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Talk:Arthur Eve/GA2

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Latest comment: 15 years ago by Malleus Fatuorum in topic GA Review

GA Review

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Latest comment: 15 years ago63 comments4 people in discussion

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Hi, I am reviewing this article for GA. In general, the article seems interesting and well references. However, there are prose and other issues that prevent its promotion at this point. Most of them are fairly minor.

Examples
  • What did he do after he retired? Has his life stopped for the last many years?
These are examples. I will continue to read through the article, and may make some copy editing changes on my own, which you are free to revert if you do not agree with them.
  • You do not know where he was born? It seems strange to leave this out of a biography of a person who is still alive. Surely, this must be known.
  • There does not seem to be enough about his personality, anything personal about the subject, to warrant being a biography. Perhaps it should be something else. You have only described the outlines of Eve's political career.
  • Yes, I did read it. It does not contain his place of birth or anything about his personality, personal style etc. There is nothing in this article, aside from a recitation of his political accomplishments to give an idea of him as a person. The personal section has more about the accomplishments of his children that about him as a person, or personal facts such as how he met his wife, the length of his marriage, his wife's life span, hobbies and interests outside of politics, personal philosophies etc. - these are suggestions. What was he like as a man? —Mattisse (Talk) 13:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
  • The media is very sparse on his personal life outside of politics. I have known him personally for about 30 years and he invited me to go to church with him when I was in town about three or four years ago. Before my dad passed in 2003, he use to be Eve's computer vendor. He stocked his Buffalo and Albany offices when he use to sell computers. I know things about him personally and his family that I would like to put in the article, but can not find anything that is not OR. I will dig some more in the articles database I am using and see what I can find though.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 00:05, 14 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Comments
  • It is much improved by the addition of his activities after his political life ended. I would suggest a little rewriting of the lead to include this and lessen the unremitting focus on just his political career.
  • "In 1968, Eve delayed construction on the State University of New York – at Buffalo's Amherst Campus in order to extract an agreement that New York State and the unions ..." - I may be naive, but does this action fall under the duties of an assemblyman?
  • Please go through the various sections and reduce the choppiness by combining paragraphs and improving the flow of the prose. The sections are made of short paragraphs that are repetitiously of similar size and are short. This is monotonous for the reader and hinders the flow of ideas. There should be continuity in the prose, not the listing of events in short paragraphs. This should be easy to remedy.
  • Evangelist goes to a disambig page. What kind of evangelist did he become and what were is actions and an evangelist? This is a rather important statement to come out of no where.
  • I am having a hard time understanding the purpose of the text directly under "Political career" as it seems to be a summary of his career, much like the lead, and repeat much of what is there. Perhaps that section should be integrated into the lead instead of existing solo.
  • I do think this article is on its way to GA status.

—Mattisse (Talk) 15:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Additional comments
  • The "Legacy" section is subsumed under all the political information, making it seem even less that he had a life outside a description of his political accomplishtment.

Sorry, but this is my evaluation. If you are not willing to change the structure and emphasis of the article, I cannot pass it. —Mattisse (Talk) 20:50, 17 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Note

I have asked Malleus Fatuorum to take over this review, as I believe he can possibly be of more help to you on the issues regarding the elements necessary to a biography. He can offer you more suggestions. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 00:05, 18 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Where we are now

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I thank both TonyTheTiger and Mattisse for the good work so far, but I think that substantial work still remains to be done if this article is to meet the GA criteria.

  • The Legacy section just doesn't work at all for me. What does this mean, for instance? "He has a legacy as a champion of the American family as well as for service to the New York State Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus and on the committee of public officials who attempted to resolve a conflict at the Attica State Prison." What is this legacy that's being claimed? That's what this section ought to be telling us.
  • Echoing something Mattisse said above, the narrative here is very disjointed, and would be better laid out chronologically. The article starts off in 1968, for instance, by which time Eve had been an Assemblyman for a year, with an unexplained blocking of funds. I'd suggest restructuring with an initial Early life section telling us something about his life before politics, using some of the material that presently seems just tagged on as aterthought in the Personal section. A fair amount of that material looks like it would be more appropriate for the legacy section in any event, such as the foundation stuff.
    • I have moved the family paragraph of the former personal section to the beginning of the main text. This contains the only pre-political information that I have. The main political section is chronological to the best of my ability. The family section is chronological within itself. Let me know what other text rearrangements would improve the article in your eyes.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
  • I'm not too thrilled about some aspects of the prose, in particular consecutive sentences beginning with "He ..."; even in the lead there are two consecutive sentences beginning with "During ...".
  • From Deputy Speaker 1979–2003:"... Eve continued to voice opposition against tax cutting in an effort to balance the state's budget." This is ambiguous; Was Eve's opposition to "tax cutting", or was it to "tax cutting in an effort the balance the state's bufget"?
  • The lead needs to do a better job of summarising the article. There's no mention of Eve's legacy, for instance, and I'm unclear on the relevance of this: "During his years of service, he developed numerous allies throughout the Democratic Party in Buffalo, Albany and Washington, D.C. such as Charles B. Rangel, Sheldon Silver, Al Gore and Bill Clinton." So he had political allies, so what? All politicians do.
  • I'm surprised that the article has got this far with glaring prose problems such as "Third-place primmary finisher Leslie Foschio threatened to enter the general eletion ...", and would suggest it needs a very careful read through for similar errors.
  • From Political career: "He feels that Rockefeller made the conscious decision to escalate the conflict ...". Need to be careful with tenses here and in similar places. That comment is sourced to a 1989 newspaper article. Is that how Eve still feels 20 years later? How do we know?
  • From Assemblyman 1967–1979:"That primary had a record turnout of 77–80% in the Black community, the highest ever for an African American community in the Northeast, and surpassed nationwide only by same demographics turnout that elected Carl Stokes as mayor of Cleveland in 1967." I don't understand that at all.
  • From retirement: "He became an evangelist." Thrown in like a hand grenade a propos of nothing and unsupported by the citation.

--Malleus Fatuorum 19:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Summary

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I'd like to wrap this review up, so in the interests of clarity these are the points I think are still waiting to be addressed:

  • From retirement: "He became an evangelist." Thrown in like a hand grenade a propos of nothing and unsupported by the citation.
"He continued to serve on the Pataki task force that had been created in March 2001 to compensate family members of the 11 state workers killed in the 1971 Attica prison riots, and he remained active in discussions regarding the allocation of the state sales tax. He became an evangelist. In February 2008, the Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys in Albany dedicated its new conference hall in his honor."
That four-word sentence seems to fit into the flow of the paragraph quite well to you? --Malleus Fatuorum 19:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
The problem is that I don't see that creating another one sentence paragraph would be an improvement.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm satisfied that everything else either has already been dealt with or can be easily dealt with.

  • OK. I will now formally state that for the reasons I have given above I do not believe that this article meets the GA criteria, and consequently I am declining to list it. This review is now closed. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
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.
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