Talk:Conn Smythe/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 04:01, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Review forthcoming. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 04:01, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

OK. This article is generally good, and should pass GA without much difficulty. I think you'll run into serious opposition if your aim is higher, though, as the prose is not what I could call brilliant.

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality: Reasonably, yes, but the prose is awfully choppy in places, and contained some decidedly informal phrases that I have already edited out ("U of T," "he was a one-man band" among them). I'd encourage a peer review or WikiProject collaboration to try to work through these. I'll point out some remaining rough patches in a later edit. I'm unsure if there's actually a codified guideline against it, but the present-tense verbs in the section headers sounded extremely informal. I'd try not to use verbs in section headers at all, but present tense verbs in description of events that took place early last century are especially odd. Feel free to change the headers I have inserted, especially if I have inadvertently distorted the meaning. Additionally, I have edited out instances of the conditional as a past tense in favor of the simple past ("he became..." is preferable to "he would become..." and especially preferable to "he would go on to become...")

   • Albert and Mary had a rocky marriage and did not live together for more than months at a time. This can probably be expressed better. Is this a generalized statement (if so, I think "...for more than a few months at a time" would be favorable, to reflect inexactitude), or is there a specific number of months given in the citation (if so, obviously, give it)?
   • Mary, who was known as Polly, was remembered by their son Conn as pretty, a drinker and troublemaker. This string of clauses is gawky. I know you added "by their son Conn" as a response to my {{bywhom}}, but it might have been simpler to just remove "was remembered" altogether – particularly as this revision introduces the substandard passive voice. Similarly, "Smythe recalled," later in the article, to which I appended {{when}}, might best be resolved by removing that phrase.
   • Smythe was born at 51 McMillan Street, now known as Mutual Street, not far from the future site of Maple Leaf Gardens, and lived there until the age of two. The dependent clauses in this sentence really strain readability. It may be better to make this into multiple sentences.
   • A large number of sentences seem to need commas for independent clauses.
   • The Battery was ordered into the Ypres salient. ????? I don't really know anything about the military, so does this sentence make grammatical sense? And does Battery need to be capitalized, when it doesn't seem to be used as a proper noun? In wikilinking to artillery battery in the lead, which may also be done here, I decapitalized it, but, again, I don't know anything about the military, so maybe this was actually correct as was.
   • In 1926, Boston Bruins owner Charles Adams recommended him to Col. John S. Hammond, representing the owners of the new New York Rangers franchise, who was looking for someone to build his team. Another gawky, clause-ridden sentence. It's comprehensible, but it could definitely be better.
   • Smythe was hired to recruit a team, which he would then manage. I just wanted to point out that this is a correct use of the conditional, referring to past events as the future from the perspective of the more distant past.
   • Smythe refused to go when two Varsity Blues players he had promised could be part of the team were blocked by what he described as a "pressure play" from two Grads players to get relatives placed on the team instead. This certainly would be better off as two sentences. I forgot what the sentence was about by the time I got to the end of it, and had to read it 4 or 5 times to really get it.

   I may go back for more examples, but a lot of the remaining prose is like this. I've already passed it for this review, as it is reasonably good, the standard necessary for GA, but if your aim is an eventual FA a great deal of work is needed. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 05:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

   B. MOS compliance: No problems.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources: The structure is sound.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary: Obviously, I have no way of checking the sources themselves, and must WP:AGF. There were a couple of direct quotes that were uncited; I have appended them with {{cn}}. It should be a simple matter to put a small bracketed superscripted number next to them.

   C. No original research: Again, can't really check this, since I don't have the books cited. No problem, though.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused: Exemplary

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales: I'm unsure that File:Conn Smythe 1944 statement.png is actually necessary or helpful, given that the statement appears in the article prose, but I won't ask for its removal.

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions and alternative text: ALT text is not technically required for GA, so I can't fail the article if it's not added, but I strongly suggest its addition.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: While I used the onhold symbol, I don't think a formal hold will be necessary. Just take care of the few cleanup tags I have put on the article and it should be good to pass. Any prose that remains to be picked out, as described above, does not keep this article from GA status. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 20:43, 14 March 2010 (UTC) I've changed my mind on this, and will now put in place a formal hold. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 05:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your work in reviewing this article. I have worked on the citations and believe that that aspect is covered now. I will add the alt text for the images. The prose can be improved; I see that now after re-reading the article. Much of the article was not written by me and I should have scrutinized the text more closely. At this point, I am not close to working on it for FA. I believe it needs more secondary sources, rather than relying on Smythe's memoirs, as I do for much of this article to be an FA. That said, I will work on some of the prose you've noted. Again, thanks. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 22:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I always have FA standards in the back of my mind when doing a GA review, but I guess not everyone has that goal with every article. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs)

Added the alt text to the images. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 15:22, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and clear ya for takeoff, as there's nothing terribly wrong with the article and it certainly gives a good picture of its subject. Nosleep (Talk · Contribs) 07:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)