Talk:Oliverotto Euffreducci/GA1

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

I will be happy to do a GA review on this article. H1nkles (talk) 07:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

GA Review Philosophy
When I do an article review I like to provide a Heading-by-Heading breakdown of suggestions for how to make the article better. It is done in good faith as a means to improve the article. It does not mean that the article is not GA quality, or that the issues listed are keeping it from GA approval. I also undertake minor grammatical and prose edits. After I finish this part of the review I will look at the over arching quality of the article in light of the GA criteria and make my determination as to the overall quality of the article. H1nkles (talk) 07:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Lead

 * First sentence is a run on sentence, consider splitting into two.
 * Incredibly brief, is there nothing more from the article to use in the lead? I know the article itself is rather brief but still there must be a bit more that can be added to the lead.  H1nkles (talk) 18:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Words like "ruthless" may violate WP:POV unless they are cited, consider rewording.
 * Why say, "he was finally killed..."? Is this to indicate that he was a blight and should have been killed long before he actually was?  Remove "finally" as it injects too much personal opinion into the statement.  H1nkles (talk) 19:01, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Biography

 * Too many unnecessary wikilinks including: soldier, Chief Commander, mansion, banquet, feast (the difference between the two I can't really figure out), governing council and government are in the same sentence and both link to Government, siege, and dictatorship. In general a wikilink is useful if it links to something that supports the specific facts in the article.  For example if for dictatorship you linked to a list of Italian dictators then that would be understandable.  Linking to the wiki article on dictatorship really doesn't add anything to the specific article.
 * This section needs a thorough prose review. Examples of prose problems are as follows:
 * "As his ambition grew, he wanted to seize Fermo himself." His, He, Himself - duplicative wording.
 * "After the feast and the entertainment, Oliverotto brought up important subjects, such as that of the Pope, his son, and their enterprises." ...Such as that of... is an awkward phrase, consider rewording.  The Pope, his son and their enterprises - are you saying they discussed the Pope's son and the enterprises of the Pope and his son?  It's ambiguous.
 * "Later, he made himself a formidable to all of his neighboring states." He made himself a formidable...what?... Formidable is an adjective but the noun it is supposed to be describing is missing.
 * Nearly half of the section is a quote from Machiavelli. This quote simply retells what you have already said previously.  The outcome of the meeting should be removed from your summary and the quote should be trimmed to just the outcome so that it adds to the article rather than just expanding its length with duplicative information.
 * There is a lot of missing information here that makes the entire section very hard to read. For example:
 * He wanted to seize Fermo himself. What is the significance of this city to him or his family?
 * Why was he fighting for the French? Why did he then fight against the Venetians?  Why did he switch to fighting for the Florentines?  Why were they accused of treason?  H1nkles (talk) 22:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Downfall

 * Again more information without a lot of background for the reader to understand what is going on. For example:
 * "In May 1502, Oliverotto conquered Camerino for Cesare Borgia, but realizing that the Duke was becoming stronger, he attended the meeting at La Magione with the Orsinis, the Baglionis, Petrucci, Bentivoglio, Vitelli and others, on October 9." Who are these names?  What significance do they have to Italian history.  Are there any wiki articles you can link them to?
 * "Although Oliverotto was against Paolo Orsini's line of reconciliation with Cesare Borgia, he nonetheless took Sinigallia in Cesare's name." What does this mean?  I don't understand.  I am a novice in Italian history but Wiki articles are to be written with explanation in order to help the novice comprehend what is being said.
 * Excessive wikilinking - Duke doesn't need to be wikilinked unless it can be linked specifically to an article about Italian nobility. Cesare Borgia is linked twice here, once is sufficient.
 * More prose edits can be done here as well.

Regarding Legacy
Stub section that should be expanded. H1nkles (talk) 23:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding References

 * Per WP:cite you web citations should include title, author (if available), publisher, date and accessdate. This detail is important to have over just providing links to webpages.
 * Your final webpage link has no identifying information at all. Just because it's on the web does not make it reliable. H1nkles (talk) 23:16, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding overall review
Currently the article needs a lot of work to pass GA criteria. The above suggestions are a start. The biggest thing as far as time and effort goes will be to fill in a lot of the missing holes, making the article more complete. It is short and should be a lot longer considering the missing information and backstory. Further research will be required. It will need a thorough prose massage as well. I will put the article on hold for a week to see if further editing can improve the article. I will then review for GA determination. If you need more than a week please let me know. H1nkles (talk) 23:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Further comments on fixes

 * You have addressed some of the concerns listed in the review. Though there are still some gaping holes.
 * You still wikilink words like banquet and mansion. Those are unnecessary.
 * But really the issue is the narrative. For example, why did Oliverotto want to kill his uncle and all the prominent people of Fermo?  That is not explained in the article and since you emphasize this event as a major watershed in his life and you pull a quote from Machiavelli to support this part of the article there should be some reason why he had them all killed.
 * Here is another example, "Although Oliverotto was against Paolo Orsini's line of reconciliation with Cesare Borgia, he nonetheless took Senigallia in Cesare's name." I don't understand what a line of reconciliation is.  Why would he decide to meet with all of these guys?  What does Cesare Borgia's expanding power have to do with it?  Why is it significant that he took Senigalia in Cesare's name?  I can infer that this meeting was seen as treasonous by Borgia but why?
 * I would suggestion researching Cesare Borgia's life, or a history of Fermo. Or go even broader and search for Italy during this timeframe.  In short you need more background information and that doesn't necessarily have to come from sources specifically about Oliverotto.
 * I understand that sourcing may be minimal. If there isn't enough information out there to complete a biography and answer some of the basic questions of his life then that's ok, but it would not be considered (in my opinion) as meeting the GA standards.  Specifically the article is not meeting criteria 1b (the lead is too short for example), 2a and 2b (need more background information), and 3a (it does not address adequately the main aspects of the topic.  I hope that helps give you some direction for work this weekend.  I'll take another look on Monday and make my final determination then.  H1nkles (talk) 21:25, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Failed GA Review
At this point I have given several suggestions on how to improve this article. Some of those suggestions have been employed but not enough to pass the article. I will fail it at this point. Should it be improved that article could eventually pass. H1nkles (talk) 15:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)