Talk:Maurice Clemmons/GA1

GA Review

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

Reviewer: —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 03:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. Up front this is a pretty good article. Fairly well wrote, well referenced, and well illustrated. The article covers his crimes very well. My primary concerns is that it is missing some key biographical data. I understand alot of the type of data I request may not be available from good third party sources. I feel though that to some extent, this data is necessary for the article to qualify for "Good Article" quality.

• Who were his parents, I see a mention of his mother.
• Were his parents divorced?
• Did he have siblings?
• Did he have children?
• What schools did he attend? (I see the mention of arrest at one school)
• Did he graduate?
• Did he take narcotics?
• Was he a gang member at some point?
• Did Clemmon's spend time in Juvenile Detention? If not how did he avoid it given his troubled years as a minor?
• What prison was Clemmons held in during his first confinement?
• Did anything notable occur while he was in prison? Did he do any jobs there?
• Did he go through any "rehabilitation" programs?
• Immediately after being released from prison where did he go? Presumably he had nothing; who helped him get back on his feet?
• How did he get the money to buy all those houses? Was it from his business or was he involved in criminal activity?
• What happened to his remains: was he buried, is so where? Was he cremated?
• The article could benefit from some information concerning Clemmon's mental state, I am sure there are many experts who made passing and in depth discussions of his mental health.
• The article is sourced almost exclusively from news stories. I know none may be available, but the article would benefit from a non-news source. I believe this is the reason the biographical data is limited.

• Throughout the article you should use "he" and "him "in place of the many instances of "Clemmons". Only say "Clemmons" when it is not clear who "he" or "him" would be referring too.

• You should add a see also section with a link to Lakewood police officer shooting and the Portal:Crime template. You could also link to the article on WikiNews.

I feel like there is a lot of basic information missing and considerable gaps in coverage and the article does meet the "Broad Coverage" requirement. If you can address this, the article should be able to pass. I am putting the review on hold for one week at this time. Good job so far! 03:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

• I've added information where I could, you can see all of my changes here. This includes his mother's name and father's career (can't find the dad's name anywhere), siblings, his education, funeral arrangements, his juvenile court circumstances, the prisons he served at, etc. etc. In some cases, I couldn't find any information about your questions (I've found nothing on whether he took drugs or were in gangs, which may mean he didn't but it's impossible to say). In some cases, I had to use official Arkansas Parole Board information that I put out an official public information request for some time ago. (I assume you can accept that info in good faith, but if you want I can email the PDFs to you.) I can't find any other non-news sources in Google Books or Google Scholar, but it's probably just too early for that yet. Please take a look and let me know if you feel more work is needed, but I would expect the GAN shouldn't fail simply because not all of these questions can be answered. Unlike an FA, a GA has to cover all the broad aspects of a topic, but it doesn't have to be comprehensive. — Hunter Kahn 04:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Also, I'm not sure a "See also" section is needed since the Lakewood police officer shooting article is already prominently linked in the article, and according to WP:SEEALSO, "Links already integrated into the body of the text are generally not repeated in a "See also" section". I also don't know of a Maurice Clemmons-related Wikinews article, but if you could provide me the link to it, I'll add it. — Hunter Kahn 04:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Good job getting that info. You are right, that you don't need to answer everything to pass this review, just some of it should be included. I wasn't actually expecting you to answer each question, just to spur some looking into those areas as they are important components of an article like this. :) The article only needs to be broad it its coverage. Looks like the WikiNews article has been deleted. I will leave the see also to your discretion, the MOS guidelines don't require it. The only thing still outstanding is the excessive use of his name. You should try and convert some of those to pronouns to make the article a better read. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

• I've converted some of the uses of his name to pronouns as per your suggestion. Let me know if I should do more. Thanks! — Hunter Kahn 16:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I am passing this review now. As a final comment, I feel the article meets all requirements, except broad coverage, very well. The coverage of the topic is just enough to pass this review in my opinion. I understand this is due to the lack of good in depth sources on the topic. I don't believe this article can attain a higher quality rating until such sources become available. Good job so far. Keep up the good work! :) —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 18:05, 1 February 2010 (UTC)