Talk:Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Off to a fine start! The summary appears to give all the major details and the only thing you might consider mentioning is that this was unique among truth commissions in its local and non-governmental focus. Dwebsterbu (talk) 01:15, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

CHURDLE2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Churdle2014 (talk • contribs) 22:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

There is a lot of information on the commission as well as on the event of the 3rd November 1979. The text is interesting and easy to read and understand. The lead section explains well the whole article without getting into all the details.

The structure of the article is simple and because of that it is easy to follow. There is one point on the structure of the Wikipedia page that I did not really understand. This part is the text that are in the square parts. At first I thought it was passage from the commission itself because it was separated from the rest of the text. I do not know if it was intentional or not, but it made me wonder why it was different for some part of the text, and I did not find any reason why it should be different.

The article is neutral and only recounts facts. The only place where there might be a sign of a non-neutral comments is at the end of the article when you say “Holliday instead preferred to simply express regret for the events of that day.” For me, the word “simply” shows that what Holliday did was not enough. Maybe it is just my own perception of it.

The last point that I will bring is that there are no reference number inside the article. You have the references at the end of the article, but you did not link you citation to your references.

I really enjoyed the article and after reading it, I do not feel like I need to know more on the subject to clearly understand it. I think you did a great job!

Peer Editing: Jen Rooney
Good start. As someone who didn't know anything about this case, it was very informative.

Intro I would reccomend linking to the Communist Workers’ Party Wikipedia page when you reference the Party.

I know you go on to explain it later but perhaps give a brief insight to what the Morningside Homes are.

During the marking of the 20th anniversary ? (strange wording? considering revising )

The comission was funded by (donors)... instead of formed by…?

Generally

You tend to switch tenses a lot so make sure you go over your sentences for consistency.

Some of your sentences are jam packed with events and information, considering splitting them into two sentences instead of risking run-on sentences. Not sure why you have used the boxes in some areas and not others? Is it for emphasis or a formatting error?

Some of your headlines are quite long - consider using more shorter ones to grab the readers' attention

I want to know more about the interviews that were conducted. What was said?

With regards to the testimonies of Greensboro Police Officers, members of the KKK etc, perhaps be more specific when you say current vs. former.

Do you have the dates of when these public hearings took place?

Clarify what you mean when you say the fourth reccomendation was advanced by the commission.

Was the reccomendation of a citizens review board -the creation of one or the strengthening of one that was already in existence?

The word "faith" in the justice system perhaps steps over the neutral standpoint.

Probably the most important comment I have is with regards to have citations. I see there are references at the bottom of the page but there are no footnotes in the text - so you run the risk of plagarism at this point.

A fun read, thanks!

comments on final draft
There is some impressive research in this article - good stuff. I did a minor edit on the formatting and the table of contents may fix itself when moving article to Wikipedia mainspace. I'd recommend seriously considering the peer reviewer comments.

On the editing side: shorter titles, such as simply "recommendations," would fit more with Wikipedia style. The recommendations would be a good place to use the list function of Wikipedia. Readers love lists. Some numbers are spelled out in full (six) while others are just the digit (7). Choose one or the other and be consistent. There are references to Robert Johnson and Nelson Johnson - same person? A number of sentences are passive-voice - "it was considered that..." type of formulations and this begs the question "by who." Re-word where possible to active voice (the commission considered that...).

This makes a very good essay but in places the essay style might be simplified with shorter sentences to make it more encyclopedia style. Citations need to be added - there is a "cite" button that you can use to have the page generate them automatically. Be sure at least to cite direct quotations eg "I knew ... we had been set up."

Content-wise on regarding significance, it could be worth mentioning in introduction or in the body around creation of commission (and reference to support of the ICTJ) that this was an attempt to take a tool developed for the global South (truth commissions) and apply it to a developed country. Is it the only TRC in the US? If so, worth stating, and will help justify an article that is separate from existing Greensboro massacre article.

Before (or preferably after) some quick fixes on citations, you should go ahead and move your article to the Wikipedia mainspace. Tips on doing this appear in the “Moving Out of Your Sandbox” handout, at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Classroom_handout_-_moving_out_of_your_sandbox.pdf

You may also wish to consult, before the final deadline at the end of next week, the handout on “Polishing Your Article” at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polishing_your_articles.pdf Dwebsterbu (talk) 15:04, 23 March 2016 (UTC)