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Good articleRichard Barrons has been listed as one of the Warfare 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
DateProcessResult
March 2, 2011Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on February 22, 2011.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that British Major General Richard Barrons, who led efforts to incentivise Taliban soldiers to surrender in exchange for civilian jobs, was hand-picked for the role by U.S. General Stanley A. McChrystal?

Incentivise

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Too bad to see "incentivise" on the Main Page of Wikipedia.--Wetman (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of suggestions

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Per the request at WP:MHA, I have a couple of suggestions:

  • do we know his date of birth and where he was educated in his youth? If so, it should probably be added;
  • the Personal Life section header is incorrectly capitalised - it should just be "Personal life";
  • I'm not sure about including the bit about marriage and children in the lead. It is probably not necessary, but that is just my opinion ;
  • Citation # 23 is currently just a bare url, it should probably be formatted like the others for consistency;

Anyway, good work so far. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am reviewing this article over the next couple days to see if it meets the GA criteria. I will be performing noncontroversial copyedits and cleanup during that time. I do not fail articles just because they are left "unfixed" for 7 days; however, I do like to see some work going on, or a note explaining that there will be an absence of editing so I will know you have not forgotten. Thank you!

Okay, I'm back now!
Review as of 13:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Overall, I think this is a very good article, just some of the paragraphs are rather short.
    • Just noting that I've merged some of the short paragraphs into bigger ones.
Copyediting / grammar / style tweaks
  1. On the 1st sentence of the "Military career" section, you have two parenthetical elements side-by-side. That is poor style.
    They're not parenthetical notes, that was his title (see the London Gazette citation).
Biographical
  1. Can you find the date and location of birth for Barrons?
    No. It's nowhere on the web, at least not in anything resembling a reliable source (and I haven't even found an unreliable one).
Referencing / factual accuracy
  1. In the 4th paragraph of the "Military career" section: "He was promoted to colonel in June 2002.[10]" This does not correlate with this source, which says that he was appointed to colonel in December 2001.
    The latter source is wrong. The London Gazette is the official record of all commissions/promotions/decorations etc and it says 2002. It's not uncommon for officers to serve six months as a local (ie acting) colonel before substantive promotion, but that's a combination of guesswork, OR and SYNTH on my part. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:10, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Good, I needed that cleared up. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, now that those issues are out of the way or explained, here are some sources that you may find interesting!

  1. Major-General Richard Barrons puts Taleban fighter numbers at 36,000 (This was released today, so I know why you did not include it!)
    Not quite, it was released this time last year! ;) It's also in the article already.
    Oops. I've seen people do this before, I guess it's my turn now! I don't see where in the article the estimate of the number of Taliban leaders and followers is. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To be honest, I'm not sure a year-old estimate of "enemy" troop numbers is especially relevant in an officer's biography. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It's up to you. I personally would include it, but it is relatively minor and unimportant, so I can see your side too. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Barrons delivers a keynote speech (probably unimportant, but I'm just listing it here for your convenience)
    Interesting. That's scheduled for the end of the month, so I'm inclined to wait til then. Hopefully they'll publish the speech or it'll get some media attention and I'll be able to add something. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
GA review (see here for criteria)

I think this meets the criteria for WP:WIAGA now! Thank you for your work!

  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. 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):
    There are no images, so these points are moot.
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
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