Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anthony Giddens/archive1

Anthony Giddens

Over the past several weeks I have expanded this article from a stub into what looks to me like a good FA candidate. I tried to address all the comments from GA and PR, and any further comments would be appreicated. I do hope that this FAC will attract some contributors to the article - it's a shame that such an important contemporary philosopher was neglected here for so long.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• I'll take a closer look at this article later on but for now, I would point out that this sentence needs fixing: "His rising prominence was marked in 1969 when he moved to USA and received a position at the University of Cambridge, where he created a new faculty - Social and Political Sciences." Bwithh 18:19, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Object After a readthrough, I have two main points.
    • First, my general note would be that this article needs to be written much more like an universal encyclopedia article rather than one especially for those with some training in sociology (I am one of those - I did SPS at Cambridge, and I've even had a personal dinner with Giddens). I think its a good topic to work on, but in general, there needs to be much less density of jargon (even if it means some less detail). I realize that Giddens tends to write in the jargon-heavy style, but that shouldn't be replicated in the article - if you look at the Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Michel Foucault pages, you'll see that the use of jargon is sparser and there's more clarification within the text rather than relying on wikilinks.
    • My second point is that the article needs a criticism and controversy section. Giddens may be Britain's most successful and influential living social scientist (or is it sociologist? Perhaps you should distinguish between the two), but he also comes in for a lot of criticism, especially for The Third Way. (and I don't think you'll find many ideological supporters of Giddens around the Cambridge campus either). Hope those points help with your continuing efforts on the article Bwithh 23:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Book Recommendation A good starting point for a critique of Giddens would be Stjepan Mestrovic's polemical Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist. Intro excerpt can be read here Bwithh 00:31, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

hmmm, I see that the Mestrovic book is already referenced in the article's footnotes - its a little strange that a book which is so vehemently critical of Giddens is used to support a very positive account of Giddens. Bwithh 00:41, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. You raise valid points. I was aware that this article is being much more 'jargon-loaded' then my past two sociological FA (Max Weber and sociocultural evolution). I'll see what I can improve in the future, but I doubt I'll have time this month to do more reading on Giddens. I've been trying to find others willing to help me with this article for the past month, and if this FA doesn't bring volutneers, then I am afraid it won't be resubmitted for quite a while - although hopefully this review itself will help me (or others) when the time comes for it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:16, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• Object on two grounds, one fairly easily fixed, the other of which will require a bit more intensive work. First, the WP:LEAD section should be three paragraphs long, not two. But secondly, the article as a whole lacks "brilliant prose". By this, I specifically mean that there is little structure within each paragraph, leading to each sentence sounding like a new "topic sentence", which should have a paragraph of it's own. This brings about a very "stilted" feeling to the writting, making it feel like I'm reading a bulleted list that has had the bullets removed and the illusion of prose enforced by jamming the list items together in series. Fieari 20:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: the sentence about moving to the United States certainly needs fixing, it really jars at the moment! As for the photograph, at present it only lists a URL source. If you are claiming fair use on a copyrighted image, you really should name the copyright holder. Some context to the image would be good - perhaps where it was taken, certainly when it was taken. TheGrappler 20:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)