Talk:1955 Philadelphia municipal election

1955 Philadelphia municipal election has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society 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.
Review: October 27, 2016. (Reviewed version).

A fact from 1955 Philadelphia municipal election appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 July 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in the 1955 election, Philadelphians chose a veteran of World War I for mayor and a veteran of both World Wars for district attorney?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/July.

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Philadelphia municipal election, 1955/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Canadian Paul (talk · contribs) 08:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I should be able to tackle this one within the next few days. Canadian Paul 08:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): 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): d (copyvio and plagiarism): 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:
· · ·

First paragraph under "Mayor": "In the mayor's race, incumbent Democrat Joseph S. Clark, Jr., who had earlier declared he would serve only one term, did not run for reelection, instead running for election to the United States Senate in 1956." - As soon as I read this, I immediately wondered if he won or not. An explicit mention of the result would help with the broadness of coverage criteria and would give you an excuse to split this sentence into two, as it is somewhat difficult to follow in its current state.
1. Fixed these issues.
Same paragraph, although technically outside of the GA criteria, a citation at the end would be helpful and should be easy to procure.
1. Done.
Same section, second paragraph: "He and Clark were allies in the reform effort that had swept the city four years earlier." - Again in terms of broadness, what kind of reform effort was it? Even a Wikilink would be sufficient here, but knowing what kinds of reform he was involved in is I think an important contextualizing aspect of his candidacy in the election.
1. I linked the 1951 campaign and added some detail to the sentence.
Same paragraph: "In the primary election in May, Dilworth easily defeated his underfunded opponent, William A. Paschall, a local meat dealer." "Easily" could be perceived to be a POV word, so I just wanted to verify that that is what the source says, since I can't read it.
1. The exact quote at the source is "had an easy time defeating."
Same section, third paragraph: "He emerged the victor of a four-way primary contest over George P. Williams, James J. Clothier, and Oscar H. Newman." - Were these also individuals who had never run for office, or were they seasoned politicians? A little bit of context on the primary would be useful here and appropriate I think for an article about the election. It would tell the reader whether someone who had never run for office beat out the status quo, or if there were simply no seasoned people running, for example.
1. Good point. I added some detail to the sentence.
Same paragraph: "Longstreth's campaign got off to a rocky start when he broke with the city Republican organization over their failure to elect his preferred candidate, John M. Pomeroy, as chairman." Chairman of what?
1. Right, it should have said "chairman of the Republican City Committee" (effectively, the head of the party machine.)
Same section, fourth paragraph: "The result was a landslide for Dilworth." This could definitely be construed as POV. Per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, your best options would be to cite evidence showing that it was a landslide (i.e. a direct citation) or to remove the sentence and let the reader decide for themselves based on the objective results whether or not it was a "landslide".
1. I added a citation (even if you can't see the story, "landslide" is in the headline.)
In the "other offices" section, aside from me thinking that "Other offices and ballot measures" might make for a better section heading, I was wondering if the the phrase "both passed with overwhelming support" is supported by the citation and, even if it is, would it not be better to list the more objective results?
1. Changed the heading and added the numbers.
One thing I feel that the article is missing in terms of comprehensiveness is an explanation for the results. Why were the Democrats so dominant in this election? Was it a traditional Democratic stronghold? Was it influenced by events internal or external to the state? Was there a particular issue that was important to the voters or a major campaign issue? I don't think that there needs to be excessive detail on this, but even a few sentences of context would be really helpful here and would make it more of an article and less of a "list in prose". Even if the election was overall uneventful and this was an expected and traditional result, a background section would be beneficial.
1. I added some of the media assessment in the mayor and city council sections.
I do note that the above is touched upon somewhat in the lead but, per WP:LEAD, the lead should not introduce material that is not present in the body of the article.
1. Should match the body of the article now.

I'm going to go ahead and place the article on hold for a period of up to seven days so that these concerns can be addressed. 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 often, so I should notice any comments left here. Canadian Paul 13:38, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the thorough review. I think these issues are all addressed now, but if you have any more questions or concerns, I'll be glad to discuss them. --Coemgenus (talk) 19:51, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian Paul, just wondering if you'd had a chance to review these changes. Thanks again, Coemgenus (talk) 12:37, 25 October 2016 (UTC).[reply]

The changes look great! I still think that there could maybe be a little more context for the election, but that's subjective and, moreover, not an impediment to GA status, so I am going to go ahead and pass this as a Good Article. Congratulations and thank you for all your hard work! Canadian Paul 18:52, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]