This peer review discussion has been closed.
I'm listing this article for peer review because I'd like to see it given the chance to reach GA status, but believe it has several issues standing in the way of this, and needs an in-depth analysis. I recently failed this as a
GA nomination because a significant proportion of it is unreferenced, not to mention there being problems regarding neutrality and undue weight in some sections. Ideally it needs an editor with a lot of experience in both BLPs and British Politics to almost take it apart and examine each section thoroughly. The subject is potentially a future leader of the British Conservative Party, and would either be Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition at that point, so this should be of GA quality. Cheers,
Paul MacDermott (
talk) 16:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Hey Paul, I am happy to give a few comments and see if I can highlight any areas which need improvement if this is to reach GA!
Midnightblueowl (
talk) 20:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Basic comments:
Check out
Ken Livingstone; the first half of that article (up to the elimination of the GLC) has been written by myself. I think that you could compare the two articles for ideas on structure and substance. Don't necessarily look to other British politicians for examples all the time (the
David Cameron article is *not* a good example of a GA article), expand to examine the articles devoted to other world political figures; see for instance the pages for
Muammar Gaddafi or
Fidel Castro, neither are perfect, but both are comprehensive. Avoid a parochial bias – remember that many, if not most of those reading the page will not be British or aquainted with the British political system!
In the introduction, it's not enough to simply state which political party Johnson belonged to, but you should also describe his particular ideological position within that party.
The whole introduction could be lengthened a little; BoJo is a major figure in British politics after all.
Why no mention of his class background in the introduction ? Many historians, and not just those of a Marxist bent, would recognise this as a factor of particular importance.
There is also no mention of his policies in the introduction, something which is strange considering that they are arguably the most important thing about him.
The use of sources in this article isn't ideal; many books and biographical accounts have been published that discuss BoJo, and yet this article relies almost entirely on magazine and newspaper articles found online (see the
Ken Livingstone page for how biographical accounts have been used to flesh that page out in a methodical manner). If you have the free time, I'd really recommend that you obtain a few of these from the library and use them to methodically re-write this article from the top down.
Furthermore, the references that are used aren't uniformly formatted of preserved at WebCite.
The "Controversy" section isn't really necessary, and acts far too much like a trivia section; major controversies should be incorporated into the main body of the article.
Apologies if I've seemed a little too critical here Paul, but I do hope that these steps would ideally lead to this article reaching GA status; in its current status, it really could not attain that.
Midnightblueowl (
talk) 21:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
As a suggestion for what a future fleshed introduction might look like, may I suggest:
That's great. Thanks for the feedback, and don't worry about being too critical as the article needs a lot of work. I like the layout of the Livingstone page so I'll definitely consult it for this one. I also think your lead is much better than the one we currently have so I'll replace it. In the short term I should be able to work through the text and at least get it into a more presentable format, and hopefully get a few people from WPUKpolitics interested. Thanks once again for your thoughts on this.
Paul MacDermott (
talk) 12:14, 21 January 2013 (UTC)reply