Talk:William Borah/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 13:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll be glad to handle this one. I'll do a close readthrough of the article, noting down any initial issues I see, then follow that with a formal checklist. I'm wrapping up another at the moment, but will start this one today or tomorrow. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

First readthrough

There's a lot of good material here, and the article seems comprehensive. I have some initial concerns with sourcing and clarity, however, detailed below.

• "protesting the change of sentence in hanging "Diamondfield Jack" Davis," -- was the sentence changed to hanging, or from hanging to something else? The phrasing could be a little clearer.
• "indicted him for conspiracy to defraud the U.S." -- Borah, Haywood, or Darrow? I'm assuming Borah. I'm also not clear what the final outcome of this trial was--is there a record of it?
• "He remains the longest-serving member of the United States Congress in Idaho history." -- this is a big enough claim that it could use a citation.
• "Purportedly, Kremlin officials held Borah in such high esteem that American citizens could gain permission to travel throughout the Soviet Union with nothing more than a letter from the Senator." --has been noted as needing citation since February 2012
• "unhappy with the misguided policies of President Herbert Hoover" --"misguided" seems like a bit of editorializing here.
• his role in finding Harding administration scandals could use a citation
• "In 1932 Borah strongly disagreed with the suggestion of the drafters of the London Economic Conference of 1933, who met in Geneva" --this sentence is very hard for me to follow--do you mean he made a statement in 1932 that the drafters disagreed with the following year? Or did they announce their plan a year before the conference?
• "then president of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in mocking the United States income tax system and rates reported on the debates held in Congress that," --dense and unclear; perhaps this sentence could be divided up with commas. It's also not clear why this particular quotation of Borah's is significant--maybe give a bit of context on the policy he's arguing about.
• "and dismissed by Roosevelt" -- in the sense that Roosevelt didn't take it seriously? I'm not quite clear why FDR's opinion matters in the context of the Repub convention.
• " While in the Senate in Idaho he never faced a serious political challenge from either the Republicans or Democrats" this is a statement that could use a citation.
• "won with well over 60 percent of the vote"--is it possible to give the precise number here?
• "his romantic relationship with the irascible and none-too-discreet Alice Roosevelt Longworth was unseemly" --the value judgments ("unseemly", "public integrity", "genuine concern") in this sentence should be explicitly attributed to McKenna in the text.
• "nearly equal to Boise's population (26,130) in 1940"--making this connection without citing a source is a mild touch of OR/SYNTH. Please provide a source or remove the comparison.
• The "other quotations" section here would be better transwikied to WikiQuote. If these quotations are significant, it would be better to explain their relevance/influence in prose. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Since this article still has some issues to address under criteria 1a, 2b, and 4, and I've gotten no response from the nominator, I'm marking it as not ready to be a GA at the present time. I'd encourage anyone interested in the subject to address the above points and renominate, however. Best of luck, and drop a line if I can be of any help by clarifying the above. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:08, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Nazi Payoff?

Just came across an accusation that Borah took a payoff from the Nazis to keep the US out of WWII. Any truth? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.63.6 (talk) 15:52, 27 August 2020 (UTC)