Wikipedia:Peer review/Irenaean theodicy/archive1

Irenaean theodicy
This peer review discussion has been closed. I would like this article peer reviews because I have recently undertaken to substantially improve the article. I hope to eventually get the article to Good Article status, so I would like to know what is working and what need to be improved.

Thanks, ItsZippy (talk) 14:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for this interesting article too. I think it also needs some work to get to GA and better follow the MOS, here are some suggestions for improvement. I have reviewed both theodicy articles - this and Augustinian theodicy, so some of the comments are the same on each PR. Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 21:33, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow. There are quite a few FAs on religion at Featured_articles, which may be useful models. I was also not sure why this is in the Philosopy WikiProject but not Religion.
 * The lead is only four sentences and does not really follow WP:LEAD. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article.
 * Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself, but the time frame for Hick and Irenaeus are only in the lead (although the image caption of Irenaeus also gives his century)
 * I would tighten part of the current lead a bit It was formed by the 20th century philosopher and theologian John Hick, inspired by the ideas and writings of the 2nd century Bishop, Saint Irenaeus.[1] It is Saint Irenaeus after whom the theodicy is named. First off it is usually better to avoid passive voice, and second the named for bit can be combined with the inspired by part, so something like ''Twentieth century philosopher and theologian John Hick developed the theodicy, which was named for the second century Bishop Saint Irenaeus and inspired by his ideas and writings.[1]
 * My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way. However none of the criticisms seem to be in the lead now.
 * The article needs to do a better job of providing context to the reader - for example there is no real explanation or background on the problem of Theodicy, nor is there any information to put Irenaeus or Hick into context (when and where did they live, why should we care about them and this theodicy)? See WP:PCR
 * Watch typos like this ("whose" is meant) ''He used the Biblical example of Jonah who's suffering (in being swallowed by a whale)...
 * The article needs to do a better job with wikilinks. Link terms on first use and generally only once in the lead and once in the body (per WP:OVERLINK) It helps very little to link common terms most readers undertand like Perfect and Humans. See WP:OVERLINK
 * Where no link exists (like epistemic distance) perhaps link epistemic to epistemiology?
 * If Irenaeus wrote all this nearly 2000 years ago, why did it take until now for this theodicy to be developed?
 * Given the importance of Irenaeus and Hick in their respective centuries and and the effect of their theologic writings on western religious thought, I expected there to be more history. What was the previous widespread theodicy in the church when Hick developed this (or when Irenaeus wrote)? Why did Hick feel the need to develp a new theodicy? When was Hick's book first published? Whom did it and his theodicy influence (not just who criticized it)? What role has it played in the general development of theodicy in Christianity and beyond? Do people citicize Hick for hanging Irenaeus' name on his work - see Pseudo-Galen
 * None of the critiques are not attributed - who made these criticisms, when, and why?
 * A Good Article has to be broad in its coverage (a Featured article has to be comprehensive). This is not up to either of these standards yet.
 * References need to provide more complete information. For example, internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. cite web and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
 * Make sure the sources used are reliable - see WP:RS. Irenaeus and Hick are important in Christian theology and there have been books written on them, yet this article seems to mostly use some websites which are of questionable reliablity (what makes Scandalon.co.uk a RS?), and some textbooks (again are these the best source possible??). Get thee to a library.
 * I noticed that this topic is not mentioned in the body of the article about Irenaeus
 * Prose is OK - there are a lot of short (one or two sentence) paragraphs that make for choppy flow of the narrative
 * WP:See also says in general not to list links in the See also section which are already linked in the article.
 * Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 23:05, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Second look
 * The lead is much better, but I always (re)write the lead last, after the rest of the article is done, to make sure it is an accurate summary of the whole. One idea I like is to imagine someone could only read the lead, not the rest of the article. Would they get all the important points and ideas from just the lead?
 * I do not think that Keats needs his own section as currently written - sections should be more than one very short paragraph.
 * It's is used where Its is meant
 * Headers need to follow WP:HEAD better - avoid repeating theodicy in the headers (since this duplicates part of the article title)
 * Sources are still a problem (and I see this was raised at the GAN too)