Talk:Leif Erikson/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Astrocog (talk · contribs) 02:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   • There are two disambiguated links in the article, which can be seen here.
   • One of the links (MSN) has connection issues. See the problem here.
   • Prose is fairly spotty throughout. For example, the lead says, "It is believed that Leif was born around the 970s, the son of Erik the Red, a Norse explorer from Western Norway, an outlaw and himself the son of an outlaw, Thorvald Asvaldsson." Are you as confused as me? Try to avoid unnecessary compound sentences like that, especially in the lead. That's just an example from the article. The remainder should be checked for similar instances.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   • References shouldn't be other encyclopedias, such as Encarta.
   • Several instances of citation overkill. Once a sentence has more than two citations at the end of it, a reader can't tell which source goes with which fact. Use citation bundling, or just rely on the one or two most reliable sources for a particular fact.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   This is the main sticking point for me. While the article stays focused on the subject, it is quite light reading on such a notable person. Given the number of sources, I would expect an article much more expanded than this. There needs to be more discussion of scholarly work by historians concerning Ericson and his explorations. A google search and a search on Amazon shows several more relevant books on this topic that could be used to increase comprehensiveness.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   No apparent problems.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   The article has expanded by a factor of two (10,000 K to over 20,000 K) this month alone. This is not stability, as there is still active editing and expansion going on.

   Ok, this "citation style" warning has come up a few times. I won't pass the GAN unless this is resolved. Just make the citations consistent. Either all books used are in bibliography, or none are used. The editors involved in the reverts could just quit their bitchin' and fix it. Seems a fairly easy fix.

6. 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):

   • The painting image (Leif Ericson discovers America) seems to have a copyright problem. It claims to be public domain, but doesn't have a proper tag for the US.
   • It would be nice, but not required, to have an image of some depiction of Ericson's face.

7. Overall: Quite a number of issues here. I'm putting the GA review on hold for 7 days, however I think this article will need much more work. I think a peer review is appropriate, and also some advice from an expert historian to address the comprehensiveness of the article.

   Pass/Fail:

Fixing issues

Fixed all on 1. besides the prose issue, for which I have requested a copyedit. Fixed all on 2. Fixed the copyright issue on 6. Other than that, you have a request about an image of Leif's face. Besides the statues, I am not aware of mainstream images attempting to depict Leif's face. The closest would perhaps be this, but I think it's best to leave it with the statue. —Filippusson (t.) 18:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, it's not required to get another image, but could help in the future. The main issue is comprehensiveness (3) - make sure that this article represents all broad aspects of Ericson and his life, including the major scholarly discussions that exist. AstroCog (talk) 18:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• Come to think of it, if the article needs to be expanded extensively with information from the "Leif" theme books found on Amazon you should just fail the GAN now. I might do it later some time, but not within the next seven days. —Filippusson (t.) 19:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• I was just in the library for the college I work at, and I leafed through a few books in the Scandinavian section. Many of the books on the viking topic included information about Ericson, so that's another avenue to pursue. I won't quick-fail the GAN, to allow for some possible additions. I don't mind giving you a little more than 7 days (21 days, maybe?). You could also recruit some help from the related WikiProjects. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 19:28, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• I wasn't prepared for the requirement of an extensive expansion of the article, and have no capacity to do so either in the near future (not with offline literature at least). I thought that the article was broad enough and well-sourced enough for GA, and that a further expansion to a deeper level would only be required for FA. —Filippusson (t.) 14:17, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• I looked a bit closer at the GA criteria, and it says that comprehensiveness is not required, so I can let this slide here. I think the article shows much promise, so I'll adjust the criteria evaluations. Go ahead and work on the prose issues mentioned in the review, and also check on that image fair-use rationale problem I mentioned. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 01:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• Ok. I am awaiting a further copyedit, but I thought I had fixed the painting-thing. What exactly is it that is a problem? —Filippusson (t.) 00:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• I was thrown off by the double tags for public domain. It looks like it's probably ok. Let's see what happens with the copyedit. AstroCog (talk) 03:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

A copyedit appears to have been done on the 13th so this can be re-looked at. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 17:50, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. I'm sorry to be slow recently. The end of the fall semester was a busy time for this college prof. Everything seems to be in order here, I'm going to pass it. AstroCog (talk) 05:15, 28 December 2011 (UTC)