Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Jack Coggins

Jack Coggins
This article has been rated Start class. I have added a lot more to it and would appreciate comments and possible re-rating. Dave 06:23, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Yannismarou
I upgraded to B. I'm reluctant to rate it GA without having successfully gone through GAC. In general, a nice article. These is my review:
 * The lead is short. Check WP:LEAD.
 * I didn't like some wording. For instance "While his father served with the Life Guards Regiment in France during World War I, Coggins and his mother lived with family in Folkestone, Kent and he attended the Imperial Service College, a public school preferred by army families." I lost the persons here! It may be because I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm almost convinced something is going wrong here! "He was pulled from basic training before he could complete it, however, to work as an illustrator for YANK magazine, which was a U.S. Army weekly magazine "by the men ... for the men, in the service". This sentence also does not flow so well. "As a result of his friendship with Fletcher Pratt, Coggins became closely associated with notable science fiction writers such as L. Sprague de Camp, L. Ron Hubbard and Isaac Asimov, through his membership of Pratt's Trap Door Spiders club, and he frequently joined Pratt in playing Fred T. Jane's "Navy Game". I also don't like this phrasing. I repeat I may be wrong since I am not a native English speaker, but I beleive that a slight copy-editing would help.
 * "translated into other languages.[1]" Don't citate external links like that; it is not nice. You have your citations you can use.
 * Photos are not an obstacle neither for GAC or for FAC, but an article with one photo is usually regarded as poorly illustrated.
 * You have 3 listy sections with books and magazines. First of all, when we citate a book, it is better to give all the information about it (ISBN, publisher, author, year) and keep the same format for all the books citated. Second, it is not nice to have 3 listy sections in a row. You can create a sister sub-article and make a selection for your main article (this is a suggestion - wait to see what other reviewers will say on the same matter).
 * I think it would be also nice to have some evaluations by critics and others of his art. I saw only his personal beliefs about his work and not what other people said about him.--Yannismarou 12:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Nat91
I'm another non-native English speaker, but I don't think Yannismarou is wrong. Those are odd sentences. Same with the others, you could make 2 or 3 sentences out of 1. It'd be more clear and less tiring for the reader. Nat91 21:23, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "While his father served with the Life Guards Regiment in France during World War I, Coggins and his mother lived with family in Folkestone, Kent and he attended the Imperial Service College, a public school preferred by army families." - You can make 3 sentences out of that. "Kent and he attended..." who's he in that sentence? I'm lost too.

Latest edit
I accept the comments regarding the sentences mentioned above - they did sound a little confusing and I was formulating ways to improve them, but for me the latest edit done by Jreferee doesn't improve the article at all. My personal preference is to keep the tone of an article slightly formal and authoritative, but in my opinion it now has a bit of a "movie script" feel. Also, what is the point of linking to all those dead ends? All those red links look terrible. Sorry, that's just my opinion. Dave 21:57, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Plange
I echo the above reviewers and would only have this to add, that you need to pick one spelling style. I saw a mixture of US and UK spelling and wasn't sure which to switch to, since he was born in the UK, but became a US citizen. You guys, as editors, can decide which makes most sense and correct the spelling to whicever you pick. As for the edits by jreferee, you do not have to keep them... --plange 22:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Dinosaur puppy
It may be a conflict of interest if you are related to him (both of your last names are Coggins). But I didn't see any NPOV violations so it doesn't look bad right now. T REX speak 17:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think as long as it remains neutral, there shouldn't be a problem. It is possible to write an article fairly about a relative. I've done so with Stephen Trigg and John W. Johnston. (If I haven't, let me know!) --plange 17:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Dave
OK - I have attempted to address as many of the above comments as possible. I have
 * extended the lead intro by two paragraphs.
 * added more images.
 * sorted out some of the more confusing sentences.
 * created a new page for the book lists and linked to it.
 * added publication data to the book lists.
 * moved all the external links out of the text to the footnote section.

I haven't been able to find any useful critiques of Coggins's work yet, still looking.

Re US/UK spelling - I am not quite sure what is referred to here. I am Australian, so I am always confused which way to go, but as a rule I tend to the UK spelling. However, I am open to any corrections if necessary to US spelling, as Jack Coggins was American, and that was the way he wrote.

This is still a work in progress (does it ever end?) and I would appreciate further suggestions for improvements, and perhaps consideration for upgrading to the next class.

Dave 06:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)