Talk:Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mark Miller (talk · contribs) 06:09, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing--I'll look forward to your thoughts. Cheers, Khazar2 (talk) 10:13, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Quick decline criteria

An article can be failed without further review if, prior to the review, it has cleanup banners that are obviously still valid. These include {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{fact}}, {{citation needed}}, {{clarifyme}}, or similar tags. (See also {{QF-tags}})Y. If the article is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria then it can be failed without being placed on hold Y. If copyright infringements are found in a nominated article then it can be failed without further review Y. In all other cases a full review against the six criteria is to be conducted and the nominator given a chance to address any issues.

Review

A good article is—

1. Well-written:
1. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and
2. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
1. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
• It appears that the article uses both short citations and full citations. Some full citations include ISBN numbers and some don't. I suggest that changing to full citations is the easiest. If the sources from the bibliography are being used as overarching sources the should be placed at the end of the reference section, but they appear to be used as direct referencing. I also believe that the ISBN numbers are required for a GA if they are available (could be wrong, so please feel free to correct me, if so).

• My understanding is that inconsistent references aren't a problem under the GA critiera; see WP:GACN, where one of the common mistakes is "Requiring consistently formatted, complete bibliographic citations. (If you are able to figure out what the source is, that's a good enough citation for GA.)" I've also never seen that ISBNs are required for GAs, and haven't had a reviewer mention it before. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

2. 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); and
• Ref 6 is not RS. While this page is part of the National Archives, it is the documentation they hold hat is RS and not the unattributed writings of the general staff there. It also does not support the claim that Madison had 20 amendments that congress reduced to 12.

• I've added an additional source that it was Congress that reduced the number of amendments from 20 to 12, though I should point out that it's a reach to call this a "statistic" that needs citation under criterion 2b. Arguing that the National Archives is not a reliable source for the date of the proposal strikes me as silly, but in any case, again this isn't a statement that needs citation per 2b. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

3. it contains no original research.
• It does appear that there may be some small amount of original research, only from a lack of RS on a few claims. This may be easily corrected. I will hold the article at this point, before continuing the review.
• The first paragraph is cited to reference 2. The entire chunk. There appear to be a number of claims that could be seen as the author's opinion s to what is strong and weak. Either attribute this statements to that of the author or change the wording to more neutral text that does not include an opinion of strength or weakness...or simply add more referencing to each of the following claims:

"After several years of comparatively weak government under the Articles of Confederation, a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia proposed a new constitution on September 17, 1787, featuring a stronger chief executive and other changes" There are both facts and opinion here. Either lose the opinion, attribute it, or strengthen the claim with a direct citation to an independent RS. It may not seem like much, but its encyclopedic value requires some context. Perhaps just expanding on what the author is saying to show this as an opinion, instead of a fact to justify the claim of "weakness" or "strength".

As an example of what I mean, I lift this from further down that seems to be done in that manner:

"The Seventh Amendment is generally considered one of the more straightforward amendments of the Bill of Rights. Scholar Charles W. Wolfram states that it has usually "been interpreted as if it were virtually a self-explanatory provision".[11][12]"

• "George Mason, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the drafter of Virginia's Declaration of Rights, proposed that a bill of rights listing and guaranteeing civil liberties be included." This needs a citation, even if it repeats reference 2.

• Well, first, this doesn't fall into any of the categories listed as needing inline citation per 2b. Second, it's common Wikipedia practice to cite several sentences with one inline citation; if you look at other GAs, you'll see this. Third, it's an enormous stretch to call this "original research" because the citation comes a sentence later instead of here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:56, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• "Other delegates—including future Bill of Rights drafter James Madison—disagreed, arguing that existing state guarantees of civil liberties were sufficient and that any attempt to enumerate individual rights risked implying that the federal government had power to violate every other right (this concern eventually led to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments). " I feel this needs an independent source.

3. Broad in its coverage:
1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
2. 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.
5. YStable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
1. Ymedia are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
2. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
• Just noticed this caption: "Justice Joseph Story issued the first judicial opinion on the amendment in United States v. Wonson ". This needs a reference. Even the captions in the images require referencing, and this is making a claim of the first or last such opinion of law isn't straight forward or obvious information like the "sun sets in the west".

Discussion

Hey @Mark Miller: it's been a week or so, so I wanted to check in on this one--anything you see that needs doing here? Thanks, Khazar2 (talk) 19:03, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I am bout to leave some notes. Been a tad busy but have not forgotten this. I return shortly.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:48, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

@Mark Miller: it's been another week, so I wanted to check in again. Can you update me on when you'll be able to review? A few other users have already checked this one over, so I'm hoping there's not much left to be done. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Mark, I have to say I'm pretty surprised at some of the things you're demanding above. I know you're a new reviewer, so I don't mean to be a jerk about this, but you may wish to read the criteria at WP:GA? and WP:GACN before proceeding further.

To respond, common Wikipedia practice is that an inline citation at the end of a paragraph is sufficient to cover previous sentences sourced to the same place. You can look at the list of recently passed GAs, or random samples from the archives, and you'll quickly find examples of this.

Beyond that, you seem to be demanding a lot of inline citations on statements that explicitly don't need them per criterion 2b. ISBNs are definitely not required. Lastly, if you honestly believe that the National Archives isn't a reliable source for the BoR's ratification date, let's get a second opinion at WP:RS/N. Frankly, I think the response will be open laughter, but I'm willing to try since you seem so certain about this.

I appreciate your finally taking the time to review, especially after keeping me waiting so long; I just want to make sure we stay on track with the actual GA requirements. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, the above came off harsher than I intended. I'll try to address these comments in the next few days, but we may need to simply ask a second opinion on some of them. Thanks for taking the time to review. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I didn't read it before making this reply. I just wanted to let you know that, at this point a second opinion is not required. In other words, just tell me what you disagree with and we can look further into it to see if I may be incorrect, I have no issue with working with you here but GA reviews can have other comments and editor involvement. I should mention, (now having read it) I am not a new reviewer (previously reviewed under the username Amadscientist).--Mark Miller (talk) 01:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Withdrawing from review

Thanks for your comments, and I've acted in one or two places to further clarify the citations. I'm concerned, though, that you don't appear familiar with the criteria, and your demands go well beyond what's required for GA (or indeed, what would be good for the article). Adding repetitive inline citations after every sentence in the article, for example, creates page clutter without making a difference to readers, who can easily find the necessary citation a sentence later; practical issues aside, it's certainly not required by the GA criteria. A consistent reference scheme is helpful but isn't grounds for delaying or failing a nomination, and only certain types of statements need to be sourced. All this can be found implicitly at WP:GA? and explicitly at WP:GACN. Calling the US National Archives an unreliable source for the BoR's proposal date is, for me, the point where this review moves from the overly picky into the flatly unreasonable--especially considering this isn't something that needs citation for GA at all.

So it seems best that I just close this for now. In a few days I'll make a good-faith effort to fix any points you raised that I consider borderline and to tinker with the citations and perhaps the references a bit more, and then I'll renominate. And no hard feelings; I do appreciate your efforts to review articles and hope you continue to do so. Cheers and all best -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I find it odd that you took all the above serious enough that you fixed them...then suddenly withdrew making accusations against AGF. GACN is an essay. I would hope, at the very least, if you disagree with something that you try to show the policy or guideline that would demonstrate that I was inacurate. You haven't done that. --Mark Miller (talk) 21:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

You're starting threads on this so rapidly that it's a bit hard to keep up. Just for record-keeping purposes, though, it's wrong to say I fixed "all the above"; you can see what has and hasn't been changed in the article's history. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Oddly enough you did fix almost everything I brought up other than that question raised about the ISBN numbers. I'm sure it is difficult to keep up with your threads and posts as well...but then again, I'm not trying to.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)