Wikipedia:Peer review/Robert Rossen/archive2

Robert Rossen

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to go for a GA review. That means that I'm only interested in the subset of MOS described at WP:WIAGA. I've expanded the content and improved and checked the citations. I'd most like comments on the structure and prose.

Thanks, Philcha (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is quite interesting and not far from GA. Here are a few suggestions for further improvement.

Lead

• "dedicated to social causes of the sort that we as poor Jews from New York were interested in." - Even though this appears in the lead, it needs an in-line citation immediately after its end punctuation even if sourced later in the article.
  • Done, thanks. --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• "Rossen was twice called before the House Un-American Activities Committee" - Would it be good to add its abbreviation, HUAC, here as well. Then the longish head, "Examinations by House Un-American Activities Committee", could be shortened to "Examinations by HUAC".
  • I'm not sure there's an elegant way found this. Will readers remember the abbreviation for 2 sections, the 2nd quite long. Perhaps not include "HUAC" in the lead, shorten the heading to "Examinations by HUAC" and add a {{See}} linking to "Examinations by House Un-American Activities Committee"? --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning the "See" template, which I had never looked into before. I think that would work, but I'd also use House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the lead. I think quite a few readers are used to saying "HUAC" as a word, much in the same way they say "NASA" and actually forget what the abbreviations mean. It's up to you, though. Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Added "(HUAC)" in the lead. Change section header to "Examinations by HUAC" and added {{See|House Un-American Activities Committee}} below it. --Philcha (talk) 08:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Biography

• "raised on the lower East side" - Write as Lower East Side and link?
  • Thanks, done. --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• "In 1936 Rossen married." - Who did he marry? Since he married again in 1954, what happened to the first marriage? Did his first wife die, or did the couple divorce?
  • I Googled until I was blue in the face - and no bio of Rossen on Google. I even asked New York University, where Rossen studied, for help but they had nothing. A Very Dangerous Citizen: Abraham Lincoln Polonsky and the Hollywood Left (by Paul Buhle & Dave Wagner) says (p 249) "Rossen has no proper biography" - the book says Casty's article is the nearest to a bio, but it's nothing like one. --Philcha (talk) 15:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

OK. When no reliable information is available, there's nothing you can do. Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Early life and career

• "In the late 1930s New York's radical theaters were collapsing." - This sentence seems misplaced logically, simply tacked on to the end of the paragraph. Maybe the first sentence of the paragraph could be expanded to say "flourished in New York in the early and mid-1930s". The paragraph could simply end with "signed Rossen to a personal screenwriting contract".
  • As you suggested, wrote "flourished in New York in the early and mid-1930s" removed " In the late 1930s New York's radical theaters were collapsing". Thanks. --Philcha (talk) 16:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Work in Hollywood

• "an intellectual bosun" - Link "bosun" to Boatswain?
  • Thanks, done. --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Return to filmmaking

• "the lead resolves her conflicts by devote herself to dance;" - This part of the sentence does not make sense as written. The overall sentence is perhaps a bit too complex, and the verb tenses are inconsistent. Maybe a full stop after "realised" and then: "The lead resolves her conflicts through her devotion to dance; Katherine Dunham's choreography highlights this process, and innovative cinematography intensifies the dance scenes"? Also, I think you need to make clear who "her" refers to in "her conflicts". Maybe "The main character" instead of "The lead" would resolve this. Or you could describe the main character in some way.
  • The film is important only because it restarted Rossen's career. I've made "He had to produce the film in Italy, and it was premiered in Italy in 1954 and the USA in 1955" the 2nd sentence to make this clearer. --Philcha (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
  • The past tense is for the date when Fischer-Hornung wrote the analysis. The present is the indefinite use for summary of the film, which applies to whenever any one plays the film. What do you think? --Philcha (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. The sentence now seems fine to me. Finetooth (talk) 22:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• • I copyedited to "the female lead resolves her own conflicts by devoting herself to dance". --Philcha (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Later life

• "He was survived by his wife Sue, son Stephen and daughters Carol and Ellen" - When was Ellen born?
  • No source on that, sorry. All I found was a marriage notice in 1992 that said Ellen was Rossen's daughter. --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Notes

• Multiple pages should be indicated by "pp." rather than "p.", page ranges take an en dash rather than a hyphen. I ran a script that fixed most instances, but it missed some. See citation 39, for example.
  • Fixed all pp. x-y --Philcha (talk) 14:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
  • The GA criteria uses a defined subset of MOS which does not include WP:DASH, and I will not use WP:DASH as it's about the biggest time-waster in WP. --Philcha (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I have never heard this argument before. WP:DASH is part of MOS, which is what I try to rely on in the same way I rely on a dictionary to tell me how things should be spelled. To some extent, many "rules" of writing are conventions that are subject to debate. I don't involve myself much in the debates. Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Reception

• "In the time Variety praised the cast" - Should that be "At the time"?
  • Thanks, done. --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

References

• The "Reference" section is arranged alphabetically, but a few things are out of order. For example, the second entry, "Thomas, Bob", belongs elsewhere. Oh, I see it also appears again in the correct position, so this first entry is a duplicate that should be deleted. I see a similar double entry for "Crowther, Bosley" in the second column, and "LoBianco, Lorraine" and "Brennan, Sandra" are out of order. There may be others; I did not check every item.
  • Removed duplicates of cites to Bob Thomas and to Crowther ("The Brave Bulls (1951)"). --Philcha (talk) 14:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Cites made with <ref>...</ref> but without List-defined references appear in the order in which they appear in the article, e.g. in Annelid - in other words, randomly. Citations by LDR and, via a different mechanism, {{sfn}}, {{harv}} etc. can be ordered as the editor likes. With {{sfn}} and {{harv}} etc., the editor has to create an "alias" for the citation, while LDR uses the name as in <ref name="...">...</ref> But I've found it different to devise rules ordering these names / aliases:

Internal consistency is what to aim for. I don't know all of the citation families well enough to know all of the complications. Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• • • Books and academic articles are usually cited as author name(s) and year.
    • Web pages quite often lack author name(s) and / or year. For example the Rossen article cites many pages from Turner Classic Movies and / or IMDb and / or allmovie - and all these publishers often produce article about the same film. So I usually create a citation name like e.g "Brave Bulls - TCM".
    • So for inconsistency I guess that for reviews of specific films I should write e.g "Brave Bulls - Crowther"
    • But there are some pages where I can't devise a rule for the name, e.g. 101 List includes "The Hustler" at position 96 in this lists of "101 Geatest Screenplays". --Philcha (talk) 14:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
• For books such as Dick, Bernard F.'s Interstellar Spaces, I'd add the place of publication. If you don't have this in your notes, you can usually find it via WorldCat.
  • Done. But Google Books never (IIRC) provides location. Are editors supposed to do 2 types of search for each book? Google provides ISBN (until it's an old book), which will lead readers who are interested. --Philcha (talk) 11:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think of Google Books as a quick way to do a search at home, but when I find something interesting, I try to track down the hard copy via a library or bookstore. The printed version is more stable and more complete, as a rule. Finetooth (talk) 22:39, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Images

• The source link for the Rossen image in the infobox is circular. It should link to the source page rather than to itself. Otherwise, fact checkers cannot check the source.
  • Eh? The lead pic in the article links to the pic's page, which links to the source. --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

To make it easier for fact-checkers, link to the source page rather than to an image without a context. The page that I've linked to here includes information about the copyright and who holds it. That's part of what fact-checkers need to know in order to verify the license. Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• • What about 1 or 2 more pics? E.g. Jack Warner, for whom Rossen worked for 8 years, and then had a quarrel; the lead pic of All the King's Men (1949 film), Rossen's greatest success; The Hustler (film), his other great success. --Philcha (talk) 15:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Good ideas except that they are all fair-use rather than free. Strictly speaking, none of them is necessary for an understanding of the material. They probably do not meet WP:NFCC, although the lead image probably does. Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Reluctantly I agree. --Philcha (talk) 09:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Persondata

• I'd add "Screenwriter, director, producer" to the "Short description" line.
  • Where's the "Short description" line? --Philcha (talk) 09:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It's part of the "persondata" at the bottom of the article. It's invisible to readers, but you can see it and edit it in edit mode. It's a category of metadata that is useful in ways explained at WP:PERSONDATA.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 21:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)