Talk:Paul Shoup

OTRS tag move

I have moved the above WP:OTRS tag from the article to the talk page. It was added to the article before it had a talk page to place it on, in this diff by OTRS volunteer Adrignola. The tag is unmodified other then the move. Monty₈₄₅ 16:39, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Biography Style - is it in conflict with Wiki Style?

Copied from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Biography on wiki (see below): this is in direct contradiction to the comment added that this page wasn't formal enough. Which is it? I'm a newbie here and want to do it right.

Biography (from the Greek words bíos (βίος), meaning 'life', and gráphein (γράφειν), meaning 'to write') is a genre of literature or film which presents a relatively full account of the most interesting and important events of a notable person's life. While a biography may focus on a fictional person, the term usually refers to non-fiction works. As opposed to summaries of people's lives, such as profiles or curriculum vitae, a biography is a continuous narrative which interprets and explains the person's character, personality, and social context. Wjenning (talk) 08:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I think it's not necessarily that the article's tone is too informal for a biography, but that it's at times unsuitable for an encyclopedia. An article should be interesting without embellishing what it is describing. Examples of what I would consider to be unsuitable:

• "While writing would become a life-long passion for Shoup"
• "While there he began learning first-hand the business of running a railroad."

Things like the above should be replaced with plain-language variations, such as:

• "While he wrote for various magazines during his early life"
• "While there, he began his training in managing a railroad."

I think this is the sort of thing Orangemike was thinking about when he tagged the article. If you have further questions, feel free to reply here or on my talk page. wctaiwan (talk) 08:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Those are excellent examples : do you mind if I edit the page with these suggestions? I will reread other parts of the article with this in mind as well and make edits soon Wjenning (talk) 14:58, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

By all means. Good luck, and thanks for the work you have done here. wctaiwan (talk) 08:31, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Look at the biographies of other human beings here, not necessarily railroaders, but somebody like Grace Hopper or Chinua Achebe. The tone of an encyclopedic entry is perforce more matter-of-fact, less narrative in nature. --Orangemike (talk) 20:34, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Paul Shoup/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Keithbob (talk · contribs) 17:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS

• lead: The lead needs to be expanded so that it summarizes all of the significant content in the article
• layout: The organization of the article and the section heading titles are very subjective and could even be said to border on Original Research. We should use simple, neutral headings like: "Early life", "Career", "Personal life" etc. A bio is the story of a person's life and it has a flow. Bouncing back and forth in time, within each subjective subcategory fragments the man's life and is confusing to the reader. Better to arrange the content in a neutral fashion according to chronology, which will be kinder to the reader.
  • Family: Has too much information about the lives of the siblings and no information about the subject. It needs to be cut back significantly and replaced with info about the subjects interactions with his family and a description of his early life including education.
  • Paul Shoup House info does not deserve its own section and needs to be integrated into the rest of the article.
• word choice Remove qualifying words and editorial phrases like "while there", "while he wrote","which began his personal relationship with the San Francisco Bay area.", "It is there that he supposedly began", "as part of his promotion", "Beyond this direct involvement", "Beyond Southern Pacific," etc.
• fiction,
• lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. There are several citations that consist of plain URL's and are not properly formatted citations.

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

3. It is broad in its coverage. Fairly broad, but it needs info on his early life and education.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy. I don't thinks its intentional, but the material is not presented in a neutral, encyclopedic manner.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable. Yes its stable no edit wars.

   No edit wars, etc.:

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):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail: Editors have done a good job of assembling material but the article still needs a lot of work before its ready for GA status.