Talk:2022 California Proposition 1/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 18:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll get this reviewed over the next few days. Thebiguglyalien ( talk ) 18:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

This article needs significant reorganizing, trimming, and source work before it can meet the good article criteria. I'm closing the review so that cleanup can take place. It can be renominated at any time once the nominator believes the issues have been addressed. Thebiguglyalien ( talk ) 02:32, 26 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Well-written

Numbering based on the sources as of this revision.
 * Verifiable with no original research

Virtually all of the sources are primary sources, either for government documents/activities, for coverage of events, or for the opinions of the authors. GA doesn't have a specific requirement for secondary sources, but it can bring major problems to the article. The first is that with these sources, you can only make basic statements of fact that don't require any interpretation or prior knowledge of the subject. The second problem is that it means there's essentially no curation of sources or application of due weight, because there are no sources that provide these things, effectively making this an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information. I wrote more about this below under criterion 3. The third problem, an effect of these first two, is that eventually we are going to have to present the information in some way, and if it's us analyzing the primary sources ourselves, then it's original research. WP:PRIMARY describes where primary sources should and shouldn't be used.

Information from opinion sources, or from advocacy and partisan organizations, should be attributed generously:
 * 48: Basic fact, probably not an issue.
 * 64–66: Attributed.
 * 75: Basic fact.
 * 106–109: Used to support that these sources exist.
 * 110: PRNewswire is normally unreliable, but in this case it provides attributed opinion.
 * 122–129: Used to verify opinions.
 * 130–131: It's generally used to describe who holds what opinions, but the section depends very heavily on this source.
 * 132–133, 135–136: Used to verify opinions.
 * 137: Used to verify opinion.
 * 150–203: All used to verify opinion.
 * 233: Used for attributed opinion.
 * 242: Attributed opinion.
 * 249: Attributed poll from an advocacy group.
 * 254: Used to describe facts, but getting beyond basic fact.

The article covers all of the main aspects, but it fails to do so without going out of scope or into excessive detail. There are nearly a hundred sources in this article that are specifically used to explain the opinion of one specific person or group. Articles like this should generally have a brief summary of the positions and then maybe a few examples of prominent figures, organizations, or demographic groups who are regularly described in the sources as relevant to this issue.
 * Broad in its coverage

Looking at the sections where this is most apparent:
 * California abortion law – This section is a five paragraph description of the history of California's abortion law from 1850 to 2022. The entire concept of abortion law in California is beyond the scope of this article, and it should only have the minimum necessary for readers to understand where the law was when this vote took place.
 * Discussion on effects – This looks like a detailed blow by blow account of everything that was published about what effects might be relevant. It's basically the journalism equivalent of raw data. This should have been analyzed by secondary sources (books, journals, retrospective media analysis) so they could determine what was relevant, and then the Wikipedia article would summarize said secondary sources.
 * Positions – This is where the problem is most significant. It feels like this section goes through the opinion of every person who ever commented publicly on this proposition. Same with the previous point, Wikipedia articles shouldn't indiscriminately collect information.


 * Neutral


 * Stable


 * Illustrated