Wikipedia:Peer review/Huey Long/archive1

Huey Long

Although I am quite active with Featured lists, I really have little concrete understanding of what distinguishes a GA from an FA. I personally think that the "impeachment" and "assassination" sections are of the highest quality. If I ensured that the rest of the article was up to that standard, would I be good to go? Please tell me if anything else is lacking. I may not be able to act on everything now, but I hope to begin another big improving push once I can get my hands on a few more books. Thanks, ~ HAL333 22:14, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

NOTE, when you close this peer review, please be sure to remove it from Template:FAC peer review sidebar. If FA regulars have to do all the maintenance, they may stop following that very useful sidebar :) Good luck, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Aza24

• Some drive by comments:
• If you're going for FA then a 5 paragraph lead will be advised against by many FAC reviewers. There's some where in the MOS that prefers 4
• The songs in the Discography should be in quotes, not italicized (you can see that the song you linked already does this in its article)
• Later this week I'll look more in depth Aza24 (talk) 00:39, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
• Hal, I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about this and will get back to it in the next few days (Keep getting distracted by other things). I thought I'd mention that PR seems to be rather dry nowadays and the best strategy I've seen is to approach users directly and ask them to comment on the PR, regardless I'll be sure to leave comments myself soon. Aza24 (talk) 06:20, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

  No worries. This is more of a long term project for me so there's no rush. ~ HAL333([1]) 17:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• I don't really know the grammatical terms behind this, but I would recommend rephrasing the last sentence of the first paragraph, since at the moment there's three sentences in a row that go like "A *insert adjective*, he/long was..."
• Unsure what "the former" is referring to here?
• A lot of dup links, you may want to install this script to quickly find them
• You could like Chief Justice but Idk
• You may want to give a modern inflation of how much $440000 is today, in parenthesis or a note
• Really not much to say, prose is very impressive. Got to Gubernatorial campaigns (1924–1928), more later Aza24 (talk) 09:11, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
• Perhaps mention who was running against Long in his first Gubernational campaign? Was Governor Parker running for reelection – did he win?
• Would think note 6 would look better after the semi colon
• Got to Accomplishments as governor... nothing else to say, really great Hal Aza24 (talk) 00:27, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! These were very helpful. ~ HAL333([2]) 00:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Comments from SG

I have cleaned up the mess on article talk to consolidate old events to Template:Article history; it would be grand if other editors learned to do this, as the bot that used to roll every template into articlehistory is no more.

My general advice to FA aspirants is at User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content#Advice for FA aspirants. Also, FA aspirants should be sure to spend time going through everything at User:Tony1/How to improve your writing. Will add more commentary as I read. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Campaign card for Long's 1918 campaign for railroad commissioner ... first campaign is redundant. (Same in other images.)
• MOS:SANDWICH in 1928 election with quote box. FYI ... Some editors at FAC object to quote boxes.
• which at 450 feet tall remains the tallest capitol, state or federal, in the United States ... 450 ft needs a convert, and "remains" is begging for an as of date. See MOS:CURRENT
• His night schools taught 100,000 adults to read.[22][118] An autobiography is not an acceptable source for this claim. On the other source, the archive.org link gives me nothing about that ... what in the archived link supports this claim?

I removed the autobiography source. But one th fourth page of the American Heritage article it states, "He instituted night schools to cope with the state’s illiteracy, and by the time he left for the U.S. Senate in 1932, one hundred thousand people had been taught to read, write, and cipher." Would I maybe need to indicate that it was on the foutth page in the ref somehow? ~ HAL333([3]) 01:48, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

• Multiple HARV ref errors (all of which makes one wonder why these sources are not used):
  • Dethloff, Henry C. (1976). Huey P. Long: Southern Demagogue or American Democrat?. Lafayette, LA: University of Southwestern Louisianaref= Dethloff. Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFDethloff,_Henry_C.1976.
  • Haas, Edward F. (1991). "Huey Long and the Communists". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 32 (1): 29–46. JSTOR 4232863. Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFHaas,_Edward_F.1991. (subscription required)
  • Jeansonne, Glen (Winter 1990). "Huey P. Long: A Political Contradiction". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 31 (4): 373–385. JSTOR 4232837. Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFJeansonne,_Glen1990. (subscription required)
  • Jeansonne, Glen (1992). "Huey Long and Racism". Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. 22 (3): 265–82. JSTOR 423295. Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFJeansonne,_Glen1992. (subscription required)
• FAs are supposed to be comprehensive, and any sources used as citations should not be in Further reading, so you may need to justify at FAC why there is so much in Further reading (that is, why can't they be used as sources, or what do they add that can't be incorporated into article). Ditto for External links.
• Don't understand the pp. here ... Brown, Francis (September 29, 1935). "Huey Long as Hero and as Demagogue; My First Days in the White House. By Huey Pierce Long. 146 pp. Harrisburg, Pa.: The Telegraph Press".
• Also is almost always redundant, check throughout, sample: Long has also been the subject of dozens
• Overuse of however: most here are not needed. Same for "subsequently" (see the top of my user page): who subsequently became a long-term U.S. senator ... he certainly couldn't have become a senator "previous" to his birth.
• WP:MSH avoid repeating words from title or higher sections, Senator Long section could be just Senator, Long's final year could be just Final year.
• Avoid the use of "remains" (MOS:CURRENT, and it screams for an as of date): suggest changing the line in the lead to

  A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist benefactor or conversely denounced as a fascistic demagogue.

• Don't use a big word when a small one will suffice: "After a failed 1924 campaign, Long utilized the sharp economic and class divisions" ... utilized --> use.
• he started attending local schools at about age 11 --> when he was about eleven (and it's OK to spell it out per MOSNUM).
• the necessity of a recently state mandated twelfth grade ... remember that 12th grade only makes sense to people from the US ... if the source supports it, might switch to something like "fourth year of high school" or add a link to some article that will help non-US readers make sense of 12th grade.

I have not read in detail (in fact, I haven't read a lot), but the writing is competent and the article is FAC worthy with the issues I mentioned addressed. I do recommend, though, that you find a collaborator to thoroughly comb through all of the prose. As I mention in my essay, you often have to find that person yourself, by developing collaborations with strong copyeditors.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:47, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

This is really helpful - thanks! ~ HAL333([4]) 01:28, 8 November 2020 (UTC)