Talk:George Odlum

George Odlum has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 26, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on September 28, 2020.

Biography: Politics and Government

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:George Odlum/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Canadian Paul 05:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will be reviewing this article in the near future, hopefully tomorrow. Canadian Paul 05:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...and here it is!

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
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:

Under "Career", first paragraph: "At the time, St Lucia and the other West Indies Associated States were British colonies, [...]" Because you're starting a new section here, it's not clear what time "At the time" is referring to. I assume that it's 1967, given the end of the last sentence, but this should be made more clear because the transition is somewhat disjointed.
Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Same paragraph, "In St Lucia, the Saint Lucia Labour Party was considered the traditional party for "political and constitutional advance"". If this is a direct quote from somewhere, it requires a direct citation, particularly as this is likely to be considered a contentious statement (was considered by whom?)
Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, second paragraph, same problem: "His work in the 1974 election, along with his "good looks and charisma", yielded a safe seat in Castries, which he allowed his brother to run for." This definitely requires a direction citation.
Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, third paragraph: "[...] Odlum was returned to Parliament" - Maybe I missed this somewhere in the article, but I don't see anywhere where he was in Parliament prior to this... am I missing something?
Technical terminology; being "returned" means "being elected".
Under "Deputy Prime Minster", first paragraph, the second sentence is wayyyy too long and needs to be split into at least two to make it readable.
Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, second paragraph: "Odlum's support for the Grenadian revolutionaries, along with his left-wing leanings and good relations with Cuba, worried the Americans." This seems a little redundant... isn't this what was just said in the paragraph above?
Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Ambassador and Foreign Minister", "the "dastardly act" of cutting away a significant portion of his constituency in a boundary change was what had forced him over the edge" - Another direct quote needing a direction citation.
Fixed. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An overall problem that I have with this article is that it doesn't seem to be as much an article on Odlum as it is on politics in Saint Lucia during this era. While it's important to have some of this information as context and background, I came away from reading this with a better sense of the Saint Lucian political scene than I did with a sense of who the individual is. A contributing factor to this is the sources - they're mostly obituaries - which means they are going to focus more on the a few key contextualized events rather than the more intimate details. Here's an example from the first paragraph of "Ambassador and Foreign Minister":

"Now outside Parliament, Odlum maintained his presence in the public eye through meetings and the work of his newspaper, The Crusader."

But then we move immediately to another topic. It leaves me wondering - what kind of meetings did he hold? What did his newspaper publish? Did he pull certain stunts that helped keep him in the public eye and, if so, what were they? You don't have to answer all of those questions, or even any of them, but those are the types of questions that could be answered to give this article more of a sense of the individual. The next two sentences cover his entire life over the next decade... did he do nothing worth writing about between 1987 and 1995? What were his accomplishments as UN ambassador? There's a lot of interesting stuff in the "Legacy" section, so where's the detail on it in the body? The article is very well written, but also missing a lot, so I am going to put the article on hold for a period of up to seven days so that changes can be made. I'm always open to discussion, so if you think I'm wrong on something leave your thoughts here and we'll discuss. I'll be checking this page at least daily, unless something comes up in real life, so you can be sure I'll notice any comments left here. Canadian Paul 05:37, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that he is, from an international news point of view, a minor figure. Saint Lucia is not a place noted for its large role on the world stage; I have built the best article in terms of verifiability I can; this is not, unfortunately, the best article in terms of detail. Ironholds (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I'll take another look at it soon (hopefully) tomorrow and see what else can/needs to be done. I'd do it today, but I've got some other things to do shortly, and I don't want to rush this. Canadian Paul 01:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair enough; thanks for your work so far. Ironholds (talk) 21:42, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On re-reading the article with the changes, I feel that it now meets the GA criteria and will be passing it as such. Congratulations and thank you for your hard work. Canadian Paul 04:58, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant; thanks for the review! Ironholds (talk) 04:58, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]