Talk:Frederic M. Richards/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Antony-22 (talk · contribs) 15:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

In progress.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   Detailed comments below

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

   Detailed comments below

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   See comment below on Ref. 1, all others are fine

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   I am satisfied that this meets the GA criteria. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 02:12, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

More detailed comments:

• Reference 1 should link to the specific posts containing the information cited. I feel that using this type of blog as a source is borderline acceptable under WP:RS, but it would be preferred if the information could be referenced to a more traditional source.

I found substitutes for 2 of the 4 blog cites; it's a one-page, one-time post, just hosted on a "blog" site. Dcrjsr (talk) 21:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Great. The blog would make a good external link, though. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 17:38, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm uneasy about making it an external link, because I thought they were not supposed to duplicate things in the ref list. What do you think? Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I missed it because it fell down to number 8. Never mind, then. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 01:49, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

• The citations in the first paragraph are unnecessary per WP:LEADCITE.

Fixed. Dcrjsr (talk) 21:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Words introducing quotations should be in the past tense, e.g., "...which he describes as 'uneventful'" should be "...which he described as 'uneventful'", and so on.

Fixed. Hope I caught them all. Dcrjsr (talk) 21:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• The Summary of career events section should be integrated elsewhere in the main text, per WP:PROSE. Lists of awards are discouraged, so only the few most notable awards should be mentioned in the article.

Comment: Lists of works and timelines presents a different point of view. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:58, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I tried out moving the career events to other places, and found it awkward (of course there may be better ways than what I tried. It ended up with an unwieldy award section in the infobox, esp since I didn't want to lose the date and ref info. So I ended up reverting it, but am certainly still open to persuasion on the issue. Dcrjsr (talk) 01:22, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Timelines aren't particularly standard for biographies, and it borders on looking like the sort of awards list that there would be in a resume. The items relating to degrees and postdoctoral appointments could easily be included as prose in the Personal biography section, and in fact many of them already are. As for the awards, many of these are already mentioned in the lead. I'd recommend putting a prose paragraph about the awards in the Administration, etc. section and renaming it to something like Other accomplishments. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 04:53, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, will work on that line. Dcrjsr (talk) 05:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I still can't get that set of information to work as integrated into the prose flow. I've compromised by shortening the list of career events, moving the degree dates into the infobox, and mentioning fewer awards in the lead. Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

More to follow. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:05, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I made some copyedits myself, mostly for minor grammar and punctuation issues. Some remaining issues:

• "RNase S (and, separately, RNase A) became the third protein structure determined by X-ray diffraction of crystals..." This sentence is confusing. Was RNase A the fourth? If so it should be stated; if not then that's an awkward place to mention it.

Tried to clarify with a minor rewrite. Dcrjsr (talk) 05:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm still a bit confused. These were two structures published in two different articles, so they would be the third and fourth structures, right? Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:25, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

They are two forms of the same protein. I've tried again on the clarification. Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• The last two subsections under Research career contain many short, choppy paragraphs, which should be combined in an appropriate way.

Combined items in the packing section. In "Other research areas", they are still left separate, because they describe truly unrelated pieces of work. Maybe I should find more to say about some or all of them? Dcrjsr (talk) 05:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Some of the more laudatory sentences in Administration, mentoring, and outside activities should be worded more neutrally by attributing the statements, such as by adding the phrase "According to X...", as these are opinions rather than facts.

Have worked in two cases of this kind of softening. Dcrjsr (talk) 05:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Including the times cited in the list of papers at the end is unnecessary, and is likely to go out of date quickly anyway. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 04:54, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Done. Dcrjsr (talk) 05:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your well-considered wording shifts! I've reverted just one: back to "Sally's Baage" -- a slide in the video in Sally's in memoriam on the Guilford Land Trust site 2011 shows the boat with that name on the side, presumably a comment on her Maine accent. I've tried to explain it very briefly without overloading the point. Dcrjsr (talk) 12:17, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

No worries. The cited source said "Barge" but I trust your discretion here. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 17:38, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

My original source (Rose; ref 6) called it barge and I originally did also, but the Land Trust piece now cited (ref 7) is more authoritative because it shows the actual boat. Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

A couple more issues, likely the last set:

• Is Voronoi diagram the correct article to wikilink for "Voronoi polyhedra"? (I added this but I just want to make sure.)

Comment: Voronoi polygon redirects to Voronoi diagram. Maybe Voronoi polyhedron should too. Then, if someone later creates a separate article on Voronoi polyhedra, the link still works. RockMagnetist (talk) 19:26, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Voronoi diagram is the best we can do - Delaunay triangulation describes the dual relation of the two, but would make for a confusing link. Indeed probably Voronoi polyhedron could redirect - but I hope no one makes it a separate article. Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• "...some used primarily for structure validation and others primarily for homology modeling or protein design." The word 'primarily' is used twice in the same sentence.

Fixed. Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• "...apart from a rather small compaction in size." Was the change in size small, or did it change to a small size?

Change was small; clarified wording. Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• "'quickly gained pre-eminent stature'" Quote needs an attribution, or could be reworded without a direct quotation. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:25, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

That is indeed a direct quote from the source cited right afterward, which is how I handled all the other quotes. I believe I've now responded to all the comments & suggestions, and fixed a few minor formatting problems myself as well.Dcrjsr (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

One more thing - I noticed that you changed the wording in the first paragraph of the packing section. But that whole last bit was a direct quote from Rose, so I've changed it back. Dcrjsr (talk) 23:50, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I see, there was an errant extra quotation mark in the old version that caused me to misinterpret where the quote ended. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 02:06, 14 July 2012 (UTC)