Talk:John Rice Irwin/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Orlady (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC) Article has a long way to go for GA status. I will add more comments later (and I would welcome other contributors to the review). However, for starters I'd like to point out one example of what I consider to be serious problems with the article:

• Apparently in response to an earlier comment that I made on the talk page, the contributor who nominated this article here added an item about Irwin's relationship with Alex Haley. The added item says "Irwin is also good friends with writer Alex Haley, and inspired one of Haley's writings with his museum." Not only is that vague (which one of Haley's writings?) and written with inappropriate informality ("is good friends with"), but nothing in that present-tense statement indicates that Haley is dead, and has in fact been dead for quite a few years now. --Orlady (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• I changed it to past-tense, but I didn't list what book was inspired because the source isn't specific on that. CrowzRSA 16:44, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• I don't believe you can do justice to Irwin's life story unless you have consulted additional sources that tell about his relationship with Alex Haley, including his role in Haley's buying a farm near the Museum of Appalachia -- now the Children's Defense Fund's Haley Farm.[1] My recollection is that Haley bought the farm from Irwin, but I'm not sure of that. Two online sources on the general subject are this TV news item and this Nashville Scene item. The story is not documented in online sources, though -- I honestly don't think it is possible to create a GA-quality article about Irwin strictly based on a combination of a couple of Norris Bulletin articles plus online sources. --Orlady (talk) 01:27, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• So, what are you sayin here... CrowzRSA 23:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

What I am saying is that the article is a long way from GA status. I suggest you withdraw the nomination. If you want to pursue GA status in the future, you need to do some more research on the subject, work on your reference citations, work on the article structure, and get some copy-editing advice and assistance. --Orlady (talk) 00:26, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's a more extensive (but still incomplete) discussion of my concerns, with reference to some of the Good Article criteria (the numbered items below are statements about the criteria; my comments are below each such statement):

1. The article should be clearly written, in good prose, with correct spelling and grammar. Check for coherent formatting, good organization of the article into sections, appropriate use of wikilinks, and other aspects of the Manual of Style referred to in the Good article criteria. The lead section should be a good summary and introduction to the topic.

   Article does not qualify as “good prose” and the lead section does not accomplish the purpose of a good lead. Following are some more specific comments on writing and organization.

   I did not find any missspelled words, but I found some odd or inappropriate word choices that may result from typos or from running a spell checker and picking the wrong word from the list of suggestions offered. Instances of sloppiness of wording and/or typos include:

   "lectured on the subject on Appalachian history" -- shouldn't that be "the subject of Appalachian history"?

   It is stated that the museum is "a village-farm complex, comprehending more than 35 original mountain structures..." -- is "comprehending" the intended word there?

   Is Irwin truly in the “Anderson Country Hall of Fame” or is it the “Anderson County Hall of Fame”?

   Article includes some informal wording not appropriate for an encyclopedia, including (but not limited to) "was friends with", the odd verb tense in the phrase "have had two children", and the shorthand name "Norris Health and Rehab Center" (for a facility that surely has a name that consists of complete words).

   Some sentence constructions are awkward, such as "started as only a small log building" -- is that the best place to put the word "only"?

   Article makes extensive use of quotations, sometimes in contexts where it should be possible to present factual information in the form of original prose.

   Some sentences in the article present several distinct facts in one breathless sequence -- verging on a run-on sentence, such as "Although the museum started as only a small log building, as of 2010, it has grown to a village-farm complex, comprehending more than 35 original mountain structures, two large display buildings containing thousands of Appalachian artifacts, farm animals, and several gardens." Additionally, that sentence is one of several that I think may be "too close" in wording to a source, in that case including the wording of http://www.oakridger.com/entertainment/x425637438/John-Rice-Irwin-enters-new-role-at-Museum-of-Appalachia and http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/aug/29/irwin-retiring-after-40-years/

   Lead section is not a good summary and introduction, but rather is a somewhat random collection of details extracted from the article, plus a few details (such as the date of his marriage) not in the article body. Some parts of the summary are better written than the article body that they are supposed to summarize.

   Wikilinking is incomplete. In particular, I would expect the "Legacy and accolades" section to include links to the organizations that gave him awards, not just two of them. For example, determine which of the several schools that have used the name "Cumberland College" gave him the honorary degree and link to its article.

   The table in the "Works" section is oddly formatted, and it is not obvious that a table is needed or appropriate for presenting a list of books.

2. The article should be factually accurate according to information in reliable sources, with inline citations (typically using either footnotes or Harvard (parenthetical) references) for the six types of material named in the GA criteria.

   The quality of the sources is marginal. The article relies heavily on a single article in the Norris Bulletin (less-than-daily newspaper in small community, not available online) that I suspect (because I am a resident of the local area) was largely based on a press release from Mr. Irwin or an interview with him. This is a decent source for some types of content, but it is not reliable when it is the source for information items (such as being the youngest school superintendent in the state and receiving the MacArthur Fellowship) that a person might not be truthful about. Some of these (such as the MacArthur) are items that can easily be verified from other sources. I have seen substantially similar material reproduced in various articles in other local papers, usually attributed to "staff reports," which is often a euphemism for "press releases." I have no reason to question this content (and I know that much of the content is true), but it's not a solid basis for an encyclopedia article.

   Sources of many specific items of information are not clearly indicated by citations. When a long paragraph is packed with discrete facts, such as in the "Legacy and accolades" section, a single citation at the end of the paragraph is not sufficient to document the sources of the information in the paragraph. Each distinct fact or quotation should be cited separately.

   Unfortunately, the webpage http://bcbrown.net/bluegrass/chronicles/articles/mofa/ does not appear to be a reliable source (although I think it is a good article).

   Reference citations are neither consistently formatted nor formatted according to a recognizable formal citation style. Also, they do not contain all of the details (such as the authors of those works that have named authors and the names of the institutions that publish the websites that are identified only as URLs) that normally should be included in a reference citation.

   There are several reference citations to Amazon.com, which apparently is cited only as a source for book titles and publication details. Amazon is just one of many booksellers, and its use as a citation has the effect of advertising Amazon. If the only purpose for citing Amazon is to give the book titles and publication details, the citation is not necessary -- the details should be verifiable based on the ISBN numbers.

3. The article should broadly cover the topic without unnecessary digressions. The article may, and sometimes should, go into detail, but it is not required to be comprehensive.

   On this one, my opinion may seem a bit opinionated, but I do not think that the current article gives good “broad coverage” of its topic. It does provide an outline of Irwin's life that's mostly in chronological order, it tells briefly about the museum that has been his main life's work, and it lists his books. However, while it includes details that are not normally considered encyclopedic, such as the names of his grandchildren, it fails to “fill in the blanks” regarding a number of more significant aspects of his life and work. For example, it does not describe any of his books – nor even mention their subject matter, it does not satisfactorily deal with his relationship with Alex Haley, and it provides no contextual information (nor wikilinks) on some other topics – such as the story behind the “deadly Big Barren Creek Flood of 1916” and information on who gave him his “Trailblazer Award”. It's not even entirely clear what kinds of things Irwin collected; if I didn't know that he collected a few dozen log cabins (that is, he bought them from people, moved them to his property, and reassembled them for display), I would not learn this from the article.

4. The article should be written from the neutral point of view: this viewpoint strives to represent all other views fairly, proportionately, and without bias.

   The article is written from a neutral point of view. However, for the most part the article appears to the be the story that John Rice Irwin tells about himself -- it lacks third-party perspectives on the person and his contributions. The citations for his various awards are an example of one type of source that should be available and should provide that kind of perspective.

5. The article should be stable, with no ongoing edit wars: constructive article improvement and routine editing does not apply here.

   This criterion is met.

6. The article should comply with image use policy. Images are encouraged but not required. Any images used should be appropriate to the article, have captions and free licenses or valid fair use rationales.

   The only image in the article is a photo of the sign at the museum entrance. I don't see any licensing or other issues with that image. However, although the image is not inappropriate to the article, it does not add any value to the article. Photos of Irwin or his museum would be better additions to the article text. Wikipedia Commons has 42 photos of the museum, including many that would add value to this article by illustrating Irwin's collections. --Orlady (talk) 00:26, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

What's going on with this review? It's been a month since the last comment. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:04, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The article has not been touched since my edits (as reviewer) shortly before that last comment. I don't have much experience with GA -- is it time to fail the GA? --Orlady (talk) 04:16, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes; it should only take a week or two for concerns to be addressed. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I have logged this on the article talk page as a FAILED GA nomination. --Orlady (talk) 23:40, 19 April 2011 (UTC)