Talk:Tim Pawlenty/GA1

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

Reviewer: Ryan Vesey Review me!  15:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Initial fixes

 * 2 dablinks
 * 35 problem links including 19 dead links.
 * While dead links are not a reason to fail a Good article nomination, it would be nice to see these fixed.Ryan Vesey Review me!  15:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Re 6b. Hi. Not absolutely necessary but it is a free photograph by a photographer I know from Wikipedia and I think it helps bring a reader's eye into what was called one of the "most important court cases in Minnesota legal history". Thanks for your comment. -SusanLesch (talk) 20:00, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe the image is "purely decorative" and should be removed or replaced with an actual depiction of events from the court case. An image of the Minnesota Supreme Court chamber does not provide further insight into the case that could not be had without the picture.  If an image depicting the actual event exists it would not only be acceptable, but would also be a great improvement to the article.

Hi. The WP:GAN review procedures allow for an additional opinion and I'm going to give one.

The structure of this article is absolutely perverse and I cannot see it being given GA status as it is. His governorship is somehow considered outside his "political career", which makes no sense. His career is covered chronologically up through 2002, then suddenly jumps to 2006, 2008, and 2012 before cycling back to 2003-2011. That makes no sense at all either. What was the main issue in his 2006 re-election bid? His performance in his first term as governor, of course, just like it is for any incumbent. But it's impossible for the reader to see that if they read the article in order. What is the main rationale for his running for president? His record as governor ... which again is postponed until after the description of his current campaign. I've looked at, worked on, and reviewed a lot of GA and FA politician BLPs, and I've never seen one with a wacky ordering like this. Compare to GA article Mitt Romney, or GA Jack Kemp, or FA John McCain ... they are all told in chronological order, which is the only way a politician BLP can make any sense.

Another problem is the relative weighting. His eight-year governorship gets 35 paragraphs by my count, which may be a bit excessive. Compare to GA article George W. Romney, whose six years as governor gets 13 paragraphs, or to GA Mitt Romney, whose four years gets 12 paragraphs. Note that Mitt Romney's article uses summary style on his period as governor since there is a page devoted to the topic.Ryan Vesey Review me!  04:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)  Much worse, Pawlenty's ten years in the state legislature, four of which were as House majority leader, gets a grand total of 1 paragraph. State legislatures are important; many of the laws that most affect people are at the state, not federal, level. Compare to GA article Hilda Solis, whose eight years in the state legislature gets 7 fairly lengthy paragraphs, or to GA Mike Gravel, whose four years in the state legislature gets 4 paragraphs, or to GA Scott Brown, whose state legislative career also gets 4 paragraphs. Pawlenty's combination of tenure and rank in the state legislature is stronger than any of these, and to give only cursory one-paragraph coverage of it means the article simply lacks sufficient breadth of coverage to satisfy the GA criteria.

I see a bunch of other problems with this article, in areas of content, structure, and style, but these are the two biggest that merit mentioning right away. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:32, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your review of the article. I will be analyzing and discussing your concerns in my next edit including possible modifications of the rating I have given certain sections in my next edit.Ryan Vesey  Review me!  03:37, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Please note that editors should not impose their own personal standards on a Good article candidate. The Good Article criteria are really rather simple and fairly easy to attain.  Comparison to other GA's, while good for pointing out problems the article may have, does not create a basis for failing a good article candidate.  In reference to your concerns about the layout.  I believe the article uses a more "topical" form of order.  Mitt Romney's article is less confusing because he did not seek re-election.  Discussing Pawlenty's re-election campaign in chronological order would disrupt the topical order of the article.  I do believe that the 2008 presidential campaign section and his 2012 presidential race section should be moved so that they follow the section on his Governorship.  I also believe a major problem would be solved if the section heading "Political Career" was removed.  While both of these would benefit the article I would like to point out that neither must be carried out in order for the article to achieve good article status and I am not using my position as reviewer to force my ideas on the article.Ryan Vesey  Review me!  04:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)


 * GA aside, Wasted Time R is right about the structure of the article. I think splitting off the governorship and moving the 2012 election to the end is a good start, and I'll do it if there are no objections. —Designate (talk) 00:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Reorganization
I'm starting a draft at User:Designate/Tim Pawlenty (proposed rewrite) to see if the article can be rewritten by term. I think it will work out. Designate (talk) 19:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I can certainly extend the hold if you need it, are you addressing the referencing issues? The organization was the least of my concerns.Ryan Vesey  Review me!  19:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll finish the GA as-is and work on the organization afterward. Thanks. Designate (talk) 20:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's only fair of me to state that if the article is passed for GA in its present state, I intend to take it to WP:GAR. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You have offered valuable suggestions to improve the article; however, it is only fair for me to state that I will continue assessing this article according to the good article criteria. Note that "The good article criteria measure decent articles" (emphasis in the original).  If you or editors at WP:GAR decide to create new criteria then there really isn't anything I can do about it.  Since you are so adamantly against this article, could you please point out specifically where you believe it violates any of the good article criteria?Ryan Vesey  Review me!  01:56, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that the WP:GA? usage of "decent" is kind of vague and that in practice, the requirements are somewhat more stringent than you think. I gotten about 35 articles to GA and done at least that many reviews of other GA candidates, so I've got a pretty good idea of the level that's currently expected of a GA article.  (When GA was first created, the standard were very lax, but a GAR sweeps effort done a year or two ago stripped many of those articles of their status, unless they got improved.)  Of course, there is still a good deal of variability from one nominator to the next and one reviewer to the next.  But to me, this article clearly does not meet the criteria even given that there is a range of review styles.  To be specific, I think that:
 * GA criteria 3a (breadth) is completely unmet by the tiny amount of space given to Pawlenty's time as state legislator including majority leader. To repeat what I wrote above, Pawlenty's ten years in the legislature were important, and it's completely inexcusable for the article to virtually ignore them.
 * GA criteria 3b is unmet due to the excessive amount of space given to his time as governor. (Note that Governorship of Tim Pawlenty subarticle has been created, but currently contains the same contents as the main article section.  I know it's a work in progress, but at this moment in time that makes no sense.  I also realize that getting the gubernatorial re-election campaign in chrono sequence is a work in progress.)
 * GA criteria 3b is unmet due to the excessive amount of space given to his 2012 presidential campaign, especially fairly mundane developments prior to his announcement of candidacy. Most of that material should be in the Tim Pawlenty presidential campaign, 2012 subarticle not here ... but in fact that subarticle is shorter than the "Presidential race, 2012" section in this main article, which is of course upside down from how it should be.  Some of the material could also be moved to a Political positions of Tim Pawlenty subarticle.
 * GA criteria 4 is unmet due to the favorable skewing given to his presidential candidacy. It does not cover anything that's happened after his announcement, when in fact almost everything that's happened to Pawlenty since then has been bad (low poll numbers, poor debate performance in not challenging Romney, mediocre fundraising at best, loss of attention to intra-state rival Bachmann, lots of media stories about how his campaign is faltering, etc).  The coming Iowa Straw Poll is seen as a make-or-break moment for Pawlenty, but you'd never know it reading this article.
 * GA criteria 1b is unmet due to the inclusion of a prose-list in the "Approval ratings" section. It's a bunch of poll numbers without much rhyme or reason.  Assuming the results aren't cherry-picked, they belong in a table or chart to make much sense of them.  (It's best to take just one pollster and include all the results they have; see the John McCain or Hillary Rodham Clinton articles for examples.)
 * GA criteria 1b is unmet due to the inclusion of the "Records" section as a top-level layout section; I've never seen any other article like this do that. If this is needed at all, it should be a footnote.
 * GA criteria 1b/2b is unmet due to sloppy and inconsistent and incomplete formatting of the citations in the footnotes. A number of cites have no dates on them and at least one (#109 right now) is just a bare url.  Publishers are sometimes linked, sometimes not, sometimes in italics when they shouldn't be, sometimes not in italics when they should be.  Yes, editors have different opinions about how good cite formatting should be for GA, but most reviewers I've seen would find these a bit substandard.
 * Anyway, I'm not trying to be difficult here! But I really don't think this article in its present form is worthy of GA status.  Wasted Time R (talk) 02:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is a lot further off than I thought. I'll withdraw this and try to get it in better shape. Thanks a lot to both of you. —Designate (talk) 02:53, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Ryan was generally positive about the article, I think, but he pointed out various areas where there is need for improvement. My fairly brief look supports his assessment very closely. Both the positive comments he made and the suggestions for improvement seem to me to be perfectly reasonable. For example "There is no information in the article about Pawlenty's tenure as House Majority leader. Information on his work in the House of Representatives should be improved" is clearly valid, and indeed a similar point was made by Wasted Time R.

Turning to Wasted Time R's comments, there are two questions to ask: "how far do the criticisms relate to the Good Article Criteria?" and "how far are the criticisms valid?" Wasted Time R's original comments made essentially two criticisms: the lack of chronological sequencing and the amount of space given to different parts of Pawlenty's career. Further comments have added remarks about other problems, but those two still seem to be the principal concerns. Many of the other concerns could be dealt with very easily: for example "The coming Iowa Straw Poll is seen as a make-or-break moment for Pawlenty, but you'd never know it reading this article" could be addressed by adding one sentence to the article. I can't actually find anything in either the GA criteria themselves or the pages linked to from them that lack of chronological sequencing is directly relevant to. The issue of how much coverage to give each section is related to criterion 3 ("it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail"). However, even here, the relevance is limited. Wasted Time R does not actually suggest that significant points are not addressed, only that the amount of space taken up in addressing some points may be too small.

So, how valid do I think the criticisms are? I do agree that the present structure is in serious need of improvement. "His governorship is somehow considered outside his political career" is a good point. However, I do not think it would be helpful to move the substantial coverage of his governorship into the middle of the section "Political career", where it would rather swamp the rest of the section. The section on his governorship is different in character from the "Political career" section, and is better kept separate. The "Political career" section does not, in fact, cover everything about his political career, and its title is not totally appropriate. The criticism that it jumps from 2002 to 2006 seems to me to come from the fact that a large part of the section is not really about his political career, but rather about his political campaigns, so naturally it jumps from one campaign to the next. It seems to me that the section should at least be retitled, and preferably significantly restructured, perhaps breaking it into several sections. The first subsection "City and state legislative positions" could be retitled and expanded into a brief summary of his whole political career to date, the next few sections could be retitled to acknowledge that they are actually about political campaigns, and so on. Then giving more detailed coverage to his governorship outside the brief career summary would be reasonable. Alternatively, it would be perfectly possible to more radically restructure the whole article, but what I am trying to demonstrate is that even keeping the present overall structure of the article, some fairly straightforward rearranging of one section would make a substantial improvement in the coherence of the whole, so that I think it is a mistake to think that the whole structure is irredeemably perverse. What about the criticisms of the amount of space afforded to different sections? Certainly there is room for improvement, as Ryan also noted in his review ("There is no information in the article about Pawlenty's tenure as House Majority leader. Information on his work in the House of Representatives should be improved.") I find comparison with other articles of limited relevance, as there may be differences between the two cases which justify the differences. Also, Wasted Time R tells us that Pawlenty's eight years as governor get 35 paragraphs, i.e. 4 and a bit paragraphs per year, compared to Mitt Romney, whose four years gets 12 paragraphs, i.e. 3 paragraphs per year, which is not a huge difference. In any case, a count of paragraphs is a very crude measure of the amount of content. Comparison between the amount of coverage of Pawlenty's time as governor and of his time in the state legislature is more relevant, and I think there certainly is need for an adjustment there, as Ryan also acknowledged in the quote I gave above concerning Pawlenty's work in the House of Representatives. However, I am not convinced that the number of years should necessarily be closely correlated with the amount of coverage given. Someone may spend a lot of time doing a job in a fairly routine way, with nothing much of note to record, or spend a short time doing a lot of very notable stuff. I think a much better test is how much significant stuff there is to report, as compared to how much coverage of minor matters there may be. As far as that is concerned, I do see some details which to my mind are given excessive coverage. For example, consider "Pawlenty was visited in 2004 by Mexican President Vicente Fox in talks to strengthen trade. Fox announced that his country would open a consulate in Minnesota the next year, removing the need for Mexican residents in the state to travel out of state for identification papers and other materials." I think the second sentence there is only of very marginal significance in Pawlenty's career, and I would have left it out. I am not even sure how significant the first sentence is in relation to his career as a whole: I don't have the relevant background knowledge to be able to make that assessment. I have just given one example which has caught my eye, but my impression is that there are probably numerous details which might be viewed in a similar light, so I think there is probably some justification for the view that the section on the governorship gives too much weight to minor details (and that is relevant to the GA criteria). However, that must be assessed on the basis of how significant the details given are, not on the basis of a count of paragraphs.

My conclusion is that there is certainly significant basis for criticism in the areas mentioned by Wasted Time R, and need for improvement. However, I think the terms in which Wasted Time R expressed those criticisms go beyond what I would regard as justified. For example, the structure of the article does indeed need improvement, but "the structure of this article is absolutely perverse" is, I think, significantly overstating the case. Wasted Time R says "if the article is passed for GA in its present state, I intend to take it to WP:GAR" and "I really don't think this article in its present form is worthy of GA status". However, I don't understand that. Right from the start Ryan's review mentioned areas of concern which need improvement: is anyone actually suggesting Good Article status for the article "in its present from"? I agree that the issues do need to be addressed before GA status can be considered, but those issues can be addressed with a moderate amount of work. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:26, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify a couple of points. Contrary to what you say, I do claim that significant points have not been addressed, both in the "Minnesota House of Representatives" section and the "Presidential race, 2012" section.  And you're not seeing Ryan's original review that my first set of comments were reacting to.  This is his original review, and it says for 3a "Main aspects addressed: career, policies, personal life." and for 3b "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail".  Both of which I strongly disagreed with.  The Ryan comments you reference above ("There is no information in the article about Pawlenty's tenure as House Majority leader ...") were made in reaction to my original comments.  Finally, was my language too strong a couple of times?  Maybe; I was trying to make a point emphatically, and I apologize if I came across too strongly.   Wasted Time R (talk) 12:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * When Wasted Time R originally posted, the article was poorer and Ryan's review was less detailed. They've both been edited since, which is the reason for the tone discrepancy. —Designate (talk) 13:30, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The above comment of mine is actually a somewhat edited version of an initial draft written on 5 August, when the article was still in the state it was in when Wasted Time R's first comment was written. However, I admit that I didn't think to check back to see if Ryan had edited his original review here, and if I had done so I would probably have worded my comments somewhat differently. Nevertheless, I don't think that doing so would have substantially changed what I wrote. I agree that at the time of the review and Wasted Time R's response to it the article fell a good way short of good article status, but I still think that the problems were not as deep-rooted as Wasted Time R made them seem. Those were, I think, the main points I tried to make, and they are not significantly changed by knowing that Ryan's original review failed to include some of the critical points which are (rightly) there now. I have had a quick glance over the changes to the article since then, and they seem to be improvements, but I have not studied them in depth. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:53, 10 August 2011 (UTC)