Wikipedia:Peer review/Euclidean algorithm/archive1

Euclidean algorithm

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for April 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've requested a peer review for Euclidean algorithm because I intend to bring it to FAC soon. Suggestions for meeting any FA criterion would be welcome, but I'd particularly like to catch issues with the writing (criterion 1a) before nominating it. I'd also like to eliminate unnecessary obscurities for lay-readers. The algorithm has many complex aspects, but ten-year-old children often learn the most basic version. The article may attract readers with very different backgrounds, and I'd like to accommodate them as far as possible without sacrificing content or correctness.

Thanks! Proteins (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• I've had a quick look over the article (I need to get back to my dissertation, I'm afraid!) and made one minor correction (you were missing an "other than 1"). Generally the article seems very good. It's never easy to write a technical article like this and keep it interesting and understandable to the layman, but you've done as well as can be expected. One small issue in that regard - you mention that GCD can be considered as the product of the common prime factors without mentioning the uniqueness of those prime factors, which might cause confusion to those unfamiliar with the idea of prime factorisation. The big issue with the article, though, is its length. The lede probably needs shortening (perhaps removing some of the history stuff), and the article as a whole almost certainly does. You could probably remove a lot of the stuff about GCDs in general - that should all be covered by our article on GCDs (you may want to move some of it over to that article - at least some of it is better than what is there already). Just keep a brief definition in this article. The rest of it isn't so easy to split out, though, so it may be impossible to avoid having a rather long article. Good luck! --Tango (talk) 19:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)