Talk:Dorian Holley/GA2

GA Reassessment

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I don't believe this article meets GA status. I will address this through the GA criteria below.

1.Well Written:

The tone of the article at times reads somewhat more like a press release than an encyclopedia article. Some examples (not exhaustive): in the lede, the phrase "and a worldwide television audience" needlessly overexplains what American Idol is to make it sound big and important; the sentence "It was reported in October 2008 that Holley had been conducting workshops on the art of audition." makes it sound like some great secret was revealed by unspecified keepers, and there is no need to refer to "the art of audition" rather than just auditioning; the phrase "he offered advice to young singers who wanted to become famous" romanticizes the pedestrian activity of giving a master class; "As part of the tour, Holley performed to over 4 million people, including Diana, Princess of Wales and Charles, Prince of Wales" breathlessly tells us facts about Jackson's tour that are not at all attributable to Holley's efforts; Holley had "experiences" with Michael Jackson rather than performing with him or working for him.
The article over-quotes Holley, and many of the quotes don't do much to tell us important things about Holley's career. For instance, the quote that starts out "Everyone starts out dreaming" is the kind of thing one reads in a self-help book or career guide, and doesn't illustrate anything remarkable about Holley's musical endeavors, nor anything particularly revealing about his vocal coaching philosophy. The same is true for the quote starting "Sometimes they think they want Sheryl Crow".
In terms of MOS, the article's first sentence identifies him as "an African American musician" - the first sentence of the lede should identify people by nationality, rather than race, and I see no indication that Holley was born in Africa. The article does not have an infobox, and would profit from the addition of a musical artist or person infobox.
The subsections are not well laid out. It's not clear if it's organized chronologically or by topic, and some of the headings jumble together disparate activities.

2.Verifiable:

The article has footnotes to a few primary sources. Footnote 1 references Holley's own site and a commercial primary source; footnotes 2 and 26 (BLP-verifying footnotes about Holley's family members) are primary sourced to law firm websites; footnote 27 is to Holley's daughter's personal website.

3.Broad in its coverage:

The article does not discuss Holley's early life at all. We don't know when and where he was born, where he grew up, where he received his education and training. The first chronological event in Holley's life that is addressed is his being hired for the Bad tour in 1987.

4.Neutral:

I noted in some detail in the "well-written" section above that the tone of the article subtly promotes the subject.

5.Stable:

This is not an issue as far as I am aware.

6.Illustrated:

The article has no photograph of Holley. Holley appears to still be living, so getting a free photograph may take some effort, but Holley has routinely appeared in public performance for decades, and a good article should include a picture of his face.

Chubbles (talk) 17:26, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Two weeks have now passed. There does not appear to be any active effort to update or improve this article - in fact, the article has not been edited at all since I started this review. Not all of the issues I noted above are sufficient cause to delist a GA; however, some of them are, namely the failures in subsection layout (GA criterion 1), missing early life (GA criterion 3), and promotional tone (GA criteria 1 and 4). Accordingly, I believe it is justifiable to delist this article from GA status. Chubbles (talk) 16:54, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]