Talk:James G. Blaine/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) 16:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Heh. Since I just did a PR on this, I'll bite. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:29, 17 February 2012 (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 for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

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

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   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:

• Prose issues:
  • I listed them all at the peer review here: Wikipedia:Peer review/James G. Blaine/archive1, so once those are taken care of... Most of these are minor issues, but some spots where the prose are less than free-flowing.
• Images:
  • General note on the image captions - can we give a bit of context for the various engravings/cartoons? Something that says something like "... in a 19th century cartoon" or "... from a 19th century engraving."?
  • Can we make it clearer that File:KennebecJournalOffice.jpg is of the Journal offices?
  • Could we get a date in the caption for File:Blaine-standing-left.jpg?
  • Can we make it clearer in the caption that File:President Rutherford Hayes 1870 - 1880 Restored.jpg is of Hayes?
  • One concern you might meet at FAC on your images is that not all of them state that where they were published before 1923 - sometimes folks want that listed on the image page. If you can get that together, that'd be a good idea.
• One other suggestion I'd have is to cull out the further reading a bit. This isn't required for GA - but it looks a bit weird that you didn't use some of these works in the article - "Tyler, Alice Felt (1927). The Foreign Policy of James G. Blaine. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press" would certainly be a high priority for incorporation. Likewise for the HEaly, Makemson, and Rolde works.
• Also some of the others (such as Smith, Joseph (1979). Illusions of Conflict: Anglo-American Diplomacy toward Latin America, 1865–1896. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 082293387X.) probably is worth cutting out, as it's not really going to ADD greatly to knowledge of Blaine. Same for Beisner, Morgan, and Pletcher. Usual practice with Further reading is to use it for things directly related to the subject (not that just have some parts on the subject) that are too indepth for the article (so monographs on very small details of the subject's life, etc.)
• Along those same lines - what use really are the three early 20th century encyclopedia entries for Blaine? Do they really tell us THAT much more about him? A better thing to link in the external links would be to online repositories of his letters/acta/more pictures/etc.

As I said in the PR, excellent work as always. Are you branching out to presidential candidates too?

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:48, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The "Further reading" section was there when I found the article, and for some reason I was reluctant to bother it much. I've culled about half and incorporated one article that was useful. I'll see about the rest. Tyler and Rolde are both hard to find, and I don't want to buy them. I'll see about interlibrary loan, but from what I've gathered Rolde is a popular history that doesn't look to add much, and I'd be surprized if Tyler had much that Crapol didn't cover.

I've tried to clean up the image stuff, too, and I'll continue with the publication dates as FAC approaches. --Coemgenus (talk) 18:59, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me, congrats! Hope to see it at FAC soon... as usual, you're encouraged to review a few articles at GA (this is a automatic message, so if you have already, no worries!) Ealdgyth - Talk 19:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The article needs to integrate his major policy achievements (which came in foreign policy), rather than just list events. Something like this: Blaine was one of the most active secretaries of state in the late 19th century.(ref)Alice Felt Tyler, The Foreign Policy of James G. Blaine (1927).(/ref) He was motivated by a vision of Latin American policy that would unite much of the hemisphere under American leadership in opposition to Britain's informal imperialism.(ref)Allan Peskin, "Blaine, Garfield and Latin America", Americas: a Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History (1979). 36 (1): 79–89. doi:10.2307/981139.(/ref) Rjensen (talk) 19:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)