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Reviewer: Dana boomer ( talk) 13:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi all! I'll be reviewing this article for GA status, and should have the start of a review up shortly. It's great to see WP being used in so many class projects, including this one. Dana boomer ( talk) 13:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Overall, this is a decent start on this topic. There is a bit more work needed, however, before it is of GA status. Above are my initial comments, which does not include a thorough prose review. Once these issues are addressed (or mostly addressed) I will do a more thorough read-through of the prose. Please let me know if you have any questions - I am watching this page so I will see your comments as they appear. Dana boomer ( talk) 14:25, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
(undent) It looks like some progress is being made, which is good. The section intros and the overall article introduction are some of the more major issues, however, and they have yet to be addressed, so I haven't really started the full prose review. However, I have taken a slightly closer look at it, and continue to find more and more aspects of non-encyclopedic writing. For example, take the first paragraph of the Technology section (my comments interspersed in red):
Beginning in the early 1800s, economic prosperity skyrocketed (Is skyrocketed in the source? If not, it is rather unencyclopedic, try "increased significantly" or something similiar.) due to improvements in technological efficiency. This communication (What communication? We were just alking about technological efficiency.) was facilitated largely by the advent of new technologies including the railroad, steamboat/steam engine, and coal as a fuel source. These innovations accelerated the Great Divergence, elevating Europe and the United States to high economic standing relative to the other world regions. (All other world regions? Or just the East (I'm assuming meaning Asia?) as discussed in the rest of the paragraph?) Though these inventions were founded in the West, the Eastern countries still employed their uses in trade and transportation. So, a disparity arises. (This switches to the present tense, when everything else is in past tense.) Both the Western and Eastern countries had access to the same technology, yet the West benefited more from its presence. In other words, technology was readily available to all countries,(The beginning of this sentence doesn't need to be here. Try just "...benefited more from its presence due to a difference in use between the two areas.") but its use differed between the East and the West. The concept of comparative use-efficiency levels can be used to help corroborate the West's progression ahead of the East. (Don't say what can be used, just say it is used.)
I know that each editor to the article is responsible for a section, and so it may look like I'm "picking on" one particular editor. I'm really not trying to do that, as this form is something that continues through most of the article. Overall there is a need for more specificity, proper tenses and less essay-ish writing. I also know that this sounds a bit harsh and down-putting, but I promise that it's not! I think this article has great potential, and should be able to make GA status with just a bit more polishing. Also, I have done a bit of formatting on your comments above to make them easier to read - I hope this is OK with everyone. Dana boomer ( talk) 21:46, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm responsible for the technology section and I just went in and made the changes you suggested and a few more elsewhere where the language was not quite encyclopedic. For instance, I had said "tons of farmers" but now I realize that's not professional so I changed it to "a high number of." I think the section is now cleaned up quite well and is solid content-wise. Thanks for the input. RomanHarlovic ( talk) 00:00, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm in charge of politics and leadership and I elaborated on the section overview. I looked online and have had no luck on finding the person who coined the term the Great Divergence. Did anyone else have any luck? Kro14 ( talk) 23:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
This source here also says it was Huntington, just read the first few sentences, http://www.rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/pomeranz.html So at this point I think my section is complete. We're nearing the deadline, does everything look to be in order with all of our sections? I'd hate to get feedback just before the deadline. 130.49.11.198 ( talk) 14:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
It looks like this is getting closer. However, a few more comments have come up as I have continued to read further into the article:
The pictures are great! Condensing the beginning paragraphs to only 2 or 3 is proving difficult for me. I condensed it to 4 and that flows very well. When I linked it to 3 the paragraph seemed to run on inexorably and it looked clunky and gross on the screen. If anybody has a better way of linking them, go for it, though you may need to trim down on the content so the intro doesn't run on. I feel that it flows with 4 paragraphs, though. Let me know if this absolutely has to change. Also, where should we place the etymology section? At the very end to tie it together? It also seems to be a hard topic to tackle with all the debate around appropriate terms to use. Maybe just by outlining that debate the section will serve its purpose. It's kind of late to be starting a whole new section (the class ended this past Wednesday). Piotr, is it ok that this is going on for extended time like this? RomanHarlovic ( talk) 03:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
(undent) Everytime I go to do a final prose review on this article, more issues seem to pop up. The latest is the ongoing discussion on the talk page regarding coverage and naming. Dbachmann (dab) has done the research that I should have done at the beginning and cogently explained the feeling that I have been having - that this article focuses too much on the general history surrounding the divergence and too little on the term itself. This article is about the term, not the history of the world during the approximate period of the industrial revolution, and the term (as well as the term "European miracle"), as well as the myths and misconceptions surrounding it, appear to have been widely discussed in sources that were never even brought up here. Dbachmann puts it well when he says the current article feels like "a random brainstorming on loosely related factors" rather than a systematic discussion of the academic literature on this topic. While GAs of course do not need to meet the "comprehensive" criteria of featured articles, they do need to be "broad", and at this point I don't think this article meets this criteria. There is also the fact that the article still doesn't feel coherant - it feels more like what it is: an article that was put together in chunks by students who only focused on their own section and who do not appear to be working together to tie it into a continuing narrative. While the students have definitely improved the coverage of this topic on Wikipedia, I still don't feel comfortable moving this article to GA status. I realize that the grading period is coming up soon, and students are moving on to other coursework, and so this will affect the amount of work done on the article. If any or all of the students still wish to continue working on the article, I am more than willing to keep the review open. However, I think it might take a concerted effort to bring this article back onto the topic of the term, rather than the surrounding history and politics, and I want to know that there is someone willing to make this effort before I continue to put effort into reviewing the article. I don't mean to sound rude or pushy by saying this - instead I'm trying to simply give my feelings on the current state of the article. Now, before I move too far into the realm of TLDR, comments from anyone else? Dana boomer ( talk) 01:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
(undent) As there is still quite a bit of work that needed, I am going to close the review now as not promoted. I want to emphasize that the students who worked on this did a wonderful job of improving Wikipedia's coverage of this topic, and I hope they return to edit this or another article some day! Please let me know if any of you have further questions, Dana boomer ( talk) 16:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Article (
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Article talk (
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Reviewer: Dana boomer ( talk) 13:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Hi all! I'll be reviewing this article for GA status, and should have the start of a review up shortly. It's great to see WP being used in so many class projects, including this one. Dana boomer ( talk) 13:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Overall, this is a decent start on this topic. There is a bit more work needed, however, before it is of GA status. Above are my initial comments, which does not include a thorough prose review. Once these issues are addressed (or mostly addressed) I will do a more thorough read-through of the prose. Please let me know if you have any questions - I am watching this page so I will see your comments as they appear. Dana boomer ( talk) 14:25, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
(undent) It looks like some progress is being made, which is good. The section intros and the overall article introduction are some of the more major issues, however, and they have yet to be addressed, so I haven't really started the full prose review. However, I have taken a slightly closer look at it, and continue to find more and more aspects of non-encyclopedic writing. For example, take the first paragraph of the Technology section (my comments interspersed in red):
Beginning in the early 1800s, economic prosperity skyrocketed (Is skyrocketed in the source? If not, it is rather unencyclopedic, try "increased significantly" or something similiar.) due to improvements in technological efficiency. This communication (What communication? We were just alking about technological efficiency.) was facilitated largely by the advent of new technologies including the railroad, steamboat/steam engine, and coal as a fuel source. These innovations accelerated the Great Divergence, elevating Europe and the United States to high economic standing relative to the other world regions. (All other world regions? Or just the East (I'm assuming meaning Asia?) as discussed in the rest of the paragraph?) Though these inventions were founded in the West, the Eastern countries still employed their uses in trade and transportation. So, a disparity arises. (This switches to the present tense, when everything else is in past tense.) Both the Western and Eastern countries had access to the same technology, yet the West benefited more from its presence. In other words, technology was readily available to all countries,(The beginning of this sentence doesn't need to be here. Try just "...benefited more from its presence due to a difference in use between the two areas.") but its use differed between the East and the West. The concept of comparative use-efficiency levels can be used to help corroborate the West's progression ahead of the East. (Don't say what can be used, just say it is used.)
I know that each editor to the article is responsible for a section, and so it may look like I'm "picking on" one particular editor. I'm really not trying to do that, as this form is something that continues through most of the article. Overall there is a need for more specificity, proper tenses and less essay-ish writing. I also know that this sounds a bit harsh and down-putting, but I promise that it's not! I think this article has great potential, and should be able to make GA status with just a bit more polishing. Also, I have done a bit of formatting on your comments above to make them easier to read - I hope this is OK with everyone. Dana boomer ( talk) 21:46, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm responsible for the technology section and I just went in and made the changes you suggested and a few more elsewhere where the language was not quite encyclopedic. For instance, I had said "tons of farmers" but now I realize that's not professional so I changed it to "a high number of." I think the section is now cleaned up quite well and is solid content-wise. Thanks for the input. RomanHarlovic ( talk) 00:00, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm in charge of politics and leadership and I elaborated on the section overview. I looked online and have had no luck on finding the person who coined the term the Great Divergence. Did anyone else have any luck? Kro14 ( talk) 23:05, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
This source here also says it was Huntington, just read the first few sentences, http://www.rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/pomeranz.html So at this point I think my section is complete. We're nearing the deadline, does everything look to be in order with all of our sections? I'd hate to get feedback just before the deadline. 130.49.11.198 ( talk) 14:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
It looks like this is getting closer. However, a few more comments have come up as I have continued to read further into the article:
The pictures are great! Condensing the beginning paragraphs to only 2 or 3 is proving difficult for me. I condensed it to 4 and that flows very well. When I linked it to 3 the paragraph seemed to run on inexorably and it looked clunky and gross on the screen. If anybody has a better way of linking them, go for it, though you may need to trim down on the content so the intro doesn't run on. I feel that it flows with 4 paragraphs, though. Let me know if this absolutely has to change. Also, where should we place the etymology section? At the very end to tie it together? It also seems to be a hard topic to tackle with all the debate around appropriate terms to use. Maybe just by outlining that debate the section will serve its purpose. It's kind of late to be starting a whole new section (the class ended this past Wednesday). Piotr, is it ok that this is going on for extended time like this? RomanHarlovic ( talk) 03:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
(undent) Everytime I go to do a final prose review on this article, more issues seem to pop up. The latest is the ongoing discussion on the talk page regarding coverage and naming. Dbachmann (dab) has done the research that I should have done at the beginning and cogently explained the feeling that I have been having - that this article focuses too much on the general history surrounding the divergence and too little on the term itself. This article is about the term, not the history of the world during the approximate period of the industrial revolution, and the term (as well as the term "European miracle"), as well as the myths and misconceptions surrounding it, appear to have been widely discussed in sources that were never even brought up here. Dbachmann puts it well when he says the current article feels like "a random brainstorming on loosely related factors" rather than a systematic discussion of the academic literature on this topic. While GAs of course do not need to meet the "comprehensive" criteria of featured articles, they do need to be "broad", and at this point I don't think this article meets this criteria. There is also the fact that the article still doesn't feel coherant - it feels more like what it is: an article that was put together in chunks by students who only focused on their own section and who do not appear to be working together to tie it into a continuing narrative. While the students have definitely improved the coverage of this topic on Wikipedia, I still don't feel comfortable moving this article to GA status. I realize that the grading period is coming up soon, and students are moving on to other coursework, and so this will affect the amount of work done on the article. If any or all of the students still wish to continue working on the article, I am more than willing to keep the review open. However, I think it might take a concerted effort to bring this article back onto the topic of the term, rather than the surrounding history and politics, and I want to know that there is someone willing to make this effort before I continue to put effort into reviewing the article. I don't mean to sound rude or pushy by saying this - instead I'm trying to simply give my feelings on the current state of the article. Now, before I move too far into the realm of TLDR, comments from anyone else? Dana boomer ( talk) 01:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
(undent) As there is still quite a bit of work that needed, I am going to close the review now as not promoted. I want to emphasize that the students who worked on this did a wonderful job of improving Wikipedia's coverage of this topic, and I hope they return to edit this or another article some day! Please let me know if any of you have further questions, Dana boomer ( talk) 16:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)