Talk:Erving Goffman/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: DASonnenfeld (talk · contribs) 13:03, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

• Support - very nice, well-written & well-structured article. For further improvement, would be useful to develop more Goffman's subsequent intellectual influences, and also review discussions, debates and criticisms that his work engendered. Regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 13:03, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

• This still requires a detailed review that covers the specific Good Article criteria. It appears to have the qualities mentioned above, but a quick scan reveals that there are still problematic sentences, incorrect use of hyphens and dashes, etc., which would preclude immediate passage. Examples include:

1. Life section, paragraph 3: the gambling portion is a fragment that uses parenthetical comments and shouldn't. Also, as the first two sentences have the same source, one inline citation for two consecutive sentences is sufficient.
2. Influence and legacy, first sentence: either the influences were specifically in developing the theoretical framework, in which case the fact should not be separated by commas, or the influences went far beyond this, in which case the sentence needs to be recast. Right now, the theoretical framework appears to be a point that could be omitted, and the nearly alphabetical list doesn't work as well as putting Hughes first, as the most influential (and removing that statement from parentheses), and then perhaps the rest as alphabetic if there's nothing to support another order.
3. Note 2 refers to "Fine, Manning, and Smith (2000)", but there isn't such a three-author source in the Bibliography section. This could involve a missing source or missing author in the biblio, or extra author in the note

Once a complete review is done and the various (inevitable) issues noted, I imagine it won't be long before they're fixed and this becomes a Good Article. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:17, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

• @User:BlueMoonset: Thanks, all of the above addressed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

• Note - have replaced the 'infobox person' with 'infobox scientist' and added material from the text. Will try to take a further look at article, re: Good Article criteria. Thanks & Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

• Elaboration in relation to the Good Article criteria:

1. Well written? Yes, a well written article, though there is room for further improvement. As mentioned above, I think it would strengthen the article to develop and add a new section reviewing discussions, debates and criticisms of Goffman's work. In addition, I find the current section on 'Influence and legacy' in need of some editing. This section actually contains more than suggested by the title. Not only what was Goffman's influence and legacy - something that would typically be seen as a later section in an article on a major intellectual - but also what were his major contributions, who was he influenced by, who were his students, how was he recognized... Perhaps this section can be divided into two or three sections. The summary of his key contributions should, in my opinion, be the main one, coming perhaps even earlier in the article.
2. Verifiable/ no original research? Yes, the article is well documented.
3. Broad in coverage? Yes, though here, too, there is room for further development. E.g. how has Goffman's work been built on, utilized by, or influenced various fields? General sociology, social psychology, communication studies, postmodern theory, etc.
4. Neutral? Yes, though, as noted, would be strengthened by development and addition of a 'discussions, debates, and criticisms section.
5. Stable? Yes, in the sense that there are no apparent edit wars or disputes currently involving this page. From 30 April 2013 until now, the article has been developed quite a bit; hopefully this will continue, with the contribution of a number of editors.
6. Illustrated? Only one image at present, a photo of Goffman. It is copyrighted, but with fair use rationale explained. The article would benefit from the addition of further images, if these can be located and added.

Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 09:42, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Oh, and one other suggestion: the External links would benefit from brief elaborations/ descriptions for each link - there are multiple 'Goffman biography' links, for example - what are the sources? the authors? date? etc.

@User:DASonnenfeld: thank you for the more extensive points. I think you make some valid proposals, through I currently don't have the sources to expand the article further. Nor am I sure I fully understand how we should go about splitting the influence and legacy section. Perhaps you'd be willing to do some edits to the article yourself? To be honest, I am not sure if your remarks above are suggestions for post-GA improvements, or requirements of what needs to be done for this to pass the GA review. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:43, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

• Clarification: In my view, the article does meet the criteria for Good Article designation. My suggestions were for future improvements. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 12:48, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

• @User:DASonnenfeld Ah, thank you. In that case can you finalize (close) the review? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:59, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• I would be happy to do so, though am not familiar with the procedure. If you (or someone else watching this) can point me in the right direction, that would be helpful. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 14:03, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• With all due respect, this is not ready for the review to be finalized. Above, I gave some examples of prose and grammar issues, but I had noticed a few others at that time, and was hoping that the review would include a thorough prose review. The "well written" part of GA has a number of requirements, including "and the spelling and grammar are correct". This means typos, missing periods, grammatical hiccoughs, and similar problems are identified and fixed. (The reviewer can fix them if he or she wants, or list them for the nominator to correct, but this is a necessary step.) This is a nicely done article that has some fixes that need doing—the missing period, for one—but the review needs to be at that specific a level for GA. I'd prefer it if DASonnenfeld did this, since it is part of a reviewer's mandate, but it does need to be done. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:19, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• I am not a native English speaker, and I always ask others for help with prose. This was c/e by Nihil Novi, and that's about as much help as I ever get on Wikipedia (I don't know any other copyeditors willing to help, and their project is backlogged for months). So if any of you know someone who can help, or could c/e the prose yourself, please do, otherwise this will fail and remain and its current state. There's only so much I can do :( --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:40, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Okay, makes sense. Many eyes... Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 21:33, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• I've completed my close copyediting of the text. BlueMoonset, you're welcome to take a further look, but from my perspective, the article is ready to promote. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 10:00, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

• It looks good to me, too, in the main; I've just made a bunch of tiny changes, mostly involving punctuation. While doing a closer read-through, I found one thing that bothered me in the prose: it's the many uses of "s/he" in the discussion of two of his books (two in Stigma, six in Interaction Ritual). The Manual of Style doesn't mention this particular usage, not even on the gender-neutral page, but I think it's problematic when used so densely (and don't like it myself). I've just changed the two in the Stigma section, which was the easy one; it's the six uses in three sentences in the second paragraph of Interaction Ritual, which discusses the "On Face-work" essay, that are problematic. Can you or Piotrus think of a way to make this smoother, perhaps by recasting to reduce the need for pronouns? (There is one use of "himself" alone which does need to be adjusted, assuming it's still there after the revision.) My preference would be for "s/he" to be eliminated entirely, but that might not be feasible. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:32, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
• @User:BlueMoonset How's that? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:25, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

• Very nice, Piotrus. I did change one word and fix a typo. I also took the liberty of reducing the number of repeated citations of the same source within a few paragraphs. With the exception of quoted material, which needs an immediate inline citation, a source citation at the end of a paragraph is assumed to cover the entire paragraph, so I've removed extras. I think this is ready for listing as a GA. DA Sonnenfeld, the instructions for doing this are at WP:Good article nominations/Instructions#Passing. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:56, 25 August 2013 (UTC)