Talk:Hugh R. O'Connell/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 20:24, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I think this is only start class. It's well written, sourced, and stable (Good article criteria #1a, #2abc, and #5), but would need significant expansion in its treatment of the subject's life and career to be ready for good article status (GAC #3a). Additionally, it has some minor close paraphrasing (GAC #2d), one question about neutrality (GAC #3b and #4) and no photos even though a fair-use copy of one of the newspaper images would be easy to justify (GAC #6).

I have the following more detailed comments and questions, mostly about questions I was left wishing the article had answered:

• This source looks useful for providing background material on the ethnic makeup of Milwaukee, and ethnic biases in selecting people for public office during O'Connell's time; O'Connell's Irish heritage seems very relevant in this respect but is not mentioned in our article.
• District judges often aren't considered notable: what's special about this one that makes him worthy of an article? Can we include at least a one-sentence summary in the lead of how he is remembered as a judge? (GAC 1b)
• The "mind of a scholar but the appearance of a prizefighter" phrase from the first source (and the story behind it) is very colorful; why was it not included?
• One source describes a family move from Butler to Milwaukee, where he attended high school; why was this omitted?
• What caused him to travel from Wisconsin to Arizona?
• When did he graduate from college?
• The phrase "He graduated from the Arizona State College before receiving a law degree from Marquette University" is almost verbatim from the source "He graduated [with honors] from [the] Arizona State College before [... he received] a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1952", and should probably be reworded.
• Presumably he passed the bar at the same time as completing law school, but these are not always the same thing and the bar should probably also be sourced and included.
• "Following his graduation" implies that his insurance job was between college and law school, but the actual source implies that this job was after he became a lawyer; please clarify.
• What year was he first elected as DA (our article says "in the November general election" but leaves the reader to infer that it was 1964)? Who did he run against in the general election, how close was the election, and what happened in any subsequent re-election campaigns? Some background on the local politics (e.g. that Milwaukee or Wisconsin was overwhelmingly Democratic at that time and so the primary was more important than the general, if true) might be helpful.
• What important cases did he bring forward as DA, or what other actions did he take? An incident involving a threatened school boycott [1] [2] [3] seems worth mentioning; it is in at least three books (and also presumably has newspaper coverage) but is not in our article. Another book mentions another of his cases. The "Judge's career was filled" source mentions more cases that are presumably significant enough to mention here (if they were significant enough to mention a year after his death) but need additional sourcing for detail.
• The infobox says "judgeship created" in the place normally marked for his predecessor on the bench. What is the background behind that creation?
• What important cases did he see as a judge? (At least one is mentioned in the Sentinel obituary, and the "no theatrics" profile goes into more detail about his casehandling.)
• Is the material on underworld ties as significant as our article makes it appear? It appears in one source, that is mostly not about O'Connell. And it mentions three incidents in a long career, not really justifying the source headline. I really don't think we can use the quote "filled with links to crime figures" from the headline; headlines are often exaggerated for dramatic effect and for that reason are not as reliable as the text of the article. But if we included more detail on other parts of his career then the amount of detail included on this part would be better balanced.
• The article cites O'Connell's desire to write fiction in his retirement decision. Did he publish any of his fiction?
• The source on his retirement (but not our article) mentions post-retirement plans to teach business law at the college level; did that happen?

It all looks doable, I think, but the article would be different enough after taking care of these issues that it would probably be better off re-nominating and getting a fresh review. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:06, 3 December 2015 (UTC)