Wikipedia:Peer review/Po-Shen Loh/archive1

Po-Shen Loh


I'm choosing this for a peer review because I've been working on it for a while to take it to GA and I want to know if I need to do anything else before doing a GAN.

Thanks, -- Prodraxis talk contribs  (she/her) 21:29, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment. The method of Loh for quadratic equations is a variant of "completing the square". IMO, "completing the square" is much more adapted for teaching, as it does not need the introduction of a new variable (possibly confusing for kids) and does not requires Vieta's formulas (implicitly used by Loh). We do not have any reliable independent source asserting that Loh's method is pedagogically bettter than "completing the square". Without this, everything that suggests that Loh's method is pedagogically better must be removed. D.Lazard (talk) 18:23, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Anything else I need to do? — Prodraxis {talk • contributions} (she/her) 19:39, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment. Having a bunch of blue links in the lead section actually just scroll down to subsections below seems weird. Isn't the immediately following table of contents sufficient for this? –jacobolus (t) 04:31, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * More generally, all the stuff about Expii, Live, and NOVID feels like using Wikipedia as a vehicle for business promotion rather than an encylopedia. From what I can tell Expii is a relatively unsuccessful low-budget Khan Academy copycat, Live is a small video-chat tutoring service, and NOVID was an unsuccessful contact tracing app that only ever managed small-scale research demos. I'd condense all of these into a one-paragraph section about "business ventures" or the like, and give each one 1–2 sentences, cutting all of the self-promotion fluff quotations from Loh himself.
 * The parts about Loh's work as coach of the international math olympiad team are much more noteworthy (and unsurprisingly a lot more substantive commentary has been written about them in independent media sources) –jacobolus (t) 04:47, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I tried to do a substantial cleanup. –jacobolus (t) 07:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Z1720
Comments after a quick skim:


 * Remove the spaces between the punctuation mark and an inline citation.
 * This article seems a little thin on information. I recommend looking for more sources at Google Scholar, WP:LIBRARY, doaj.org, or databases available through your local library system.

I hope this helps. Z1720 (talk) 20:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Whitespace removal : ✅ — Prodraxis {talk • contribs} (she/her) 15:33, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Additional source : - please note: I may be slower to reply to cause I am currently feeling slightly Wikibonked due to some real-life activities I have going on. — Prodraxis {talk • contribs} (she/her) 23:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Comments from TechnoSquirrel69
Hey ! (Also hi, ; I see you've also been improving the article.) Here are some possible improvements that I can see, building on the comments from other reviewers above:


 * I feel that there are several WP:NOTADVERT issues throughout the article, such as "Loh works at the intersections of combinatorics...". There's also some WP:PEACOCK language at "Loh is a prolific creator...". I'd recommend another pass be done on the article to check for sentences like these.
 * Additionally, the sentence about Loh's YouTube videos is unsourced.
 * "PhD" is spelled differently in the infobox and in the prose.
 * Consider cropping the sides off Loh's portrait so it fits better in the infobox.
 * Citation number 12 has a note about a similar method being developed by another researcher. It's not very visible at the bottom of a bundled citation, so I think it should be moved into its own footnote.
 * I'd recommend archiving the sources with.
 * The sentence beginning "In March 2020..." has six clauses, and needs to be broken up. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 02:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Hope that short and sweet review is of use. Let me know if you have any questions! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 09:50, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * @TechnoSquirrel69 (1) why do you think "intersections of..." is advertising? Seems just descriptive to me. (2) I put the footnotes about the quadratic formula stuff together because if each reference is separated it makes a big blob of [1][2][3][4] kind of mess which I find unsightly and unnecessary if each of these sources is only used once in the same place. We don't go into any detail about the topic in the article body (which seems fine to me; readers who are interested can pretty easily read the footnote and click through to sources), so there's not any particular reason to separate them. (3) I added back a sentence about Loh's YouTube channel (there was at some point in the past a bunch of somewhat adulatory material about it but it was entirely removed) because I think it seems worth mentioning, since it has been a big part of Loh's work in recent years. I'm not sure if there are good secondary sources, but it's also easily verifiable: just look at the YouTube page. What word would you suggest instead of "prolific" for someone who has made hundreds of videos? (4) Listing archive URLs to every live external link on Wikipedia is a huge eyesore and waste of space. –jacobolus (t) 15:10, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Alright, let's take this point by point:
 * I've explained below why I believe it's important to pay attention to the language being used. For this case specifically, I'd say the phrase "at the intersections of" should be used if it's quoted from an independent, reliable source, and attributed to the author.
 * The bundled citation per se is not what I have any issue with; I agree with you on the point that a whole line of citations in the same place is unwieldy. I feel that the note at the bottom of that citation is serving a different purpose than the sources above it: providing the reader with some extra information about another researcher who was publishing related ideas. To facilitate that purpose, the footnote can be made independent; it will be more visible, and will not be mistaken for a source that is verifying the information in the prose. Also, now that you bring the footnote up, we need to make sure that it's not violating WP:NOR. It currently reads "A similar method was previously independently developed in:"; which is making some claims about the nature of Loh's work. Unless there's a source stating that the method is both similar and independently developed from Savage's work, this would be original research, as it's not Wikipedia editors' objective to provide comments on the perceived similarity or independence of sources.
 * I'm not suggesting the word "prolific" be replaced with something else, the fact that a subjective assessment is being placed on Loh's work on YouTube is what I'm concerned about — it's a WP:NPOV issue. Again, it's not for Wikipedia editors to be commenting on whether or not they believe that a content creator is prolific, which is subject to individual opinion. If that opinion is made independently in a reliably published source, then it can be included. Also, consider that the label "prolific" will become outdated; Loh is not going to continue to publish videos at the same rate forever. As for how the information is easily verifiable, we shouldn't be calling upon the reader to go looking around for information, it should simply be available in the inline citation.
 * I'd like to respectfully disagree! It's a very justifiable use of space to preemptively take steps against a link going dead by providing an archived version of the page, in my opinion. If you don't want to archive the live links, InternetArchiveBot lets you opt out of doing that when you run it, and will only look for dead links.
 * Let me know if you have any more questions! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 16:52, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @TechnoSquirrel69 (1) I still don't understand what the problem is with "intersections of". What makes that phrasing seem like an advert? What would you propose as a better way to describe papers that are ... erm... at the intersections of a few subjects? (2) The NYT story mentions the previous independent development of a similar method in the final linked paper; I added a few words to that effect. (3) Would just saying "has made hundreds of videos" or the like be better then? Perhaps you can find a secondary source discussing Loh's YouTube. I only did a brief search for them. (Update: I found one reference, though it doesn't talk about the quantity of videos, but only compliments their quality.) (4) None of the links here are dead (except the Churchill scholar list, for which the current version of the website is harder to navigate), and archive links are included for those which are paywalled. –jacobolus (t) 17:28, 31 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 2 and 4 sound good to me, thanks for making those changes. For 1 and 3, I mentioned above that subjective assessments of the sources should be avoided, and the information simply presented without adding any frills. For example, "Loh has written 41 publications on the subjects of [subjects...]" avoids this issue. I'd take a similar approach with the other examples. I also just noticed an extra point, which I've added to my original list. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 02:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @TechnoSquirrel69 (I broke up the overcomplicated sentence.) I'd say go ahead and make changes if you have some improvements in mind. –jacobolus (t) 02:33, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Jacobolus@TechnoSquirrel69 Whoa..... I kinda forgot this article existed, ngl. Btw thanks for all the improvements that's been happening so far. I just read all this cause I just came back from my 3 day semi-wikibreak because I was away from the summer camp. It looks like the main issue so far is neutrality here; certainly we can address these issues. — Prodraxis {talk • contribs} (she/her) 01:29, 3 August 2023 (UTC)