Talk:David Bednar (general manager)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Edge3 (talk · contribs) 21:38, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello. I'll review this article. Edge3 (talk) 21:38, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

A few preliminary comments:

• Please expand the lead section as per WP:LEAD. Ideally, the lead section should summarize the main points of each section of the article.
  • Expanded.
• I revised the lead sentence: "David Bednar is the general manager of the Canadian National Exhibition Association, the organization that runs the Canadian National Exhibition." However, I still think it seems awkward to say that Bednar is the GM of the organization that runs the CNE. Maybe it would be better to simplify the sentence by saying: "David Bednar is the general manager of the Canadian National Exhibition." What do you think?
• "Bednar was raised in Dallas, Texas, son of a petroleum engineer, and grew up with the State Fair of Texas." -- How does one "grow up" in the State Fair of Texas? The sentence is also awkwardly phrased, and I think you should mention the fact that his parent is a petroleum engineer in a separate sentence.
  • Changed.
• "He moved to Canada in 1970 as a student, before moving to Quebec to major in theatre and minor in business at Bishop's University." -- Quebec is in Canada, and he studied in Quebec. It's odd to say that he moved to Canada as a student before studying at a university in Quebec.
  • I was sure that one of the sources indicated he moved to another province in Canada to study, before heading to Quebec, but alas, I can't find it. Simplified the wording.
• What is a "landed immigrant"?
  • It seems this is a Canada-only term. It refers to permanent residency. I've linked to permanent residency in Canada, is that enough?
• "He worked at the Quebec City Summer Stock Theatre and Festival Lennoxville, and repairing telephones for Bell." -- The last part should say "repaired telephones for Bell". Regardless, I'm not sure whether this sentence is important. What was the nature of his work experiences? None of these organizations have links to WP articles, so are they significant? If not, then I suggest removing the details.

• I've added a link to Bell Canada. Festival Lennoxville does have a Canadian Encyclopedia article, so I'd suggest it is notable, just too far out of our existing contributors' scopes to have an article yet. The Quebec City troupe is certainly less notable, but the whole reason for mentioning both of these entities is to show is determination to make it in the theatre world. At least within theme parks, many people in the executive level started as a kid, sweeping during the summer. I don't know whether this exists in the professional fair world, but it establishes that his success with the CNE wasn't his original career goal.

• Why does this source have the title "Best friend a bacon milkshake ever had" in the inline citation?
  • The article appeared in the newspaper with this headline. Do I switch to the web headline?
• There are repetitive references to the subject's GM job in Pantages Theatre. First, there's once sentence that says: "He became the general manager of Pantages..." The next sentence says: "As of 1997, Bednar was mentioned in the press as general manager of the Pantages Theatre." Please consolidate this mention to discuss it only once.
• In the "Personal Life" section, there are two references to Bednar being an "antique car buff".
  • Cleaned up, by deleting first reference.

These are my only comments for now. I'll continue with additional comments after you address the issues I raised above. As you can see, I have already identified many issues with grammar and style, so I encourage you to take another look at the rest of the article and make some copyedits before I continue, so that we can focus on other aspects of the GA review. Thanks for your contributions! Edge3 (talk) 21:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I am concerned that this article does not meet our notability guidelines, so I have filed an AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Bednar. I am failing this GA review, pending the resolution of the AfD. I would be happy to review the next GAN if the AfD is closed as "keep". Edge3 (talk) 22:41, 3 November 2013 (UTC)