Talk:Janine Brookner

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Kavyansh.Singh (talk · contribs) 07:04, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Nominator: Sammielh (talk · contribs) at 21:46, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

GA criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Comments

Prose

• she became the first person to sue to agency for sexual discrimination and win — "and win" seems odd. How about "and won"?
  • I have changed it to "she became the first person to successfully sue the agency for sexual discrimination". I have also added this into the body of the article and cited it, as I realised this was missing.
• a job with the Central Intelligence Agency — "a job in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)"
  • Done
• she was moved to Thailand — transferred?
  • Done
• She moved back to — at the starting of every paragraph, you'll need to specify 'she' as 'Brookner'
  • Done
• She faced several internal problems — same as above
  • Done
• In May 1992, she was finally — same as above
  • Done
• by Vice President Dan Quayle — pipe 'vice president' out of the link
  • Done
• Ambassador Glen Holden — same as above
  • Done
• Inspector General Frederick Hitz — avoid linking two adjacent words
  • I have reworded this section, please let me know what you think
• on Lime Key — our article calls it Lime Cay
  • The source I used calls it Lime Key but I have changed it to align with the article
• to dispute the charges but when the CIA failed to respond, — comma after 'charges'
  • Done
• Drug Enforcement Administration’s — fix the quote (’ to ')
  • I thought I'd caught these all! Fixed it
• to the United States Attorney General, — I think it should be clear from the context that the nation we are talking about is US. Suggestion to remove 'United States'
  • I included United States to specify that it was federal rather than state, but that might also be obvious from context so I have removed it
• This became her specialty. — is it a better way to phrase it?
  • I have tried to make it flow better with the following sentence, please let me know what you think
• The "Later life" section should be re-titled to "Death"
  • Done
• "and was responsible for recruiting diplomats from the Soviet Union to spy for the United States" —— thats like the most difficult job ever!!

Images

• Any chance we can get Brookner's freely licenced image? This image is published in The New York Times, credited to Benjamin C. Tankersley/for The Washington Post. Would it be worth contacting the photographer, requesting him to release the image under CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Commons:Commons:Volunteer Response Team. Now, I don't think they'll do that, but its worth trying. Anyways, that is not strictly part of the GA criteria.
  • I agree that it's unlikely but I can give it a shot. I considered trying to add an image under fair use because I can't find a publicly available image anywhere but, as a lawyer, it makes me a bit nervous
    • As the subject has recently died, I am also unsure for a non-free image. Better try asking Mr. Tankersley, if you are comfortable doing so, but I won't make this point a big deal for this GAN. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 04:49, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

References

• Inconsistency in including ISSN in The Washington Post citations
• Rest good!
  • I have removed the ISSNs for The Washington Post

That is it, an really interesting article. Putting on hold. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 14:00, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much for reviewing it! Please let me know if there are any other changes you'd like me to make. I also added in an additional source that I'd thought was in there (as it's the article mentioned in the text itself where her name was first published) so you can take a look but I don't think there should be any issues with it. Sammielh (talk) 18:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Everything else is fixed. The point about the image is optional, and if possible, image can be added later. Promoting! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 06:24, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 01:14, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Janine Brookner was the first person to successfully sue the Central Intelligence Agency for gender discrimination? Source: Stein, Jeff (May 15, 2021). "The CIA Officer Who Became a "Formidable Foe" of the U.S. Government". Washington Monthly. "'I’ll never forget sitting in her living room in Georgetown and watching her snuggle with her Maltese as she told stories about becoming the first female CIA station chief in Latin America and, later, the first person to sue the CIA and win for sexual discrimination,' Jones told SpyTalk."
  • ALT1: ... that three former, top-ranking Central Intelligence Agency officials appeared on ABC News Nightline to condemn the agency's treatment of Janine Brookner? Source: Carlson, Peter (March 10, 2004). "Counter Intelligence". The Washington Post. "In March 1996, ABC's "Nightline" aired an extraordinary program about the case. Three former high-ranking CIA officials -- Director Robert Gates, Deputy Director Thomas Tweedon and chief of the Soviet division Milton Bearden -- appeared on camera to praise Brookner and denounce the CIA's "unfair" treatment of her."
  • Comment: This is my first nomination so please let me know if there is anything else I need to do. There are a lot of other interesting potential hooks in her article if there are issues with either of these.

Improved to Good Article status by Sammielh (talk). Self-nominated at 10:27, 9 January 2022 (UTC).

• Comments by Tbhotch

General eligibility:

• New enough:
• Long enough:
• Other problems:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
• Other problems:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: A recently approved GA. I couldn't find major issues as the GA review was [almost] handled appropriately. However, I'm putting this DYK into a temporary hold-on because I found several instances where the text was more or less the same as the sources. I'm not saying that the article was plagiarized, but that I feel that the Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing is too close. For example:

• Wikipedia: "...she was appointed chief of the CIA's United Nations branch and was responsible for recruiting diplomats from the Soviet Union to spy for the United States"
• Source: "For four years she was chief of the CIA’s United Nations branch, in charge of recruiting Soviet diplomats to spy for the United States."
• Wikipedia: "In 1972^{(the source says 1973 though)}, she was transferred to Thailand and while there, she married Thompson in Bangkok the following year [...] Brookner and Thompson divorced in 1979 but remained close friends"
• Source: "In 1973, Brookner and Thompson were sent to Thailand by the agency. They were married in Bangkok that year and divorced in 1979 but remain close friends."
• Wikipedia: "The report also stated that Brookner had improperly applied for overtime when she cooked and served a turkey at a dinner for local contacts on Thanksgiving 1989 and that she used the station helicopter for picnics on Lime Cay. These latter two accusations were referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution"
• Source: "The report [...] went on to say that Brookner had improperly put in for overtime when she cooked and served a turkey dinner for Jamaican contacts on Thanksgiving of 1989. The report also accused her of twice allowing the use of the station’s helicopter for embassy picnics on Lime Key [...] Those two charges [...] were referred to the Department of Justice by the CIA for possible criminal prosecution of Brookner".
• Wikipedia: "she was informed by an internal directory that she had been demoted to chief of the Czech branch^{(this is the least critical quote as there are not so many ways to say this; if you eliminate the other three cases, this one can stay)"}
• Source: "Brookner was startled to find that she had been demoted to chief of the Czech branch"

In itself, this is not a problem, but this is just content from the LA Times, the most used source here. Per WP:CLOP: "when extensive (with or without in-text attribution) may also violate Wikipedia's copyright policy". At the moment, Earwig's Copyvio Detector is currently inoperative ("An error occurred while using the search engine. Note: there is a daily limit on the number of search queries the tool is allowed to make"). So, I'll need to wait for the tool to determine if the whole article is acceptable or if there are substantial similarities with every source. If so, multiple sentences will need to be rewritten.

@Sammielh: As I was afraid of, Earwig's marks "34.6% Violation Unlikely". Although it says violation unlikely, it is too high for an article without quotes (for example, Teenage Dream receives a 36.3%, but if you compare the texts, most of it is just quoted text). Most of the red flags are related to the quotes I mentioned above and only are related to that source, so they need to be reworked to not sound "substantial similar" to the LA Times text. You can guide yourself with WP:FIXCLOSEPARA. I've highlighted the ideas that are too close. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 22:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC) (CC) Tbhotch^™ 05:11, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Tbhotch: Thank you for your detailed review. I did run a Copyvio check using Earwig before I submitted the article for GA but I took the "Violation Unlikely" at its word. I have tried to rework the areas that you have mentioned and bring it some additional sources. As you said, I'm not sure if I will be able to change the last instance because I'm not sure why this is considered a demotion and it seems unlikely that any sources will explain the CIA's reasoning, so it's a bit difficult to add anything different. Please let me know if there are any additional changes that need to be made, and I appreciate all your help. Sammielh (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

It's now OK. The percentage was reduced to 27% but it's just common phrases. None of them remind me to the LA text as does the reworded sentences. Now ALT0 it's good to go. ALT1 is not bad, but suing the CIA is more interesting for the average person. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 21:06, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Tbhotch: Thanks a lot for your help here. I did the GA review, and remember waiting long for Earwig's bot to respond; it didn't. I randomly did a few spot checks, and didn't saw much of an issue, so I passed it on copyvio. I agree with few of the concerns you raised above (though few were cases of WP:LIMITED). Happy to see everything now resolved. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 16:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Kavyansh.Singh: I wonder would you consider us holding this DYK for a special set about women on International Women's Day, which is 8th March? If you want it to run sooner that's fine, but if you're happy then I'll move it into the special occasions holding area. DrThneed (talk) 00:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@DrThneed: Well, Sammielh is the nominator, and Tbhotch is the reviewer. I'll leave this to them, but I think it would be nice to have this on Women's Day! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 04:01, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if this is valid as per the "but not more than six weeks in advance" clause. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 04:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for mistaking the nominator. The date is not a problem, in the discussion here you'll see a creation date of 1st January onwards was allowed (I just wasn't organised enough to get going that early). So is that a yes, once other issues are dealt with? DrThneed (talk) 07:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

@DrThneed: Yes, I'm happy for it to run for International Women's Day if the date isn't an issue. Sammielh (talk) 15:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not convinced of the sourcing for ALT0. The source indicates that this is Brookner's claim, but not necessarily that third party sources agree. (t · c) buidhe 06:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

• @Buidhe: "Janine Brookner worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 24 years when she became the first person to sue the agency and win for sexual discrimination. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post)"[1]. If anything it would need to be rewritten. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 22:24, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

• @Buidhe: @Tbhotch: The quotation that I used as a source for this statement is from Abigail Jones who wrote multiple articles about Janine Brookner and would be as close an expert as possible. I agree that it's difficult to definitively verify this because of the nature of the CIA, so I would be happy to change the DYK to "...that Janine Brookner successfully sued the Central Intelligence Agency for sex discrimination?" if that works better. Otherwise, I'm happy with ALT1 if there are no issues with that. Sammielh (talk) 15:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• I still have no objections. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 21:34, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• Reiterating for a future promoter that ALT1 is acceptable. I will move this to the special occasion hooks now. SL93 (talk) 23:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)