Talk:2021 Dublin Bay South by-election/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Mark83 (talk · contribs) 12:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Very good article. I have made some suggestions for tweaks. There is not much work to do before I'll be happy to pass this nomination. In the meantime I'm happy to discuss any of my suggestions/comments.

Copyedit suggestions

 * 1) Some references mid-sentence and not after punctuation (MOS:REFPUNCT)
 * 2) Tense - i.e. is > was, include > included etc.
 * 3) "Four seater" -- is that correct? Doesn't seem like formal language.
 * 4) "The then Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu and Dublin City Councillor Claire Byrne contested the Green Party nomination and was selected as the party candidate on 4 June." -- this should read "and Byrne was selected".  As it is there's ambiguity.  Consider whether the linking of Dublin City Councillor to Dublin City Council is correct.  Not exactly an easter egg, but not a direct link either.
 * 5) The paragraph beginning "Fianna Fáil councillors Deirdre Conroy and Claire O'Connor were reported..." could be tightened up - run on sentences etc.
 * 6) Why are the Labour and SF canidates in one paragraph when others are separate?  (Although consider my table suggestion).
 * 7) "Throwing the kitchen sink" doesn't add anything.  Candidates say all sorts of things; fluff like this isn't encyclopedic.
 * 8) Should "Zero Covid" be capitalised?  Should it be linked?
 * 9) First lines of Fine Gael/James Geoghegan has run-on sentence.  Same with the whole second paragraph.
 * 10) "O'Connell referred to the message as a "hoax"" is repetition.
 * 11) SF section - "Following the annoucement of the by-election," is redundant.
 * 12) I think it right that the article doesn't go into too much detail, but is there a wikilink for this issue?  "During the campaign, Boylan received criticism from Fine Gael's by-election candidate James Geoghegan for her stance on the Special Criminal Court"
 * 13) "Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen send' out an internal e-mail within the party demanding an immediate in-person parliamentary party meeting to discuss Fianna Fáil's "alarming" performance in the by-election. In the e-mail, Cowen stated that "It is imperative that both that election and the latest bad result now comes under the microscope of the parliamentary party"" -- typo in bold and the whole issue could be summarised using less words.
 * 14) Don't like the use of the word "camp" - a bit informal.
 * 15) On the COVID precautions in voting centres - this could be tightened up slightly.

Responses by BHG to the GA review
Many thanks to @ for the prompt and thorough review. I will reply to the points in order, one at a time. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)


 * 1b -- From the mention of pictures, I assume that The table seems to be overly big refers to the infobox at the top. So in this edit, I reduced the image size by 75% in each dimension. Does that help? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:46, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I amended your version of the sizing to the same image size as 2019 Polish parliamentary election's infobox, as your version reduced the image sizes but not the overall size of the infobox, and thus meant the images lost their uniform size. CeltBrowne (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @CeltBrowne: actually, your edit reverted to almost the same size as before, but randomly changed the crop location.
 * In this edit, I have just restored the smaller images, but also reduced the size of the non-image text boxes (for the candidates without photos). My failure to fix the text boxes first time around was the oversight which caused the wee display glitches.
 * It would have been better to discuss this before reverting me, and more helpful to ping me if you did revert my changes.  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Much better. I still think it looks a bit clumbsy - but that's the infobox itself and not therefore a problem with this article. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * 1b/item2 -- The candidates section looks a bit piecemeal, i.e. short sentences. Could this be in a list instead?. My understanding us that per MOS:USEPROSE, prose is preferred.  I think that given the number of candidates and the sparsity of coverage of some of them, a little scrappiness in place is unavoidable. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:10, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * 3b/item1. In this edit, I switched the order of the last 2 sentences of the lead, so that predictions of turnout come before the final data. Also, light ce. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:54, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * 3b/item2: No idea what the relevance of Conroy's legal action for a fall on a skiing trip has to the by-election? Conroy became a controversial character after release of her blog comments about a tenant, and she was heavily scrutinised. The skiing injury drew attention because of its echoes of the Maria Bailey "swing-gate" episode, in which a politician had sought compensation for an injury in which they may have had a high degree of responsibility.  Unfortunately, the source doesn't mention Bailey, so we can't draw the connection directly. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:03, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You've explained it to me here, but I've gone back and read it again and I fear readers will have the same "huh?" thought as me? Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * 3b/item3: The Diary of a Dublin Landlady controversy could perhaps be summarised?. I see your point, but the landlady controversy was a huge issue, with a lot of media coverage.  So I think that the presence of a whole para on it reflects its prominence in the sources, per WP:WEIGHT. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

More broadly, the Geoghegan dodging media issue was widely covered because it was the inverse of the usual publicity-seeking tactics of by-election candidates. This seat used to be natural FG territory, but its candidate seemed to be wary of showing his colours. Geoghegan's reticence and the controversies around Conroy came together to define the dynamics of the by-election as one in which both FF and FG were in retreat and forced into defensive positions in the face of a perception that they were entitled and out-of-touch ... so I think that both episodes deserve space to breathe, to give readers a sense of the nature of the campaign as it was reported. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:40, 1 January 2022 (UTC) Una Mullally appears to be notable, but per WP:NOTINHERITED that does not mean that any of her works are WP:NOTABLE. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 3b/item4: Does the article get bogged down in the Geoghegan dodging media issue; should we focus on two podcasts? [snip]. In this edit, I have italicised the podcast titles as suggested.  I am unsure whether to keep any mention of them: my inclination is that since they may not be notable sources, they should be mentioned only if their exclusion is mentioned in relaible sources.  I will investigate that later.
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as the notability of the podcasts goes, the United Ireland podcast is co-hosted by Una Mullally, a journalist with the Irish Times. As a journalist for a national newspaper, she definitely has notability within an Irish context. CeltBrowne (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @CeltBrowne: notability is not inherited.
 * Some discussion left I think. But not an issue preventing GA promotion. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I think that it would be unbalanced to leave that issue with only a verbose FG response, but I agree that the Durcan response was over-long. So in this edit I summarised as you suggested. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:51, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 3b/item5: Sarah Durcan comments on airtime.
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

My view is that it is appropriate to give more weight to the victor, and that Bacik also supplied more succinct quotes which were more usable as a summary of her position. Isn't it better to quote directly, as the sources did? -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:33, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 4/item1 -- consider the Labour Party/Ivana Bacik section - undue weight to her own quotes vs. other candidates. Paraphrase perhaps?
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I think that the Bacik/Labour response to their win is actually a little underplayed in the § #Aftermath and reactions. The first three paras are about two losing parties (FF & FG); the victor comes in only at para 3. The Bacik/Kelly responses in paras 3 & 5 are are 225 word out of a total of 544, which is 41%; that seems to be in the right range for a candidate who got 30% of first prefs, but won on transfers. I think that para 1, on the collapse of the once-mighty FF, reflects the focus of the focus of the sources ... but taking it as a whole, I think that the section would be better if it opened with a para on independent commentary, before going into the party reactions. I will see what I can find in the sources, with a view to adding a new para there. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 4/item2 -- Note sure we should include this from Bacik's victory speech [snip qote] .. Could we not get analysis from an independent source on what her victory meant?.
 * Thanks. I'll leave this with you, but again not a problem for GA promotion.Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Responses by BHG to the GA Copyedit suggestions
I found two examples in the article of mid-sentence refs:
 * #1: my reading of MOS:REFPUNCT is that it requires that we do not have a ref followed by a punctuation mark (e.g. don't do "on friday[2]." or "in 2011[6],") ... but that it does not require that a ref must follow punctuation.
 * §Background, para 1
 * §Aftermath and reactions, para1 sentence 2
 * In each case, the refs seem to me to positioned appropriately, because in both cases, they follow the MOS:REFPUNCT guidance that All ref tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies.  Moving them to the end of the sentenece would lose that specificity. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:21, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected here, apologies for wasting your time on this one. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * #2: I think that all the tense issues were resolved in this edit by @Sammielh. Have I missed any? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:28, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * #3: "Four seater" is a commonly-used shorthand (see e.g. how a Google search for for "Four seater" constituency gives lots of reliable sources), but it may be unfamiliar to those not from Ireland, and there is no handy link to a wiki article explaining the term. So in this edit I expanded it to "four-seat constituency". -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I disagree about linking "Foo City Councillor" to "Foo City Council"; I think it is pretty direct, since the Council is a body composed of its councillors. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #4: in this edit I restructured the para on Green selection for clarity.  I also added a ref to the Irish Times report for the fact that it was a selection convention.
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Good catch: that para was clumsy. In this edit, I restructured it and added refs. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 18:43, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #5: The paragraph beginning "Fianna Fáil councillors Deirdre Conroy and Claire O'Connor were reported...".
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Because for both Lab & SF, we have only one short sentence on each candidate's selection. Splitting that into two very paras seems to me to be worse than putting them together in one para. The ideal remedy would be to have more coverage of each party's selection process, and cover each party in a separate para. However, my brief search didn't find more. I will try again tomorrow. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #6: Why are the Labour and SF candidates in one paragraph when others are separate? -- I assume this refers to the §Candidateselection
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Back in June/July, I searched long and hard for any other coverage of Mannix Flynn's campaign, but that was the only report I found of him. I agree that almost anything else about his campaign would render that quote superfluous, but when it's all we have I think those few words are worth including to give some flavour of his style. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #7: "Throwing the kitchen sink" doesn't add anything. Candidates say all sorts of things; fluff like this isn't encyclopedic..
 * I see where you're coming from. Personally I'd take it out. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I did a search for "zero covid", and found nothing to link to. However, 25 of the 29 hits used a lowercase "zero", and there is no indication that "Zero Covid" is a proper name, so in this edit I changed the text from "Zero Covid" to "zero Covid". -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 05:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #8: Should "Zero Covid" be capitalised? Should it be linked?
 * PS: I left a note at WT:COVID raising the possibility of an article on "zero Covid".  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 05:23, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * PPS: The article Zero Covid has just been created by @Novem Linguae, so I have linked it in this edit.
 * Thanks, Novem Linguae!  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 06:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you (both)! Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Good catch; that whole section was riddled with over-long sentences. In this edit, I split them up. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 06:57, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #9: First lines of Fine Gael/James Geoghegan has run-on sentence. Same with the whole second paragraph.
 * Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is. In this edit, I have removed that redundant sentence. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 07:55, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #10: "O'Connell referred to the message as a "hoax"" is repetition.
 * Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is. I removed it in this edit. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #11: SF section - "Following the annoucement of the by-election," is redundant
 * Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

In this edit, I wikilinked the "criticism" section of the article Special Criminal Court, as follows:. If you prefer a simple link to the article, I will change it. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:05, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #12: I think it right that the article doesn't go into too much detail, but is there a wikilink for this issue? "During the campaign, Boylan received criticism from Fine Gael's by-election candidate James Geoghegan for her stance on the Special Criminal Court".
 * Agreed. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, redundant verbosity. In this edit, I have trimmed the coverage of Barry Cowen's email. Two sentences cut to one, and redundant quote removed. In the same edit, I also tightened the sentence on Cathal Crowe. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:18, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #13: "Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen send' out an internal e-mail [snip].
 * Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree, and in this edit I trimmed the verbose informality: "discontent was felt with the Fine Gael camp" → "discontent was felt in Fine Gael". -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #14: informality of "camp".
 * Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree. In this edit, I did a light copyedit to slightly reduce verbosity, without losing any detail. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:00, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * #15: On the COVID precautions in voting centres - this could be tightened up slightly
 * Thank you. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

That completes my responses to the review. Huge thanks to @ for such thorough and fair-minded scrutiny, which I think has led to a lot of useful improvements. There are some points which need to be discussed further, and I look forward to that process: the gaps between us are small, and I am sure we can easily resolve them.

I have done my responses as separate bullet points, to facilitate threaded discussion on any outstanding issues on any individual point.

I several places I have identified a need for further research. I won't attempt that today, because I am too close to the article and need a bit of a break for doing that research. So I will do the research on Monday.

Mark, you may prefer to respond now to the points I have made so far, or to leave it all until I have done the extra research. I am fine with either approach, so please do as suits you. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:11, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Summary
Happy to pass this. And a very sincere thanks to for a prompt, constructive, methodical and thorough response to my comments. I know there are a few bits of extra research mentioned above, but these will just improve a GA, they aren't necessary to promote it.

And just to note a learning for me. I could have formatted this review better, i.e. 3b (1), to make responses easier. I'll do that for future reviews! Many thanks for the logical formatting of your replies. Mark83 (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks again, @Mark83. It was pleasure to work with you on this, and bring the article over the line.
 * And thanks too to Sheila1988, Iveagh Gardens, BrownHairedGirl, Spleodrach, CeltBrowne, and Uses x. This article reached GA status due to a lot of hard work by all these editors and to very effective collaboration between us all. Well done everyone!   Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the first article I've been involved in that has been nominated for a GA and I'm happy to see the nomination succeeded with BrownHairedGirl's guidance. A GA is nice way to ring in the new year, hopeful more Irish articles in the future follow this same path. Cheers everyone! CeltBrowne (talk) 23:54, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Great to see this reach Good Article standard, and thanks for clearly outlining how to achieve this, providing general stylistic guidelines that can be applied throughout the project. –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)