Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies/Peer review/2007

Archived peer reviews

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was petered out. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 17:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Bisexuality

As was agreed on WP:LGBT, I am starting a regular peer review of our monthly collaboration so that editors wishing to contribute can look here for ideas. Thoughts on every aspect of the article so that it may reach FA would be helpful. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• I have glanced at the article and these are some things that stand out to me:

• The lead definitely needs expansion, but that should be one of the last things completed so it may summarize the entire article.
• The first section of the Description is confusing. There needs to be a description of how the terms "gender" and "sex" are used.
• In terminology, it should be determined what terms need be linked and red-links at least stubbed out.
• Modern Western prevalence section--should this be expanded to include a "world view"?
• Bisexuality in History should cover a world view and carry forward to the modern day. Likely this should be a daughter article that is merely summarized here.
• Bisexuality in animals definitely needs expansion.
• Bisexuality in modern Western entertainment should be renamed Bisexuality in culture and include a historical worldview. It should probably also be a daughter article that is summarized.
• Of course, the entire article should be properly cited. There are some external links spread throughout the article that should be converted to proper footnotes.
• The article could use a few more images.

Just a few notes from my perspective. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 20:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Mostly this has the typical problems of an article that's been accreted rather than constructed. It rambles in parts and lacks clarity, proportion, and balance. You can see where the people who added each bit of information were coming from, but someone unfamiliar with the topic would probably have a lot of trouble.

Terminology: Might be better as a daughter article; the detail is a little overwhelming so early on. The terms would probably be easier to absorb if they were brought up in context instead of in a separate glossary -- for example, biphobia could be discussed under social status. The acronym MOTSS is too obscure to be helpful in explaining other unfamiliar terms.

The "modern Western prevalence" section rambles around and doesn't adequately clarify how different assumptions lead researchers to different results, though it makes several stabs at it. The paragraph on Freud seems to belong in another section. Lack of citations is particularly problematic in a section supposedly based on quantitative research.

Social status:

Historically, bisexuality has largely been free of the social stigma associated with homosexuality, prevalent even where bisexuality was the norm.

This is a bold claim and needs very solid support. But it's supported by nothing, not even the uncited discussion that follows it, which merely supports a claim that bisexuality has been accepted in men who are upper-class and/or living in Ancient Greece. That is not a majority of the world's population.

Lacking in this section is any sense that people have ever been persecuted for homosexual acts rather than identities and that the question of exclusivity was not necessarily relevant. In fact, for a reader who comes to this without any preexisting knowledge about the subject, the take-home message is that bisexuals have never been subject to any discrimination except by lesbian and gay people. Highly misleading.

On the other hand, there are bisexuals who marry or live with a heterosexual partner because they prefer the complementarity of different genders in cohabiting and co-parenting, but have felt greatly enriched by homosexual relationships alongside the marriage in both monogamous and "open" relationships.

Mentioning "the complementarity of different genders in cohabiting and co-parenting" like this, without any balancing reference to bisexual people whose primary partners are of the same sex, has a strongly heterocentric effect. This is wandering off the point of the section, anyway. The weird use of the word "monogamous" (to mean something like "polyfidelitous"?) makes it extra confusing.

The discussion of symbols comes across as a digression; it could be its own section or subsection, or just be turned into captions. The paragraph criticizing the use of the pink triangle as a symbol is unbalanced POV, and belongs in pink triangle rather than here, anyway.

The history section makes some bold claims without citation. The terms "age-structured" and "gender-structured" need explanation. The caveat about "sexual orientation" being a recent concept would be better at the beginning than the end.

The article might make more sense if history were placed before social status; historical social status could be merged into history to avoid covering the same ground twice.

I don't think the section on animals needs to be much longer, but it would be good to characterize what types of bisexual behavior are most often seen, what biologists think about it, and so on.

What does "Bisexuality (behavioral and biological)" mean? If "biological bisexuality" is being used to refer to hermaphroditism, that's really confusing and unhelpful.

The section about bisexuality in entertainment needs an explanation of what popular culture says about bisexuality and how portrayals have changed over time, although that may be hard to find good sources for. I agree that the long, unilluminating list would be better as a daughter article. —Celithemis 00:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Van de Kamp

Ok, I've been working on this for a while, and now I want to take it to FAC some time soon. I've tried to keep the biography as short as possible, though it proved trying. The characterization and reception sections are the result of my trawling through every single Google search result on Andrew, all 37 pages of it. I would welcome any tips to get it to FA. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I'm "qualified" to review this, but most of this article deals with Andrew's character rather than Andrew himself. What kind of person is he like? What are his other accomplishments beyond Desperate Housewives ? How about his early life? Things like that. - Pandacomics 08:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Uh, Andrew isn't a real person. He doesn't exist outside of desperate housewives... Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 08:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't suggest anything as it seems ready for FA already. Of course any more info is always welcome. LuciferMorgan 00:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The main picture has been tagged for deletion in a week due to copyright crap. Apart from that, seems like an excellent article, no suggestions here. God he's so hot. :-) Mentality 14:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Same-sex marriage in Spain

This article is already a GA, and I believe it could be a FA one day. Suggestion to improve it to this end are greatly appreciated. Raystorm 11:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Dev920

Good article (well, obviously), here's some stuff I found:

• No dictionary knows what "tramitation" means, and I don't know what you meant here.
• Your use of references is good, but Residency issues and Marriage numbers could do with a few more. Footnotes should follow directly after a punctuation mark, without a space. You may wish to correct that.
• "Canada's federal same-sex marriage legislation passed its final reading in the House of Commons in late June 2005. It received Royal Assent and became law in late July 2005." Is this sentence necessary? Can it be cut down?
• In the history section, it says the bill was rejected because the "opposition People's party" held a plurality of seats. Was this because they were simply being contrary, or are they opposed to gay marriage anyway?
• "Prominent People's Party members later rejected these afirmations by Polaino (who was later found to believe in exorcisms)." The exorcisms clause I think is slight POV.
• "Children born within a lesbian marriage (from whatever means)" What does this bracketed clause mean, or add to the sentence?
• "Catholics in particular were adamantly opposed to it." Well, that's not true, if 76% of Spaniards are Catholic, but 66% supported gay marriage. Can you clarify this sentence?
• All dates (January 21, 2007) need to be wikilinked, per WP:DATE. It is somewhat sporadic throughout the article.
• You need to reference the entire last paragraph of Reactions, or it seems like OR.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll add to it if I find anything. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 11:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to review the article!

• Sorry. Seems my Legal English isn't as fantastic as I thought. How do you call the process a law must undergo to finally become a law?

ratification (I am starting my own peer review now). Jeffpw 13:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• With the marriage numbers, we tried to provide the estimations from a conservative source (La Razon), the LGTB Spanish organization and a Government officer. What other references should be added? I'll try to see what I can find for the Residency section.

• The sentence about Canada is because there was some confusion about which country had become the third to allow gay marriage. In fact, some news sources list Spain as being the 4th country to allow it, instead of the third. I'll try to cut it down, but I think it's important to keep.

• Ahhh, that's the mistery about the PP! In the previous 8 years, while they governed, they took no steps to provide equal rights to gays. In fact, they shot down several propositions from the opposition. They argue that if they had won the elections they would have regulated by law gay unions, but we will never know will we? They have gone to demonstrations against gay marriage, saying their problem is the use of the word 'marriage', not gay people per se. So you could say they opposed gay marriage at the Senate because they were both being contrary (they've seldom agreed with the Government in anything) and because they did not support gay marriage.

• *Grin* Okay, the exorcism sentence might be slightly POV. I think I added it to provide a counter balance to Polaino's previous statements. I figured it'd be 'informative' to let people know that the guy who said such things about gays had also written articles based on religious beliefs as opposed to hard science (that would be relevant explaining his gay statements, don't you think?). An article is provided as a ref too, so it isn't just hearsay. But if it is a big problem it can be removed or reworded.

• The lesbian marriage sentence. Well, I also don't like it too much. The 'from whatever means' refers to the several possibilities (in vitro, male friend) a lesbian could get pregnant. It makes no difference the way a lesbian gets pregnant. It's not a strong sentence, I'll see if I can reword it.

• Well, the problem is the definition of Catholic. Most Spaniards are Catholic because they were baptised at birth, and that fact is recorded and cannot be changed even if the person later rejects the Catholic creed. As baptism is a tradition in Spain, most Spaniards are Catholic. I could say 'Catholic authorities' to prevent confusion.

• I thought the dates were okay? Well, I'll change them then.

• You mean the paragraph about gay adoption being legal in several Spanish cities? Alright. I'll see if I can make some sort of wiki link to the Gay Rights in Spain article.

Thanks again Dev920! :) I'll try to make the changes asap. Cheers! Raystorm 12:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this article does have a good shot at FA, but you must get a good copyeditor to go through it first. There are some prose issues that I cannot help you with. I've fixed some rogue footnotes, so do be careful about this with your next article. Otherwise, I cannot think of anything else to say about this article. Well done! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Already requested a copyeditor to go through it. :) Thanks! Raystorm 22:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

PS: Does this mean it might now rate A-class at the Wikiproject? ;P Raystorm 23:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Jeffpw's review

• lead: first sentence: it is IN not ACROSS. Why is Spain bolded?

Double use of officially is jarring

rather high:--seems weaselly to me. Can you provide actual figures?

Ditto for the sentence about Catholics; you should also modify this per Dev's comment.

decided to challenge. Did they challenge or not? Simply saying challenged is less ambiguous.

delete and only if from sentence about foreigners marrying (it's redundant)

• History: some local benefits--this is not precise; what do you mean???

breakup is a colloquialism; if the relationship ended might be a better term.

about marriage is rather clunky. Consider changing to in matters relating to marriage.

• Check the entire article for use of passive voice. I thought I noticed it a few times in the article.

the day of his inauguration. Changing to AT his inauguration will read better.

• only wikify dates if year is also included, per WP:MOS

Remove Canada sentence, per Dev--it's just unnecessary.

• Complete tramitation of Law 13/2005-- Tramitation is actually ratification. Also, what does 13/2005 mean??? is that a date?

critic about--you mean critcal of

It argued that said extension was not demanded by the Spanish Constitution, and that the same result (end of discrimination) could be achieved through other legal means. Clarify this, please. Do you mean the expansion of rights to marry?

previsions:Do you mean provisions? I would suggest deleting that clause, as it does not add to sentence.

no effect in a childs' development--ON a child's.

affirmations. I think you mean assertions.

(with the girls): change to regarding girls; same with the part about boys.

exorcisms per Dev (but I like it!).

uplifted the veto--clarify please. I have no idea what you mean.

The uplifting of the veto supposed its definite approval as law. Ditto.

sanctioned could better be written as endorsed.

True enough, the king of Spain would later proceed to give his Royal Assent to the law. Remove true enough. It's just plain awkward.

• Residency issues: consulate marriages: Add consuls in S Africa--same-sem marriage is now legal there.

Belgium and Netherlands only marries residents--cite please. Also, wikilink to relevant articles about sema-sex marriage in the countries, not the countries themselves.

• marriage numbers--more cites needed for first paragraph

divorces consummated: granted might be a more regular word choice.

Two weeks after this rally, and coinciding with the Gay Pride Day, 2.0 million people marched in favour of the new law for gays and lesbians, organizers claimed (official sources accounted 97,000). This is an odd sentence construction. Insert the final clause at the beginning of sentence.

matrimonio Is there some reason you wish to use this word, and then define it? Youcan also just say matrimony.

bringing up is an idiomatic phrase--raising is a better word choice.

• There is a tense problem in reactions--you slip back and forth between past and present tense. Please adjust this accordingly.

All in all, this is an excellent article. I suggest you submit it to the League of copyeditors for a thorough edit, since English is your second language. After they have vetted it, please submit it for Good Article status. I would happily support its becoming a GA.

Err, it's already a GA. :) Law 13/2005 is the official name of the law. Spain is bolded because the articles' name is same-sex marriage in Spain (besides, followed Same-sex marriage in Canada lead for this per request of GA reviewer, check talk page). The 'rather high' comment is properly referenced at the reactions section, do I reference it again at the lead? I was just summarizing some sections' contents at the lead.

It argued that said extension was not demanded by the Spanish Constitution, and that the same result (end of discrimination) could be achieved through other legal means. Clarify this, please. Do you mean the expansion of rights to marry?

Well, it means that marriage wasn't necessary per se. Discrimination could be avoided by some kind of civil union regulation instead. I'll try to find a less confusing way to express this.

uplifted the veto--clarify please. I have no idea what you mean.

It means they took away the veto, it stopped having effect. I use British English, and I'm starting to realise some words are different from American English. (Just FYI, English is not my second language -I simply wasn't the only editor writing the article!). :)

AHA! In Americanspeak, that's "Override". Thanks for clarifying it for me. I hadn't heard the British term.

The marriage numbers. An online reference isn't provided, true, but the newspaper and agency that did these estimations are mentioned both by name and date. I thought that was valid?

I'll proceed with all the other changes asap (It's gonna be fun trying to find out if there's a Spanish Consulate in South Africa...). Thank you very much for taking the time to review the article! Cheers Raystorm, 21 January 2006, 17:25 UTC

Oops! I just went to the peer review from the LGBT page, so didn't look at the talk page tag, and only skimmed the rest of the stuff on this page. My apologies for not seeing that. Also, in rereading my review, I realize I may have come across as a pedantic dickhead, which was cewrtainly not my intention. I am doing 8 things at once, and was typing quickly (and a bit tersely, in retrospect). After you implement the suggested changes, consider submitting it for Featured status. At the very worst, you'll get more valuable feedback; and I think it has a very good shot at FA. Cheers, Jeffpw 18:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Not at all mate, I honestly appreciate the feedback. Seeing lots of emoticons might make for a pleasant review, true, but it certainly isn't required. :) I'd rather have some good FB thrown back at me instead. Plus I understand all about time constraints, believe me. I'm glad you were able to drop your two cents in making this (hopefully) a FA one day. Cheers! Raystorm 18:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Automated peer review

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• See if possible if there is a free use image that can go on the top right corner of this article.^[?]
• There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.^[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)
• Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: organize (A) (British: organise), recognize (A) (British: recognise), recognise (B) (American: recognize), ization (A) (British: isation), isation (B) (American: ization).
• Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
  • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
• Avoid using contractions like (outside of quotations): weren't, don't, didn't, isn't.
• As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2]^[?]
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 18:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

*Blink* Except for the image on the top right corner thing, I think everything else is covered. Raystorm 18:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added a legislation infobox and juggled the images in the article a bit. How does it look now? Should I take it off or leave it? Raystorm 21:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

PS: Obviously I'm not asking the bot, but other humans. ;) Raystorm 21:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you think you can add one more image to the top, or move one of the lower images? It looks a little stark, with the new infobox added. Jeffpw 21:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

It does, doesn't it? Let's see what I can do about it... Raystorm 21:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Better now? :) Raystorm 21:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Much! I know it seems strange, that the Spain box should be lower than the LGBT box, but the LGBT one is just so much more colorful. Visual appeal is a factor...to me, anyway. Call it the Queer Eye. :-) Jeffpw 22:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I wasn't liking too much the outcome either after I added the Spain infobox, but figured it was a necessary addition. It does look better now. We are all visual animals anyway. :) Raystorm 22:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Washington Blade

So I've dumped a ton of effort into this to raise it from Stub to B, then per Dev920's comments on the talk page, I expanded it more to make it better situated for nomination for GA (and eventually FA). Now it's time for someone else's eyeballs to look at it. I think my citations might be off in a couple of places so any help to fix those would be great! Thanks!! jtowns 10:08, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

---

From the talk page Hmm. This article does not appear to be the article I thought I looked at. :) But, if you're still interested in GA -

• The lead needs to sum up the entire article. Ideally, it needs to be able to stand alone.
• The references are not formatted properly, see WP:CITE for more.
• How is the paper laid out? Formatted?
• Tell me more about Bladewire. Who came up with it? What's its circulation?
• Some questions: Has there been any controversies surrounding it? Has it ever won awards? What's the readership demographics? What's the editorial line? Any good scoops? Any competition?

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll review later. This is important what you're doing, btw, no LGBT newspaper has made it beyond a stub yet. If you can get this up to FA, we'll have a precedant to work from. Good luck! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This article is starting to shape up nicely, though I'm worried about the proliferation of short sections. Anyway, here's an FA newspaper that I found that you may find helpful: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I think the lead needs work but you can go for GA after that, I think. Even if there's other stuff they want they'll put it on hold for you to fix. I'd just like to say, well done, this article has been so improved. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

---

I agree with Dev, I'm concerned with the number of short sections. Here's some other things I've noticed:

• Things look well-cited, which I like to see (I haven't verified any of them, but I don't see large chunks of text that are not cited).
• "1969 to June 1974: The Gay Blade's Early Years" and "1950s to 1969: The Origins" could be combined.
• Actually, all the history subsections seems somewhat arbitrary broken up.. The names don't seem terribly interesting, and don't really give me an idea what the section is really about. The names don't seem to be very encyclopedic.
• The AIDS crisis was a big part of LGBT history. Is there any more information to how the paper responded to the crisis?
• The reporting on AIDS is called "ground-breaking" in the article. This doesn't seem to be neutral point of view. Instead, give some examples on how it was ground-breaking and quote others who said it was ground-breaking.
• Section titles do not follow the Manual of Style.
• The history sections frequently reads as if each sentence is a bulleted list without the bullets.
• It makes sense to move the BladeWire section as a subsection of "About".
• The section name "About" should be something more informative.
• Are Metro Weekly and The Advocate really competitors? Or are they just LGBT publications like the Washington Blade? Are they notable enough as competitors to be listed here? (Would we consider Gayly Oklahoman a competitor?) I think this section could be expanded or perhaps removed altogether.
• The article should be named Washington Blade not The Washington Blade. (see WP:Manual of Style).
• "Criticism & Controversy" section could work as its own section instead of being a subsection of History.
• The "Archives" and "Awards" don't really belong as subsections of History.
• One source with one person blogging and calling Washington Blade a "newspaper of record" does not mean we can say "The newspaper is sometimes referred to as America's gay newspaper of record". -- Ash Lux ^{(talk | contribs)} 23:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ashlux -- So I have eliminated many of the short sections, tightened up the history subsections, rearranged things as a suggested above. As for the 'About' section -- I'm not sure what better to call it. I used "General overview" which is used on The Washington Post. I also added more to the criticism and controversy section to make it able to stand on its own, and I have added another source for the newspaper of record comment. As for the AIDS crisis reporting, I removed the NPOV violated text, but I have been unable to locate additional sources to say it was ground-breaking coverage. On the point about competition, MetroWeekly is a direct competitor in the LGBT publication market in Washington DC. They compete directly for ad dollars and readers. And the only other GLBT newspaper i nthe US that has similar resources and reporting quality is the Bay Area Reporter out of SF. So they don't directly compete, but the Reporter and the Blade are competitors. I look forward to more feedback as it comes and more suggestions as you have them. Thanks! jtowns 06:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

One more thing -- I'm having a hard time coming up with sources for awards the paper has won. Any suggestions? I called the paper today and they just told me that they have won numerous awards but didn't have a list of them to give me for more info... jtowns 06:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok based upon this feedback and stuff on the talk page, I made changes and am now submitting this article for GA nomination. Therefore I am de-listing this as peer review. jtowns 02:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)