Talk:Paul du Quenoy

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Novellasyes in topic Puffery and lack of good citations

Puffery and lack of good citations

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This article reads like an advertisement. There are also problems with several of the links.

  • Links 1 and 2 no longer work. They were used to substantiate all the content in the "background" section.
  • In the section on "Academic Work", what we see is the quotation of favorable reviews of several of PdQ's books. These books were favorably reviewed in peer-reviewed academic publications. However, the verbs we use to describe what happens in these reviews are verbs like "acclaimed", "extolled", "welcomed", "lauded", "praised" and "hailed". This is not encyclopedic and it makes WP look lame to fawn all over these reviews and books in this way. Ugh.
  • The final sentence in "Academic work" says that PdQ is on three boards/councils. Only one of these claims is substantiated with a footnote. That is the claim that he serves on the AUSB University Counsel. But his name is not listed on the accompanying link so that seems to be old information. The other two claims are given no substantiation.
  • In the "Criticism and travel and tourism" section, we once again encounter the use of excessive and weird flattery that seemingly is in the voice of WP such as "regularly" and "sought after". This is non-encyclopedic writing and doesn't even really do anything to make the subject of the article look good in the way that whoever inserted those words may wish to have be the case.
  • In the section on "Society", there are no citations. We read the claim that he is one of the "youngest people ever elected to membership" of a certain club. Even if there were a citation, which there isn't, this doesn't seem notable. How many RSes have ever seen fit to mention this about PdQ? Probably none.

In a somewhat crude attempt to point out some of these issues, I had inserted the "sounds like an advertisement" template at the top of the article. Within four hours of my doing that, the template was reverted by Posner28 who according to that user's history of contributions, has some of the hallmarks of being a WP:SPA. The user who created the article ( Christopherljohnson ) also has a contribution history that looks like WP:SPA. Novellasyes (talk) 16:54, 4 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

I've reduced some of the puffery in the academic section. Harold the Sheep (talk) 01:06, 5 April 2021 (UTC)Reply
in the Criticism etc section, is there any documentation that the subject published in any of these high profile periodicals, apart from ConcertoNet.com? 100.40.76.131 (talk) 17:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)Reply
Huh -- I hadn't noticed that. Good question. Novellasyes (talk) 17:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)Reply