Talk:Armenian Americans/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 06:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review. I'll do a close readthrough in the coming days, noting any issues here that I can't easily fix myself, and then go to the criteria checklist. Thanks in advance for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 06:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Initial comments

This looks broad in coverage and contains a lot of useful information. It's clear that a lot of hard work went into this one. I do have some initial concerns about prose quality which I'll discuss in detail below.

• "Armenians in the United States form the second largest Armenian community of the Armenian diaspora after Russia" -- this fact needs a source

 Done

• "Because many find these numbers underestimated," -- Two problems here.
  • First, this is phrased in a somewhat POV way to make the census data sound inaccurate (is there any source for the "many" here? has a similar count been made of the sources that agree with the census or accept its figures?), and also relies on some weak sources along with stronger ones. Sources include an essay on a congressman's website, a speech by another congressman, Armenian National Committee of America... I think a better way to put this would be to simply say that estimates vary: the US Census gives one number, source B gives another number, The Los Angeles Times gives another number, etc.

 Done

• • Second, as an important fact of the article, this should be discussed in detail in the body of the article, and only summarized in the lead, per WP:LEAD.

 Done

• Proofreading appears to be a problem in this article. Looking only at one paragraph of the lead, I see several minor errors:

 Not done yet

• • "First major wave of the Armenian immigration " -- should be "The first major wave..."

 Done

• • "where hundreds of thousands Armenians Genocide survivors have settled earlier" -- should be "of Armenian Genocide" and "had settled"

 Done

• • "appeared in the country" -- in what country?

 Done fixed

• • " Energetic crisis soon took over Armenia and many Armenians found their new homes in America." -- I understand the sense of this, but the phrasing is nonstandard, and should be rewritten as something like "Many Armenians escaped the crisis by moving to the U.S."

 Done fixed

To summarize the two biggest issues I see for now:

• First, the article needs to a top-to-bottom copyedit to bring it up to Good Article requirements for grammatical correctness (GA criterion 1a). I don't mind doing some copyediting myself (and in fact have already done some), but I'm concerned that this article needs more than I should personally do as a GA reviewer. This diff shows the sort of copyediting I mean: plurals, verb tense, etc. . If you're not comfortable doing this copyediting yourself, you might recruit another editor or put in a request at the Guild of Copy Editors.

 Done

• The lead needs to be reworked to meet the guidelines of WP:LEAD (GA criterion 1b). The lead should briefly summarize all major aspects of the article--language, politics, the Armenian lobby, religion, politicians, etc. It also should not contain major information that's not elsewhere in the article (such as the census data and authors who disagree with it).

 Doing...

I'll put this on hold for a week to give you a chance to address these issues. I do think there's enough quality material here for a Good Article--it's just a question of reworking it to meet the above criteria. Thanks again for your work! -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:55, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for spending your time to review. --Երևանցի ^talk 00:11, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to address my concerns. Keep me updated, and let me know if there's anything I can do to help! -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Continuing readthrough

For convenience, I'm inserting an arbitrary break here.

• "From 1653 to 1654" -- this is a slightly confusing way to put this. Does it mean that inviting these men was a two-year process? Or simply that they were invited in 1653 or 1654?

 Done

• "For Italians, this practice became known as campanilismo and almost disappeared after World War II" -- is this sentence needed? It seems like a tangent to document the Italian practice here, instead of saying what happened with Armenians.

 Done it disappeared for both Armenians and Italians

• "and more easily handled multilingualism and Armenian culture, while retaining aspects of traditional Armenian culture" -- what does it mean that they more easily handled Armenian culture, while retaining Armenian culture? Seems a bit redundant.

 Done

• "Acculturation to Soviet norms was not easy for many Armenian repatriates, and the aspiration of leaving the USSR began to grow among repatriates and their children. " -- suddenly we jump backwards in time and place here; the paragraph above already discussed that repatriated Armenians hadn't acculturated well to Soviet norms, and wished to emigrate.
• "On average 2,000 people from Armenia migrated to the US since 1994" -- should this be per year? Or have there only been 2000 total emigrants?

 Done

• "claim"--most or all uses of this should be removed per WP:WTA.
• " Joe Baca (D, CA-43)" -- including his estimate seems really trivial to me here, given the number of secondary sources that give the same number; you might cut him from the list. Not a GA point, though.

 Done

• "Fresno and the Central Valley in general were the center of California Armenians" -- It would be better to say something like "the center of the California Armenian community" here; these places weren't the center of California Armenians themselves.

 Done

• "but by the time Southern California attracted more and more Armenians" -- by what time?

 Done

• "the most important Armenian community in the US" -- is it important in any sense besides being the most populous? It would be good to include a source for this judgement.

 Done

• "250,000,[76] 350,000,[75] 400,000,[60] 450,000,[77] 500,000,[5] 800,000,[77] and even 1,000,000" -- Various problems here. First, this seems to include three sources that I'm not sure qualify as reliable sources: [1], [2], [3]. Are these publications known for their fact-checking and reliability? At first glance, they look shady.

 Done

• • Where is the quotation in this article [4] that supports the 250,000 figure?

 Done

• • The 800,000 figure does not appear to be supported by the given source, which states "as primate of his church's Western Diocese, encompassing 14 states, he leads a flock of 800,000" -- 14 states is obviously very different than "Southern California".

 Done

• "The official recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the US federal government is seen one of the most vital steps in international and full recognition of the 1915–1923 events. Many Armenians think that the US has the ability to force Turkey to recognize the past and pay Armenians and Armenia their reparations, that includes (for some) the return of the so-called Wilsonian Armenia to the Republic of Armenia." -- needs sourcing
• The clarification needed tag should be addressed.

 Done

Closing review

Though I think this article is improving, I'm continuing to find a serious number of grammatical and spelling issues in the prose: sentence fragments; misused colons and semicolons; problems with plurals; and wrong, misused, or missing words. This diff shows examples of the kind of issues I'm finding,[5] and some issues I wasn't able to fix myself are list above. There are also some smaller issues with sourcing and with WP:WTA.

Since the issues seem extensive, I'm closing this review for now with the recommendation that this be resubmitted once it's had a thorough copyedit from someone at the Guild of Copyeditors or another source. (The reliable source issues need to be addressed, too, but seem much more manageable.) I made it about a third of the way through the article, which will hopefully reduce the workload for the next editor to tackle this. This article's clearly on its way to becoming a Good Article, even if it's not quite there yet. Thanks for all your work on it, and good luck with the next round, -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)