Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Martha Hughes Cannon/1

Martha Hughes Cannon

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result pending

The article uses a lot of long paragraphs. These should be broken up into smaller paragraphs to help with readability. This includes the lead and the first paragraph of "Plural marriage and exile". On the other end of the spectrum, "Legacy and honors" is a list of disjointed entries that are not formatted correctly. I suggest that this be rewritten as prose. There are also uncited statements in the article. Z1720 (talk) 01:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the note at WT:MED. I have to confess that this doesn't strike me as a list of very significant problems.

The lead is a single paragraph of 220 words, which is a not-unreasonable size for a paragraph (in academic writing; bloggers are doubtless encouraged to have shorter paragraphs). The first paragraph of ==Plural marriage and exile==, at ~440 words, did strike me as long, but that was easily fixed by pressing the Return button once. If you feel that the lead paragraph should also be split, then I encourage you to go find some plausible spot in that paragraph and press the Return button yourself.

==Legacy and honors== sections are frequently presented as lists. I searched for "Legacy and honors", checked the first five articles in the results, and found that three were bulleted lists and two were prose. The tendency towards being disjointed is probably due to the facts, as there's no obvious way to unify so many disparate things (e.g., there's a statue...they lobbied for a stamp...someone else used her as a character in a play...).

I grant that using - formatting instead of * is not how we do things on wiki, but having an IP editor not know how to wikify a list is not really grounds for de-listing. I've fixed it. It took me about 30 seconds.

As for the uncited statements, every paragraph (but not the first bullet point in the ==Legacy and honors== section, which was added just a couple of months ago) contains at least one inline citation, and I suspect that those (especially the books) cover more than just the single sentence the citation is attached to. Perhaps, if you are interested, you would check those sources and duplicate the citations. Unfortunately, earlier this year, we ran off the editor most likely to volunteer to do this for you, so if you want it done, you're probably going to have to do it yourself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Z, I appreciate the work that you've done with taking deficient older GAs to GAR, but I don't think this one needed it. Paragraph length is easily fixable and doesn't warrant delisting. Likewise, the legacy and honors listing formatting issues were easily fixable and not worth delisting over. The uncited text is not particularly significant in quantity or claims here. I'm at a keep with this one. It's not perfect, but not so deficient that I think it ought to be delisted. Hog Farm _Talk 16:20, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm and WhatamIdoing: While some editors have wanted me to WP:BEBOLD, there have been times in the past when I follow that advice I am critised for making changes without being a subject-matter expert. This is why I am more willing to bring an article to GAR instead. Another reason to bring this article to GAR is to find someone who will adopt the article and ensure that it is maintained after the GAR is complete: an editor who makes the fixes now is more likely to check in on the article after changes are made to ensure that it maintains its quality. This article might have been smaller fixes than other articles, but if nominated now at GAN I am not sure that it would pass with the problems it possesses. I'm happy that this article has some easy fixes and hope this can continue. I added cn tags to the places where they might be needed. Z1720 (talk) 03:40, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've dealt with three of the four CN tags. The other one is not very significant and the information can be removed if nobody can find a good source. I did have to resort to LDS Living for one of the citations, though. BetterDays2020 should probably be replaced as a source - it's currently a double citation for a statement, although I have no idea if the other citation covers all of the information. utahbecky.com is the website of Becky Edwards (politician) so I think that one is fine for what is being sourced to it (information about a political caucus). Hog Farm _Talk 04:13, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I know there are editors who are critical about everything – even for following policies and processes correctly (but not according to that editor's mistaken ideas of what's right) – but I doubt that anyone would criticize you for fixing list formatting.

Since the kerfuffle earlier this year about LDS editors, I doubt that anyone will be willing to adopt this article, or any other article about LDS subjects. I do appreciate you adding fact tags to show the specific concerns; that really can be a helpful contribution (especially when it's just four, and not, say, 40). I found sources about the health building, though neither of them specify the date of the dedication ceremony itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:50, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the issues are quite minor. Keep. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]