Talk:Death of Michael Jackson/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Canadian Paul 06:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be taking on the big one soon! Canadian Paul 06:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So here it is:

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Big article here, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that there are a lot of comments:

Reference #18 is broken, references #128 and #143 should note the language of the citation, as should #140 if it starts working again (right now, it's not), some like #47 are missing the date parameter, others like #144 are missing lots of information, and many more are missing at least the accessdate parameter. Overall, the referencing is better than average right now, but needs some work to get up to GA standards. I have gone through every one to see if it's working, so with the above exceptions, you're safe there.
Regarding reference #132, "screenshot of a cached version of Comedy Central's TV Guide for June 26th, 2009 (In Dutch)" is a description, not a proper citation.
A direct quote should always be followed immediately by a direct citation (even if it's the same one used to cite the next sentence). I noticed this in the first paragraph of "Circumstances", the first paragraph of "Health", "Autopsies", the third paragraph of "Drug use allegations" (although I might also argue that this quote is unnecessary overall - see my comments later on), the third paragraph of "Media and Internet coverage", the fourth paragraph of "Grief", and the third paragraph of "Tributes".
Under "Circumstances": "Murray's attorney stated that Murray entered the room in the afternoon and found Jackson in bed and not breathing. Jackson had a weak pulse, and his body was still warm." - You haven't mentioned who "Murray" is yet in the body of the article.
Same section, third paragraph: "a couple miles from the house" sounds too colloquial. Maybe replace with "several" or an exact figure.
Under "Health": I think that the Klein quote can be shortened, maybe by cutting off the last sentence, since direct quotes should be used sparingly (per WP:QUOTE) and since this article is naturally going to be quote-heavy overall.
The word "however" should never begin a sentence, as it disrupts the flow and can almost always be reworded to place the "however" somewhere else. I noticed this in the second paragraph of "Health", the third paragraph of "Tributes", and the third paragraph of "Burial". "Because" is a problem too... could be changed to something like "Due to the fact that" in the first paragraph of "Law enforcement agencies".
There is a picture of Jackson's death certificate, but the caption "Jackson's death certificate does not indicate the cause of death" doesn't seem to tie into the text of the article, as nothing related to that fact is mentioned there. So for someone like me, it leaves me wondering when in the time line of the article (perhaps the "Autopsies" section) did they release a death certificate without a COD? The autopsy section in general feels like it's missing something, but it's hard to explain. It mentions that a first autopsy is conducted, then that Jackson's family arranges for a second one, then what the first autopsy finds, then what the coroner's office says in August. Where did the COD-less death certificate come from and when? It seems that the relevance of the second autopsy isn't made clear.
Under "Drug use allegations", aside from my previous concern about over-quoting, Chopra's quote strays from the focus of the article. Seeing as how it is paraphrased immediately beforehand, you can probably cut it out the direct quote completely and combine the last two paragraphs.
Under "Personal physician", first paragraph - "On June 26, police towed away a car used by Conrad Murray, stating that it might contain medication or other evidence. The police released the car five days later.[33]." - Aside from the extra period and the fact that "a car used by Murray" (without "Conrad")is appropriate per WP:SURNAME, this sentence is a bit awkward in this position, as it is chronologically out of place with the rest of the paragraph. I suggest moving it further down.
Same paragraph, the fact that Jackson insisted that Murray accompany him to England is repeated twice.
Same section, second paragraph: "Politician and minister Jesse Jackson, a friend of Michael Jackson's family, said that the family was concerned about Murray's role. "They have good reason to be [...] he left the scene."" - Again, not sure that the direct quote is necessary, but if you do keep it in, it should follow a colon, not a period
Same paragraph: "Murray's lawyer advised patience until the toxicology results arrived, noting that "things tend to shake out when all the facts are made known". On February 8, 2010, Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter by prosecutors in Los Angeles." - The way these sentences are placed, it seems like the latter is jab at the comments in the former, almost like a cutaway gag in a sitcom. Is there not even one sentence about finding evidence or considering prosecution or anything that can go between August 2009 and February 2010 regarding the investigation?
Under "Family", you use "survived by" three times in a row, which is a bit distracting. Perhaps the second and third sentences could be combined in a way to eliminate one of the uses?
Under "Media and Internet coverage", the second paragraph ends with "A scene that had featured Jackson's sister La Toya was cut from the film Brüno out of respect toward Jackson's family." - It should probably pointed out that the movie was premiering shortly, as to highlight this comment's relevance.
Same section, third paragraph, that quote can probably be shortened/paraphrased, especially because the next quote is from the same source and is itself long and strays a bit.
Same section, fourth paragraph, I really don't see the point in including the second quote from Limbaugh.
Same section, fifth paragraph - Seeing as how it states that this service may or may not have been related to his death, do we really need it?
Under "Grief", first paragraph - "and across America people left offices and factories to watch the breaking news on television." Is there way that this can be phrased to sound more encyclopedic and less cheesy?
Same paragraph, I think that the bracketed section probably can just be its own, regular sentence.
Same paragraph, "Coincidentally Brüno featured a scene involving Jackson's sister, La Toya Jackson. The scene was soon cut out of the film before the Hollywood premiere in respect to the Jackson family." - This has already been stated and is uncited here - I think it can be removed.
Same section, second paragraph, is the Mandela direct quote necessary?
Same section, third paragraph, aside from the fact that those quotation marks are all over the place, do we really need that many direct quotes from Japanese ministers? And do we need a separate paragraph for each country? If there were one or two fewer direct quotes, it would make sense to at least merge the Japan and Britain paragraphs.
Is there any reason not be spelling out "United Kingdom" and "United States" in this article?
Same section, fifth paragraph, is where the number of direct quotes begins to become overwhelming and incredibly distracting to the flow of the prose.
Under "Tributes", first paragraph, again, is the direct quote from Jesse Jackson necessary?
Same paragraph, why does LL Cool J have a citation for the fact that he recorded a tribute and no one else? Also, merely linking to the song does not verify that Buckethead's song was inspired by Jackson, and there's no excuse not to use a proper cite when one exists on the song's Wikipedia page.
Same section, fourth paragraph - The word "broadcast" is used in two consecutive sentences, when "shown" would probably work better in the second case.
Same paragraph, "Madonna opened the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with a speech about Michael Jackson." Do we really need to have "Michael" Jackson here, let alone have it Wikilinked?
Same paragraph mentions that he had a part in The Wiz twice.
I only went over the "Record sales" section briefly, but I did notice that Ruth Murray seems not to go to the correct person.
The final sentence of the article (under "Burial") is uncited.

So there are a lot of issues here, and I don't feel that anything more than a quick fix could be applied here within seven days. To improve this article would require careful consideration of the use of quotations and a thorough look at the prose, as well as better referencing, in order to truly improve the article. Therefore, I am going to fail the article for now. This will also give another editor a chance to look it over if you decide to renominate it. Thank you for your work thus far. Once these concerns have been addressed, the article may be renominated. If you feel that this assessment was in error, you may take it to WP:GAR. Canadian Paul 03:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]