Talk:Tony Blair/GA1

GA Review

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

Reviewer: HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:05, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm just leaving a placeholder note here to say that I'll take this on. I'll read through the article in the morning and start leaving suggestions in bullet points which folks can mark as {{done}} or whatever suits them. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:05, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Initial review

OK, these are just notes I've made as I read through the article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

lead

Review based on this version.

• Generally, one would expect to see the DOB cited in the lead and not mentioned in the body, though MOS:BIO doesn't seem to state this explicitly  Done moved
• He's known as (indeed the article is titled) Tony, so "Tony" should be in the bold passage between his last middle name and his surname (see, for example, James Dutton (Royal Marines officer))  Done
• I've a feeling I'm going to take some flak for this but the third paragraph needs to be reworked entirely:
  • The Northern Ireland stuff should be merged with the last paragraph
  • I would suggest mentioning the September 11 attacks
  • I believe he vowed to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the US; if you can find a better source than his autobiography, that's worth a mention
  • Iraq is inevitably going to form a huge part of his legacy and so should have more than the briefest of passing mentions. I think Iraq and Afghanistan combined are worth a paragraph in the lead. Blair himself devotes almost a sixth of his entire autobiography exclusively to Iraq, so even he recognises how big-a-part of his legacy it is
  • Kosovo and Sierra Leone are notable by their absence
• I would suggest placing all his post-PM work in a single paragraph  Done shifted a couple of sentences into final para.
• Should Gordon Brown's role in the leadership election be mentioned in the lead? something to think about/discuss rather than an instruction

• "on behalf of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and Russia" is redundant to the Quartet link  Done removed.
  • The factoid about ordering troops into battle more times than any other PM is trivia and, while worth mentioning in the body, shouldn't be in the lead  Done tweaked and moved.
• Envoy? More overlinking and another egg hunt  Done removed
• Another egg hunt (and unnecessary link) with general elections  Done removed
• Those semicolons should be commas  Done in the lede and one in the body of the article but not throughout the article.
• What GB did before becoming PM isn't really relevant to TB's bio -  Done - removed. Off2riorob (talk) 19:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
• Is there a reason "British" is linked to British people and not United Kingdom?  Done - altered to United Kingdom
• Politician is overlinking  Done - removed
• Why is there a semicolon after Freedom of Information Act?  Done removed
  • Foreign policy is overlinking (and it's an egg hunt anyway) -  Done - removed
• Since the lead is meant to be a summary of the body, I tend to dislike citations in there

Reading the lead, I don't think it's a great summary of the article. Obviously, one has limited space, but I think quite a bit of it is excessively detailed or covers less important parts, while some of the more important points are given less weight or omitted. Certainly Iraq (and probably Afghanistan) need more coverage in the lead and Sierra Leone may need to be added, Kosovo certainly does. There's nothing in the lead about what he did before becoming Labour leader nor on the post-John Smith/pre-1997 era. Other parts could do with being boiled down to be a concise summary of the body. Speaking of summary, everything in the lead (except DOB) should be in the body and so shouldn't need to be cited in the lead. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Background and family life

• My first thought is whether this might be better split into "early life" and a "personal life" section at the end, which is a more common style, but it's by no means essential.
• Most, if not all, of those subheaders are unnecessary. The prose would flow better without them and much of the content is too short to warrant its own section. We also have bits and bobs that don't squarely fit in any of the headers.
• As I mentioned above, the DOB is normally cited in the lead and not mentioned in the body.
• George Corscadden's descent needs a ref
• The second half of "life as a child" is unsourced
• Ref #19, in this version, looks like a primary source. I'm sure a better source could be found.
• While Blair was at Oxford, his mother Hazel died of cancer, which greatly affected him. Affected him how?
• Why is Cherie's religion relevant?
• Is that really all there is to write on his children?
• All four children have Irish passports... Does that mean they're Irish citizens, or do they have dual citizenship?
• Personal health: a one-sentence section? That needs to be incorporated somewhere else. Also, I think there's substantially more to say about his health than that
• The religious faith section is a mess. It's kind of a list of things that happened or that people said about him. It needs to be converted into flowing prose about his faith and why it's notable rather than just a series of events.

I'm going to wait for these points to be addressed before I move onto the next section both as a way of ensuring the work is done and so as not to overwhelm people. I'll check on progress after the weekend. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Yea, thanks Harry, am with a little energy to help and I am going to get other editors busy on this in a bit, there is work and improvements here to do , thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 00:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

No problem. It can get there, but it'll take work. You know where I am if you need anything. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

What's the status of this review? Started well but no comments in a couple weeks. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 16:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Its gone a bit sleepy, a battalion of assistants were nudged but failed to show up, I still have energy for contributing but was feeling lonely and a little out of my editorial depth. Are we on a time limit? Off2riorob (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I usually go with 'the sooner the better' in terms of getting GA reviews wrapped up, though with as large an article as this I'm pretty lenient on letting things run its course. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

New reviewer

Following this note from the original reviewer at WT:Good article nominations#Reviews for Tony Blair and C. W. A. Scott, i shall take this on. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: one found and fixed.[1] Jezhotwells (talk) 16:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Linkrot: one EL is dead, tagged.[2] Jezhotwells (talk) 17:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

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):

   The lead does not fully summarise the article, difficult to do in four paragraphs, but possible. Early life is missing, faith, early career, criticism, see WP:LEAD

   This was followed in July 2009 by the launching of the Faith and Globalisation Initiative with Yale University in the USA, Durham University in the UK and National University of Singapore ... missing "the" in front of "National University of Singapore".

   Single sentence sections are deprecated, e.g. Personal health

   Also solitary sentences in several other sections.

   He appears in a number of reported cases, for example as in Nethermere (St Neots) Ltd v Gardiner[21] where he represented employers unsuccessfully in an attempt to deny female factory workers holiday pay. Change of tense.

   Speculation places his personal wealth at £60 million, mostly earned since his tenure as Prime Minister, and owns nine properties around the world. Ungrammatical

   'Honours section. The honours are listed bullet point style and then rendered in prose, best to remove the list.

   Social networking media have been used to protest Blair's policies and legacy of unjustified and criminal war on Iraq Is this relevant to the Memoirs section?

   In 1994, Blair met Michael Levy, later Lord Levy, a pop music mogul and fundraiser.[111] Blair and Levy became close friends and tennis partners. What has this got to do with Middle East policy and links with Israel?

   The Prime Minister and policies sections should probably be combined as policies cover many issues dealt with by the subject as Prime Minister.

   Overall, the article is not well organised.

   The Relationship with the Labour party section actually has very little about the subject.

   In 2004, 50 former diplomats, including ambassadors to Baghdad and Tel Aviv, stated they had 'watched with deepening concern' at Britain following the U.S. into war in Iraq in 2003. perhaps "as" was meant rather than "at"

   Style, "Tony Blair" should not be used except at the beginning, just "Blair" or "he"

   He has also appeared himself at the end of the first episode of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard, a British TV series about an unknown housewife becoming Prime Minister. Not a housewife, she was a supermarket manager. There seems to be a lot of carelessness like this throughout.

   The see also section contains at least one link that is already used in the article.

   Prose is rather choppy, could do with a thorough copy-edit to improve the flow.

   The organisation appears to be all over the place, I suggest pretty much starting again, with a clear structure. Most of the material here can be used, but not as it is presently thrown together.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

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

   Several citation needed tags have not been addressed, the oldest from 2009

   In 2000 Blair "flagged up" 100 million euros for green policies and urged environmentalists and businesses to work together. The citation states clearly £ (sterling). Britain doesn't do euros!

   There is a lot of inconsistency in how citations are given. All newspaper articles should have author, date and publication details.

   I am surprised that it appears none of the books published on Blair have been used as sources. they may have better material and might suggest a better structure.

   One dead EL that should probably be removed.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Hard to tell until the article is better structured.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Semi-protected, so seems OK

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):

   Images used are licensed and captioned, I accept that it is hard to get British photographs because of the government's restrictive policies.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   I am not going to list at this time because the article is badly structured and does not flow well. The lead does not fully summarise the article. There are many un-addressed tags on the article, some over two years old. Recommend that it is restructured and the prose polished. This is going to take much more than a week and the article has already been on review for two months. After that peer review and then renomination. There is no reason for this to not become a good article and ultimately an FA again, but it is going to require considerable work. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:13, 18 April 2011 (UTC)