Talk:Brontë family/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: BelovedFreak 21:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Quite a bit of work needed on the prose

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

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

   More citations to reliable sources are needed. Some original research, or at least the appearance of it.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Some unnecessary detail in the name section. How broad the article is has not been assessed.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   There don't appear to be any problems with stability of content disputes

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):

   Many good images used; I can't see any problems with licensing. Some attention could be given to image placement as they seem a bit crammed in in places, and text is sandwiched between some images.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I can see that a lot of work has been done on this article by a few different editors, but unfortunately it's not at GA standard yet. There are quite a lot of uncited portions and some parts border on original research. I see that work has been done to translate from the French article. I'm not sure if it's that, or the number of different editors working on this over time, but the whole article could use a thorough copyedit from an uninvolved editor to bring the prose together. Some specific examples of issues:

• The lead should be a bit better developed for an article of this size, to conform with WP:LEAD
• "Origin of the name" section - this section needs better referencing; it is by no means supported by the citations that are present )one of which is a dead link).
• The section also goes off on a tangent about unrelated Sicilian familes and Lord Nelson.
• The sections on Patrick and Maria Branwell need more references. eg.
  • "Patrick Brontë (17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861), was born in County Down, Ireland, of a very poor family of farm workers" - needs citation
  • "Open, intelligent, generous, and personally taking care of their education..." - this sentence needs citation
  • "Maria died at the age of 38, probably from cancer of the stomach." - needs citation
  • "She left memories with her husband and with Charlotte...." - this sentence needs citation
• "The Children" section: "It is possible that the character of Helen Burns..." - this sounds like original research and needs attribution & citation
• In the "Education" section, it says "the pathetic figure of Maria is represented by the character of the young Helen Burns" - this is now much more certain than the previous "possibility" - the info is repeated, yet inconsistent, and still uncited
• "Charlotte taught, without being particularly kind to the students she described in her notes, as she would later do in Brussels with even more sarcasm." - this is awkward
• "Charlotte avoided boredom by following the development of Angria which she received in letters from her brother." - this sentence seems to assume that the reader already knows what Angria is, but it is the first mention of it in this article.
• "Literary and artistic influence" section - citation?
• "Far from suffering from the negative influences that never left them and which were reflected in the works of their later, more mature years, the Brontë children absorbed them with open arms." - a little awkward
• "The Leeds Intelligencer, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, conservative and well written...." - this is another sentence that is somewhat difficult to parse at first
• "Branwell and Charlotte thus pushed Zamorna, one of the heroes of the Verdopolis, towards an increasingly ambiguous behaviour,[37] and the same influence and evolution recur with Emily Brontë, especially in the characters of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, who display the traits of a Byronic hero." - slightlu unwieldy sentence; is it implying that Mr. Rochester is Emily's character?
• "Numerous other works have left their mark on the Brontës; namely the Thousand and One Nights for example, which inspired Jinn in which they became themselves in the centre of their kingdoms, while adding a touch of exoticism." - I'm not really sure what this sentence means
• "During a visit in 1996, the information boards at the entrance claimed over two million visitors, doubtlessly exaggerated." - this appears to be original research

I could go on, but basically, I think the whoe thing needs a thorough copyedit, more references need to be added and the structure may need some work. To be honest, I don't have any bright ideas regarding the structure, but it does seem to go back and forth a bit. For example, the lives of individual children are discussed near the beginning, and then again later. I thought Branwell had been written off in two sentences, only to find a better developed section on him later.

Unfortunately there is just too much work to be done to list the article as a good article at this time.--BelovedFreak 22:43, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm frankly not surprised at this verdict. The French original was extremely verbose, convoluted, and cyclic. Reading it would have been a challenge for an average educated French native speaker. This English version - which I translated - is far from perfect of course, and after dozens of hours spent working on it offline and in my user space, I finally moved it to article space in the hope that other editors knowledgeable about the Bronte history would be able to improve it, find some English sources, and copyedit it it. There have been quite a few minor edits done since, but nothing that makes it approach anywhere near GA quality, and I personally would never have considered nominating it. Nevertheless, it's a vast improvement on the short en.Wiki stub that it replaced. Thank you for the time you have consumed in reviewing it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I can certainly see that a lot of work has been put into it at some stage, and this was clearly a good-faith nomination by someone who thought it was ready. I think it just needs some focus on making it more cohesive, as well as attention to detail. --BelovedFreak 16:54, 1 April 2011 (UTC)