Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Hanne Blank

Hanne Blank
This article needs a thorough general review.

The subject is a contemporary historian and author with a new book coming out within a week (by March 20, 2007) for U.S. nationwide distribution. Subject of book is the history of virginity in the Western World.

Because her previous books/publications have been via relatively smaller publishers, and because she's had a varied and interesting career (not always just a historian or just an author), it's been very difficult to find and use secondary sources. Many sources are primary, currently, and could probably use work (it may be possible to find secondary sources now that the primary sources are provided).

It would be grand to get this article in tip-top shape, but I don't know what the interpreted rules are and where the wiggle room is. Good article would also be great, but a B would be fine too.

Finally, because the picture I submitted still hasn't been processed through m:OTRS, I didn't feel comfortable submitting this for Did You Know... consideration, but please let me know if that should also be done at this stage.

Thank you in advance for your time, whoever gets to this. --MalcolmGin 17:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yannismarou
I think this article is between stub and start-class. In order a peer-review to be useful, I think former improvement is needed. Some initial remarks and suggestions:
 * Read and implement WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article, in order to bring this article to at least B-Class status.
 * I did read and implement, what I thought was comprehensively, the recommendations in WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. Can you please clarify what parts you feel I missed?
 * You may have done it all fine, but in order to get it to B-Class status, you do need more material and a better structure. Right now, the prose is limited, and with no appropriate structure (lead, sections, maybe sub-sections). As it is now, it is a fine start article, but I am afraid it cannot go higher.--Yannismarou 09:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I will leave the fleshing out to others, beyond what I can find in published book reviews (which are beginning to come out now). Reviews tend to be short on biographical data, but what's published is certainly fair game. I can't really flesh out the article with private info I know anyway, since it's not published via a reliable source, but I will also be crippled by the boundaries she and I draw between public and private (e.g. I won't use my special knowledge to unfairly bias my search techniques to dig up stuff I think I might be able to find in reliable sources about her - I'll leave that to other folks who are more inclined to search that stuff out and put it here). So I'm OK with the article not achieving the B rating due to my in-built limitations. --MalcolmGin 14:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Use Template:cite news and Template:cite web for your online sources and references.
 * Thank you for the pointer to Template:cite news and Template:cite web. I'll implement those in the article as soon as I have time to devote to that Done. I reviewed several authors' bios to see whether you intended your recc here for the Works/Bibliography section as well, and concluded that you probably didn't, but if you did, please let me know and I'll convert those entries too. MalcolmGin
 * You article has no proper structure: lead, sections etc. Read WP:LEAD, WP:EDIT, Help:Section, and expand your article.
 * I'll also review the article for the proper structure and implement when I can. I will note here that the article was recently converted to the same format as by me very recently, so the mechanical parts of structure that are missing from the template are essentially because there was no material I had to put in them. Thank you anyhow for the links and pointers. MalcolmGin
 * Maybe you could find some secondary sources through Google book or Google scholar, but I can't be sure.
 * I'm pretty familiar with the extant primary and secondary sources about Hanne Blank. I have been her life partner for 10 years or so. I'll give the sources/scrapbooks another pass for public information I can use, but I don't think there's (yet) a lot of hope there. Do reviews of books count as "news"? I do know that book reviews for her latest have come out/are starting to come out now. MalcolmGin
 * Book reviews are reliable printed sources, and could be used.--Yannismarou 09:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool, I'll add bio new information as it comes out via the reviews. --MalcolmGin 14:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Expand your paragraphs or merge them. It is not nice to have stubby paragraphs.
 * I'll do what I can to merge the paragraphs sensibly. I personally cannot expand them without breach of privacy, but others are of course welcome to. MalcolmGin
 * Place inline citations straight after the punctuation mark and not before.
 * Done, thank you. MalcolmGin
 * Try not to have so many external jumps (links to online sources within the text) in your prose, and prefer to cite these online external sources through Template:cite news and Template:cite web as proper citations.
 * Done. I left in 3 external jumps to issues/articles not in Wikipedia. All others link internally to extant Wikipedia articles. MalcolmGin
 * About the "See also" section read here, and format it accordingly. You could also get rid of it by incorporating the links there in your main text. And, of course, we do not link the WP:Biography in the See also section!
 * For the "See also" section, I'll definitely do the reading done. On the other hand, regarding your And, of course, we do not link the WP:Biography in the See also section!, I think this must have been an artifact of my misunderstanding of the template, in that those links were in the template, and I thought they were standard for Biography articles. I'll know better next time. MalcolmGin
 * I see confirmation of release under GFDL has been received at OTRS.--Yannismarou 13:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, the OTRS has confirmed GFDL of the headshot, which is good, but I think I'll wait to implement your suggestions before trying to submit the article for Did You Know consideration. Thanks again! --MalcolmGin 03:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again, Yannismarou --MalcolmGin 14:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)