Talk:W. E. B. Du Bois/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Astrocog (talk · contribs) 15:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC) Had to work late IRL, so will have to finish tomorrow. AstroCog (talk) 04:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Make sure that all references have complete citation information. The books look fine, but the websites in the ref list have little more than a title and link. Try to get more bibliographic (webliographic?) information for them (author(s), dates, publisher, etc).

Done Web sources have been supplemented with as much info as available, esp retrieval date. --Noleander (talk) 17:36, 2 December 2011 (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): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Throughout, there are many one- and two-sentence paragraphs. Try to combine these into larger paragraphs.

Done ... except for 2-sentence paragraph "Du Bois became incensed in 1961 .." at end of a section: it is entirely unrelated to the paragr above it, so cannot be combined.--Noleander (talk) 03:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful with language that borders on un-neutral. For example, "...some blacks felt that African Americans should not act as cannon fodder for what was a white man's war" should be modified to say something like "...for what they considered a white man's war."

Done. --Noleander (talk) 00:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it "African-American" or "African American"? I'm not sure, but be consistent throughout the article.

Done. The convention is hyphen when used as an adjective; no hyphen when used as a noun. --Noleander (talk) 00:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lead may not be long-enough given the length of the article. Make sure that every section of the article is represented by at least a sentence or two in the lead, with larger sections represented by more sentences.

Done - Added some important points to the lead, but the lead is getting a bit large (4 paragrph maximum, per WP:LEAD) so I did not include mention of every section from article, but I think I got all the important points. --Noleander (talk) 04:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through and looked for obvious misspellings and grammar mistakes and am at a loss to find more. Good job in this respect. However, I highly recommend having a copy editor do a fine-tooth reading, especially for formatting issues (such as en- and em-dashes...I'm terrible with those). In fact, I recommend Finetooth, who is a great reviewer. (note: copy edit is not a requirement here to pass GAR)
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
The most problematic issue with the content that I can see is the discussion of the Atlanta Compromise, the only references supporting the description come from biographies of Du Bois. I think to make this section stronger, you'll need broader references for the basic facts of the Atlanta Compromise - from sources independent of the Du Bois biographies. The linked Wikipedia article on the compromise is quite weak (doesn't affect this GAR), but it states that nothing was written down in the "agreement", so I think to make this section strongest in terms of verifiability and neutrality, you'll need to triangulate the facts from multiple, independent sources. I bring this up, because the language in this article is stronger than in places such as this. Sadly, there may be some readers who dispute the uncomfortable facts, so additional references will help.

Done - I added more sources on the Atlanta Compromise; also added sources to the Atlanta Compromise article (for future reference ... did not improve the article yet); and improve the description of the A.C. in the Du Bois article. --Noleander (talk) 03:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
This is a comprehensive article which presents a compelling biography of Du Bois. Any interested reader would feel satisfied.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
See comment above about Atlanta Compromise. Otherwise, no major red flags.

Done See comments above. --Noleander (talk) 03:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
No edit wars. Seems stable, apart from improvements from main contributor.
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):
Make sure that the non-free images have the copyright holder listed in the fair use rationales. I noticed that not all of them did.

There are 3 pics that are an issue: File:Du Bois with Mao Tse Tung 1959B.jpg, File:WEB Du Bois PIC hearing reduced Resolution.jpg, File:Du Bois 95th birthday in Ghana 1963.jpg. Those are from the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Du Bois collection. here. There web site has a good assortment of photos, but they do not identify the copyright holder of each individual photo. Is it acceptable to indicate that fact ("copyright holder not known") in the fair use rationale? --Noleander (talk) 04:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's good enough for me and GAR, though you should make sure that's made clear in the file pages for those images. When an FAC reviewer looks at them, they'll want to know why the copyright holder is unknown.

Done - added explanation to each of those image's fair-use rationale, explaining why copyright holder not (yet) known.

Only a few images have alt-text. Be sure to put in alt-text for every image used in the article.

Done. All have "alt" text except the book cover images, since the caption is adequate. --Noleander (talk) 03:54, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Overall: This is a wonderful article with only minor issues as far as the GA criteria are concerned. I'll place a hold on the review until these are fixed. I think this article is near FA quality. I recommend getting a peer review and a copy edit, which will bolster its chances at FAC. You might also look at recent FANs and see who the active voters are and ask one or two to look over the article.
Improvements made by Noleander bring this up to GA status. Congratulations!AstroCog (talk) 13:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pass/Fail:

Done All tasks above have been completed, with the exception of a few minor deviations, noted in the comments above. --Noleander (talk) 04:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Astrocog: Thanks for volunteering to review the article. I was planning on taking this article to FA sometime soon, so if you could subject the article to rather strict scrutiny, verging on FA standards, that would be great. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I'm reading it closely and checking all the little things. It's a big article, so I'm taking it bit by bit. It's a wonderful article, and very comprehensive, so I think you won't have much trouble with GA. Should have the review completed by tonight. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 19:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]