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Reviewer: Dylnuge ( talk · contribs) 00:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Hey
Szmenderowiecki, I'm picking this and
Maurice Duplessis up as part of the GAN backlog drive. I left a general opening comment there, but please do let me know if you'd prefer to have separate reviewers look at these articles!
Dylnuge (
Talk •
Edits)
00:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Good Article review progress box
|
Initial remarks: Unsurprisingly, similar overall initial remarks to the ones I made at Maurice Duplessis. Stable, illustrated, no obvious issues with any GA criteria, referencing looks excellent (I noticed source footnotes and list of books are flipped between these two articles; I assume that's due to maintaining existing CITEVAR styles, and of course it's not an issue in either article). Earwig has a few more flags, but these are all short phrases and official titles, not copyvio. Lead overall is appropriately concise and comprehensive—I'd break the opening sentence into two sentences, but otherwise everything looks good here. No concerns with respect to broadness, focus, prose quality. I'll start on Maurice Duplessis, but may be simultaneously leaving comments on both of these pages. Let me know if you'd prefer me to tackle this in a different way! Dylnuge ( Talk • Edits) 01:54, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
General Comments
p align="center"
, but because code on Wikipedia isn't exactly HTML, I don't know how I can implement this.Pulling this out from bullets because it's a more complex issue. I find the organization of the article a little muddled here. The article is effectively divided chronologically into "First government" and "Second government". The "Second government" portion in particular feels like it's covering stuff out of that chronology. For instance, "Style of governance" section begins by talking about Duplessis in 1936, and little in this section strikes me as specific to his second government. I'm also not totally sure it slots into "Political atmosphere", other than it being clearly not under "Economy"—that division feels a little unnatural to me.
There are cases where I think the split between the two governments hurts the ability of the article to present a clear narrative. For example, the Padlock law was in effect during the majority of both of Duplessis's governments. It is primarily covered in the first government section, so the article gives the impression that it was primarily a factor during his first government and not as prominent during the second. The "Media and censorship" section under the second government mentions it as background from the first government. The "Labor relations" section under second government mentions that it was increasingly used against trade activists and no longer being used against communists, but it's not clear when Duplessis's anti-communist persecution ended. Meanwhile it's under the first government that the Switzman v Elbling ruling striking down the law is mentioned, despite the fact that ruling came in 1957, towards the end of Duplessis's second government. There's no mention in the article of how that ruling affected Duplessis's government (was it the nominal end of a law that was no longer in active use? was it an abrupt end to one of Duplessis's primary tools of power?), but it feels inappropriate to suggest the first government section that primarily covers the law be expanded to include that. Ultimately I found myself wanting a section of the article that gave a clear timeline of the law, and instead was searching back and forth for mentions to connect the timeline. Reorganizing this might also make it clearer that there's missing information.
Chronological ordering isn't necessarily wrong here, but it's not the only option for organization. Looking at articles like Premiership of Gordon Brown (the only GA I found of this style) or Presidency of Ronald Reagan (not a GA, but decently organized), they're organized around policy themes, using chronological ordering internally within sections. I realize the discontinuity of Duplessis's governments makes that kind of organization more difficult, but I wonder if a section explicitly presenting the timeline followed by sections presenting the themes and policies of both governments would be a better way to organize this. You're far more of an expert on this than me, so I'll leave how (and whether) to incorporate this suggestion to you.
On hold Like with the other GA I'm placing this on hold for the moment; I'd like to at least discuss the organization concerns I have before proceeding as I do think it creates a bit of a focus/broadness issue as described above. I realize what I'm proposing here is a more significant overhaul than the standard prose fixes, so please feel free to push back on it if you don't agree, and note that I'm entirely willing to help out here, work through this, and keep the review open while any improvement work is in progress. Thanks again for all your work on both of these articles—I didn't know anything about Duplessis coming in and I found them really interesting.
Dylnuge (
Talk •
Edits)
18:02, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
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Reviewing |
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visual edit |
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Reviewer: Dylnuge ( talk · contribs) 00:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Hey
Szmenderowiecki, I'm picking this and
Maurice Duplessis up as part of the GAN backlog drive. I left a general opening comment there, but please do let me know if you'd prefer to have separate reviewers look at these articles!
Dylnuge (
Talk •
Edits)
00:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Good Article review progress box
|
Initial remarks: Unsurprisingly, similar overall initial remarks to the ones I made at Maurice Duplessis. Stable, illustrated, no obvious issues with any GA criteria, referencing looks excellent (I noticed source footnotes and list of books are flipped between these two articles; I assume that's due to maintaining existing CITEVAR styles, and of course it's not an issue in either article). Earwig has a few more flags, but these are all short phrases and official titles, not copyvio. Lead overall is appropriately concise and comprehensive—I'd break the opening sentence into two sentences, but otherwise everything looks good here. No concerns with respect to broadness, focus, prose quality. I'll start on Maurice Duplessis, but may be simultaneously leaving comments on both of these pages. Let me know if you'd prefer me to tackle this in a different way! Dylnuge ( Talk • Edits) 01:54, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
General Comments
p align="center"
, but because code on Wikipedia isn't exactly HTML, I don't know how I can implement this.Pulling this out from bullets because it's a more complex issue. I find the organization of the article a little muddled here. The article is effectively divided chronologically into "First government" and "Second government". The "Second government" portion in particular feels like it's covering stuff out of that chronology. For instance, "Style of governance" section begins by talking about Duplessis in 1936, and little in this section strikes me as specific to his second government. I'm also not totally sure it slots into "Political atmosphere", other than it being clearly not under "Economy"—that division feels a little unnatural to me.
There are cases where I think the split between the two governments hurts the ability of the article to present a clear narrative. For example, the Padlock law was in effect during the majority of both of Duplessis's governments. It is primarily covered in the first government section, so the article gives the impression that it was primarily a factor during his first government and not as prominent during the second. The "Media and censorship" section under the second government mentions it as background from the first government. The "Labor relations" section under second government mentions that it was increasingly used against trade activists and no longer being used against communists, but it's not clear when Duplessis's anti-communist persecution ended. Meanwhile it's under the first government that the Switzman v Elbling ruling striking down the law is mentioned, despite the fact that ruling came in 1957, towards the end of Duplessis's second government. There's no mention in the article of how that ruling affected Duplessis's government (was it the nominal end of a law that was no longer in active use? was it an abrupt end to one of Duplessis's primary tools of power?), but it feels inappropriate to suggest the first government section that primarily covers the law be expanded to include that. Ultimately I found myself wanting a section of the article that gave a clear timeline of the law, and instead was searching back and forth for mentions to connect the timeline. Reorganizing this might also make it clearer that there's missing information.
Chronological ordering isn't necessarily wrong here, but it's not the only option for organization. Looking at articles like Premiership of Gordon Brown (the only GA I found of this style) or Presidency of Ronald Reagan (not a GA, but decently organized), they're organized around policy themes, using chronological ordering internally within sections. I realize the discontinuity of Duplessis's governments makes that kind of organization more difficult, but I wonder if a section explicitly presenting the timeline followed by sections presenting the themes and policies of both governments would be a better way to organize this. You're far more of an expert on this than me, so I'll leave how (and whether) to incorporate this suggestion to you.
On hold Like with the other GA I'm placing this on hold for the moment; I'd like to at least discuss the organization concerns I have before proceeding as I do think it creates a bit of a focus/broadness issue as described above. I realize what I'm proposing here is a more significant overhaul than the standard prose fixes, so please feel free to push back on it if you don't agree, and note that I'm entirely willing to help out here, work through this, and keep the review open while any improvement work is in progress. Thanks again for all your work on both of these articles—I didn't know anything about Duplessis coming in and I found them really interesting.
Dylnuge (
Talk •
Edits)
18:02, 30 August 2023 (UTC)