Talk:Rhea Seddon/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs) 04:40, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I'm reviewing this abandoned article for the June backlog drive. Sorry that you've had to resubmit it; it's obvious that you've worked hard on this article, especially during its first GAC. Kuddos for doing your part to close part of the gender gap with such an important individual. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 04:40, 4 June 2022 (UTC)


 * GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Nice job with this bio about an important individual.
 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * The prose is mostly good, adequate enough for a GA. If you were to take this bio farther and bring it to FAC (which I highly suggest that you do), you should get another copyedit to further improve the prose. Some of the language is a bit archaic; for example, See below for grammar issues that I think you need to take care of before I pass this bio to GA and some that are just suggetions and have no bearing on this GAN.
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):  d (copyvio and plagiarism):
 * See below for my comments about your refs.
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * I think that you include too much information; see below for details.
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * You do a good job at avoiding a peacock-y and/or puffer-y tone.
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * Has one main editor; no edit wars.
 * 1) It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * I have problems with the image of Seddon and Gibson with their newborn baby, for similar reasons as my problem about including their children's name as stated below. Personally, I think you should remove it, although I leave that up to you.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * I know this has been a long process, but you're really close. Once you make the changes I suggest (or give me good reasons to not), I will pass this important bio to GA. Good luck!

Things to do before promotion to GA:

As I state above, I think that you include information in this article that doesn't belong in an encyclopedic article. For example, while Seddon's marriage is important and should be mentioned (including that they were the first astronaut couple), the venues of her wedding and reception aren't important. Plus, that gets into "If we were talking about a man's marriage, would we mention his venues?" This is something I'm a little sensitive about; I think that every time we write bios about women, we need to consider gender gap issues.

I also have problems with the next paragraph in this section. I think you should mention the years that her children were born and her first son's medical emergency, but not their names, as per WP:BLPPRIVACY and WP:BLPNAME.

Prose: I think that your paragraphs are a bit long; I think you should break them up some. I could make some suggestions, and I can if you want me to, but I leave how to do that up to you.

Suggestions that have no bearing on this GAN:

Refs: Two things about your refs. 30 out 55 of your refs, or over 1/2, are Seddon's memoir. That could be a problem, as per WP:SPS, which I've always interpreted as advising against using memoirs/autobiographies as sources. I understand that's debateable, and according to the policy, you can use sources written by experts and the writer of a memoir is the ultimate expert about their life. I also think that you're probably going to have to defend using it so much; I suggest that you argue that without it, the bio wouldn't be as comprehensive as it is. I've used memoirs and autobiograhies before, but I try to support the information taken from them with other sources, which you may not be able to do. If you take this bio further, you'd have to defend your choice of using Seddon's memoir.

I think that the prose reads unencyclopedic in places. I think it's fine for a GA, but if you move forward with this bio, you should get a couple of editors to copyedit it. For now, I'll give you one example: the end of the third paragraph of the "Space flights" section; I'd remove the sentence She also fell pregnant again and state that in March 1989, her second child was born without stating his name, although I think it's okay if you state that he was named after his father. I agree with the previous GA reviewer about that, and I appreciate that you changed the first instance of it even though you weren't given an explanation about why, so I'll explain my reasoning: the offending phrase is a British colloquialism and not something American English speakers use. Since this is a bio about an American, I think you should avoid the British colloquialism, even though it's technically grammatically correct. I'm sure there are other instances of this, which is why you should ask for other eyes to take a look at it.

Responses
 * First of all, thank you for taking the time to review this article. I thought you were on a Wiki-break; welcome back!


 * This article is the last of four in a series, after Judith Resnik, Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan. I am undecided as to whether to take them to FAC.
 * With reference to marriages, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the pro forma is for marriages of subject are included, if available, along with the location and religious forms. So I include this for for all male biographies, if available.


 * As for the picture of Seddon with the baby, I was actually trying to find one of her with Hoot. It's the only image in the article that Seddon includes in her book (on p. 142) and is on her web page too.

Hawkeye7  (discuss)  21:23, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I the case of the children, I generally include names for prospographical purposes but not birthdates. I was caught out once with someone born in 1918; I presumed that she would be a hundred years old and not still alive. She was a hundred years old, but very much alive an a reader of the Wikipedia. In the case of the oldest of Seddon's children, the birth date for is sourced from newspaper articles. As it happens, in her book Seddon records not just the dates of birth of her children, but the exact times. I thought this might be a doctor thing; hospitals use times of birth to record details about babies since they might not have names yet, and may have the same birth date. So I asked my mother if she could recall the time of my birth. She could; and that of my sister as well. So it might be a mum thing.
 * The requirement for the prose to not close paraphrase the original means that I have to write it in my own voice, and often I don't recognise whether a phrase is British or American. (Adults like my parents use many more British idioms than my generation does because they didn't have access to American books or television growing up.) I've removed the offending sentence about falling pregnant, but if there are other British turns of phrase, let me know.

Hi Hawk, and thanks for the welcome. I was kind of on a Wikibreak, but it's summer and I finished grad school, so I'm making up for lost time. My final project in grad school was my thesis about Wikipedia, which I'm trying to make it more accessible to folks.

I'm good with your explanations; I think that much of my feedback was personal editoral choices and preferences, as well as differences in how we interpret policy. I still would like you to remove the info about Seddon's wedding and reception, but I won't make it a stipulation to pass this to GA. (There are other things I'd remove, but that's just me.) I think it's wonderful that you've been working on bios about female astronauts; keep up that good work! The garbage Seddon had to put up with, but her attitude was, "My astronaut job only takes 40-50 hours per week, so I have time to practice medicine and start a family." When did she sleep? So admirable.


 * Hey that's great! I finished my PhD years ago, but never got around to producing the more readable version for public consumption. You should be very proud. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  04:23, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I've gone through the article for your Britishism, and get ahead and changed them myself because it saves time rather than list out all the instances and expect you to do the busywork of changing them.


 * Thanks for that. As an aside, an ill-fitting parachute harness is, as Hoot would put it, something certain to make a bad situation much worse, as you can fall out of the harness when the parachute opens. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  04:23, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

A couple picky questions:

In the "Training" section, who's Diana Fire? There's no wikilink or description of who she is.
 * A fellow physician. Added this. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  04:23, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

In the first sentence of fifth paragraph in "Space flights", what's a secondment?
 * Added a link. At the Hood we would have called it a TDY,

Anyway, that's it; I will promote to GA. Good luck and best regards, Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 03:21, 5 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking the time to review. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  04:23, 5 June 2022 (UTC)