Talk:Paulo Francis/GA5

GA Review

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

Reviewer: MPJ-DK (talk · contribs) 12:52, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I will be picking up the review of this one - both for the Wiki Cup and the GA cup as well. I will be making my review comments over the next couple of days.

I am not impressed with what I'm seeing - this is the fifth time it is nominated, the only action taken by the nominator between GA4 failing on August 27, 2015 and renominating it was pluralizing the word article and before that the main edit prior to nominating it for the fourth time was to remove the tags at the top of the page but not addressing the issues. Now to be fair I will review the entire article but I am putting it on hold right now - it's not a GA article as it stands, there are a ton of issues unresolved from more or less every previous GA article that needs to be addressed.

I am going to Assume Good Faith on this and actually provide my feedback on this and allow 7 days for issues to be addressed. In all honesty, the tags that were removed in March still apply, but I am not just going to slap them back on and fail it - but I will reapply them if the GA fails. Fair warning, I am not going to rewrite the article for you - if it was just a sentence or two I'd probably offer an alternative but for this one I will provide a list of issues that need to be addressed and can help with wording for individual fixes if you ask

GA Toolbox

I like to get this checked out first, I have found issues using this that has led to quick fails so it's important this passes muster.

Peer review tool

WP:LEAD - it is too short, 71 KB should have three to four paragraphs of lead text. Side note - a one sentence lead is not GA level either so there is some work to be done to update the lead to GA level.
Is there not an appropriate info box that can be added?
The tool hits on some weasel words, which I will be looking at closer when I do the actual review, but from what I read I agree there are definitely weasel and Peacock words
The tool brings up issues that it mixes British English and American English spelling. Pick one and make it consistent please.
use of contraction in the main text "couldn't" - should be "could not"

Copyright violations Tool

Nothing shows up. but most sources are not in English so the tool would not catch stuff like that. I will spot check to see if there are cases of straight translations here.

Disambiguation links

No issues Y

External links

The following needs to be resolved

There are four links marked as dead - they are highlighted in red using the "External Links" tool
There are three links marked as "most likely dead" - they are highlighted in orange using the "External Links" tool
There are two links marked as having connection issues - they are highlighted in blue using the "External Links" tool
There is one link marked as "warn", but it's actually dead - this is highlighted in yellow using the "External Links" tool

Well Written

No, even without a close review I can see this, but I will be adding details as I go N
The long chapter sections have to be condensed

~~On the Eve of the military dictatorship and after:~~ Radical journalism and fiction-writing (1964–79)
~~Post-dictatorship years:~~ ideological shift and media celebrity (1979–97)

I stumble upon the following quote " phrasing is extremely shocking, [in that] it is grammatically ill-construed, its syntax completely irregular, with oral language deformed under the influence of a foreign language. And with all this he forges a 'badly written' language in academic terms, which at the same time stands as highly elaborate in its context, as it tries to reproduce newspaper lingo" and I am thinking the same actually applies to this article. So perhaps this is a brilliant meta piece honoring the subject by repeating his idiosyncracies?

Lead

"trademark writing style" is a bit over the top
To use the word "erudite" seems off - the definition states "smoothed away all raw, untrained incivility", but based on what I read there is all kinds of incivility in his writing, a lack of training and facts. That does not add up to me.
It states he was exposed to "Americanism" early on, then drops it, then brings it back when he went to the US - so the "early on" part is really pointless, especially when the lead is supposed to summarize the major points of the article. Is that really something that needs to be in the lead?
Trotskyist needs to be linked.
" 1970s as an exile and expatriate in" should be " 1970s in exile as an expatriate in"
"Critical evaluations of his work have been made by Midia scholar Bernardo Kucinski and historian Isabel Lustosa." - Not really about him but that two people wrote about him - really not necessary for the lead of the article on Francis.

Early life and career (1930–64)

Weird how there is no mention of when, how, where, why etc. he decided to change his name to "Paulo Francis"?
"at the time a general humanities course" - seems kinda like a weird side note, does it add to the understanding of Paulo Francis? I would say no and it can be deleted.
" Francis tried to become an actor in Rio de Janeiro during the early 1950s" - if he won an award I would think he was actually was an actor at some point, we don't win awards for what we don't do right?
"lthough he received an award as a rising star in 1952, he did not pursue the career: according to Kucisnki, because he lacked talent;[4]" first big one of the article.

First of all you need to put "Kucisnki" in perspective since this is the body of the article it's the first time Kucisnki is mentioned here - who is he? why is his opinion so important that it was mentioned first? Why put the word of someone who studied him later, after the fact with an obvious bias over the director that actually worked with him at the time and on balance has no axe to grid with Kucisnki?
And putting the "lacked talent" right after stating he won an award kinda rduces Kucisnki's credibility a little too. Just saying.

The jump to the US seems very sudden and out of left field, just "BAM! he's in the US"?
"During his time in the United States, Francis joined a host of Brazilian intellectuals who, during the 1940s and the 1950s, forswore any abstract and aristocratic European concept of "civilization", meaning mostly French Belle Époque culture, in favor of an American model, which equated modernization with cutting-edge technological development (Fordism) and mass democracy, understood as the necessary material basis for social change, which Francis expressed through a personal mix of pro-Americanism and Left radicalism.[8]" one massive run-on and on sentence that should be revised into 2-3
"into a lifelong", well as long as "Lifelong" is only from the 1970s until his death
"Empiricism" is a philosphy, a practitioner is called an "Empiricist"
I am not sure how "Militant" can apply to "Empiricism" and the article doesn't really give me a clue as to how that would work.
If it is indeed in the words of one of his critics then it should be a quote.
And the criticisms stands alone, did he have no supporters to provide a different point of view?
"In a late interview", probably "later" interview unless he was running behind schedule?
"This mode of work, according to critics" again only critics are given a voice in the article.
I'm sorry the Kucinski which is three seperate pieces of the quote look like they're cherrypicked, picking exactly what the readers should get from the quote instead of making their own determination.
"After a time as a director between 1954 and 1956 during which he staged five plays, with moderate success,[4] in 1957 Francis started to write as a theater critic for the newspaper Diário Carioca." run-on, please split and rewrite.
"He was soon praised for his defense of a modern approach to staging." stated but not sourced?
"characterised" should be "characterized"
why is "classic" capitalized?
What is the point of mentioning "such as the theater scholar Sabato Magaldi and the Shakespeare translator and expert Barbara Heliodora"? does it help us understand Francis better? Yes he was not the only one doing this but does that really say much about Francis? I think that can be removed to make the artcle more focused.
"At the same time, he sponsored, with editor Jorge Zahar, the publication of a collection of translation of foreign plays that would form a canon on which a future Brazilian modernist dramaturgy would develop." - I am seeing like 3-4 "of" in a row, can you plrease revise it.
"writing so demeaning a piece of libel" I doubt he wrote a "piece of libel", he wrote an article.
That whole sentence about the slap is poorly written and problematic, really should be rewritten.

On the Eve of the military dictatorship and after: Radical journalism and fiction-writing (1964–79)

So he worked on a magazine at the same time as Nahum Sirotsky, again makes the article unfocused when it's trying to imply "look he's a big deal he worked with this guy"
"Senhor,[23] a literary magazine praised for the quality of its contributors as well as for its innovative graphic design,[24] which was created by Bea Feitler." I believe this was brought up before, did Francis contribute to that? this is about Francis, the praise for the magazine - unless he was instrumental in that, which then should be mentioned.
"maverick" - weasel word
"In his articles, he advocated for a nationalist Left-reformist agenda (land and franchise reforms and the strengthening of foreign investment controls), advising the Left to support the João Goulart government by means of a strategy of pressure "from below", banking on the grassroots mobilization of the broad masses against what he saw as a mostly reactionary Parliament." - rewrite
"Banned from formal employment at a major paper" - article just stated he started to work for a paper in 1967 and that paper was closed in 1969, granted the article does not state how long he worked there, which is a flaw. But that does not sound he was not able to get "forma emplyment" in the late 1960s.
I would like for the newspaper titles etc. to be translated to English - whenever I work on Spanish language articles I try to throw in the translation whenever I can, just to help readers get a full picture.
"Evading censorship"? how? by not writing about Brazil politics? If so say so.
"Evading censorship, he wrote mostly about international affairs, and manifestly opposed US intervention in Vietnam, as well as supporting the PLO, flouting the official pro-American and pro-Israel sympathies of the military government in texts considered so uncharacteristically sober that they later produced a remark from Kucinski that "only then he became a real mentsch"." please revise.
And even with praise Kucinski manages to put him down, the overreliance on his as a source helps tain the tone of the whole article.
"on the slimmest of pretexts" - It would help if the charges were, allow the reader to learn what they are instead of the writer making the judgement for them.
"After deciding to live abroad to escape the ever more stringent political repression in 1970s Brazil, Francis moved to the US, a move favoured by his previous upbringing in Columbia, his enduring Trotskyist sympathies[39] (and therefore alienation towards the Stalinist Left of the time), and his actual American connections, such as his acquaintance with diplomat John Mowinckel."

Run on, please revise.
He was brought up in Columbia" I thought he went to Columbia University nowhere is it indicated that he "grew up" there too.
So as a "Trotskyist" he would favor moving to the US? I don't see the connection there. That's like me saying as a great fan of Lucha Libre I moved to Canada... erm what?
What does "qualified support" mean" How was he "qualified"?
"Once there, he assumed a position highly critical of the Richard Nixon administration, offering qualified support to the George McGovern candidacy in the 1972 US presidential election, assuming that McGovern's "naive reformism" offered a way out of the frozen consensus around Nixon[43] – a consensus which he saw as a product of a conservative victory in a late 1960s "restrained civil war"." - Revise, break down into multiple sentences please.

"as a writer on her own right" that should be "in her own right"
If it's one essay, published once how can it be a "continuous account"?
"famed editor", drop the "famed"

Fiction-writing and its repercussion

"what the modernist writer should strive at was historical relevance" ... strive for maybe?
"In his view, what the modernist writer should strive at was historical relevance, by depicting in personal terms the fragmentary character of the social reality around him, described through the objective sensation felt, shunning any kind of commentary wont at offering a sense of coherence and totality." - please revise this massive run on sentence.
"Basing himself on these rules, during the late 1970s, Francis would publish the first two parts of an intended trilogy of social novels in which he tried, in a style reminiscent of James Joyce, to shun what he saw as the populist streak of Brazilian modern fiction,[52] that is, the portrayal of the lives of the rural lower and/or higher classes typical of later Brazilian modernist authors such as Érico Veríssimo, Jorge Amado or Graciliano Ramos." - run on, confusing, full of side notes and "look at the names i can drop".
"a project reminiscent of James Joyce and Scott Fitzgerald" - how?
"sales success, but" does not need the comma
"for sloppiness" either - "for its sloppiness" or "for being sloppy"
Are those José Guilherme Merquior's words? if so put them as a quote or they come off as more like a fact, which they're not.
"Other critics, however, like the writer Silvano Santiago, maintained that Francis' apparent lack of stylish qualities simply meant that he, like many others, simply felt the imprint of the times: in the absence of open public debate, it was unavoidable that literature would assume a parajournalistic function aimed at a transposition of the real." - I don't even know what this means or where to start. But it' running-on again.
"Francis was also criticized for an alleged lack of depth in his political and cultural commentaries[9] and confusion arising from his attempt at melding the Joycean stream of consciousness with the plot of a spy thriller: in the words of a paper critic for Folha de S.Paulo, Vinicius Torres Filho, for producing in his novels something like "a watered-down Graham Greene", expressing a Cold War obsession at displaying a supposedly intellectual sophistication by seeing political issues in terms of conspiracies and spies." - rewrite
Again critics stand alone in this section.
"Despite the Francis' avowed leftism at the time, the American literary scholar Malcolm Silvermann considered his tone to be already that of a nihilist: in the words this same critic, what every character in Francis' novels displayed – irrespective of political affiliation – was the same "careless erotico-politic debauchery, conspicuous consuming, belligerent use of obscenities and a general disdain for everyone"." confusing, long, run-on.
"After the joint publication, in 1982, of two novellas under the title Filhas do Segundo Sexo ("Children of the Second Sex") – an attempt at tackling the issue of middle-class female emancipation and at the same time at plain language feuilleton – which was very ill-received by both critics[72] and public, Francis stopped publishing fiction." ...
"Eleven years after his death, a new novel, left by Francis as a draft, was to be published after being edited by his widow: Carne Viva ("Open Wound"),[73] where the author tried, again, to portray the lives of the wealthy and sophisticated in between a mythical 1960s Rio de Janeiro and an equally mythical French May—something that led critic Vinícius Torres Freire, in Folha de S.Paulo, to state that Francis had left only a memoir about the kitsch character of his usual snobbery.[74]" again, revise please.
All references to the work of James Joyce are complete non sense. In the original form of the text, onde read:

"Rejecting what he saw as the portrayal "of the ruling Bourgeoisie as an evil caricature", he chose to offer "the people" the opportunity "to know more about its masters",[54] by describing life among the happy few in 1960s–1970s Rio ("the elite of the charming parochialism of Rio de Janeiro [fashionable boroughs], their parties and sensual pleasures"[55])—a project reminiscent of James Joyce and Scott Fitzgerald. By the same token, he associated his embrace of modernist stylish conventions (juxtaposition, non-linear narration) – or, in his own words, the deliberate refusal of earlier formal stylistics[56] – to the necessity of portraying an emerging urban Brazil."

Joyce does not describe the life of the elites, it is quite the contrary, the object of his whole work is the life of the middle-class dubliners, who often deal with lack of money, opportunities and expectations of change in their lifes. Dubliners is all about that. In Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses we find the exact kind of people, Stephen Dedalus is a poor schoolteacher, Leopold Bloom is a middle-class advertising agent, Molly Bloom is a middle-class singer. There are clear passages in which Dedalus and Bloom worries about money. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.104.5.93 (talk) 13:16, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Post-dictatorship years: ideological shift and media celebrity (1979–97)

"afterwards" should be "afterward"
"Shortly afterwards, however, he made a sharp and sudden turn from Trotskyism to conservative views. A gulf developed between him and the Left in the Brazilian intellectual and political scene during the demise of the military dictatorship and after, with Francis hurling insults from New York at various academics and politicians, and especially at the Workers' Party (PT), which in the post-dictatorship democracy quickly became the dominant Brazilian leftist party." - rewrite
"Francis' shift, rooted in what was a late 1970s general intellectual frustration with the Left,[77] had nevertheless also personal reasons, on which later scholars differed: media scholar Kucinski talks about disenchantment[78] and alienation;[79] some fellow journalists propose plain objective interest, noting that Francis, in the early 1980s, had lobbied covertly in his column for private business interests." I feel like I am repeating mysef but I got to be thorough
"Others argue for vanity at hobnobbing with Establishment figures." - I am not even sure
But once again the negative critism stands alone.
"Around this elitist streak, possibly developed as a result of a superficial reading of Frankfurt School's authors critique of the Culture Industry,[88] Francis developed his notion of leftism as, above all, a means to an end: the social modernization and political democratization of Brazilian society – which ultimately meant embracing mainstream American values and American culture." - Rewrite, take the guessing out if it - "possibly" means that whatever comes after it is one person's oppinon, not fit for an encylopedia, it's not a place for speculations.
"In the late 1980s, however, he would develop suspicions regarding what he saw as the PT's increasing radicalism,[93] which, associated to his usual misanthropy ("by my aristocratic calling I mean setting strict bounds to sympathies for my neighbors"),[94] led him eventually to express a fear that the emergence of a grassroots, mass, trade-union-based and anti-intellectual Left, such as that which the Workers' Party represented, meant the risk that Brazil and the Brazilians could distance themselves from "our cultural heritage [sic] which is the Illuminist West, the USA, our North American peers in size, which since Franklin Roosevelt want us to be their South American partners"." - dude, really? and the distaste for Francis is palpable here, just really offputting.
"volteface" - really? no other word could be used? I am not saying dumb it down, but pick a word that's not so pretentious.
"priori" same comment as above.
"These and similar views grounded opinions such as the one that was to be expressed, in one of Francis' obituaries, by his late political friend,[101] financial tsar and former Minister of Planning of the Castelo Branco military administration Roberto Campos: in Campos' condescending view, Francis' columns were intellectually worthless, but made nevertheless good propaganda; they were "a weird bouquet of [...] economic guesswork" but nevertheless a good "boxing for ideas"." - run on, totally negative and filled with distain
"consisting in an" should be "consisting of an"
"An essay published in 1985, O Brasil no Mundo, identifying Brazilian authoritarianism with an absence of Capitalism, expressed this ideological shift." I assume Francis wrote it? Thats never actually stated.
The word is "especially" not "specially"
"Notwithstanding his jagged relationship with the various post-dictatorship Brazilian presidencies (specially those of Fernando Collor and Fernando Henrique Cardoso), the fact is that the later Francis' neoliberal commitment was never directed towards a particular government, but towards an ideal of government.", unclear, confusing and uses the word "fact" in a way that's not actually in the definition.

Start with "Such ideas" in the beginning of a paragraph is confusing - I can only take it that it's a reference to the previous paragraph and his "neoliberal commitment"? If so I am not sure how neoliberal transitions into bigotry and the fact that it's presented as if that's a natural progression?

So is she "beefy gentleman" or a "hottie"? They seem contradictory unless one's definition of "hottie is a woman that looks like a beefy gentleman.
So having someone "whipped like a Slave" is considered "pithy"? I don't thin we have the same definition of the word "pithy"

TV celebrity (1979–97)

"Because of this, Paulo Francis was attacked by many of his former associates, and the number of disputes in which he became involved heightened his fame as a controversial journalist. " - not neutral, stating that poor Francis was attacked.
"polemics" see previous under pretentious wording
"Many of these polemics became, in themselves, pop culture events, as with the show of mutual animosity between him and the popular composer Caetano Veloso." I am not sure exactly what the article is trying to tell me, but it's "pop culture" right? It does not bother to explain how basically stating "trust me they are pop culture events"
"racism[119]", I believe it's missing a full stop?
"Concentrating afterwards on his activities as a television commentator, Francis quickly became a pop culture phenomenon, playing the persona of the pundit always ready to offer a stinging comment in a basso voice—earning him various impersonators on Brazilian TV." - how? is the article saying he became a phony pundit? A comedian mocking himself? Again trust us it's a pop culture phenomenon.
So much negativity - consider he kept getting jobs he must have been liked by at least 2-3 people in Brazil, but I guess none were available for comments?

Final disputes and death

"Concentrating afterwards on his activities as a television commentator, Francis quickly became a pop culture phenomenon, playing the persona of the pundit always ready to offer a stinging comment in a basso voice—earning him various impersonators on Brazilian TV." rewrite, rewrite and then take the bile out.
"Ribeiro's words" - but it's not quoted so it's not Ribeiro's words??
"Late this year, an entire book was published listing and describing various cases of his supposed plagiarisms and abuses"... and then years later a Wikipedia article.
"In early 1997, Francis attacked, on cable TV, on the management of Brazilian state-owned oil corporation Petrobras as dishonest." rewrite, doesnt' matter if it's on Cable TV and "attacked as dishonest" does not seem right
"The libel suit seems to have added to Francis' poor health condition" - so THIS suit, not the previous ones contributed to his bad health? That's a bit of Origina Research and guesswork.

Legacy

"Some said that, even in his leftist phase, his elitism was already evident,[139] especially in the way he used his supposed erudition[140] as a commodity, for the sake of exerting an authoritarian influence on the cultural debate.[141] Another scholar even coined the expression that, as an individual, Francis had left empty an informal "chair" for journalistic histrionics, for which various columnists competed, to the exclusion of serious journalism." please revise
So varaious counts of critisism and one "Well he was very satirical" while still getting a dig it at his is the sum total of his legacy? 95% negativity and 5% positivity? That balance is really what makes this a POV'd article.

Sources/verifiable

I think it would be helpful to provide an English translation of the titles listed under "references", it would help us understand what the specific source is about without google translate. It's not a requirement but it would help make it more accessible to readers
Same for Newspaper/Magazine articles, location of publisher please
All book based sources should have the location added whenever it's known - it's printed in the book so it should be easy enough to find.
Note 13 is not formatted correctly. while the note is the main part the link and info should be formatted like any other citation on the list. Needs more info on the source.
Note 14 asserts that "Yamamoto" became slang for silly journalistic mistakes, but offers no citation of this as the source covers Francis' statement.
Anything that provides a weblink needs to have an accessdate listed - example Note 18 and others.
Note 18 needs to also list that it's om page 53, not just link to it.
How does Note 23 source his work on "Senhor"?
Note 24 links to a 14 page document, please indicate what pages the specific info is pulled from.
Note 27 is dead - if it was found it needs a page number for the PDF page the info is taken from
Note 35 - same as #23
Note 38 is formatted wrong, it's got the link under the date, not the title of the article? that needs to be fixed.
Note 40 - formatted wrong, giving a link but not the usual information about web based citations.
Note 42 - needs to indicate the PDF page
Note 55 is formatted incorrectly, date is linked to article.
Note 56 - Way too little information to correctly identify ANYTHING
Note 57 - Same as above, no one could track it down based on the info given.
Note 62 - Page numbers
Note 63 - Seems to be the same as Note 57, only with a slightly different name for the author?
Note 82 - Not specific enough
Note 84 - Don't just say "see his article", that's what a source is for, if you are adding notes actually explain it.
Note 90 - Not specific enough
Note 99 and 100 - Need page numbers
102, 103 - Page numbers
Note 109 - Is there a source for the meaning of the slang term? and seems to not really tie in with the main text.
Note 128 - Not specific enough.
Note 132 - formatted wrong with external links not showing title etc.
Note 137 "Scathing appreciations" does not make sense. And external link is incorrectly formatted.
Note 141 - Formatted incorrectly, no page reference given.
Note 142 - "Available online" is not the appropriate format
Note 143 - Incorrectly formatted for external links.
Note 144 - Incorrectly formatted, date is linked, not article name.
Sites - all external links incorrectly formatted.

Broad in coverage

Eh, it's got a bit of everything, although very little on his personal life

Neutral

No N authors have a very clear POV, it's not an encylopedic entry right now. see numerous comments under "well written"

Stable

There is a laundry list of issues on the talk page and a lot of discussion, including a vibe of ownership by the nominator - who does not seem to take in what is actually being said. So with no attempt to find a common ground it's not stable - it seems that some people simply gave up on trying to make improvements.

Illustrated / Images

None, considering he died in 1997 I am pretty sure a case for "Fair use" can be made.

@Cerme: - Review compete, I will give you up to seven days to address the issues. I got to say it'll require a major rewrite to produce a well written and neutral article, but never say never. MPJ-US 22:33, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well I have not seen any improvements or really changes at all in the last 7 days. So I am going to fail this right now. Note - please address the issues i have raised before nominating a sixth time, do us all a favor and not waste our time by just slapping a few edits on it to nominate again. MPJ-US 04:32, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@MPJ-DK: I felt that the article needed a throughly review and that this would be impossible to attain in such a short deadline. I do not want to waste anyone's time and therefore am refraining to engage now in a review of such a thorny article. In due time, I wil tackle it. Thanks a lot! Cerme (talk) 19:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]