Talk:Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford/GA1

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

Reviewer: SyntheticSystems (talk · contribs) 21:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Criteria
Good Article Status - Review Criteria   		A good article is&mdash;  :
 * (a) ; and
 * (b).

:
 * (a) ;
 * (b) ;
 * (c) ; and
 * (d).

:
 * (a) ; and
 * (b).

. . :
 * (a) ; and
 * (b).



Review
 :</li>



<li>:</li>

<li>:</li>

<li>.</li>

<li>.</li> <li>:</li>

</ol>

Result

 * To me, this review looks extremely superficial. For instance, how thoroughly did you check the sourcing? There are many footnotes to sources from the University of Oxford; did you check that editorial opinions like "one of the largest mathematics departments" are not backed up by such primary sources, but come from reliable secondary sourcing? What makes you think that ukwhoswho.com should pass as a reliable source? Did you check that the prose even makes sense? For instance, "Sir Michael Atiyah was a member between 1961 and 1990": member of what, and how does this relate to being an alum? Why do you think that changing the timing of exam length in 2017 meets the requirement that the article "stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail"? What I expect to see in a review is a detailed textual summary of how well the article stands up to each criterion, and a detailed analysis of what can be improved (on the order of a paragraph's worth of suggestions per section of the article, at least), not merely checking some boxes and calling it done. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:21, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It looks to me like a number of claims are not verified by suitable independent sources, including "one of the largest mathematics departments", and "the largest grant ever for a mathematics department in the UK". I also noticed that "The earliest ‘mathematical institute’ in Oxford may have been the School of Geometry and Arithmetic" in the source (from the University of Oxford) cited has become a much more definitive "The earliest forerunner of the Mathematical Institute was the School of Geometry and Arithmetic" in the article. The article also only cites the Guardian league table for mathematics, where Oxford comes top, ignoring (in a pretty clear case of cherry-picking) the Complete and Times/Sunday Times tables where Cambridge beats Oxford. Overall, there's a distinct lack of independent references, to the point where I wonder about the notability of the institute (I think it almost certainly is notable, but the references currently cited don't really show this). It's clear there's a lot of work needed to bring the references up the GA standard and this is closer to an insta-fail than a pass. Robminchin (talk) 19:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Status query
SyntheticSystems, MartinPoulter, where does this nomination stand? I don't see any sign that any edits have been made to address the issues raised by David Eppstein or Robminchin, nor any response by the reviewer to same. If the inaction continues for at least another seven days, perhaps the review can be taken over by David Eppstein or Robminchin and concluded; given the maintenance tags that have been on the article for eight weeks, it clearly can't pass GA in its current form. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:35, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Apologies, everyone. I withdraw the nomination which I now see was premature. Robminchin and David Eppstein make a very good case that the article has problems which need a longer-term fix.Thanks for your time! MartinPoulter (talk) 10:06, 11 May 2023 (UTC)