Talk:Julia Gillard/GA3

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Montanabw (talk · contribs) 06:46, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take this article for a review. Comments to follow. Montanabw ^(talk) 06:46, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Looks good overall, some copyedits would help and in a couple spots the prose gets clunky, but this is GAN, not FAC, so it's not an enormous issue.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	The TOC is a bit over-long, mostly because there are a couple spots, were there are too many separate subheadings for short sections -- a one-paragraph subsection really doesn't need its own TOC link. I would suggest the "domestic policies" and "Foreign affairs" sections in particular have at least some of the subsections consolidated (particularly the shorter ones) or made into a bulleted annotated list or some other format that has a similar look but doesn't wind up bulking out the TOC. I also think you can consolidate (and perhaps retitle) Shadow minister (2001–07) and Deputy Opposition leader, 2006–07 -- again, a subheading for a 1-paragraph section is awkward. Similarly, I don't think each of the Montanabw ^(talk) 07:49, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	There is some formatting inconsistency, cite web and cite news each create different formatting and you may want to be sure you use the same template for the same basic source (i.e. the BBC, or ABC, or The Age, etc...). The checklinks tool pings four dead links (click on the tool to see).
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Looks solidly sourced, extensively footnoted and pretty solid overall. Any details I catch I will note at the bottom of this chart
	2c. it contains no original research.	Appears well-documented
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Earwig bot hit a couple sources at 33% but they were flagging sourced direct quotations. Not seeing problems here. Montanabw ^(talk) 08:36, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	It's a political article, so most likely there are always partisans on both sides who claim bias, but this reads with an NPOV tone, touches on both accomplishments and criticisms, uses neutral language and otherwise passes WP:NPOV.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Lots of ongoing trolling and vandals, but I see no substantive edit-warring
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All look good with the possible question of File:Bronze bust of PM Julia Gillard.png. In the US (where I am more familiar with the copyright issues) a recent sculpture like this would be viewed as a copyrighted work and thus not a freely-licensed image. But if you can point me to the relevant Australian law that says this is an OK image, it is a useful contribution to the article. Montanabw ^(talk) 07:30, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Images overall are suitable, though I have to question if File:Juliagillard.JPG is really needed, it's not a particularly great image. Montanabw ^(talk) 07:30, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
	7. Overall assessment.

Comments

I will make some suggestions as I go through the article, these may not be in any particular order. Montanabw ^(talk) 08:01, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The "Early life and career" and "Politics" sections are a little light and disorganized. "Politics" might almost be a subsection of the early career stuff, particularly because some of her history with the law firm is scattered throughout both sections. Take a look at the Tony Abbott article, I think it is a little better structured in these sections.
List of portfolios: Don't really like the dates in boldface. I'd almost flip the sequence and put the offices first and then the dates. Maybe even do this in chart form.
On that topic (List of portfolios section), I'm not certain that that section aligns with the list of offices in the infobox, which may not quite align with the succession tables at the end. Looks like this is also something of a repeat of what's in narrative form at Member of Parliament, 1998–2010. I don't see a section like "List of Portfolios on the Rudd, Turnbull, or Abbot articles. Frankly, I'd just make sure all those offices are discussed in the proper place in the narrative and then toss the whole section.
This link (FN 13) goes to a site requiring a login that appears to not be available to the general public.
Without access to the above, I cannot verify "a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1987, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1990" -- Did you mean a Master of Arts degree? And either way, what subject? (in the US, you have a Bachelor of Arts BEFORE going to law school...am I confused or is that a typo? )

All for now, will add more. Montanabw ^(talk) 08:01, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Montanabw:, I appreciate the time you've so far taken to review this article. I'll address the points you make, in responding here, but also by making suggested changes to the article. In response to your comments:

I could try and re-organise said sections, as I see what you mean: both sections somewhat converge especially regarding her work with Slater & Gordon.
I'll remove the List of Portfolios section, and perhaps explain more about said roles within the MoP 1998-2010 narrative.
Regarding the sculpture, I too was a little suss considering it is a work of art. However, under Australian law it is apparantly acceptable as per section 65 of the Australian Copyright Act (as documented within the licensing of said image here).
I've removed the site in question – it must have been availible at the time, publicly, although now it's hidden to those whom are students of the university. This new UniMelb citation also notes a difference in her graduating years (1986, 1989 -- rather than 1987, 1990).
I think you're confused —as I am . Because the source (and other sources too) have stated that this was the order of her graduation from Melbourne – perhaps Australia's system is different? or that particular university's approach is different? Unfortunately, I'm unable to answer that – I onnly have a source which corroborates what is written.

I'll be making more changes, in order to reflect your suggestions above! Best, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 13:28, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

- Good progress. I'll AGF on the sculpture, this isn't FAC, so I am permitted to rely upon the licensing as represented at commons. Peek at my other image comments at #6b and perhaps which in with an Aussie like Casliber or someone to see if they can offer an insight into the educational system. I'll continue the review in a bit after you've had a chance to make some edits. Ping me if I drag my feet getting over here in a timely fashion. Montanabw^(talk) 17:51, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - Hi @Montanabw:! I haven't forgotten about the GA review, I assure you! I think it was just after your latest comment above, that I removed the List of Portfolios section (as it is already covered in the body of the article) as per advice in the comments section above; I've also consolidated the "Early life and career" + "Politics" sections into a single section, avoiding repetition of content (per 1B); furthermore, File:Juliagillard.JPG has been removed (per 6B) as there was little to no ties with the respective section it was initially in. In your view, do you believe I'm on the right track? If not, or if you have further suggestions, please let me know. Again, thank you and kind regards, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 08:11, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

- - - Yes, you are doing good work! OF my concerns in the chart, did you get all the dead links resolved? (Run the tool on this page again...) basically, see 1b and 2a above (still need to tighten the TOC, there really is no need for one-paragraph subsections on every individual topic (TOC 3.3 and 3.4) and see if you can do just a little bit more cleanup and fix up the citations a bit. Montanabw^(talk) 08:34, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      - Wonderful to hear! @Montanabw: I've just addressed the dead links issue, by removing them and/or replacing them with relevant active links. I have a couple of concerns however, where I'd be more than grateful to hear your suggestions; firstly, how exactly would I tighten the TOC in terms of ss.3.3 and 3.4 --- would you prefer the smaller sections simply to not appear within the TOC, using a semi-colon heading which therefore negates presence within the TOC or merging the smaller sections to a larger (relevant) section? if it's the latter, there may be difficulties: some smaller sections simply do not have a parent section. How would you suggest addressing this? Secondly, with regards to the format used in the citations, do you mean the type of citation template (ie. cite book, cite news, cite web, etc.)? Is this a significant issue? because, if so, I can address it, but there are 250 references and so therefore, it may not be done in a timely manner.
      - My apologies for asking a million questions! I really would just appreciate some clarification before moving forward (yes! the latter is a pun of Gillard's campaign motto ). Best, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:49, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the toc issue, I think you did well to consolidate some of the material, but also yes, I think bolding the subsections so they don't overwhelm the TOC is a good idea too. As for the type of citation template question, I'm sympathetic, I took a racehorse article to FAC with over 200 citations also, I feel your pain. What I spotted were things like citations 184 and 186, where "news.com.au" was italicized for one but not the other. Bottom line is that I think that the GA criteria would prefer consistency, but the FAC criteria requires it. Also, several of the sources that do not list an author actually DO have an author , this could be added. I guess for now for GA, what I'd like most to see is visual consistency: do a skim for inconsistent formatting where you have different formatting or different cite names to the same publication or web site (i.e. news.com.au with and without talics, one or the other please; also I see a lot of BBC vs BBC News; ABC News vs ABC vs Abc.net.au vs ABC Online (where all resolve to an ABC.net.au domain, probably "ABC News", but pick one and stick with it). The Australian (News Limited) vs The Australian , Sydney Morning Herald sometimes linked, sometimes not, (and some inconsistency on the publisher parameter being used or not) etc. Frankly, you probably have to make a judgement call about using the "publisher" and "location" parameters consistently, though that's also an FAC issue more than a GA issue, I'll only ask for cite consistency within the same site (oh, also, The Age (Melbourne: Fairfax Media) vs The Age (Melbourne) vs The Age).

I won't fuss over author names overmuch for GA, but it's something to be aware of when we use reFill to do cites (I use reFill all the time, so I know it is a godsend, but a godsend with weaknesses) and if you maybe could spotcheck a few, that would be good enough for now. Also check for very incomplete citations, #51 is an example.
Basically, I won't ask for FAC consistency on a GAN, but try to clean up the worst inconsistencies and double check that citations have full info where possible. Montanabw^(talk) 03:39, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi @Montanabw: I've addressed the following:
  - Inconsistencies with news sites (ie. when citing the ABC, previously references would note any of the following: ABC/ABC News/Abc.com.au/ABC Television/ABC1 and so on). In relation to the ABC, which does have various channels in Australia, I've managed to split it into two: "ABC" (for programs, documentaries etc.) and "ABC News" (for online, television or website news).
  - Inconsistencies in use of the parameters 'location' and 'publisher' in citations. I've removed all 'publisher' paramaters in news sources, and I've prioritised the 'work' parameter. This has fixed the italics issue you spoke about (now all news outlets will be in italics, as opposed to most/some). The 'location' parameter' has been voided in its entirety, as it was rarelyin use.
  - I've managed to add more authors to citations used, as well as complete the citations (which were missing key parameters such as date, access date, author, and so on).
  - I've voided all level 4 sub-sections within the article; this has alleviated a lot of the clutter in TOC.
- I hope this all on the right path! What are your thoughts? Kind regards, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 07:53, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Jumping in) after fixing multiple duplicate argument errors, I noticed this article was up for GA. Re. the point above about consistency of italics, etc., in citations, I've just run Ohconfucius's script to fix this. It's not perfect, but it does try to do a good job of bringing cite formatting in line with the MOS. Also, please take a look at the rest of the error-tracking categories at the bottom:

These still have to be fixed. --NSH002 (talk) 17:16, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@MelbourneStar:, I am pleased with the improvements; could you also do the same TOC fix for the "political positions" section -- that one actually has more problems with having one-paragraph subsections. Once that is done, I will gladly approve 1b and the GAN will pass. As far as the issues with the refs, I did a walk-through myself and fixed a couple things I spotted -- that is such painstaking work, and I am very sympathetic to what a pain it is to fix all that stuff. One thing that happened, and I don't know if it was the script or not, but some empty "date=" parameters got removed, and I went in, found the dates and restored them. Frankly, though maybe there are still a few small errors, I'm not seeing anything big enough to bother me, and so to that end, I would say the nitpicking for perfection can be saved for FAC. Criteria 2a clearly met. Montanabw ^(talk) 18:22, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: I've consolidated said section, which has limited the size of TOC. The format I've chosen to go about this, is three somewhat broad sub-sections which encompass various political positions. The alternative, was to again create sub-sections, like what we had done to the Prime Minister section — but the content in certain political positions was simply too minimal and would have looked quite awkward.

I think the above was the best way to go... but what is your view? are there any other sections that you believe need some clean up? Best, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:31, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You have addressed all concerns I have raised and I am passing this article, congrats! If you intend to go for FAC, there are things I'd suggest you continue to work on, (perhaps adding a section on the historical assessment of her prime ministership, maybe deeper analysis of the evolution of her political thought, maybe having someone more up on Australian politics than I am do a NPOV look - though it looks pretty balanced to me, but what do I know, I'm a Yank.) but nothing here that is relevant to GAN. If you do go to FAC, I'd be glad to help with the inevitable wikignoming and such (generally I hesitate to do both a GAN review and a FAC review on the same article) It was a pleasant process to work with you on this review and you are to be commended for your hard work and dedication; these major articles are always the most difficult to bring to GA and FA status. Montanabw ^(talk) 17:44, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: Thank you very much! I don't quite know as yet when I'll be able to go through the FAC process, as I do have a lot on here and there irl — however, be sure that should I pursue FAC, you'll most certainly be the first person to know, as your guidance has been nothing short of impeccable. It's been an absolute pleasure working on this article with your help, and I look forward to hopefully working with you somewhere else on the project in the future! Best, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 02:41, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]