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Talk:2021 Dublin Bay South by-election/GA1

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GA Review

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Reviewer: Mark83 (talk · contribs) 12:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Very good article. I have made some suggestions for tweaks. There is not much work to do before I'll be happy to pass this nomination. In the meantime I'm happy to discuss any of my suggestions/comments.

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. Very nearly there. Please review my copyedit suggestions (section directly below this table).
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. The table seems to be overly big - it's big on my widescreen screen, too large on my tablet. Works on phones only because it takes the full width (and then some). I've looked at other election tables and the pictures are smaller, could we do the same here to tighten it up?

The candidates section looks a bit piecemeal, i.e. short sentences. Could this be in a list instead? (I wouldn't fail the GA on this, just a suggestion for consideration).

2. Verifiable with no original research:
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. To be honest, I haven't interrogated these line by line, and a review would be required for FA status. However this is mainly due to the fact that the referencing is excellent, with a huge amount of time and effort obviously put into this.
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). As above.
2c. it contains no original research. No OR.
2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. Checked with Earwig's Copyvio Detector, no concerns.
3. Broad in its coverage:
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. All main aspects covered.
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  • I don't understand the last sentence in the intro. The turnout figure is given, so why does the lead go on to talk about a prediciton (which turned out to be wrong?)
  • No idea what the relevance of Conroy's legal action for a fall on a skiing trip has to the by-election?
  • The Diary of a Dublin Landlady controversy could perhaps be summarised?
  • Does the article get bogged down in the Geoghegan dodging media issue; should we focus on two podcasts? Are they noteable? "Similarly, two podcasts covering Irish politics, The Echo Chamber Podcast and Una & Andrea's United Ireland podcast" If keeping should the titles be italicised?
  • "Social Democrats candidate Sarah Durcan commented on the matter "I think Fine Gael have been well able to pay for an awful lot of airtime all over the city as far as I can see ... so I think now that's a little bit late in the day to be having sour grapes about a bit of airtime" -- This could be omitted, seems like a bit of a childish party political dig. Or at least summarise as "Durcan dismissed the impact of the segment".
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. But consider the Labour Party/Ivana Bacik section - undue weight to her own quotes vs. other candidates. Paraphrase perhaps?

Note sure we should include this from Bacik's victory speech "She added that Labour had emphasised the message around the issues the party championed, along with its core values. She added that this sends a message to the government that the mood among the electorate is for change" -- she would say that? Could we not get analysis from an independent source on what her victory meant?

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. No concerns about stability.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. Media appropriately tagged.
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. Yes.
7. Overall assessment. As I noted after my original review, this article was very close to GA criteria. My suggestions and comments have been thoroughly addressed below and I am now very happy to pass this article. Well done to everyone involved.

Copyedit suggestions

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  1. Some references mid-sentence and not after punctuation (MOS:REFPUNCT)
  2. Tense - i.e. is > was, include > included etc.
  3. "Four seater" -- is that correct? Doesn't seem like formal language.
  4. "The then Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu and Dublin City Councillor Claire Byrne contested the Green Party nomination and was selected as the party candidate on 4 June." -- this should read "and Byrne was selected". As it is there's ambiguity. Consider whether the linking of Dublin City Councillor to Dublin City Council is correct. Not exactly an easter egg, but not a direct link either.
  5. The paragraph beginning "Fianna Fáil councillors Deirdre Conroy and Claire O'Connor were reported..." could be tightened up - run on sentences etc.
  6. Why are the Labour and SF canidates in one paragraph when others are separate? (Although consider my table suggestion).
  7. "Throwing the kitchen sink" doesn't add anything. Candidates say all sorts of things; fluff like this isn't encyclopedic.
  8. Should "Zero Covid" be capitalised? Should it be linked?
  9. First lines of Fine Gael/James Geoghegan has run-on sentence. Same with the whole second paragraph.
  10. "O'Connell referred to the message as a "hoax"" is repetition.
  11. SF section - "Following the annoucement of the by-election," is redundant.
  12. I think it right that the article doesn't go into too much detail, but is there a wikilink for this issue? "During the campaign, Boylan received criticism from Fine Gael's by-election candidate James Geoghegan for her stance on the Special Criminal Court"
  13. "Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen send' out an internal e-mail within the party demanding an immediate in-person parliamentary party meeting to discuss Fianna Fáil's "alarming" performance in the by-election. In the e-mail, Cowen stated that "It is imperative that both that election and the latest bad result now comes under the microscope of the parliamentary party"" -- typo in bold and the whole issue could be summarised using less words.
  14. Don't like the use of the word "camp" - a bit informal.
  15. On the COVID precautions in voting centres - this could be tightened up slightly.

Responses by BHG to the GA review

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Many thanks to @Mark83 for the prompt and thorough review. I will reply to the points in order, one at a time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • 1b -- From the mention of pictures, I assume that The table seems to be overly big refers to the infobox at the top. So in this edit[1], I reduced the image size by 75% in each dimension. Does that help? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:46, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I amended your version of the sizing to the same image size as 2019 Polish parliamentary election's infobox, as your version reduced the image sizes but not the overall size of the infobox, and thus meant the images lost their uniform size. CeltBrowne (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@CeltBrowne: actually, your edit[2] reverted to almost the same size as before, but randomly changed the crop location.
In this edit[3], I have just restored the smaller images, but also reduced the size of the non-image text boxes (for the candidates without photos). My failure to fix the text boxes first time around was the oversight which caused the wee display glitches.
It would have been better to discuss this before reverting me, and more helpful to ping me if you did revert my changes. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Much better. I still think it looks a bit clumbsy - but that's the infobox itself and not therefore a problem with this article. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1b/item2 -- The candidates section looks a bit piecemeal, i.e. short sentences. Could this be in a list instead?. My understanding us that per MOS:USEPROSE, prose is preferred. I think that given the number of candidates and the sparsity of coverage of some of them, a little scrappiness in place is unavoidable. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:10, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 3b/item2: No idea what the relevance of Conroy's legal action for a fall on a skiing trip has to the by-election? Conroy became a controversial character after release of her blog comments about a tenant, and she was heavily scrutinised. The skiing injury drew attention because of its echoes of the Maria Bailey "swing-gate" episode, in which a politician had sought compensation for an injury in which they may have had a high degree of responsibility. Unfortunately, the source doesn't mention Bailey, so we can't draw the connection directly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:03, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You've explained it to me here, but I've gone back and read it again and I fear readers will have the same "huh?" thought as me? Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 3b/item3: The Diary of a Dublin Landlady controversy could perhaps be summarised?. I see your point, but the landlady controversy was a huge issue, with a lot of media coverage. So I think that the presence of a whole para on it reflects its prominence in the sources, per WP:WEIGHT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 3b/item4: Does the article get bogged down in the Geoghegan dodging media issue; should we focus on two podcasts? [snip]. In this edit[5], I have italicised the podcast titles as suggested. I am unsure whether to keep any mention of them: my inclination is that since they may not be notable sources, they should be mentioned only if their exclusion is mentioned in relaible sources. I will investigate that later.
    More broadly, the Geoghegan dodging media issue was widely covered because it was the inverse of the usual publicity-seeking tactics of by-election candidates. This seat used to be natural FG territory, but its candidate seemed to be wary of showing his colours. Geoghegan's reticence and the controversies around Conroy came together to define the dynamics of the by-election as one in which both FF and FG were in retreat and forced into defensive positions in the face of a perception that they were entitled and out-of-touch ... so I think that both episodes deserve space to breathe, to give readers a sense of the nature of the campaign as it was reported. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:40, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the notability of the podcasts goes, the United Ireland podcast is co-hosted by Una Mullally, a journalist with the Irish Times. As a journalist for a national newspaper, she definitely has notability within an Irish context. CeltBrowne (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@CeltBrowne: notability is not inherited.
Una Mullally appears to be notable, but per WP:NOTINHERITED that does not mean that any of her works are WP:NOTABLE. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some discussion left I think. But not an issue preventing GA promotion. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4/item1 -- consider the Labour Party/Ivana Bacik section - undue weight to her own quotes vs. other candidates. Paraphrase perhaps?
    My view is that it is appropriate to give more weight to the victor, and that Bacik also supplied more succinct quotes which were more usable as a summary of her position. Isn't it better to quote directly, as the sources did? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:33, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • 4/item2 -- Note sure we should include this from Bacik's victory speech [snip qote] .. Could we not get analysis from an independent source on what her victory meant?.
    I think that the Bacik/Labour response to their win is actually a little underplayed in the § #Aftermath and reactions. The first three paras are about two losing parties (FF & FG); the victor comes in only at para 3.
    The Bacik/Kelly responses in paras 3 & 5 are are 225 word out of a total of 544, which is 41%; that seems to be in the right range for a candidate who got 30% of first prefs, but won on transfers.
    I think that para 1, on the collapse of the once-mighty FF, reflects the focus of the focus of the sources ... but taking it as a whole, I think that the section would be better if it opened with a para on independent commentary, before going into the party reactions. I will see what I can find in the sources, with a view to adding a new para there. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'll leave this with you, but again not a problem for GA promotion.Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Responses by BHG to the GA Copyedit suggestions

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  • #Copyedit suggestions#1: my reading of MOS:REFPUNCT is that it requires that we do not have a ref followed by a punctuation mark (e.g. don't do "on friday[2]." or "in 2011[6],") ... but that it does not require that a ref must follow punctuation.
    I found two examples in the article of mid-sentence refs:
  1. §Background, para 1
  2. §Aftermath and reactions, para1 sentence 2
In each case, the refs seem to me to positioned appropriately, because in both cases, they follow the MOS:REFPUNCT guidance that All ref tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies. Moving them to the end of the sentenece would lose that specificity. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:21, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I stand corrected here, apologies for wasting your time on this one. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • #Copyedit suggestions#6: Why are the Labour and SF candidates in one paragraph when others are separate? -- I assume this refers to the §Candidateselection
    Because for both Lab & SF, we have only one short sentence on each candidate's selection. Splitting that into two very paras seems to me to be worse than putting them together in one para.
    The ideal remedy would be to have more coverage of each party's selection process, and cover each party in a separate para. However, my brief search didn't find more. I will try again tomorrow. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • #Copyedit suggestions#7: "Throwing the kitchen sink" doesn't add anything. Candidates say all sorts of things; fluff like this isn't encyclopedic..
    Back in June/July, I searched long and hard for any other coverage of Mannix Flynn's campaign, but that was the only report I found of him. I agree that almost anything else about his campaign would render that quote superfluous, but when it's all we have I think those few words are worth including to give some flavour of his style. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I see where you're coming from. Personally I'd take it out. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you (both)! Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • #Copyedit suggestions#12: I think it right that the article doesn't go into too much detail, but is there a wikilink for this issue? "During the campaign, Boylan received criticism from Fine Gael's by-election candidate James Geoghegan for her stance on the Special Criminal Court".
    In this edit[18], I wikilinked the "criticism" section of the article Special Criminal Court, as follows: [[Special Criminal Court#Criticism|Special Criminal Court]]. If you prefer a simple link to the article, I will change it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:05, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That completes my responses to the review. Huge thanks to @Mark83 for such thorough and fair-minded scrutiny, which I think has led to a lot of useful improvements. There are some points which need to be discussed further, and I look forward to that process: the gaps between us are small, and I am sure we can easily resolve them.

I have done my responses as separate bullet points, to facilitate threaded discussion on any outstanding issues on any individual point.

I several places I have identified a need for further research. I won't attempt that today, because I am too close to the article and need a bit of a break for doing that research. So I will do the research on Monday.

Mark, you may prefer to respond now to the points I have made so far, or to leave it all until I have done the extra research. I am fine with either approach, so please do as suits you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:11, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

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Happy to pass this. And a very sincere thanks to @BrownHairedGirl: for a prompt, constructive, methodical and thorough response to my comments. I know there are a few bits of extra research mentioned above, but these will just improve a GA, they aren't necessary to promote it.

And just to note a learning for me. I could have formatted this review better, i.e. 3b (1), to make responses easier. I'll do that for future reviews! Many thanks for the logical formatting of your replies. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again, @Mark83. It was pleasure to work with you on this, and bring the article over the line.
And thanks too to Sheila1988, Iveagh Gardens, BrownHairedGirl, Spleodrach, CeltBrowne, and Uses x. This article reached GA status due to a lot of hard work by all these editors and to very effective collaboration between us all. Well done everyone! BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is the first article I've been involved in that has been nominated for a GA and I'm happy to see the nomination succeeded with BrownHairedGirl's guidance. A GA is nice way to ring in the new year, hopeful more Irish articles in the future follow this same path. Cheers everyone! CeltBrowne (talk) 23:54, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Great to see this reach Good Article standard, and thanks BrownHairedGirl for clearly outlining how to achieve this, providing general stylistic guidelines that can be applied throughout the project. –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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