Talk:Cory Booker/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 16:36, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I'll be the reviewer for this nomination. Over the next day or two I'll do a close edit of the article's prose, and then I'll start the checklist. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Early concerns

On a first pass, it appears to me that while this article has some good material, it also has clear problems with sourcing, POV balance, and completeness. A number of statements are unsourced or sourced only to primary or unreliable sources:

• "In addition to his crime-lowering initiatives, Booker both doubled the amount of affordable housing under development and quadrupled the amount under pre-development, and reduced the city budget deficit from $180 million to $73 million." (unsourced)
• "These increases were cited as necessary to fix the structural financial deficit and secure a solid foundation for Newark’s future. Booker pledged to not increase taxes the following year, a promise he kept – the City of Newark did not raise taxes for the following two years. In addition, the City of Newark in 2008 and 2009 received the Government Finance Officers Associations "Distinguished Budget Presentation Award". (sourced only to city of Newark sources)
• "He proposed Council initiatives that impacted housing, young people, law and order, and the efficiency and transparency of City Hall, but was regularly outvoted 8–1." (unsourced)
• "In 1998, Booker won an upset victory for a seat on the Newark City Council, defeating four-term incumbent George Branch." (unsourced)
• " However, the Booker administration and the City of Newark imposed one-day-a-month furloughs for all non-uniformed employees from July through December 2010, as well as 2% pay cuts for managers and directors currently earning more than $100,000 a year. Citing the reason for the pay cuts, Booker noted, "In 2006, we took over a city in financial crisis. We have made significant steps to address our financial future and decided that we would not balance the budget on the backs of our residents."[citation needed] Booker has reduced his own salary twice since taking office, voluntarily reducing his salary by 8% early in his first year as Mayor. As of 2011, none of Booker’s senior managers had received pay increases since taking office" (sourced only to dead City of Newark link)
• "After Hurricane Sandy destroyed much of the shoreline areas of New Jersey and New York in late October 2012, Booker invited Newarkers still without power to eat and sleep in his home" (sourced to Huff Post)
• "Booker’s leadership has attracted approximately $100 million in private philanthropy to the City of Newark, and a variety of nonprofits and public/private partnerships have been created and used to better the lives of Newark residents." (unsourced)
• "The timing of Zuckerberg's donation was questioned by some as a move for damage control to his image, as it was announced on the opening day of the movie The Social Network, a film that painted an unflattering portrait of Zuckerberg." (sourced to Gawker)

Since this article is about a political figure considering a governor or US Senate run, I think it's doubly important that we have everything cited to clearly reliable sources. (That also includes the more subtly positive material about Booker's past charity work, etc.)

On a related note, the article discusses Booker's success stories at length, but gives very little space to his critics (and the lead section doesn't mention them at all). For example, he was presumably criticized by opponents in his 2010 re-election, but the article gives less information on this than on his "feud" with Conan or his commencement addresses. The section on his second term as mayor also seems incomplete, giving several anecdotes but little information on policy. The Newark Star-Ledger would probably be a good source to begin filling in these holes with.

In short, I'd say this article doesn't yet meet the Good Article criteria. There's some excellent information here, but much of the press-release material needs to be cleared out and replaced with reliable sources, citations need to be added, and political opponents and critics need a proportionate place in the article. If anyone's interested in doing this over the next week or two, I'm happy to put this on hold. Otherwise, I need to say "not yet". -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if you can please put this on hold I'd be very grateful, right now I'm wrapping up another GAR, and not to mention finals. Grammarxxx ^{(What'd I do this time?)} 05:52, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I'm putting it on hold for a week and then I'll look over the article again. If there's significant progress by that point, I'll keep going with the review. Otherwise, I'll fail this for now, but with no prejudice toward it being re-nominated in the future when better sourced. Whatever the case, thanks for your work on this one. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I've sourced all the unsourced cited above, can you tell me some sections where you feel it isn't a NPOV? Grammarxxx ^{(What'd I do this time?)} 05:46, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

To back up a step, I'd still like to see reliable secondary sources for many of the article's claims.

• The "upset victory" is currently sourced to a college press release.[1]
• The paragraph "On October 16, 2006, Booker formally introduced" is still sourced only to primary sources associated with Booker. The source you added is a private company that says on that very page that the City of Newark is their client; this isn't an independent source.
• The sentence "In addition to his crime-lowering initiatives, Booker both doubled the amount of affordable housing under development and quadrupled the amount under pre-development, and reduced the city budget deficit from $180 million to $73 million" appears to be sourced only to a speech by Booker--I didn't see it in the NJ.com story, which actually focuses on a controversial tax raise and cuts to other services, noting that these will likely to lead to public controversy.
• "Booker has reduced his own salary twice since taking office, voluntarily reducing his salary by 8% early in his first year as Mayor. As of 2011, none of Booker’s senior managers had received pay increases since taking office.
• "In April 2008, the Newark Charter School Fund was established to provide grants in support of Newark’s charter schools to support a successful public school system in Newark" is sourced only to the fund's own website; it's also not clear what the connection to Booker is. A secondary source explaining would be helpful here.
• "The City of Newark also works with GreenSpaces, which has committed $40 million toward the largest park expansion initiative in over a century, with a total of 21 park construction and rehabilitation projects affecting every ward." -- the source given here doesn't seem to mention GreenSpaces, or support the claims of this sentence.
• "To support the Newark Police Department, the Newark Police Foundation was established in 2006. It provides funding and other services to the Police Department and has had a significant impact on the NPD’s ability to pay for necessary resources that would otherwise not be readily funded through the department’s budget." --needs secondary source, and an explanation of its connection to Booker.
• The suspicions raised about the timing of Zuckerberg's donation are still sourced only to Gawker, not a reliable secondary source.

• For POV concerns, the article discusses Booker's success stories at length, but gives very little space to his critics (and the lead section doesn't mention them at all). For example, he was presumably criticized by opponents in his 2010 re-election, but the article gives less information on this than on his "feud" with Conan or his commencement addresses. It appears that criticism even from the article's current sources has been avoided by past editors. The editor who drew on the Time piece gives plenty of detail of crime-fighting successes, but doesn't mention the criticisms of Booker's crime-fighting focus by Amiri Baraka or others included in the article; the editor who drew on the New York Times piece mentions that Booker holds office hours to meet with constituents, but doesn't mention the article's main focus, which is that these sessions seem to be running into problems. A ruling this week that Booker acted improperly still needs to be included in the article.[2] At times the article appears press-release-like in tone (not surprising since a few bits were written from press releases): "a promise he kept", etc. It doesn't seem to me that the article in its current state is the kind of balanced picture Wikipedia requires; I'd suggest doing a bit of research to find the main policy differences and criticisms by his political opponents. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Another small bit of information that needs to be removed or sourced: the categories attached to the article make various claims about his ethnic background, while the text simply refers to his parents as black. These categories should correspond to sourced text in the article or be removed. Sorry I didn't think to check this sooner. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Not listing article at this time

It's been a week and not much headway appears to be being made on the sourcing and POV problems noted above. I'm closing this review for now and recommending that this not yet be listed as a Good Article. I do hope editors will continue revising this one, however, and that it can be listed soon. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)