Talk:Harvey Milk/GA1

GA Review[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Protonk comments[edit]

Images[edit]

I don't know about the OTRS bit, so I'll just assume that anything with an OTRS ticket on the image description page is ok.
Image:Harvey milk.jpg. I'll bite. Why is this not replaceable with another image of Milk, aside from the fact that it is a relative closeup and near the right ratio for an infobox? This is partially devil's advocate but also partially because if this goes on the main page that image won't be displayed there.
Does Image:Mural of Harvey Milk in former Castro Camera.JPG have any WP:ACCESS issues as displayed? Can it be displayed without cropping as a right or left aligned image with text floating around it?

As an update, I went through safari and changed my User agent to various other browsers. Haven't seen a problem yet. No problems opening in Opera or Camino. Doesn't seem to be an issue. Protonk (talk) 18:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He doesn't look like Sean Penn. Ok, maybe a little. :)

Check out the film trailer. The resemblance is uncanny and freakish.

Yeah, I think I was going off the film posters and the images in this article. The front cover of Strange de Jim's book and that trailer = scary resemblance. Protonk (talk) 19:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The top image will have to be replaced before nomination at FAC. --Moni3 (talk) 18:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

A note here, I do not have any of these sources in hand. I'll ask question where a citation seems odd but I won't have a chance to doublecheck or find better quotes as I usually do.
A further note, where I denote footnotes by number I mean the number in the Citations or Notes sections of this revision.
fn 121 (the AoJ Memo) literally verifies the part of the text but does so in an offhand manner and does not verify another part. The memo discusses the White case as a segue to diminished capacity in NC and in the paragraph (presumably) cited mentions the binging claim but not the "health food concious" claim. Since their source for this is Rolling Stone (or Newsweek) it would probably be better to cite those if they are available. Re-reading the text it may also be possible that you swapped fn 120 and 121 inadvertently.
fn133. The california penal code is surprisingly readable, but I suspect that a secondary source might exist that discussed this change (much like fn 121 discussed the changes to "diminished capacity" in North Carolina).
Note 1: I don't think Karen Foss is a historian, per se. She is a professor of communication and rhetorical theory. That doesn't make her wrong about anything, just that we shouldn't call her a historian.
Foss (1994) is a good read (as crit. lit. anthologies go). I would like to see more of it in the section that cites fn 138. We use specific phrasing like "insider/outsider" "laughter, reversal, transcendence" but we don't get to the part where the verve comes from. In her view, Milk won because he was loony or he passed at being loony. My suggestion is to reread Foss (1994) and see if you can take the starch out of that section. :)
fn 53 Add 0037-7791 as the ISSN.
fn 1. Why is the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality featured so prominently? This isn't adversarial, it isn't bluelinked or redlinked so I'm guessing it isn't notable, Why put it in the lede?
fn 136 ISSN is 0022-5169.

I don't quite understand your second point.

I place the second point on my GA reviews because I work through the article linearly and also work through my GA rubric linearly. Images=>Sources=>POV (if it is an issue)=>MOS=>Small issues. I used to include the anchor links to the footnotes but during a recent GA nomination I discovered that (shock!) people handle Ga issues in different orders than I do). So by the time they got to the source section, none of the footnotes pointed to the correct article. So now I just note this and note which revision I'm getting the numbers from for clarity. Protonk (talk) 19:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about the North Carolina reference. I'll find a better one. The same for a secondary resource about diminished capacity in California.
The Encyclopedia of Homosexuality is featured in the lead because it gives an overview of Milk's impact. I have problems with the quote, and I think I'll change it. --Moni3 (talk) 19:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MOS/Layout[edit]

Ok. I'll get this out now. I have some WP:SIZE concerns with this article. Editable text is 85kb right now, although the total loaded size is only 305 kb (much less than most web pages). I realize that the size guidance is a little outmoded--even in the states DSL penetration is pretty high. However, I think this article can be trimmed by spinning portions out. I am not going to suggest that elements be spun out purely for size as I think it is much more helpful to spin out topical elements (i.e. rather than "early/mid/late life", spin out things where Milk was only an element of a larger scheme). A suggestion: Broader historical forces should be spun out or spun in to another existing article. That article should be summarized with ~1/3 of the current amount of prose. I understand the urge to be comprehensive and, frankly (given the limited refs) no other section can be spun out without negatively impacting the quality of the bio.
Per Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid, the link to the LGBT portal should be moved to the talk page. I see that the USMC project does this on Oliver Sipple. Am I reading SELFREF right?
In my opinion (and this is just a suggestion/opinion), the see also section should be absorbed into the text and eliminated. For the List of American Assasinated politicians, a link to there exists in the category Category:Assassinated American politicians. I'm not sure where Violence against LGBT people can go.
The lead needs to be expanded slightly to accommodate a summary of the broader issues discussed in Move to San Francisco and Broader historical forces

By a prose size peek, it's at 56k. However, more than one person has commented on its size. I think it does reflect the references on Milk's life, but I will start to seriously consider what to cut or consolidate.
I so rarely pay attention to see also and external links...I suppose I should start at some point. --Moni3 (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Small Issues[edit]

"He was stationed in San Diego and earned the rank of lieutenant, junior grade as a deep sea diver on an aircraft carrier." Do we know which aircraft carrier? Which base? Also, I would prefer the rank to be only included in the discharge as "He was discharged from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade in 1955." because O-2 is an automatic promotion (As is O-3, Lieutenant). Strictly speaking, it is earned, but that is my suggestion.
"Milk abruptly moved from his job as an insurance salesman to become a researcher at a Wall Street company..." Do we know which company?
"White did not forget it. He opposed every initiative and issue Milk proposed and supported." How about "White did not forget the snub."?
"Some of them were encapsulated and buried beneath the sidewalk in front of where Castro Camera was located" "...the sidewalk in front of Castro Camera."?
"White's defense attorney, Doug Schmidt, argued that he was not responsible for his actions, using the legal defense known as diminished capacity" is the definite or indefinite article appropriate here? I would prefer "a legal defense", but my copy of Strunk and White sits unopened.

Overall[edit]

This is a lovely article. I will pass it to GA with the full knowledge that the small issues here will be worked on. I'm not the right person to do a close reading for grammar, spelling, wording, but I've done the best I can. As you can see I haven't found much. I can say generally that the Campaigns and Supervisor sections can be tightened up but I can't provide specific guidance. I also feel that spinning out the broader issues will help with the flow of the article. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to review this. Protonk (talk) 05:06, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Protonk. This was quite a thorough review of the article,a nd I don't consider these issues minor. I hope its eventual rating will be FA, and these things will come up there. It's good to fix them now or prepare a good explanation of why they are there. I need to go over these one by one, and I'll comment or ask clarification where needed. --Moni3 (talk) 13:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.