tax deductions and credits available to taxpayers with the highest incomes,[367] but has said that that aspect of the plan cannot be evaluated yet because details would have to be worked out with Congress.[368] ”

As an abstract matter, of course, it would be possible for Romney to reduce taxes by 90%. Perhaps you are referring to the impossibility of a 20% tax cut WHILE lowering the federal deficit, together with the deficit-cutting measures he has proposed (scrapping ObamaCare, block-granting Medicaid to the states, capping exemptions and deductions, et cetera), and with the military spending he has proposed, and the economic growth he has forecast. Is that what you mean, IP74? Please keep in mind that this is a summary section in the Wikipedia article, and we are merely trying to BRIEFLY state his political positions without stating their rationales, their effects, their consistency, et cetera. We do not have space to critique his political positions and say which ones are realistic or likely to succeed.

Several non-partisan analyses of Romney’s tax plan have estimated that it COULD add more than $3 trillion to the federal deficit. But supporters of his tax plan say such analyses make assumptions that are not detailed in the plan, and ignore the economic growth that would be generated. Some experts, like Rudolph Penner, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, think 20 percent cuts are entirely possible. According to the Tax Policy Center, "Romney will need to do much more than capping itemized deductions to pay for the roughly $5 trillion in rate cuts and other tax benefits he has proposed.” Indeed, the Romney campaign responds: "he has only suggested that capping itemized deductions is one option that could be explored, and there are others".

But like I said, the present article just states his positions without analyzing them. There's just no room, and any analysis we do would likely be very controversial (and unusual for a featured BLP). This applies to all of the other political positions too. For example, we say that he's against gay marriage without describing or analyzing the reason that he has often stated: to provide an optimum environment for children to grow up in.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:48, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

If I had power and my WP time wasn't extremely limited, I could respond to this more deeply, but please note that 74.115.210.45 has four career edits, three of which are FAC or RfM comments. Clearly a sock of some kind. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Support. I think this has been combed over very thoroughly. There will be ongoing debates about minor points of neutrality but I think the close referencing and strong scrutiny of the article ensures its integrity. I think the article addresses his mormon faith regularly and relevantly without becoming unduly obsessed with it (as some on both sides of American politics sometimes have been in the past). I congratulate the editors who have worked so assiduously on it in recent weeks. hamiltonstone (talk) 11:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose based on some POV issues and a lack of comprehensive coverage of his political positions, a section that is so slanted in favor of Romney that the article reads like it is Mitt's official webpage. The prose is also poor quality and most of the research is based on two or three writers. The article is not neutral and it has not been stable over the past several weeks with substantive changes being made during edit-wars after supports were registered. The article is also way too long to have no mention of polygamy, tithing, or Romney flip-flopping. The material on Bain makes it sound like it was just an ordinary desk job. The article does not explain the venture capitalistic nature of Bain's ruthless business practices meant Romney fired thousands of people and shipped their jobs overseas. The coverage of his Governorship in Mass. is far from comprehensive, even misleading. It gives the reader the impression that Mass. was in a better financial condition when Romney left office then when he took office, impling he saved them a deficit. The article has no mention of Romney's extensive car collection worth millions (that has it's own elevator), and the article does not make clear how many homes Romney owns. How many horses do they own and why doesn't the article detail his involvement in equestrian pursuits? In 2004, Romney vetoed Disaster Flood funding for Mass., and in light of Sandy, this should be mentioned if you want to claim the article is comprehensive. Why is his net worth listed at $190-250 million in the lead, yet the section on his finances suggests he is worth nearly twice that. There is mention of who he would appoint to SCOTUS, but no mention of any specific litmus tests for candidates other than anti-abortion, but the article does not present the material in that way, as a litmus test. The article does not mention that Romney will not release multiple-years of tax returns. A bit of a whitewash, this overly long article is not well-written, well-researched or comprehensive. It lacks neutrality and has been unstable for weeks. Kolob1x2 (talk) 21:22, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

If I had power I and wasn't extremely limited in WP time, I could respond to this in detail, but note that commenter has ~20 career edits, about a quarter of which are FAC comments. Clearly a sock of some kind. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

How very rude of you Wasted Time R. Is there a minimum number of edits for user accounts to be eligible to vote at FAC? I've edited wikipedia for years as an IP (often voting at FAC), and last month I decided to make an account. Now I come here as a registered user and you bite me the first chance you get. What a warm welcome I've received from you, thanks! Is that how you want to get this passed, by casting doubt on the legitimacy of your opposes? Shame on you! Kolob1x2 (talk) 22:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

No offense Kolob1x2, but I thought you were a sock as well. It's very odd to see a new editor with less than 30 edits writing knowledgeable paragraphs at FACs. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 22:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Please don't assume that all new user accounts are also new editors. I've been editing here for years as an IP. I only registered an account last month to avoid the inherent distrust of IPs, and now I'm being distrusted because My account is only 6 weeks old. I thought veteran editors were expected to not bite new users. Aren't suspicious editors expected to file an SPI and not just make flippant accusations against new user accounts? Kolob1x2 (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think I phrased my comment wrong. After your explanation, I have no doubts that you are a good-faith editor, who has not acted maliciously. I never really suspected you to be a sockpuppet, which is why I didn't file the SPI. Regards, TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 22:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Kolob1x2, for taking the time out of your schedule to share your point of view about the article. I’ll address your specific comments:

1) lack of comprehensive coverage of his political positions, a section that is so slanted in favor of Romney that the article reads like it is Mitt's official webpage

AYW: There’s a hatnote on the Political positions section referring readers to Political positions of Mitt Romney which is much more comprehensive. We couldn’t fit everything in here. The only example you give of slanting is regarding SCOTUS and litmus tests, which is incorrect as I’ll describe below (item #10).Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

2) The prose is also poor quality and most of the research is based on two or three writers.

AYW: There are 399 footnotes. Who are the two or three that you think are over-emphasized? Do you have an example of poor prose?Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

3) The article is not neutral and it has not been stable over the past several weeks with substantive changes being made during edit-wars after supports were registered.

AYW: Seems remarkably stable under the circumstances. a diff showing changed during the past two weeks. As you can see, the changes are relatively minor. The biggest change was to tighten up the personal wealth subsection, but I don’t recall that anyone objected to this final version of that subsection.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

4) The article is also way too long to have no mention of polygamy, tithing, or Romney flip-flopping.

AYW: Regarding polygamy, there was recently some discussion about it, but no one thought it pertinent enough for this article. We don’t mention it, for the same reason that we don’t mention American slavery in the article about John Kerry; slavery is part of Kerry’s national heritage, but he had nothing to do with it, and slavery was extinguished decades before Kerry was born. Regarding tithing, you’re mistaken; it is mentioned (“Romney has tithed to the LDS Church regularly, and donated to LDS Church-owned BYU. In 2010, for example, he and his wife gave $1.5 million to the church”). Regarding “flip-flopping”, that’s mentioned both explicitly and implicitly, for example the article says that, “Huckabee and McCain criticized Romney's image as a flip flopper and this label would stick to Romney through the campaign (one that Romney rejected as unfair and inaccurate, except for his acknowledged change of mind on abortion)…. After the charges of flip-flopping that marked his 2008 campaign began to accumulate again, Romney declared in November 2011: ‘I've been as consistent as human beings can be.’”Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

5) The material on Bain makes it sound like it was just an ordinary desk job. The article does not explain the venture capitalistic nature of Bain's ruthless business practices meant Romney fired thousands of people and shipped their jobs overseas.

AYW: Not sure what you mean by an ordinary desk job. The article is extremely clear that he cofounded Bain Capital, and was CEO and President. True, we do not label Romney as “ruthless” because that would be biassed POV writing. We try to give both sides, as here: “Dade Behring was another case where Bain Capital received an eightfold return on its investment, but the company itself was saddled with debt and laid off over a thousand employees before Bain Capital exited (the company subsequently went into bankruptcy, with more layoffs, before recovering and prospering). Referring to the layoffs that happened, Romney said in 2007: "Sometimes the medicine is a little bitter but it is necessary to save the life of the patient. My job was to try and make the enterprise successful, and in my view the best security a family can have is that the business they work for is strong."Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

6) The coverage of his Governorship in Mass. is far from comprehensive, even misleading. It gives the reader the impression that Mass. was in a better financial condition when Romney left office then when he took office, implying he saved them a deficit.

AYW: Are the numbers we give inaccurate? No they are not inaccurate. “Through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees, and removal of corporate tax loopholes, the state achieved surpluses of around $600–700 million during Romney's last two full fiscal years in office, although it began running deficits again after that.” I would argue that we are more negative in this sentence than we should be, by suggesting that deficits subsequent to Romney’s term are his fault.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

7) The article has no mention of Romney's extensive car collection worth millions (that has it's own elevator), and the article does not make clear how many homes Romney owns. How many horses do they own and why doesn't the article detail his involvement in equestrian pursuits?

AYW: Rich people tend to have a lot of possessions. We clearly say how rich he is, including in the lead, which is the main point that we needed to get across. Also, you’re incorrect that we don’t describe his homes, e.g.: “In 2009, the Romneys sold their primary residence in Belmont and their ski chalet in Utah, leaving them an estate along Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and an oceanfront home in the La Jolla district of San Diego, California, which they had purchased the year before…. And bought a smaller condominium in Belmont during 2010.” Regarding horses, we mention “equestrian therapies that enabled her to lead a lifestyle mostly without limitations.” This gets the message across. There’s no need to count dogs, horses, pigs, mules, et cetera.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

8) In 2004, Romney vetoed Disaster Flood funding for Mass., and in light of Sandy, this should be mentioned if you want to claim the article is comprehensive.

AYW: I don’t think the comprehensiveness of the governorship material depends on a storm six years later. We say that he vetoed “nearly 250 items”, and there’s no way to describe them all here, or to forecast which ones might seem more noteworthy in hindsight.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

9) Why is his net worth listed at $190-250 million in the lead, yet the section on his finances suggests he is worth nearly twice that.

AYW: The personal wealth section does not suggest he is worth twice that. The lead says his net worth is 190 to 250 million bucks. The personal wealth subsection repeats that figure, and says that figure is “including” their retirement account. The blind trust in the name of their children is not part of Romney’s net worth. The cited source from Bloomberg Businessweek says: “The Romney family trust is worth $100 million, according to the campaign. That money isn’t included in the couple’s personal fortune, which the campaign estimates at as much as $250 million.”Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

10) There is mention of who he would appoint to SCOTUS, but no mention of any specific litmus tests for candidates other than anti-abortion, but the article does not present the material in that way, as a litmus test.

AYW: A primary test is judicial philospophy. The article says: “He has advocated judicial restraint and strict constructionism as judicial philosophies.” I won’t comment about the abortion material specifically (other editors can do so if they like).Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

11) The article does not mention that Romney will not release multiple-years of tax returns.

AYW: Yes we do. “he quickly decided to release two years of his tax returns…. Romney faced demands from Democrats to release additional years of his tax returns, an action a number of Republicans also felt would be wise; after being adamant that he would not do that, he released summaries of them in late September.”Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose as it is. The article is not neutral and not comprehensive enough. JJ98 (Talk) 23:14, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• Changed to Support JJ98 (Talk) 01:51, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
• Good of you to drop in five weeks after this FAC opened, write thirteen words of opposition without any constructive suggestions or examples, and then piss off again. And why the sudden pile on of uninvolved editors after weeks of nothing? I hope this gets treated appropriately by the delegates. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
• It also represents a remarkable change of view since what you thought in September and just today deleted, given the hard work that has been done since that date.hamiltonstone (talk) 23:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support Fine piece of work, well examined above. Reads as neutral to this foreigner. Some dubious opposes above. Johnbod (talk) 00:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Boring and poor quality prose, a severe lack of neutrality, uncomprehensive and the article is not at all stable, just look at the talk page. There has been edit-warring as recent as a couple of days ago, and the article's length makes it very difficult to read through. It seems to me, and I am speaking here as someone who knows quite a lot about Romney and Mormonism, that each section has been carefully whitewashed so as to not cover any unpleasant facts that might cost Romney a vote. There are also numerous issues with close paraphrasing that border on copyvios, but the sloppy sourcing is extremely difficult to discern so it is hard to tell what is, and what isn't properly paraphrased. Numerous factual errors, omitted facts, and overall a near complete failure in terms of capturing who Romney is as a politician. The article repeats obvious lies and discrepancies while painting the picture of a job creating deficit reducer that Romney is not. BobRosencrantz (talk) 02:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, Bob. Unfortunately, the nominator and lead author (Wasted Time R) is without power in New Jersey, so I'm trying to help out. It seems like your comment would be more useful if it contained examples of the maladies you mention. Regarding the talk page, do the FAC criteria require a stable talk page, in addition to a stable article? I don't think so. There was a minor kerfuffle a couple of days ago involving me and Dezastru and "means-testing", but I didn't even break 1RR, and I ended up inserting verbatim the language that Dezastru suggested. You say the article is too long, but you also object to lack of comprehensiveness --- the length is actually due to comprehensiveness, it seems to me. To the extent that you're accusing me and WTR of being liars, whitewashers, copyviolators, and propagandists, all I can say is that your unsubstantiated comment is squarely in the tradition of Wikipedia established by its leaders and applied against me in the past. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:58, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

• Comments having a look now...Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Mitt Romney spent thirty months in France as a Mormon missionary beginning in 1966 - why not say " Mitt Romney spent two and a half years in France as a Mormon missionary from 1966"?

The nominator and lead editor is without electricity in New Jersey due to a recent hurricane, so I'll respond, though I would much prefer if he could handle this subsection. I changed 30 months to two and a half years, though the difference seems slight. I changed "beginning in 1966" to "starting in 1966" to chop a syllable. From an American perspective, "starting in 1966" sounds more normal than "from 1966".Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

He arrived in Le Havre, where he faced physical and economic deprivation in cramped quarters - huh? This doesn't really tell me much, can this be clarified as to what it means?

It's in a larger context. The article already said that he lived in "the affluent suburb of Bloomfield Hills". So we're saying that he got a taste here of non-affluence. This becomes more clear later on when we say: "Residing at the Mission Home for several months, he enjoyed a mansion far more comfortable than the lodgings he had stayed in elsewhere in the country."Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Errr, I think describing the conditions would really help, otherwise I think the sentence can be lost. It sounds a bit lame to describe average people's residences as "deprivation". Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware the Wikipedia article says anything about "average people's residences". The cited New York Times article says:

“ He lived on about $100 a month, sleeping on cast-off mattresses and crowding into small apartments in groups of four. The only toilet was often down the hall and the only shower in a public bathhouse. ”

The cited Boston Globe article says:

“ Mitt Romney's missionary work began not in glamorous Paris but in gritty Le Havre, a seaport along the English Channel. The one-bedroom apartment that he shared with three other missionaries had no telephone, no television, and no radio. There were also no Mormons in Le Havre, so the four American missionaries would hold worship in their apartment, taking turns preaching and singing and offering each other the sacrament of bread and water. "I remember we went down and we went to a place where they had used mattresses off of ships, and so these mattresses were quite good mattresses but they were very narrow, and so we got some cinder blocks and some plywood doors and a mattress and that's what we had for beds," said Donald K. Miller, then Romney's senior companion, and now a dentist in Calgary. ”

When the Wikipedia article says that he grew up in an affluent town, and later when it says that he lived in a comfortable mansion in Paris, I don't think we need to elaborate about what that means, right? So why should Le Havre be different? We run the risk that if the deprivation were detailed, then some editors would cry foul and want the luxury detailed too. The description we give seems accurate, right? And readers can visit the cited sources. But feel free to suggest some different language if you like. I didn't write this sentence, but I think a primary goal was brevity, given the length of the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:06, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay - let me think about it, but even "cramped conditions sharing amenities" is alot more descriptive than what is there...and I made an incorrect assumption. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:40, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, we'll wait and see on this one. I don't have any firsthand knowledge, but it seems plausible that Queen Elizabeth shares amenities with Prince Phillip. Maybe the word "spartan" might help. I've inserted it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the problem with this phrase is "deprivation" - it implies something a bit more extreme than the conditions under which the mission lived. In 1966 France, a lack of television and shared bathroom facilities wasn't that extreme I don't think. In contrast, I think "cramped and spartan quarters" is good. I'm taking a punt and simply deleting the first phrase "physical and economic deprivation" and running with cramped and spartan. hamiltonstone (talk) 22:59, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to disagree with this change, but will not revert unless others object. I don't know what WTR will think about it. $100 per month was worth a bit more in those days. According to an online inflation calculator, what cost $100 in 1966 would cost $683.65 in 2011. That's not much to live on. The new version suggests that his room was crowded and sparsely furnished, but that he may have had a car with chauffeur, fancy clothes, the best French cuisine, and an allowance befitting the son of a wealthy automobile executive. This article devotes much space to detailing precisely how rich he was when he has been rich, and we should be careful not to water down the two years when he was poor.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm happy to further revise it, but i still associate the word "deprivation" with serious third world poverty, and torture techniques, so i found that word too strong. But if I'm on my own on that, then that's OK. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The federally established poverty level for 2012 was set at $23,050. That works out to $1921 per month. He got the equivalent of about $700 per month. I will tweak the recent edit to refer to spartan "conditions", not just spartan quarters.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:36, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

It now says: "He arrived in Le Havre, where he shared cramped quarters with three others, and conditions were spartan."Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Overall, I am leaning towards supporting - there are some repetitive uses of words, but in cases I looked at it was very hard to lose a repeated name without introducing ambiguity. Another issue is bias. As a left-winger myself, I come to this somewhat skeptical, yet I do believe in a genuine dilemma of a BLP where we can veer towards either hagiography or criticism and the arguments are equally valid for each, I think leaning toward the former is fairer if all else is equal. I don't recall any specific negative episodes not covered, but I am not overly familiar with Romney's background. I'll read through again tomorrow. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps your left-wing skepticism will be alleviated by the knowledge that the lead author of this Wikipedia article has been the "unofficial guardian" of the Hillary Clinton article, and voted for her in the Democratic primary four years ago. As for me, I just started today doing some volunteer work for Romney (mainly wasting my time knocking on doors of people who aren't home). Of course, I have never been in contact with anyone associated with the Romney campaign (or with anyone who works for the Republican Party, or with anyone at any political action committee, or the like) regarding this Wikipedia article. I have always strived for NPOV when I edit Wikipedia, although the POV-pushers who I tend to oppose most are the left-leaning ones (because plenty of people are already combating the right-leaning ones but I've reverted them too in order to keep this article neutral). Incidentally, I am officially retired from Wikipedia, and look forward to fading away again after the election. The attacks that I have endured at Wikipedia are too hurtful, too outrageous, and too dangerous. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Delegate's comment - I have decided to promote this candidate. As I am English and live in the UK, I think I can offer some strategic distance. The consensus is that the article satisfies the criteria and any further refinements can be discussed on the Talk Page. WRT to stability, further edits are inevitable given the election. Please do not escalate any discussions to my Talk Page, and keep focussed on the article. Graham Colm (talk) 23:59, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.