Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anna Wintour/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Karanacs 16:58, 29 June 2010.

Anna Wintour

 * Nominator(s): Daniel Case (talk) 17:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

In over five years of editing Wikipedia, I have done many things but have never yet nominated an article for FA myself. Now, I have finally developed one that I've been working on on and off for, an outgrowth of working on The Devil Wears Prada novel and film articles. This heavily-researched BLP has reached the level where it has everything in it I'd like it to have. It's been through a peer review, succeeded on its first GA nom (made by another user, I should add) passed an A-Class review, and was kept as a GA after last summer's reassessment (I had hoped to nominate it then, but The September Issue came out and I knew it would not be complete until I could see the film and incorporate what I needed to from it. Even so, The Globe and Mail said it was more informative than the movie). Daniel Case (talk) 17:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment—no dab links, but dead external links to http://www.oficinadeesantilo.com.br/blog/wp-content/office.jpg and http://www.firstworldwar.bham.ac.uk/donkey/wintour.htm . Ucucha 17:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I removed the first one (for some reason U of Birmingham's site doesn't even tell you you've reached a dead page) and the second one worked as recently as last week. If it doesn't come through again (I currently get an 500 error; these things can change), I suppose I can just eliminate that, too. Daniel Case (talk) 18:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Second link is working again. Daniel Case (talk) 19:21, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Comments too
 * "Taking up her skirt." I am not sure what this means, and the lack of results from a Google search indicates to me that it is not a common idiom. Hemming to make her skirts a bit more revealing?
 * Yep. You got it. I made it clearer.


 * "...and from the issues of Seventeen her grandmother sent from America." This may be better stated as ...and from reading issues of Seventeen her grandmother sent from America.
 * Done.


 * "...gave up because it made her calves too big". ...gave it up?
 * Done.


 * "At that time in her life..." I think an age would be better here. Something like "By the time she was 15, Wintour was dating..."
 * Done.


 * The early life section is a little sparse. Of course, that may be all there is, but it would read better with a bit of fleshing out, if possible.
 * That's what there is. She and her family are reticent about this time in her life; Oppenheimer's book was the best source I could get and what's significant from that is in the article.


 * First sentence of Career section. "she says". Should be she said, and might flow better if it was attributed with a date and maybe a publication; something like "...she said in a 2007 interview with X magazine."
 * That's from The September Issue. Since I used it a lot, I didn't want to needlessly overreference it or my other major sources.


 * "...she also took some fashion classes at a nearby school..." I think the words "some" is unneeded; same sentence: "soon dropped out" doesn't work for me because it implies matriculation but the opposite is implied—maybe just "soon dropped them".
 * Done.


 * "She dated more well-connected older men, this time Peter Gitterman..." "This time" has to refer to a prior identifiable single act, and doesn't work well with "dating older men" as a single incident. How about simply: She dated more well-connected older men, such as Peter Gitterman...
 * Done.


 * "In 1970" needs a comma after it, I think.
 * Done. Of course, given the trans-Atlantic nature of the subject, a little bit of British practice inevitably crept into the article.


 * There is a double comma after "Harper's & Queen".
 * Done.


 * I think "known to her coworkers she ultimately..." needs a that after "coworkers".
 * Done.


 * New York City should not be piped to New York I don't think (a whole different flavor).
 * Done. But I think most people when reading about magazines, particularly fashion magazines, understand "New York" to refer to the city as opposed to, say Penn Yan.


 * Her Wintour's innovative shoots..." (I think it's time to return to her last name here).
 * "...a shorter time than she has since claimed to have worked there." This is intriguing, but a tease. I think this either needs to come out, or be explained.
 * Took it out. Résumé fudging is one of the few persistent criticisms of Wintour, and it's a valid one, but maybe this one isn't as important as her erasing Viva from it, in perspective.


 * "After several months, Bradshaw's help got her first position as a fashion editor, with Viva,..." Awkward to my ear (and missing "with" before Bradshaw). Maybe: "After several months at loose ends, with Bradshaw's aid Wintour landed her first position as a fashion editor, with Viva,...
 * Done. "At loose ends" sounds a little too colloquial and unencyclopedic to me.


 * "It would be the first position for which she would be able to hire a personal assistant..." Passive voice. Maybe This was the first job at which she was able (or maybe "given the go-ahead"/permitted/authorized") to hire a personal assistant...
 * "When Guccione shut down the unprofitable magazine in late 1978, after Wintour had worked there for nearly two years, she decided to take some time off before taking another job." I would rearrange this: In late 1978, after Wintour had worked at Viva for nearly two years, Guccione shut down the unprofitable magazine. She decided to take some time off before taking another job. That's as far as I've gotten so far. Hope this is helpful.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it has been. The kind of reading I want. It is helping the prose flow better. Daniel Case (talk) 03:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Sources comments
 * General point: I notice that many of the retrieval dates for online sources are ancient - 2006 or 2007. Have these sites not been checked out since? I suggest that you update all these old dates.
 * Ref 4 (Masters): For consistency, publisher location and ISBN should be shown
 * Fixed. Someone else had added that one originally.


 * Ref 6: Incorrectly formatted - publisher (Public Services International) not shown, retrieval date not as per style. Also, how does this ref support the statement in the article (Nora Hilary Wintour's appointment)?
 * At the time I looked it up originally, it did (the format was what we used before cite standardized things). I have found sourcing for both that and what she's doing now.


 * Ref 8: As you've decided not to preface page numbers with "p.", best be consistent. See also 29
 * Done


 * Ref 58: The date "March 29 2006" is oddly placed in the format. The link took me to a page error
 * Another legacy format, or rather the result of the attempt by someone else to update it.
 * Ref number changes make this difficult to follow. Do I assume this ref has been replaced? Brianboulton (talk) 11:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ref 68: Adding "(The New York Times Company)" is unnecessary; separate publisher info not required for well-known newspapers/magazines/journals (many other instances noted)
 * Alright. I did this because I'd rather be taking stuff out than putting it in, and I was unaware that this was OK for well-known publications. Working on taking these out.


 * Ref 69: Likewise, even if Bruce Wasserstein was personally the publisher of New York magazine, which doubt, it's not necesaary to name him.
 * Actually, he was, he owned it at the time. But I see your point.


 * Ref 101: Weisberger's personal blog; isn't there a better source?
 * Well, it's her personal website, not blog but that sort of thing comes under information about oneself that's acceptable as long as there's nothing reliable disputing it. I'll supplement it if you really insist, but none of the other articles I came across come right out and said it this way.


 * I feel that the Devil in Prada section is somewhat over-referenced, with lengthy quotations from the book as well. This tends to place too much emphasis on this aspect of Wintour's life, which has an unbalancing effect on the article. Since this is not a straight sourcing matter, I'll leave other reviewers to comment on this aspect, if they wish.
 * I used it only for references to the book itself, such as the more pronounced similarities between Priestly and Wintour in the book as compared to the film. I included the long quotes so the reader can decide if the text interprets it correctly. And whatever Lauren Weisberger hasn't done since, she effectively branded (in more than one sense of the term) her former boss with that book title, if nothing else ... there are a lot of puns on it out there referring to her (see, for instance, what's currently linked at note 102). I certainly would not use a novel as a source for factual information about a living person.


 * Ref 116 The Devil You Know etc: "access blocked by the site owner"
 * Found updated link. Daniel Case (talk) 15:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ref 117: give the publisher, not the web address. Likewise ref 121, in which the retrieval date is inconsistently formatted.
 * OK, I think I fixed this (not sure quite which one you meant with what was ref 117 at the time). I found some better sourcing for the Johnny Depp bit.
 * This is now 113. The publisher is Box Office Mojo. Brianboulton (talk) 11:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ref 123: capital R in "Retrieved"
 * Changed to cite news, which also led to finding the original page again.


 * Ref 141-143: retrieval dates inconsistently formatted.
 * Likewise, these were references added before the current citation templates came into wide use. Daniel Case (talk) 20:34, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Otherwise, sources seem OK. Brianboulton (talk) 12:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Media File:November_1988_Vogue_cover.jpg fails WP:NFCC, and hence the article fails WP:FA Criteria 3, its presence does not significantly increase my' understanding of the topic, and its omission would not be detrimental to that understanding. Fasach Nua (talk) 22:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I direct your attention to the FfD on this very topic, where consensus overwhelmingly came to the opposite conclusion. Daniel Case (talk) 01:18, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose
 * The amount of overlinking is ridiculous—perfectionist, insurance, raccoon, roast beef, ultimatum, affair, handbag... please audit throughout to remove common, well-known English words. Some are simply irrelevant - Jamaican cuisine.
 * Took care of this; most is from the early days when I wasn't aware of the "average speaker of English" rule (although at the same time I feel this conflicts somewhat with WP:OBVIOUS ... you'd be surprised at what people don't know. Daniel Case (talk) 04:43, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * What nationality is she? English? American? English-American? The opening sentence itself should tell me that.
 * Before I get to fixing that, just let me direct you to the talk page, where we've had some discussions about this. Since we haven't established conclusively whether she's an American citizen or not since it wasn't inherited from her mother as I had initially thought, we have stalled on what to call her in that department as there's no clear consensus on whether English American is applicable based on parentage alone. Any suggestion you have would be helpful. Daniel Case (talk) 02:46, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * In the Career section, can you eliminate stubby single-sentence paragraphs by merging them with other paragraphs? Also, try to maintain roughly equal sub-section sizes.
 * Third para of Film adaptation is missing full-stops and closing brackets...—indopug (talk) 17:45, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Leftovers from recent intense editing. Daniel Case (talk) 04:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "She would go to the opening of an envelope," joked a friend." Unencyclopedic. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 19:11, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose A commendable article in terms of the effort gone into it but I personally find that it reads like a magazine article. Far too much of the article is magazine type banter rather than solidly sticking to the main points which an encyclopedia article should. I'd say that it needs a major filtering down of info and quotes about her and those which drift off the main focus of the articles. "She ran as a teenager, but according to her father, gave it up because it made her calves too big." That's isn't encyclopedic to me. "There are times I get quite angry," she admitted in The September Issue. "So I do restrain it". Sorry but I see a lot of unnecessary content. With a fresh pair of eyes on it or two I think a lot of the problems could be sorted. It needs somebody to be constantly thinking "this is an encyclopedia article not a magazine" in terms of tone and type of writing as they edit it. Dr. Blofeld      White cat 19:22, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to consider trimming something of the quotes but I found that what other people said was often most illuminating, more so than simply summing up their substance would be. My justification for the two you singled out was a) giving up running as a teenager because it makes one's calves too big shows an early concern for her appearance that makes it less surprising she became a major fashion editor and b) you can say she went out to nightclubs a lot in Swinging London, or you can add a comment from one of her close friends from that time that she would go to the opening of an envelope. If you still think I should remove thocse two, fine. The quote about her anger ... the "Nuclear Wintour" nickname is as much due to a reputation for volatile outbursts as it is for aloofness from others. I thought it was only fair to have something from her herself on that. Daniel Case (talk) 20:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Overlinked and a little over-referenced. The lead was poorly written, and could still use some work. Too detailed in places: do we need to know what job one brother held until recently, or what her sister's previous job was etc? I'd like to support this in future, but it needs an overall tightening from top to bottom, and a less staccato approach to the writing (fact 1, fact 2, fact 3). SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 20:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * "A little over-referenced"? That's a first. I thought a BLP especially can never have enough references. Since Jim Wintour only recently resigned his job, and I don't know if he's taken another or has decided to retire as the article about his leaving that job seems to indicate. I will lose the bit about Nora's old job, though. Daniel Case (talk) 20:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I agree with what Slim Virgin said. If anything this article has been over edited to the point it contains too much info that isn't crucial to the article. It definately has future potential as it is so very well researched and the main sections are there. I'm afraid it just needs a lot of "filtering" work and polishing up to avoid short snappy sentences and unnecessary quotes and to remain focused encylopedically. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 20:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Daniel, as an example of the detail, linking, and ref clutter, see the family section:


 * Read mode:


 * "Wintour was born in London in 1949. Her father, Charles Wintour (1917–1999), CBE, was editor of the Evening Standard. Her mother was his first wife, Eleanor ('Nonie') Trego Baker, daughter of a Harvard law professor, whom he married in 1940 and divorced in 1979. She was named for her maternal grandmother, Anna (Gilkyson) Baker, a merchant's daughter from Pennsylvania. Her stepmother is Audrey Slaughter, a magazine editor who founded such British publications as Honey and Petticoat. The late-18th-century novelist Lady Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire, was her great-great-great-grandmother, and Sir Augustus Vere Foster, 4th and last Baronet (1873–1947) was a granduncle. Wintour has three living siblings: James Charles, who was until recently the Director of Housing & Adult Social Services for London's Borough of Camden, Nora Hilary Wintour, former Equality and Rights Officer of Public Services International in Geneva, Switzerland, now chair of the World Class Cities For All campaign of the International Federation of Women's Educational Associations . Her younger brother Patrick Wintour started as labor correspondent at The Guardian in 1983 and rose to become the political editor first for The Observer, and then, in 2006, The Guardian. Her eldest brother, Gerald Jackson Wintour, died as a child in 1951 when he was struck by a car while cycling to school."


 * Edit mode (second paragraph is particularly hard to edit, because there are templates mid-sentence):


 * "Wintour was born in London in 1949. Her father, Charles Wintour (1917–1999), CBE, was editor of the Evening Standard. Her mother was his first wife, Eleanor ('Nonie') Trego Baker, daughter of a Harvard law professor, whom he married in 1940 and divorced in 1979. She was named for her maternal grandmother, Anna (Gilkyson) Baker, a merchant's daughter from Pennsylvania. Her stepmother is Audrey Slaughter, a magazine editor who founded such British publications as Honey and Petticoat. The late-18th-century novelist Lady Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire, was her great-great-great-grandmother, and Sir Augustus Vere Foster, 4th and last Baronet (1873–1947) was a granduncle."


 * Wintour has three living siblings: James Charles, who was until recently the Director of Housing & Adult Social Services for London's Borough of Camden, Nora Hilary Wintour, former Equality and Rights Officer of Public Services International in Geneva, Switzerland, now chair of the World Class Cities For All campaign of the International Federation of Women's Educational Associations . Her younger brother Patrick Wintour started as labor correspondent at The Guardian in 1983 and rose to become the political editor first for The Observer, and then, in 2006, The Guardian. Her eldest brother, Gerald Jackson Wintour, died as a child in 1951 when he was struck by a car while cycling to school.


 * It's difficult to see what's what, and therefore hard to copy-edit. It's particularly unnecessary here because all that's being described are the former jobs of non-notable siblings. If you could streamline the text a little (talking now about the whole article, not just this section); stick to issues high-quality secondary sources have raised; remove or minimize citation templates; keep refs out of the middle of sentences; keep punctuation after refs; and remove low-value links, it would be easier to read and edit. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 21:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I have the refs for particular facts inline and mid-sentence because I've had one too many experiences with people complaining a fact is unreferenced because they're either too lazy or too clueless to go to the end of the sentence or paragraph. REFPUNCT doesn't express a preference for it either way. I don't think it's particularly fair to a reader to make them click on, say, three separate links to figure out which corresponds with the fact they want to verify. I'm open to making that change, but I want you to know that I feel I have a valid reason for doing it that way. Daniel Case (talk) 04:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with part of the above. I have seen many articles criticized for failing to indicate where exactly the material comes from—that, for example, references grouped together at the end of a paragraph does not truly meet the goal of "directly associate a given claim with a specific source" or the suggestion that "An inline citation should appear next to the material it supports." If I want to find where a particular claim comes from in a paragraph and five offline books are cited, I must then go to the library and take out all five books. This is not the forum for extended discussion of this issue of course. In any case, to me the above paragraphs are not over cited.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:11, 27 June 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec to Daniel) I know what you mean about people being unwilling to look for refs if they're not right there, and I've given in to the temptation myself and ended up with refs mid-sentence. But it's best avoided. What I've been doing recently (and as you say this is a preference issue, so feel free to ignore) is combine refs at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Something like:




 * That style can be used with citation templates too, if you like using them. SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 05:15, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Ooh! I really like that idea Slim Virgin. I think you should add that to WP:CITE somewhere.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:17, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You still sometimes get people saying they can't find the sources. Some people insist on having the ref right next to the claim, which is annoying (but they usually do that when they disagree with the POV). :) But so long as you painstakingly spell out which source covers which point, it works pretty well. I did add something about it to WP:CLUTTER. You're right that I should probably add it to CITE too.  SlimVirgin  talk| contribs 05:22, 27 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support (declaring an interest as a member of WikiProject Fashion). Overlinking is not much evident now, & frankly the readership of this article (some 70-80K per month) is more likely than most to contain people puzzled by things that may seem obvious to FAC regulars.  In the same way, I think allowance for the subject area has to be made in terms of it being gossipy, reading like a magazine article, and so on.  No doubt theses will be written on Ms Wintour's career and influence, but it is probably rather early now.  Given these factors, I think the article meets FA standards, although some of the points above no doubt need sorting - but personally I don't have any problem with the coverage of the siblings for example. Johnbod (talk) 01:42, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment This is a very odd sentence: "The couple divorced in 1999; newspapers and gossip columnists her affair with investor Shelby Bryan is believed to have endeed the marriage.[75] an allegation she refused to comment on.[76][77]" Jayjg (talk) 06:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.