Talk:Isolina Ferré/GA1

GA Review

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Will start reviewing shortly. Cheers, Ricardiana (talk) 23:39, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Criterion 1: well-written

There are quite a few problems here.

• Typos. For example, in "As part of her religious work, Ferré traveled back and forth between Puerto Rico and the United States, serving as an abbess in Cabo Rojo and New York City", the period is missing.
• Repetition. In the lead alone, for example, you twice refer to Ferres as the "Mother Theresa" of Puerto Rico.
• Awkward word choices. For example, "When she was young, Ferré believed that poverty was voluntary; during her adolescence she realized that it wasn't so, after some of her childhood friends appeared intimidated by her" - "intimidated" implies a level of fear. Is this really what the source is saying? If so, a direct quotation would be helpful.
• Ambiguity. "Her mother died the next morning, moments after her brother Luis arrived from the United States" - Ferré's brother, or Ferré's mother's brother?

• All of the above DONE. I have revised the whole article for grammar errors and prose. I have taken care not only of the above mentione problems, but also of some other problems which I found while doing my revision, which in some cases required rephrasing. Take care. Tony the Marine (talk) 05:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, but the changes made, while appreciated, do not make the article overall well-written. The changes you made contain many grammatical errors, errors in punctuation, redundancies, etc. Here are some examples:

• "When she was young, Ferré believed that poverty was a voluntary economic state of being however, during her adolescence she realized that it wasn't so and that she was wrong in her way of thinking." Punctuation incorrect; wordy; redundant.
• "Her health was affected because of her strenuous activities and after she went to her doctor and had a radiology done, she was told that she had damage in her lungs and was recommended that she take one year of rest" - overly colloquial tone, "and was recommended that" should be either "and the doctor recommended that" or "and was recommended to".
• "In this convent, she was one of the few novices that knew how to drive an automobile and served as the convents driver" - punctuation
• "she declined the offer and granted the position to another Puerto Rican resident, she did this because Mayor John Lindsay, had previously appointed her as his personal representative" - run-on
• "In early 2000, Ferré began experiencing some health afflictions yet, her health imporved some that July" - punctuation, typo, vagueness of word choice ("some") Ricardiana (talk) 07:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Criterion 2: factually accurate and verifiable

Good here.

Criterion 3: broad in its coverage

I see you are relying primarily on two sources. I found some more in Google Books, including Ferré's autobiography. I think that that should certainly be used as a source. (As a side note, I see one source gives Ferré's birth name as Maria Isolina Ferré - that should be in the article, too.)

Her sister, Mary Aguayo is named Maria. Although indirectly, I believe that Wikipedia:Autobiography applies for that book as well, most autobiographies are positively biased towards the subject discussed. This article uses the only third-party autobiography that Ferré, in the book she is quoted saying that there is a third biography, but that she felt that it twisted her interviews. - Caribbean~H.Q. 21:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

You should include the other biography even if the subject (Ferre) didn't like it, and also include discussion of what she said was inaccurate.

Re: Ferre's name, Latinas in the United States: a historical encyclopedia states on p. 257 that Ferre's name was Maria Isolina Ferre Aguayo. As it's published by a university press, it's a more reliable source than The book of Latina women: 150 vidas of passion, strength, and success, which isn't. Ferre's full name should be given in the article. Ricardiana (talk) 07:18, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: WP:Autobiography, the policy "strongly discourages" people from writing about themselves, not using an autobiography as a source. I still think you should incorporate Ferre's autobiography. Also, what about using Isolina, una mujer incansable: una obra para mantener vivo su recuerdo, siempre, by Nelson García Santos? Ferre is also discussed in The stranger is our own: reflections on the journey of Puerto Rican migrants by Joseph P. Fitzpatrick and in El Ángel de la playa: Sor Isolina Ferré‎ by Onelia Sánchez de Guasp. All these sources should be included. Ricardiana (talk) 07:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Criterion 4: neutral

Seems OK here.

Criterion 5: stable

Seems OK here.

Criterion 6: illustrated, if possible, by images

I think that the Fair Use Rationale for the image needs a little work. This file is an example I was given recently of a good Fair Use Rationale: File:LadiesGraceAdieu.jpg.

On hold

I'm going to put the article on hold and come back in a week to see what changes have been made. Ricardiana (talk) 00:00, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

• I may need a few days to fully attend these points, Luis Muñoz Marín's review took more than I expected. - Caribbean~H.Q. 21:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it will take time to address my major point, which is that several important sources are missing from the article. For now, the article fails GA, I'm afraid; I encourage you to submit it again when the above points have been addressed. Ricardiana (talk) 07:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Since when do nominations fail because the reviewer wants a certain book to serve as reference? You can't claim that an article isn't broad because we didn't use an autobiography to reference it, that criteria is directly related to the amount of content and detail in the article. This piece covers her entire life with sufficient detail. Besides that, the content is referenced. Never, since my debut in this project, have I seen a main page FA using an autobiography as a reference. Self-published book are simply not reliable, I have yet to see one that doesn't fail to push the author's POV. I will re-nominate in a few weeks. - Caribbean~H.Q. 22:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that my fail is based on other problems with the article - problems you are ignoring. Ricardiana (talk) 18:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, they would have been attended had you given Tony the time to actually work with the grammar. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

You had a week. Tony did "work" on the grammar, and made it worse. Please pay attention. The GA criteria and nominations page are clear: You do not have unlimited time to work on an article as it's being reviewed. You personally, as the nominating editor, did no work on it. You still have done no work on it! Ricardiana (talk) 04:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Scroll up once, read the note posted on "21:18, 5 May 2009". At least for me, real life is more important that the internet, which is why the delay was forewarned in a timely manner. That was the reason that he began working with the copyedit, only to be treated like a fool for his efforts. You disrespected an established editor and established historian, your attitude is terrible and you are certainly not cut to deal with other people. Either way, this will be my last reply to you, I'm not particularly interested in dealing with your arrogance. If you don't like the frankness in this comment, mala suerte. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand that adding more sources will take time. That's why, above, I said that I think the article is not a Good Article "for now". Of course, you and others have real lives and are busy; that just means you have to take your time to improve the article, and eventually it will get to be a Good Article. All I said was that it was not there yet, and I encouraged you explicitly to re-submit it later. Your reaction was to scuttle back and forth on Tony the Marine's and your talk pages, complaining about how "unprofessional" I was and insinuating that I'm prejudiced for not passing the article right away. Now you are saying that I treated Tony "like a fool". That's just not true; I am sorry that his edits were ungrammatical, but there it is. "Fear not the anger of the wise to raise" ... your reaction has not been mature. In any case, by all means, work on the article, and hopefully your next reviewer will see a Good Article. (With all the time you and Tony have spent complaining, you could have made many more than a handful of minor edits.) Ricardiana (talk) 04:34, 20 May 2009 (UTC)