Talk:Matt Damon/GA1

GA Reassessment

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Talk page

I'm following up on the request to reassess the Matt Damon article... and I'm going to start with comments on the talk page that are said to be wrong or in error first:

• alma mater - per Merriam Webster, means "a school, college, or university at which one has studied and, usually, from which one has graduated." So, Harvard University stays.
• Question regarding the validity of: "Mr. Speca always seemed to trust Ben [Affleck] with the biggest roles and longest speeches." Verified, the full quote is archived.
• There were some other corrections and requests for additions that have been taken care of - and I noted the appropriate section in the archive. Other requests for additions that were two or more years old were just archived.

If there is concern, though, about the list of requests for additions that have not been made, I can type up a list and repost it here (without having to weed through a number of postings). If I don't hear, though, I'll assume "archived" is ok.--CaroleHenson (talk) 13:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Article review

Overview

There are a number of ways in which the article has adapted well as Damon's life has advanced professionally and personally since the GA review version in 2008. The section break-down is particularly good, like breaking out the phases of his acting career from that of a producer -- breaking out his philanthropic career from his personal life -- and creating an "In the media" section. Much of the content is well-written with inline citations to reliable sources, but there is some uncited content and some content has citations to non-reliable sources. There are some areas for improvement in the content, too.

Content

• Intro -- This section is too long and doesn't seem to be a good summary of his personal life, philanthropic endeavors and career pursuits. It might benefit by being rewritten as a summary of his life thus far, without a lot of detail (e.g., Good Will Hunting awards, listing a lot of movies, etc.) They aren't "Good articles", but Paul Newman, Robert Redford, or Cary Grant are nice examples of a summary style.
  • Reworded the intro  Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• Sections - there are some opportunities to be more concise and clear. Two sections seem to pop out the most: "Early life" and "In the media". My first thought is: how to word this more like a summary with an encyclopedic tone - and put detail that falls outside the summary into notes or perhaps remove entirely.
  • Reworded Early life and put some of the information in "notes" - I'm not seeing any opportunities there to reduce prose, but if someone has an idea, that would be great. For now, I'll mark it  Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I reworded the "Jimmy Kimmel" portion of "In the media", but I think it could probably be reduced more.
    • I moved some of the info into notes and it's much shorter now. Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• Without too much detail -- as Damon's career has advanced, the need to go into a lot of detail becomes less important, but there is still a lot of detail (e.g., a film he tried out for but didn't get, etc.). Specifically the aim is to be: Broad in its coverage, by addressing the main aspects of the topic and stay focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  • The number of characters has only dropped about 2,000 characters from this version, but since I've added a number of citations - and moved some info into notes, I am guessing that readable prose within the body of the article reduced more than that.
  • Also, I didn't really remove any detail - except where I moved some detail from the intro into the body of the article. So, I'll go back and look for potential opportunities.
    • I removed a little more detail... but I think it reads ok now. It went from 20283 characters (3351 words) "readable prose size" ---> 15350 characters (2508 words) "readable prose size", which makes it about 75% of what it had been - so that should be good for now. Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• Clear and concise prose -- the article will better come across as "well-written" if there is a more unified voice and connective flow of the information. For instance, read any paragraph in the "Kimmel and Damon" section, followed by a few sentences of "Humanitarian work", which has an encyclopedic tone.
  • I likely need a good read-through for copy edits, but I think it has a more consistent tone throughout now.
    •  Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• Related to the amount of detail and being concise -- it's nice to have quotes, but they are sometimes used unnecessarily. It would be nice to pare them down to the ones that provide the greatest insight. In some cases, the points can be summarized. This sentence might be summarized, perhaps with other points in the section about how he felt as a child: "As a lonely adolescent, Damon has described feeling 'such pain in wanting to belong somewhere and not belonging'.[18]
  • The quotes have just been trimmed a little. I'll look at that, too. (Sorry if these comments seem to be "talking to myself", but it helps me go back for a second look).--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
    • the quotes that remain seem to help the story and don't overwhelm the article. Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Sources

• Sources -- there are some great sources, like New York Times, Time, etc. that are established news sources, etc. and there are some that I'll need to look at more closely, but some words that pop out are "facebook", "aintitcool". I'll go through the article and tag where citations are needed -- or better sources are needed.
  •  Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• Copyright violations / close paraphrasing - I am not sure about that yet. Once the article is trimmed down, with reliable sources, that will be easier to tackle.
  • I didn't really run across issues when I looked at sources. I'm calling this  Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 18:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

General comments

In it's current state, it doesn't seem to pass GA article criteria regarding verifiable, reliable sources; "clear and concise prose"; and "without going into unnecessary detail". And again, I don't know yet about copyright violations.

Because there is a lot that is well-written with good sources, I don't think it will take a lot of work to get it into better shape. I am happy to help with editing and clarifying opportunities for improvement. Is anyone else willing to help out? Or, did you just want the input?--CaroleHenson (talk) 13:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Editing

It's been pretty quiet on the talk page, so - unless someone gives me another preference -- I'll move ahead using a Matt Damon page in my user space to perform copy edits and improve citations. I was going to start with "Early life" first.

Would anyone like to discuss potential changes first, or wait til I have an updated draft in workspace?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Early life

I am not finding anything from a reliable source (HighBeam, books, web) that says that Matt Damon is of Scottish, English, Swedish and Finnish heritage. Robert Battle has published four or so genealogy books, but I have no idea whether Damon is in any of them.

This statement: "but had a "terrifying" first two years due to his short stature.[18)" has to be totally bogus. First, the reference says nothing about Damon's height and second, he's 5'10". That ain't short. 73.221.170.109 (talk) 01:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)M. Schuyler

His father is of Scottish and English ancestry, while his mother is of Finnish and Swedish descent.<ref name="wargs1">{{cite web|url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/celeb/damon.htm |title="Matt Damon" by Robert Battle genealogist, posted to Rootsweb |publisher=Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com |accessdate=2014-08-13}}</ref>{{better source|reason=personal user page of genealogical info (2 troubling issues), not a reliable source|date=October 2014}}

The source provided comes from an uncited personal genealogy page with a link to a message forum to an email. i.e., not a reliable source.

Is there a reliable newspaper article, magazine article or book that has this information that I'm missing? A quote from Damon in an article would be golden, for instance!--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:01, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I have found a couple of links: English, Finnish and Scottish and Finnish.--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, and Swedish. So, I've added the heritages.  Done--CaroleHenson (talk) 15:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Early years: 1988–1996

• This does not seem to be an important point: "In 1996, he auditioned for a small role in Cutthroat Island, but was turned away." Am I missing something?--CaroleHenson (talk) 04:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Conclusion

There are a number of talented contributors to the article that may be able to finesse some of my edits, but I think it now passes the open GA article criteria issues regarding verifiable, reliable sources; "clear and concise prose"; and "without going into unnecessary detail".--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you to all who helped improve the article to maintain the GA status. I was on vacation and would have liked to help. It's definitely come a long way since I first initially brought it up to GA, so thank you again for your hard work in further improving the article! --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:56, 11 October 2014 (UTC)