User:RandomP/Terrible articles

This is meant as a bit of a counter-weight to all the efforts of selecting particularly good articles. Many articles on Wikipedia aren't good, and they're in need of attention that goes beyond merely correcting typos. Slapping a notice on the article and engaging in a lengthy discussion on its talk page is, frankly, much further from my natural reaction, which is to disqualify the entire article as "terrible" on first reading an unacceptable statement.

You could also consider this a todo list, of course.

February 8, 2006

 * Carp - speculation, inaccurate statements


 * But that being said, $1,000,000 is a drop in the bucket compared with the tax dollars spent to remove or reduce the numbers of this invasive fish.

Language inappropriate for Wikipedia.


 * Swing bridge


 * Puente de la Mujer, a uniquely beautiful and dramatic asymmetrical cable-stayed span.

POV


 * List of countries with nuclear weapons


 * During the 1950s and 1960s, Sweden seriously investigated nuclear weapons, intended to be deployed over coastal facilities of an invading enemy (read: the Soviet Union)

Language inappropriate for Wikipedia.


 * Germany has the meens to easily equip its self rapidly with nuclear weapons. The nation sees no reason to do so do to the fact that the Americans have given the German Luftwafa and navy many nuclear weapons. To use these weapons the German Government would have to gain permission from the U.S. but the German Government does not feel the need to use their weapons now.

"Language" inappropriate for a third-grade classroom and Wikipedia.


 * Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty


 * The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT, or, much more rarely, NNPT)

Who cares about a rare acronym? Who cares enough, in particular, to waste the precious extra attention readers tend to give the first sentence of an article on talking about it

February 10, 2006

 * Computational group theory


 * An excellent survey of the subject by Akos Seress of the Ohio State University, expanded from an article that appeared in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society is available on-line. There are also three books covering various parts of the subject: the Handbook of Computational Group Theory, by Holt, Eick and O'Brien ISBN 1584883723; Computation with Finitely-presented Groups by Sims ISBN 0521432138; and Algorithms for Permutation Groups by Seress ISBN 052166103X.

POV.


 * Trafalgar square


 * Trafalgar Square was filled with British subjects wanting to hear the formal announcement by Sir Winston Churchill that the war was over: it was packed to bursting point. Trafalgar Square was used as a place of celebration and people from all over the country came there. A diary extract told how a father took his three children and wife to Trafalgar Square, and they all held on to a piece of washing line so they didn't get lost in the massive crowd.


 * On Sunday 8 April 2005 the BBC held a concert to celebrate the 60th anniversary of VE Day which was hosted by Eamonn Holmes and Natasha Kaplinsky. Many people who lived during the war attended, and many of the much younger generation, but most importantly many old veterans came and told the stories of their hardships during the six years of war.

"packed to bursting point"? "most importantly"? POV.