Wikipedia:Peer review/Harry S. Truman/archive2

Harry S. Truman

Previous peer review

I've listed this article for peer review because we are trying to get this former FA back to FA level and would appreciate a review at that level.

Thanks, PumpkinSky talk 11:18, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

 Doing...

Binksternet comments

• Looks like the Webreflinks tool picked up some deprecated attributes and parameters.

• Fixed by The Rabbit. PumpkinSky talk 09:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

• Checklinks found three dead links.
• I don't understand what is being put forward by this bit: "Truman ran slightly behind Roosevelt's successful campaign". Why is this important?

Since Truman was a vice presidential candidate in 1944, this helps show why he was not considered in 1940. He hadn't built his national base yet, and his position in Missouri was rather questionable. He only won 51 to 49.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Ahh. The text could be clearer on that point. Binksternet (talk) 03:48, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the comparison.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

• The Truman Committee should be fleshed out with an example. It was an important platform.

"Activities of the Truman Committee ranged from criticizing the "dollar-a-year men" hired by the government, many of whom proved ineffective, to investigating a shoddily-built New Jersey housing project for war workers.[41] The committee is reported to have saved at least $15 billion and thousands of lives;[42][43] its activities put Truman on the cover of Time magazine.[44]" is already in the article, two examples so I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate?PumpkinSky talk 22:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

That was added by Wehwalt after I posted this review. Binksternet (talk) 23:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that. PS and I agreed to put "done" here when we had completed something so as not to confuse each other.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• Ousting Wallace as VP and replacing him with Truman was done because nice guy leftist Wallace was seen as a poor choice for wartime president making hard decisions. The ongoing war context should be stated. The article text says Wallace was unpopular but that's not true—he was very popular with the working man.
• Wikilinks are deprecated within direct quotes. See Hobo, Missouri Compromise, Euphrates, Noah's Ark, Westbrook Pegler, Bitch (insult), Civilian control of the military, Confederate States of America and Mississippi in the article.
• The scathing letter to Paul Hume ends with a quote mark but it does not begin with one. I think the end quote should be removed.

Done.PumpkinSky talk 00:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• The em dash is misused as a separation between a list entry title and a short summary. Same with book and article titles that have two or more parts. The en dash should be used in these places.
• The em dash should always be unspaced on Wikipedia when used for sentence interruption, but a handful of them are incorrectly spaced in the article text.

I've unspaced the m dashes. I will have to look more closely at the other recommendations in the last two entries.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• I personally don't like to see a reference in the middle of a sentence if there is no good reason that it cannot be moved to the end. For instance, the reference following "presidential odyssey" ought to be at the end of the sentence.

I made it its own sentence.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:20, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• The article text should be streamlined to use either U.S. or US but not both.

U.S. seems to be favored these days, so I switched all to that.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• A bunch of "United States" can be shortened to US or U.S., whichever is selected.
• On the same note, piped links can reduce other instances of "United States" such that United States Department of State can be displayed as Department of State or State Department, as the context is obvious.
• Some overlinking can be reduced. For instance, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum twice in the same section.
• The bolding gets out of hand in the Tributes section. Only Truman's name in the first sentence should be bolded.

Fixed.PumpkinSky talk 00:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• The bulleted list of sites should be prosified.

Disagree, it's be long and wordy PumpkinSky talk 00:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• I don't see the need for three dots following this quote: "realized that the man nominated to run with Roosevelt would in all probability be the next President."

Removed.PumpkinSky talk 00:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• Some observers have noted that it was fairly open-minded of Truman to partner in business with a Jewish man in 1921, but this article does not say that Jacobson was Jewish.

It is now.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

• The stamp caption should not say "from 1973–1999". It should either be "1973–1999" or "from 1973 to 1999".

Fixed.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

• This term should not use a hyphen: "income-tax evasion"
• The hyphen in "labor-management conflicts" probably should be replaced with an en dash or a forward slash.
• One Taft–Hartley Act has an en dash, one has a hyphen.
• One whistlestop is hyphenated, one is not.

Cut the hyphen.PumpkinSky talk 00:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• More comments to come. Binksternet (talk) 01:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
• Why was the Truman Balcony controversial? Expense? Appearance? Change?
• Wikilinks and authorlink parameters can be added for C-SPAN, Robert Dallek, Michael T. Benson, Eliot A. Cohen, Robert J. Donovan, James Forrestal, Richard M. Freeland, Ole Holsti, Stephen Hunter, Joseph William Martin, Jr., Merle Miller, Richard Neustadt, Allan Nevins, David Oshinsky, David Pietrusza, Michael Stohl, Gil Troy, Allen Weinstein, Massad Ayoob, Robert Griffith (historian), Ken Hechler, George Elsey, Donald Smaltz, Nancy Gibbs, Robert Higgs, Paul Reynolds (BBC journalist), Stanley Weintraub.
• The wedding article reference was not written by Colonel William Southern. It was written by Mrs. William Southern.
• Truman Library webpages such as this one of many should include the names of the authors or editors when available.
• What is this URL doing in the references? http://www.fbcgrandview.org/about-us
• This URL should be added to the relevant reference entry: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/quemoy_matsu.htm
• The 80th United States Congress was called the "Do Nothing Congress" by Truman but the article does not tell the reader about this stratagem of his to embarrass the opposition. The phrase "Do Nothing Congress" has been used by others after Truman to describe other obstructionist Congresses, including the current 112th Congress. Binksternet (talk) 03:05, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
• Truman relied on George Marshall more than is told in the article.
• Not enough is written about Truman working with Forrestal. Forrestal argued with Truman to get more money for the military in 1947–48, but Truman was thinking about reelection: he wanted to economize to answer Republican criticisms regarding liberal spending. Truman thereby weakened the military; when Korea blew up, the US was not prepared. Nothing about this is in the article. Truman fired Forrestal because he was showing severe signs of fatigue—he was burnt out—replacing him with probably the worst Secretary of War/Defense that the US has ever had: Louis A. Johnson.
• Nothing in the article describes how well-read Truman was, how encyclopedic was his knowledge of world history and American history.
• References should be numbered low to high. Swap the positions of the first and second references following "by nearly 20%". Swap the positions of the two references after "Confederate soldiers."
• This sentence should begin with a capital: "by early 1951 the war became a fierce stalemate..."
• Spaces between sentence punctuation and references should be removed.
• The website link to doctorzebra.com should be removed as unreliable—no author listed, only a pseudonym.
• The website link to "The American Presidency Project" should be removed because it gives the reader nothing specific about Truman except after surfing around or searching. There is no central "Truman" page.
• References should be culled if they are not being used, or if they are redundant to a better one for the same fact. External links should be assessed for their value; the low value ones should be dropped. Focus should be tight.
• Okay, that's my review. Binksternet (talk) 15:18, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oh! "The Buck Stops Here" photo shows ex-president Truman, not President Truman. He's sitting in the Truman Library at a reconstruction of his Oval Office.

I put "Former" in front of the caption.PumpkinSky talk 22:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Good start. The image ought to be moved down to some section discussing Truman's life after the presidency. Binksternet (talk) 03:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Binksternet (talk) 17:07, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Comments. - Dank (push to talk)

• "as the nation endorsed an internationalist foreign policy along with allies in Europe and control over defeated Japan.": I'm not sure what this is saying.
• "... U.N. approval for the Korean War. After initial success, the UN ...": U.N. or UN?
• "... was a central issue in the 1952 presidential campaign and helped cause Adlai Stevenson, Truman's successor as Democratic nominee, to lose ...": See WP:Checklist#because and WP:Checklist#repetition. ("central issue" and "helped cause" say more or less the same thing.) "was a central issue in the 1952 presidential campaign in which Adlai Stevenson, Truman's successor as Democratic nominee, lost ..."
• "to the West Point": to the United States Military Academy at West Point
• "Reportedly, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.": I avoid knee-jerk invocations of WP:WEASEL, but "reportedly" in a history article is just the kind of thing WEASEL is meant to address. Either a writer finds the report credible, based on available sources, or not; If so, then the sentence is stronger without "reportedly", and if not, then the incident doesn't merit mentioning, unless the story is the story ... that is, if this story itself became part of Truman's legacy, then attribute the story to the most persuasive source. - Dank (push to talk) 14:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
  • • The various biographers agree that it was the president's brother Vivian Truman who says Harry memorized the eye chart. Binksternet (talk) 20:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)