Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Early life of Jan Smuts/1

Early life of Jan Smuts

 * • [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Early_life_of_Jan_Smuts/1&action=watch Watch article reassessment page] • GAN review not found
 * Result: Per general consensus. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

GA from 2006. I was going to just tag and wait to see if there's anyone interested in fixing it, but the problems are very jarring. The article is written more like an essay, with weasel wording, non-neutral wording, etc. I have added 24 "citation needed" templates, but I have not done a thorough check of the sources, so there might be even more. It would take a long time to fix the article. Spinixster  (chat!)  02:26, 17 November 2023 (UTC) -Indy beetle (talk) 11:18, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I am a delist barring substantial improvement, but willing to wait a week or two and see if anyone takes an interest in working on the article. 20+ instances of citation needed is pretty damning. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:55, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist unless someone steps forward to start addressing the issues with the article. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist; The opening three paragraphs of the body of the article are simply not acceptable in their manner of phrasing. Eg. 1870 found Bovenplaats under the care of Jacobus Abraham Smuts and his wife Catharina Petronella. Jacobus Smuts lived in much the same manner as his forefathers — a hard-working farmer, a pillar of the Church, and one who took a leading part in the social and political affairs of the neighbourhood. Such was the regard in which he was held that he was later to be elected as the Member for Malmesbury in the Cape Parliament doesn't exactly read "encyclopedic" to me. The Citation Needed tags are certainly an issue.
 * Farmwork combined with lessons from his mother — such was the order of Jan's life for the next few years. Not sure that is grammatically correct.
 * The whole paragraph beginning "Farmwork combined with lessons from his mother" reeks of OR/SYTNH. The whole statement "on these Swartland farms there was little of the rigid segregation which was already emerging elsewhere in South Africa and which was later to have such profound consequences. Since 1828 the Cape had enshrined in law the principle of strict legal equality between the races." is cited to an 1828 legal ordinance, and I doubt that supports the sociological suppositions suggested.
 * Delist: this is not up to scratch for verifiability, and smells quite badly to me of hagiography. Given the extremely controversial nature of its subject, I'm not happy that WP:NPOV is fully met, let alone WP:TONE. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:48, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Delist for issues with tone, sourcing and a lack of NPOV. Zawed (talk) 10:20, 25 November 2023 (UTC)