Talk:World War II Radio Heroes/GA1

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

Reviewer: –– Jezhotwells (talk) 12:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: No disambiguations found

Linkrot: One dead link found and tagged, redirects to Google search page.


 * Comment - That's odd. It's not coming up dead for me, maybe I have it in my cache? Search for "Spahr" at Sewickly Herald and the story comes up. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:46, 24 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, I am located in the UK, maybe it is some sort of server issue. I have removed the dead link tag. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 16:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * This article is reasonably well written. I did make a number of copy edits.
 * Lists are not recommended by WP:Manual of style. Please convert into prose. This applies to the sections: Shortwave Radio Listeners and Reviews of the Book Suggest you focus on the few listeners about whom you have written sentences and omit the others who are just listed by name.
 * Section headings should not be capitalised throughout, see WP:Manual of style#Section headings]]. Suggest that Reviews of the Book be renamed Reception as that is then norm in Wikipedia.
 * The Lead should be slightly expanded to more fully provide a succinct summary of the article.
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * You can't use Amazon reviews, such as those listed at ref #3 as thety are not reliable sources, just user contributed reviews.
 * ref #5 is dead as noted above.
 * ref #7 is also not a reliable source as per the comment on Amazon above.
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * I feel the article could cover details of how Spahr hunted down the listeners, rather than just listing them. How did she go about this? Did she travel widely? This is an encyclopaedia article, not a review. There should also be details of publication date, publisher in the article as well as the infobox. Also sales details if possible. There are some very good suggestions on the article talk page.
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * The image is incorrectly licensed, it should have a non free use rationale and the book cover license.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * OK, on hold for seven days for above issues to be addressed. Please leave your comments here, I have watchlisted this page. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 13:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Whilst some improvements have been made the article now has been expanded by the addition of relatively large sections on short-wave radio around the world and prisoners of war that mean that the article is no longer focussed on the subject matter which is the book. I am not going to list this at this time. I suggest that you have a think about this if you wish to write an artcile on the use of short wave in WWII then do so, but don't just stuff things in here in an effort to bulk the article out. It doesn't need all of this extra material. What it does need is more analysis (referenced of course) of the book. When you have decided what to do take this article to WP:Peer review. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, on hold for seven days for above issues to be addressed. Please leave your comments here, I have watchlisted this page. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 13:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Whilst some improvements have been made the article now has been expanded by the addition of relatively large sections on short-wave radio around the world and prisoners of war that mean that the article is no longer focussed on the subject matter which is the book. I am not going to list this at this time. I suggest that you have a think about this if you wish to write an artcile on the use of short wave in WWII then do so, but don't just stuff things in here in an effort to bulk the article out. It doesn't need all of this extra material. What it does need is more analysis (referenced of course) of the book. When you have decided what to do take this article to WP:Peer review. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for the GA Review. I have just spent a long time changing what you recommended and I have also added information concerning how and why Lisa went about her search. I also added information about the actual book such as publishing information, quality, ect. Please let me know if I need to improve on anything else. Thanks Wexlax20 (talk) 00:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "Reception" should be converted to prose, too. See an example here: Outliers_(book) Gary King  ( talk ) 00:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Right whilst there are improvements, theer is still a long way to go.
 * The Lead section is too short, see WP:LEAD.
 * The Summary section should probably be called Background'. I took out the oprice, this is not a bookshop.  What we do need is the ISBN.
 * Shortwave radio listeners The first sentence is redundant.
 * Shortwave amateur moniors consolidate into previous section, shorten a little, along with the stuff about Jankauskas
 * Get someone to copy-edit the artcile, the prose is poor and clumsy throughout.
 * Reception. take out the bullets, turn into a short prose section. Unfortunately the "reviews" from the book's jacket don't qualify as reliable sources as they are in effect "self published".  Surely some other newspapers or magazines published reveiws?  –– Jezhotwells (talk) 08:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The Summary seems to be saying the same few things over and over again. Surely the book is more than just names of listeners, their letters, and Spahr's gratefulness? I'd expand and edit the copy myself, but would need to see the book to do it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:39, 27 April 2010 (UTC)