Wikipedia:Peer review/Gerrymandering/archive1

Gerrymandering[edit]

This article is a rather important topic to me, and I've been working on it for a period of several months, however I'm not sure where to go from here other than finding a few more good references and citations. At this point, it needs some new sets of eyes, particularly those not terribly familiar with the topic. Is it understandable to the layman? Does it make sense? Do you have any questions unanswered after reading it? Thanks! Scott Ritchie 06:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice, but it is notable that almost all of the diagrams relate to US gerrymandering (perhaps it is most prevalent there?). It may be worth saying that some countries prevent it by having an independent commission to draw up the boundaries (in the UK, the Boundary Commission). -- ALoan (Talk) 12:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of brief observations:

The introduction says the term is derived from the name Elbridge Gerry. The caption to Image:Gerrymander.jpeg says "a salamander, from which the term gerrymander is derived". Which is it?
The title "Proposed reforms targeting gerrymandering" reads a bit like a newspaper or ticker headline and hence sounds as though it is referring to a particular set of proposals put forward at some (unspecified) time and place. Playing around with different versions, I can't come up with a brief description, but I think it might be worth finding a new title. Reforms which have been proposed to target gerrymandering, changes intended to make gerrymandering.. ugh, this is hard!
Most of the section about Northern Ireland is dated, but the "particularly famous example" explained right at the start of the section is not. Just to within a decade would probably be enough (although obviously a particular year or term would be lovely).

Hope these help! --Telsa 00:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice catch on the name - it's actually derived from both. I think the word is portmanteau - I'll try and update it. As for the title, I like your suggestion of "Reforms which have been proposed to target gerrymandering" the most and will put it in. As for the Irish bits, I'll try and find someone knowledgable in Irish history to flesh it out more. Thanks for reading and commenting! Scott Ritchie 08:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One thought on an excellent article: "Among western democracies, only Israel and the Netherlands are free from gerrymandering in the national government, as they employ electoral systems with only one (nationwide) voting district." Maybe replacing "free from" with "not suspetable to" would sound better. As it is, it somewhat pessimistically suggests that all nations with electoral districts participate in gerrymandering. While i personally feel that the statment is probably not incorrect, to make such statements on an FA would require doeznes of specific citations; one for each state. youngamerican (talk) 04:12, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- "Carved out with the aid of a computer, this congressional district was the product of California's incumbent gerrymandering"---is this a snark at the field of spatial analysis? youngamerican (talk) 04:15, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments, they were helpful and inspired some changes. As for whether it's a snark at the field of spatial analysis, I can say no as I've never heard of it and I'm not quite sure how it's related. Thanks! Scott Ritchie 09:08, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the confusion. Basically, it is the process of using computers (and other means) to analyze space in regard to demographics, statistics, land-use, etc. While sometimes the use of a computer to generate voting districts can be a little impersonal, it also is a good tool to find groupings. It just had a tone that anything using computer spatial analysis would be automatically negaitve. BTW< the article is looking great. youngamerican (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adopting inline citations would be a great boom. And I know that The Economist had quite a few articles about that, so you may want to browse through it online database and gather more citations. The fact that this article cites no scholarly articles/books is a significant drawback.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]