Talk:Berit Wallenberg/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 06:04, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

I wanted to like this article, and I think the subject is deserving of being the subject of a good article, but I don't think this article was ready for a good article nomination. It does not appear to be a properly written synthesis of multiple in-depth independent sources about the subject, but rather a close paraphrase (and to the extent that it varies, an inaccurate paraphrase) of a single source, seeded with other unverifiable references to make it look more legitimate.

The lead contains multiple unsourced claims that do not appear later in the article: - first Swedish woman to be appointed as a supervisor for the national heritage committee - only woman to receive an honorary doctorate from the Stockholm University (untrue, even looking at a single year, 2020, there are four others, Jane Gaines, Ann Åberg, Karen Kohfeld, and Joanna Rose ) More generally, the lead contains statements that appear to be aimed at establishing the subject's significance, but in a seemingly haphazard order and without adequately summarizing the rest of the article. (WP:GACR #1b).

References 1 and 6, the basis for most of the article, are actually a single source, despite often being cited together. Some of the text appears closely paraphrased from that source, without citing it (GACR #2d), to the extent that the only variation in wording appears to make the text less accurate: compare the lead "In 1936, she became the first Swedish woman to be appointed as a supervisor for the national heritage committee, responsible for the restoration of the Lovö church" with the source "became the first woman in Sweden to be appointed an inspector for the national heritage board in conjunction with the renovation of Lovö church in 1935", and particularly look at the parts that are different: supervisor vs inspector, "responsible for" vs "in conjunction with", and 1936 vs 1935.

The early life and family section is again closely paraphrased from references 1=6, despite having multiple other offline sources. The source says they regularly summered in Särö, in contradiction to the article that says they lived there once briefly. The education section is sourced only to references 1=6, still with the close paraphasing. Again, the variation from the source seems to indicate the introduction of inaccuracies; the source says that she took advanced programs in art history and archaeology, and in the next sentence says that she wrote her dissertation in 1931 but waited until 1932 to get the degree; our article makes the licenciate a separate degree and part of the advanced program. The claim that she was given a second degree in philosophy in 1942 is far from clear in the source, which says that a professor "appointed her as a licenciate" without mentioning philosophy, and which could easily mean that he gave her employment based on her existing status as having earned a licenciate ten years earlier.

Most of the photography section is not about her career, but about her collection of photos; it does not belong in the career section.

Some sentences, like "Later served as the regional curator of antiquities and archaeology, Greta Arwidsson, and the curator and art historian Agnes Geiger, their friendship with Wallenberg lasted until her death.", are ungrammatical to the point of incomprehensibility (GACR #1a).

The entire "Awards and Honors" section is unsourced. (GACR #2c)

We have a brief sentence stating that there is an entire published biography of Wallenberg, by Lars Djerf. However, it appears nowhere in the references. It seems likely that another in-depth source would provide a much clearer picture of the subject, and that an article not using that source is missing important details (GACR #3a).

I did not read carefully the rest of the career, personal life, and death sections (although I think personal life and death should be merged; they are both short), as it had become clear by that point in my reading that the problems with the rest of the article were already too severe.

I conclude that this is very far from passing the Good Article criteria (WP:GAFAIL), in being heavily based on close paraphrasing from a single source and in having large amounts of badly sourced material. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:04, 21 August 2021 (UTC)