Talk:Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sp33dyphil (talk · contribs) 09:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC), igordebraga ≠ 01:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The only issue I would potentially raise is the focus of the article. The content is all relevant and well sourced, but in reading it, some of the macro issues become potentially distracting. However, the article is not too long overall and none of the content is problematic in my opinion. Good job Noleander and MathewTownsend. —Zujine|talk 16:57, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Zujine: thanks for the feedback. Could you be a bit more specific? I'd like to improve the article, to address your concerns, but I'm not too sure what "the macro issues" refers to. Thanks! --Noleander (talk) 17:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

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Second opinion

• I'd like to have somebody perform a quality check of my comments and see if I've missed anything. --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 06:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you want a review of your review or a second review of the whole article? If the latter is there anything you want the second opinion to focus on? AIRcorn (talk) 03:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Aircorn: thanks for volunteering to offer a second opinion (I'm the GAN nominator). FYI: User:Sp33dyphil put a "semi retired" banner on their user page a couple of days ago, so I'm not sure if they will respond to your query soon. For what it's worth, my guess is that Sp33dyphil is asking for a review of the entire article, since they say "...and see if I've missed anything" which means looking for things they missed which could only be accomplished by looking at the parts of the article not mentioned in their comments. I have no objection to another review of the entire article. But that is just my guess. Maybe they'll respond here and clarify. --Noleander (talk) 14:06, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

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• "Communist Party of the United States" --> "Communist Party USA" Official name, shorter, and removes the double occurrence of of in one sentence.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• Could "The trial is sometimes referred to as the Smith Act trial of 1949." be moved to the start to keep the boldened phrases together?

Done - Moved that up to be the 2nd sentence. Let me know if you think the first 2 sentences should be merged: I like keeping the 1st sentence very direct & simple, so I'm avoiding that. --Noleander (talk) 14:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "all 11 eleven defendants"? Same with "12 Party members were indicted, only 11".

Done - --Noleander (talk) 14:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Cold War" should be capitalised.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Communist Parties" Generic usage doesn't require capitalisation.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• USSR or Soviet Union?

Done - went with USSR. --Noleander (talk) 14:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "president Roosevelt" The title should be capitalised as per WP:JOBTITLES.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "demonstrations: The" No need to capitalise The

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "New York city" City should be capitalised.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "the Communist Manifesto" --> "The Communist Manifesto"

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "New Republic" --> "The New Republic"

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "The first persons convicted" Why persons?

In that 1941 trial there were about a 18 SWP member that were convicted under the Smith Act, in a single trial. So "first person convicted" would be inaccurate. --Noleander (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "the Communist Party" It's becoming increasingly necessary to replace "the Party", "the US Communist Party" and "the Communist Party" with "CPUSA" to minimise confusion.

Done - Changed all to "CPUSA". --Noleander (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "when judge died" Missing article?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Wikify "ally in World War II"?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Truman had become disturbed by the antagonistic behavior of the USSR, and abandoned President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy of appeasing the former ally." It's either "Truman had become disturbed by the antagonistic behavior of the USSR, and thus abandoned President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy of appeasing the former ally." or "Truman had become disturbed by the antagonistic behavior of the USSR, and had abandoned President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy of appeasing the former ally."

Done - The "thus" wording seemed to capture the source's meaning better. --Noleander (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Communism, in its generic use, should not be capitalized.

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "information on Party members, with the goal of demonstrating the Party's subversive goals," --> "information on Party members to demonstrate the Party's subversive goals,"

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "29 June, 1945,"

Done - changed to " issued on June 29, 1945" --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Could the first paragraph under "Prosecution" be split in three at "The interpretation of the texts was performed by witnesses..." and "Another important witness..."?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Should "amicus" be italicised?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Wikify "lynched in this country"

That phrase is within a quote. The MOS on Linking says "Items within quotations should not generally be linked; instead, consider placing the relevant links in the surrounding text or in the "See also" section of the article." Let me know if you think it should be linked or not, and I will.

• "During the course of the ten month trial, the Red Scare grew in intensity intensified across America."

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Should words right after ":" be capitalised

Done - Yes, that is the desired convention. --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "the USSR detonated its first atomic bomb; and on October 1, 1949, the Communists in China prevailed in the Chinese Civil War and declared a communist state." --> "the USSR detonated its first atomic bomb; and on October 1, 1949, communists in China prevailed in the Chinese Civil War before declaring mainland China a communist state."

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "35 miles" Metric conversion?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "which provided funding for the legal expenses" --> "which provided funded the legal expenses" Only change if the CRC provided 100% of funds.

The sources are not clear on how much of the Foley Square trial $$ was provided by the CRC. The bail funds were 100% paid for by the CRC, but the attorneys' fees appear to also have been paid for by other donors. So the sentence probably should continue to be worded to suggest that the CRC only paid for part of the legal fees. --Noleander (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "of the Second World War" --> "of World War II" The former is decidedly British.

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Be consistency about whether titles should be capitalised. Justice vs justice, etc.

Done - I capitalized Justice and President (when appearing immediately before a person's name); but not "judge". --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• "Korean war" Proper noun...

Done --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• Travelled I hate these minor British vs American English differences. --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions

Done --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

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As Phil took a WikiBreak without finishing the review, I'll see if I can finish it. Read the lead and all after the points he raised, no issues so far! :) igordebraga ≠ 01:02, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

An excellent article overall, a few nitpicks so far:

• The "Communist Trial Ends with 11 Guilty" article appears four separate times as a reference - can it be condensed into just one? And all the instances really use the same page (31)? And you can split the aggregate refs (such as the added book page on Ref 40) into their own refs!

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Maybe add a link to Kangaroo court when the term appears?

Done However MOS:QUOTE says "As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader." However since that term may not be familiar to non-US readers, I've made an exception and linked it. --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• "Yates was a landmark case that refined the limits of freedom of speech: It held that contemplation of abstract, future violence may not be prohibited by law, but that urging others to act in violent ways may be outlawed." Can it be re-written in a single sentence, or in a way it doesn't need the colon?

Done - Changed to " Yates was a landmark case which held that contemplation of abstract, future violence may not be prohibited by law, but that urging others to act in violent ways may be outlawed." --Noleander (talk) 13:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

igordebraga ≠ 01:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Then I have no issues. I had not heard of this before the review, and learned a lot from the article, it deserves to pass! Congratulations on the good work!

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

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:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

igordebraga ≠ 17:34, 16 March 2012 (UTC)