Talk:Nina Totenberg/GA1

GA Review

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I've given the article a read-through and made two minor edits. I think overall we have an excellent candidate here and I foresee no problems; minor revisions should probably be enough. Within a day or so (barring winter storm problems) I'll go down the checklist in detail. Reviewer: Drmies (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

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

   Some of the references can be handled better; I'll comment below in more detail.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Article covers career sufficiently, in my opinion.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Controversies are handled fairly, in a neutral manner, without undue weight (which is always a problem with this kind of biography; see also article history and talk page).

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   It is stable now, at least.

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

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

   Article could do with a portrait, of course.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

A few comments.

• The lead ought to be expanded and should probably be doubled. Without doing the math for lead vs. content, I think it ought to include some major events of her career, like the Watergate and Hill stories.
• The article needs a good scrubbing throughout; I'll probably make some of those edits myself. The word "notorious" should be replaced, for instance.
• All references really should be done with templates, incl. such stuff as date of retrieval.
  • footnote 1 (Paley Center) needs proper template/info  Done
  • the bare URL for the IMDB, currently footnote 20  Done
  • missing information in others, such as the ALA citation, currently footnote 15  Done
  • footnote 30, for the NRA, needs proper citation, and quote should be unindented  Done
  • quote in footnote 29 needs wikilinks removed (no links in quotes)
  • footnote 37 (Williams on O'Reilly) has formatting problems  Done
  • footnote 34 and 35 probably should go inside the parentheses, no?  Done
• Also, the end of the second paragraph of the "Acclaim" section, the Cate Edwards stuff, should not be there--maybe it shouldn't be in here at all. This does not yet establish that this is interesting or notable. If it was a big deal, it should be referenced and explained as such, and it should be moved to the "Controversies" section.
• Bibliography: wikilinks should be removed from article titles, and books need full bibliographic information. If there are reviews, they could be added as footnotes. Drmies (talk) 22:22, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, Drmies. I expanded the lead as you suggested. I might try out citebot later today to fix the citations. jps (talk) 17:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

So far so good; I think the lead is fine. I wonder if anyone would fall over the "activities and politics" of the Supreme Court--I personally don't doubt that there are politics involved, and a broad definition of 'politics' can certainly apply. Drmies (talk) 22:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what citation template to use for congressional testimony, so I just used the standard outlined at LexisNexis, where I obtained the cite: [1]. jps (talk) 23:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Can I get a rationale for why wikilinks shouldn't be included in the quote for footnote 29? jps (talk) 23:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

• MoS, basically. Drmies (talk) 04:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• I am closing the GA review. The article at this time cannot pass, for two main reasons. First of all, the nominator was blocked indefinitely, leaving me without someone who can answer questions and function as a kind of primary editor. Second, the disagreement (see talk page) on the criticism and controversies stuff are so serious, and so unlikely to be deal with quickly, that it's little use keeping this open. I hope that a next GA nomination will look at this page; I think there's a few helpful suggestions that have not yet been followed up on. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 04:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)