Talk:Edward Soriano

Filipino American

The subject of this article was born in the Philippines, but is Filipino American due to being born to a US Servicemember and being a naturalized citizen. There is no reason to sanitize the article to say otherwise.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 11:10, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Edward Soriano/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Zawed (talk · contribs) 10:48, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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Start of review

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   • Lead is quite short and should be expanded some more.
   • Unless as as a title (for example, your first usage of the rank major) ranks should not be capitalised (as you have done with the 2nd instance of major). Also wikilink the first mention of major, not the second.
   • ...Soriano came to the United States in the early 1950s when his father, Major Fred Soriano, USA, was assigned to Ft. Benning...: Doesn't flow well. Suggest: "Soriano came to the United States in the early 1950s when his father, a soldier in the United States Army, was assigned to..."
   • Recite abbreviations in full on first usage, and then abbreviate if you refer to them again. Eg PS, USAFFE
   • You haven't explicitly stated the father was a POW to the Japanese, but refer to him being a POW "again" in Korea.
   • There is some confusion RE dates on which he joined the military; the infobox says 1970 but article says he joined after high school. The article then goes on to state that he graduated from university in 1970.
   • Soriano was commissioned through Army ROTC: A brief explanation of what the Army ROTC is could help add to the article size (but keep the explanation short :)). I assume it was through San Jose University; if so merge these facts together.
   • There is no date information for most of his commands. It would also be preferable to avoid stating them as a series of sentences as you have done. I would suggest adding in some location information to give context to his commands; for example, it is mentioned in the infobox that he served during Desert Storm - what formation was he commanding and did it do anything notable during the war?
   • Soriano served as director of homeland security... :in this case, I think the position should be title case.
   • Since retiring from active duty, Soriano has... :"retiring" is used in consecutive sentences (although separated by a paragraph). I suggest amending this to: "Since his retirement, Soriano has..."
   • ...present President... :swap present for current.

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   • The medals and ribbons tables have the ref at the bottom, beneath the tables. This looks odd; I suggest checking other GA military bios that has similar tables to see how they are referenced.
   • You have some deadlinks in your references. As well as being dead, ref 7 is missing the additional information, eg. access date etc, that your other web sources have. I would suggest that you just delete as it looks like it is just cited once, and you already have another cite [5] for that sentence anyway. Refs 10 and 11 are also dead. I suggest archiving your other web cites in case they go dead in the future.

I have checked all the sources, and they should be live now. Either way WP:ROT#Keeping dead links applies, but having live links (or sources that are available online (although not a requirement)) is always preferential.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I am unfamiliar with how to archive references, is there a good how to guide to do that?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I use Webcite, a Wikipedia page on it is here: Using WebCite. Also, there is text associated with cites 19 and 24 I think shouldn't be there? Zawed (talk) 10:18, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

1. B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

2. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   • No mention of why he was awarded his Distinguished Service Medals. The same is true for the Bronze Star, which I believe is awarded for gallantry in a combat zone. To my mind, these are serious omissions from the article.
   • When did he marry his wife and does he have any children? Try and work this into body of article.

   B. Focused:

3. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

4. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

5. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   • For the groundbreaking image, amend the caption to identify which one is Soriano (I know he is the one in the suit but I initially thought he was one of the army guys).

6. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Unfortunately, I suspect there will be a bit work involved in addressing the issues noted. I will check back in a week to see how you are getting on. Cheers. Zawed (talk) 10:48, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I have modified the content (expanding it), and checked all the sources, which should now be live. Please see this diff, and this should cover most if not all concerns that are stated above.

As for the Distinguished Service Medal and Bronze Star; the BSM is not always a medal awarded for valor, only when there is a Valor device attached to it was it awarded for gallantry in combat similarly the DSM is not awarded for gallantry at all, but normally for high ranking meritorious service (this is just a guess, but chances are the awarding was due to completion of commands of Fort Carson then Fort Lewis).

Please let me know what else you believe I can do to improve the article in order to get it to GA.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

You are getting there, note my new comment with regard to refs above. Also you may have misinterpreted what I commented on above with regard to his commands (I could have been clearer :)). What I was requesting was to integrate the command information into the article as flowing and readable sentences rather than series of short sentences or a list. For example, referring to ref 9, you could start off with "Soriano's first posting was to Fort Bragg as a second lieutenant where he was Assistant Officer-in-Charge of the 82d Airborne Recondo School for six months after which he was promoted to lieutenant and given command of an anti-tank platoon of the 508th Infantry Regiment. He later served with the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea. In 1973 he returned to the United States where he served in a series of postings at Fort Lewis and in New York. In 1978 he was posted to the 8th Infantry Division in West Germany for three years, during which he was promoted to major." etc... You don't need to recite all his postings or promotions (but I would specifically mention divisional commands and his promotions to general ranks). I fully take on board your comments RE the DSM and BSM but I'm still uncomfortable that there is no explanation as to what he did to earn it. I'm going to ask for a second opinion on that. Zawed (talk) 10:18, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I expanded the Military career section, and the infobox, please see this diff here; this majorly expands both sections.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:14, 22 May 2013 (UTC) and given the work on this article would this pass x5 expansion for WP:DYK (2320 characters to 5054 characters (guess not)?

2nd Opinion on DSM and BSM, I would agree with the nom on this one. If the Bronze Star had a V Device it would be something to be included and probably found pretty easily on the Military Times database. Non-combat Bronze Stars are pretty common awards for officers who serve overseas, and it's very hard to find the citations for them. The DSM citations are a little easier to find but since they're also non-combat awards, people don't place as much importance on them, so I would say not to worry about that, either. —Ed!^(talk) 13:04, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Given the expansion you have done and the 2nd opinion, I am happy with the content. Just the issue with refs 20 and 25, as noted previously (looking at it again, 25 combines two different urls?), remains to be sorted. Zawed (talk) 08:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, I do not understand. Please elaborate what are the issues with citations 20 & 25?

I am able to access the url on source 20, and both urls on source 25. The two sources are bundled to reduce source clutter; which I had done as a recommendation to the A-Class 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment. The source for 20 contains a quote which is in two parts, which is also the case for the first source in 25.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh OK, those ACR reviewers have more experience with A-class articles than I do so am happy to defer to any approach they have recommended. And I didn't know refs could be bundled like that! I'm just not sure why the need to include the quotes if they are in the websites cited. Just down to personal preference I guess, and it is not a GA requirement. Passing as GA now; btw, you should enter the article into the Milhist article writing contest. Zawed (talk) 10:13, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your reviewing this article, and your suggestions which helped improve it!

I've never really joined any of those contests, and given that I am going to have reduced time editing as far as I can see for the near future it wouldn't be appropriate for me at this time to join in such an endeavor if I am not going to be that active; maybe in the future.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:41, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

A review

The following discussion 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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No consensus to promote at this time. Anotherclown (talk) 10:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Edward Soriano

Nominator(s): RightCowLeftCoast (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it has been peer reviewed, expanded during the course of its GA nomination (which it has passed), and has been additionally expanded and copy edited. If there are any shortcomings I am willing to work on the article until the shortcomings are dealt with, with hopes of passing this review and moving to FAR. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:05, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• "was the highest-ranking Filipino American officer to have served": is the highest-ranking ("was" would mean he's dead) [more soon] - Dank (push to talk) 21:49, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Modified.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:37, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

• I'm glad you're thinking about FAC and I hope this passes, but it's unusual for articles to pass FAC with a single-paragraph lead; if a single paragraph really does summarize the article, then the article is significantly shorter than most FAs and might be opposed for that reason.
• "Born in the Philippines, Soriano moved with his family to the United States during his childhood, graduating from Salinas High School, and being commissioned as an officer through Army ROTC at San Jose State University.": Unless there's a word such as "after" or "before" in there somewhere, the present participles suggest that events happened in the same time frame, and they didn't, so: "Born in the Philippines, Soriano moved with his family to the United States and graduated from Salinas High School before being commissioned as an officer through Army ROTC at San Jose State University."
• "Serving during Operations Desert Shield, Operation Desert Shield, and Operation Joint Endeavor, he retired in March 2005.": Same problem here with the present participle. Also, Desert Shield is mentioned twice ... if you meant Desert Storm, then better would be: "After serving in operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Joint Endeavor, he retired in March 2005." (The lowercase on plural "operations" isn't mandatory, but most style guides prefer it.)
• "Additionally, he was the first Filipino American promoted to be a general officer in the United States Army.": I recommend removing this here, and adding to the first sentence: ", and the first promoted to general officer."
• " Since retiring from the Army, Soriano has worked for Northrop Grumman, and sat on various boards of directors.": No comma, and "sat" isn't wrong, but "has sat" is usually recommended.
• There's no prohibition on citations in the lead section at FAC, but reviewers may object to so many in such a short lead. [I'll stop there.] - Dank (push to talk) 19:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I have implemented your changes to the lead, please see this diff.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

If a second paragraph is added to the lead, what would you suggest? The lead goes into why the subject is notable (a notable first, and a notable status within an ethnic group), the subject's early life, and career. Would the lead expand upon the subject's career into more detail?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:54, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

One or two sentences per section, maybe. - Dank (push to talk) 01:01, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

How about this? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. - Dank (push to talk) 23:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Is that is all that needs to be improved for the lead, or the infobox? What about the body of the article? Please let me know how I can improve the article to achieve Class-A status, and make it easier when this article reached FAC.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• I had intended to review at GA actually - an interesting individual.
• Worth linking operations Desert Shield etc.
• "Since retiring from the Army, Soriano has worked for Northrop Grumman" - with a fairly short lead, you could probably afford to explain what the company is, e.g. "worked for the defense contractor, Northrop Gumman", or similar.
• " Soriano came to the United States in the early 1950s when his father, Fred Soriano, a soldier in the United States Army, was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia;[1] he was six when he left the Philippines." - I'm guessing from this that we know exactly when he left, rather than just the decade?
• "Soriano's mom's name was Encarnacion." - "mother's name"
• " San Jose State University" - worth linking
• "is married to Vivian Guillermo, whose parents come from Laoag but was born in the United States" - I wasn't sure what this was trying to tell us about his wife (i.e. is her ethnic heritage or birth place important to the article?)
• "Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps" - worth linking
• Military career. It was a shame that there's not more that could be said about this; I'm guessing there are no further sources that could be used?
• "In June 2004, as the commander of Fort Lewis, Soriano ordered the court-martial of Ryan G. Anderson,[20] who was sentenced in September 2004 to life in prison with the possibility of parole after Soriano removed the death penalty as a possible sentencing option." - what was Anderson sentenced for?
• " In September 2004, Soriano met with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at Malacanang,[22] who had met before during Arroyo's state visit in May 2003,[23] after being invited by General Narciso Abaya, Chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines" - "who he had met before"?
• "List of notable Filipino American servicemembers" - is "servicemembers" a real word? (NB: it may be a US Eng variant, but I've never seen it before) Hchc2009 (talk) 18:50, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

NB: I don't know if this is a reliable source, but there's some interesting additional information on him here. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Here are the changes that I have made in response with the above suggestions.

Now I had done implemented some of the changes. I did not provide new wikilinks to San Jose State University and Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Both are already provided wikilinks in the lead section, and an additional wikilink wouldn't be abiding by WP:OVERLINK.

As for other points,

• Yes, we would know the year which he had moved away from the Philippines, but the reference does not give an exact year, which if we added it, someone could argue WP:SYNTH or WP:OR so I am not going to add that at this time.
• I had not found other reliable sources that give additional information of the subject's military service
• As for information about his wife, Vivian Guillermo, it could be argued that the information is trivial. However, it also verifies that she is also a Filipino American, but differs from the subject of this article as she is an American-born Fil-Am and is a second generation.
• Servicemember is a word, which is a more recent use rather than calling someone by the service specific common designation (Soldier, Marine, Sailor, Airman, Coast Guardsman). Please see this link.

I too saw the website which is linked above, but as it has questionable status as a reliable source I didn't utilize it. It might fall under WP:ELMAYBE.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:10, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments

I did the GA review for this article, but I see a number of good improvements have been made since then. Some comments:

• I didn't pick it up when doing the GA review, but strictly speaking there is no need for cites in the lead (and infobox) as everything in the lead/infobox should be in the main body of the article (and cited there).
• The lead and infobox refers to "Operation Joint Endeavor" but there is no mention of this elsewhere in the article.

That's my two cents worth. Zawed (talk) 09:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, real life got in the way. I made a mention of service in Bosnia, in the body of the article, with this change here. Although citations in the lead or the infobox are not necessary, per WP:CITELEAD (and given a past Class A review that sought that everything be cited), I am cautioning towards leaving the citations in the lead.

Please let me know anything else I can do with the article to improve its quality so it can meet Class-A requirements.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:25, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments:

• the main images all seem appropriately licenced. I couldn't check all the medals etc as I have a limited download, but my advice is to make sure these are good to go before nominating at FAC;
• his date of birth should probably be added to the Early life section;
• not sure about this: "In the 1960s, his family moved to Salinas, California, leading to Soriano graduating from Salinas High School". (specifically "leading"). Perhaps this might work better, "In the 1960s, his family moved to Salinas, California, and Soriano later attended Salinas High School".
• this sounds awkward: "Soriano is married to Vivian Guillermo, whose parents come from Laoag but was born in the United States, and they have raised two children, Melissa and Keith". Perhaps try, "Soriano is married to Vivian Guillermo, who was born in the United States to Laoag natives. The couple have two children, Melissa and Keith."
• "which was followed by his leadership of an anti-tank platoon in the 508th Infantry." --> "which was followed by command of an anti-tank platoon in the 508th Infantry."
• "the army" (in Australia we would capitalise this as "the Army" (as a defacto proper noun as it is referring to a specific army), but I'm not sure about the US). I will leave it up to you to decide what is best;
• this seems a bit awkward: "Returning to various positions in Virginia and The Pentagon, these including..." Perhaps try, "Returning to the United States, he undertook various positions in Virginia and The Pentagon, including..."
• "force provider" seems a little jargony. What does it actually mean ("Fort Lewis units deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom" perhaps...)
• "In September 2004, Soriano met with Philippine President"... (where did this take place, in the US or the Philippines?
• the capitalisation here looks a bit irregular: "the current President of the board of directors". Perhaps try, "the current president of the board of directors";
• I wonder if it would make sense to add some mention of why he received his decorations in the Military career section. For instance, maybe you could just mention why he got the major ones. That might help expand the article a little;
• do we know when soriano and his wife married?
• "Chief of staff" --> this should either be "chief of staff" or "Chief of Staff"
• inconsistent "3d Battalion" v. "3rd and Ist Infantry Divisions"
• inconsistent "operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm" v "Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm". Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:08, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
  • As there hasn't been any response to these comments, I have made most of these changes myself. There are a few I can't deal with, though. I will be happy to support once these are addressed. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:35, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

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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.

Infobox edits

I wanted to further explain my infobox edits here. My goal was to hep the info box better serve its purpose:"to summarize key facts in the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." (from MOS:INFOBOX. I left what I saw to be General Soriano's key commands in the box but moved info on his earlier commands to the article body. I also deleted infobox references where appropriate under MOS:INFOBOX: "References are not needed in infoboxes if the content is repeated (and cited) elsewhere."

I was unaware of General Soriano before I came across this article and am very glad to know of this impressive officer.Ocalafla (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

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