Talk:Maymie de Mena/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shearonink (talk · contribs) 00:12, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I am reviewing this article for possible GA status. Shearonink (talk) 00:12, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   I had trouble following the throughline of deMena's life, I think because of all the names in this article. I am not sure all these various details can or should be adjusted or deleted. I'm leaving this particular parameter on hold for now...my personal preferences & difficulties are not enough for the article to not pass 1A. I will be giving it several more proofreading-readthroughs to see if I can make this make sense. 03:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)Shearonink (talk)

   Like many women, her path *is* difficult to follow. Her name changes make it both simpler and harder to track, but without knowing them, tracking the documents of her life are impossible. Because I often did not know what name she was using, finding documents depended on knowing her other family members and tracking them instead. Many times, women are invisible to history unless you can trace the men in their lives to find information about them. If you then leave those people out, it then becomes hard to understand the connections.

   Her identity too is confusing with most sourcing identifying her as Nicaraguan, Latina, Afro-Latina, etc. She was and she wasn't, which is why I explained the legalities of her identity. As near as I can tell, though she was born in the US, she wasn't American after around 1910 for the remainder of her life. She also wasn't Nicaraguan by birth, but was legally that until her marriage to Ebimber. I have no clue if she held any citizenship at all until she married Aiken.

   I had several experienced editors proof it, because of the complexity and because I wasn't sure if there was too much or too little detail. She came into UNIA when it was falling apart, Garvey was imprisoned and then it split into two warring factions. That in itself complicates an already confused life. Please feel free to make any suggestion you think will improve it and I'll try. SusunW (talk) 06:22, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

   Please see "prose & other things" section. Shearonink (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

   The last adjustments have dealt with my concerns for this parameter. Shearonink (talk) 21:37, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   The MOS elements all look good. Shearonink (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   C. It contains no original research:

   Scrupulously researched. Shearonink (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Ran the copyvio tool - not problems found. Shearonink (talk) 00:20, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   I have been reading and re-reading the article and am on the fence about this parameter. Too much detail? Not enough detail?...I am going to have to give the content a deep-readthrough several more times. Shearonink (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

   Please see "Prose & other things" section below. Shearonink (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

   @SusunW: Your last re-write took care of my concerns about details/summary style. Shearonink (talk) 21:37, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   No edit wars. Shearonink (talk) 00:20, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   The image in the infobox is the only known image available of this person, so yeah. It's fine. Shearonink (talk) 00:20, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Doing a few more readthroughs, in the meantime please see "Prose & other things". Shearonink (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

   The article looks like it is in really good shape now, I will be doing a few more readthroughs to see if I have missed any issues/errors and expect to be done with this GA Review within the next day or so. Shearonink (talk) 21:37, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

   I am passing this article as a GA. The amount of research that the nominator put into it is quite astounding and the stuff of de Mena's life seems almost too varied/stupendous/ground-breaking to be believed. But it's verifiably true, so believe it. Congrats, Shearonink (talk) 05:37, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

• Shearonink Thank you for looking at her. I am confused by the notation: File:|16px|alt=|link= which appears throughout the review. What does it mean? If you have questions or there are issues, I'll be happy to try to resolve them. SusunW (talk) 15:51, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

@SusunW: Those characters are just code that haven't been converted to "yes" or "on hold" yet. They will all change over as I do more of the review - take a look at Criteria 2D within this page's editing history for an example of what I mean. Shearonink (talk) 16:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Prose & other things

@SusunW: I applaud the editors who worked on this article - the research and level of detail are amazing. That being said, I was reading through the entire article (again) and have decided there are some issues that needs to be addressed:

• There is too much detail in this article about other people. For instance, in "Early life" all of de Mena's siblings get specific mentions, plus how long they lived, what they did, where they lived, their careers, who they married, and so on. This level of detail borders on informational overload to the reader - this is an article about Mamie de Mena not her siblings/their lives. These details should probably be trimmed. Shearonink (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

In Career/United States The sentence "Articles like these, changed the perception of Afro-Caribbean women, asserting that they were respectable." doesn't make complete sense as written. A couple of things:

• I don't see why the two commas are necessary.

but when the preceding sentence is considered:

• Through the ladies' page, women were encouraged to uplift the race through motherhood. Articles like these, changed the perception of Afro-Caribbean women, asserting that they were respectable.

the meaning seems to become a little more clear and perhaps the two sentences could be re-crafted to something along the lines of (This is just an example):

• Through the ladies' page articles, women were encouraged to uplift the race through motherhood; the articles helped to change the perception of Afro-Caribbean women by asserting the women's respectability. Shearonink (talk) 20:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

• Shearonink Thank you again for your work on this. It's a tough article, I am aware. (I love research, the discovery is a great part of the enjoyment of learning for me). I really do appreciate your taking the time to consider and reconsider it. I have trimmed out most of the information about her family. I saved it here on the talk page, as I am fairly sure David DeWitt and Angella deserve their own articles as well and I don't want to have to start from scratch. Sorry to ask you to evaluate it one more time, but I think I met your change requests. If not, let me know and we'll try again ;) SusunW (talk) 21:20, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

• The content you removed but that you want to save for future use should perhaps be placed within your own userspace as a draft-article or whatever for "safekeeping". Of course, even if the content is somehow removed (or is archived) from this page it will still exist within the page history. Shearonink (talk) 21:37, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

• Shearonink sorry for my delay in thanking you for your final review. I have had no internet access until a few minutes ago. I truly appreciate your work on de Mena. She is one of those significant people who got lost in history. I am hoping that continued scholarly work on her will improve what we know of her and her impact. Also hoping sources which have been contacted locate that portrait of her :) SusunW (talk) 17:18, 12 March 2017 (UTC)