Talk:Marbury v. Madison/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: DannyS712 (talk · contribs) 06:25, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this article! This is my first GA review, but I hope it won't be my last. --DannyS712 (talk) 06:25, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Delisting discussion: Talk:Marbury v. Madison/Archive 1#GA on hold (Sweeps)

Review

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

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   OR may be slightly problematic, will review specific sections of concern more in-depth

   Note also that, while Earwig's copyvio detector suggests a 73.3% confidence that there is a copyright violation, the two sources that it is most confident about are transcripts of the case. Having read through the issues detected as violations from the other sources (including the entirety of the third), I believe that no violation occurred.

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:

   no clear issues

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Frequent small improvements, but that is not a negative factor

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   a - all images used are in the public domain

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Notes

Things that should be improved/fixed/looked at:

1. Are the "analysis" and "impact" sections partially original research?
2. Can there be more variety in the images used? (see MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE, which says to "Strive for variety." Currently, almost all of the images are similar - portraits of old white men, and while I understand that they are all relevant, I'd prefer a bit more variety.)

Based on a combination of the sources that White Whirlwind shared with me off-wiki, as well as the minor addition of more variation within the images (here), I think this now qualifies as a GA. --DannyS712 (talk) 20:52, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

To clarify, this article has passed its GA nomination --DannyS712 (talk) 20:58, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

@White whirlwind: I have placed this review on hold. Can you look at the two issues I have (explained above)? Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 19:32, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Hi, thanks so much for the review. Let me try and address these:

1) Can you give me more explanation into why you think there are OR issues in those sections? Do you think I'm combining sources in a way that draws my own conclusions? I'm not completely clear on what you mean, and would appreciate you fleshing your concerns out for me so I can understand them better.

2) Portraits of old white men: this doesn't bother me, really. An article on pre-modern China will probably have mostly portraits of old Chinese men, and an article on a dispute of pre-modern Africa will probably have mostly portraits of old black men. Anyway, your point about image variety is a fair one. Give me a week or two to look for some more on Commons and maybe Flickr.

Again, thanks for the review.  White Whirlwind  咨  03:07, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: I completely understand why the images are mostly white men, but if we are going to have so many images, I'd prefer to have something else too. I'll go over the OR issues in a minute. --DannyS712 (talk) 03:11, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

For the OR, I'm concerted about the limited use of online, easily checked sourcing. The claims that

Besides its inherent legal questions, the case of Marbury v. Madison also created a difficult political dilemma for Marshall and the rest of the Supreme Court.[33] If the Court ruled in favor of Marbury and issued a writ of mandamus ordering Madison to deliver the commission, Jefferson and Madison would probably have simply ignored the order, which would have made the Court look impotent and emphasized the "shakiness" of the judiciary.[33] On the other hand, a plain and simple ruling against Marbury would have given Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans a clear political victory.[33]

cannot be verified by anyone without the book itself, and their extreme language and prominent placement (at the start of the section) concern me, among other selections from the article. Is there any way to include more online sources? I know offline is allowed, but it makes it harder to verify. --DannyS712 (talk) 03:16, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@DannyS712: I must admit that I'm somewhat baffled by this. The guidelines at WP:Verifiability, WP:Identifying reliable sources, and WP:No original research do not—and, to my knowledge, never have—mention any preference for electronic or online sources. For example: "Some reliable sources may not be easily accessible. For example, an online source may require payment, and a print-only source may be available only in university libraries. [...] Do not reject reliable sources just because they are difficult or costly to access." (from WP:SOURCEACCESS). In fact, there has long been a tacit bias against such sources, because they have (historically, but gradually less so) been less likely to have been professionally edited and/or peer-reviewed, which have always been at the core of the gold standard for reliability of sources (see WP:SOURCES and similar guides).

Regarding the paragraph you quoted, that's from McCloskey's (Levinson is now listed as his co-author, as he's taken over updating the book since McCloskey's death) very well known book on the Supreme Court that's published by a major academic press. It's in almost every major library, especially university libraries. I wouldn't be too worried about it.

Does that answer your concerns? Can I be of more help?  White Whirlwind  咨  20:37, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: My problem was just that I cannot verify these statements, or most of the content on this page for that matter. I'm just not comfortable promoting this to GA without independent confirmation that these claims are, indeed, supported. Do you know anyone with access to these books that can confirm the content and/or provide me with a copy? (the reason I suggested using more online sources was so that I could then check them). Sorry for the misunderstanding. --DannyS712 (talk) 21:57, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Ah, I see. First, for the McCloskey one, try Google Books. You can find many things on there. As for the rest, we aren't always able to get everything. Here's what the guidelines say:

"Ideally, a reviewer will have access to all of the source material, and sufficient expertise to verify that the article reflects the content of the sources; this ideal is not often attained.

• At a bare minimum, check that the sources used are reliable (for example, blogs are not usually reliable sources) and that those you can access support the content of the article (for example, inline citations lead to sources which agree with what the article says) and are not plagiarized (for example, close paraphrasing of source material should only be used where appropriate, with in text attribution if necessary). If you can not access most of the references you should confirm the most important content of the article via alternative means. Reviewers can confirm information from sources they cannot access at the resource exchange or request translations at Wikipedia:Translation."

That's from WP:Reviewing good articles. I personally disagree with the close paraphrasing part, but you get the overall gist.  White Whirlwind  咨  04:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: Before I go to the resource exchange, or try to track down the sources on my own, do you (or another editor you know) have copies of the major sources used? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:36, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

@DannyS712: yes, email me privately.  White Whirlwind  咨  17:46, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.