Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Brian Halligan/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 19:28, 23 January 2012 [1].

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Brian Halligan

Brian Halligan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Brian Halligan/archive1

Nominator(s): Woz2 (talk) 02:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The subject has been an important figure in the transformation of marketing from mass-media interruption marketing (think soap opera interrupted by soap commercials) to a new era of permission marketing (think organic results from a Google search). The article summarizes his background and his published explanations of this so-called inbound marketing trend, and what businesses can do about it. The peer review is here. Woz2 (talk) 02:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose sorry. Not badly written, but the sourcing just isn't up to scratch. This is used four times: more than any other source. Per criterion 1(c), the claims in the article must be "verifiable against high-quality reliable sources". There are quite few of those in the article. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the feedback! Don't apologize. This is my first FAC so it's mainly a learning experience for me. I'll look for more diverse and reliable sources. Woz2 (talk) 00:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I added three more refs from reliable sources to replace three out of four that relied on the self-published source. The fourth is OK I think because it supports the statement "he uses the term inbound marketing." I suppose I could replace that too because that's his book title. What do you think? (I'm thinking about the sections of WP:SPS "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." (i.e. Wiley, MIT Sloan in the case of Halligan) and "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves..." of course) Woz2 (talk) 13:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: Sorry, but I just don't think this is ready. Some questions/suggestions:
  • Perhaps most importantly, is this article truly comprehensive? There are only two sections ("Education and career" and "Publications, speeches, and awards"), and there is not even a mention of his nationality, or where he was born/raised. Is there truly no personal information available about this man, other than where he received his degrees? I've read the article, and I really don't have a sense of this man at all, which is why I question whether or not this is truly comprehensive.
    • I included everything I found. He listed his birthday but not his birthplace on his Facebook page and I wasn't able to find his birthplace anywhere else. Woz2 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I emailed the subject and he kindly replied with info about his birthplace and early education. He said it's OK to include the info on wikipedia but said that it wasn't published in a reliable source anywhere that he knew of. I added the info he sent me but wasn't able to add a reliable source because "private communication" isn't a RS on WP. What to do? Woz2 (talk) 03:12, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
  • The lead describes Halligan's books, but does not name them; the "Publications, speeches, and awards" section names the books but doesn't describe them. It should really be the other way around, since WP:LEAD stipulates that lead sections should not introduce material not covered in the body of an article.
    • OK I'll switch these. Woz2 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Done! Woz2 (talk) 13:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
  • The "Education and career" section is written backwards; it begins in 2006, with Halligan co-founding HubSpot, but at the end of the second paragraph it mentions him graduating with his MBA in 2005. It would flow far better were it written in chronological order, since that's how one's life generally occurs. ;)
    • I went with reverse chronological order because it puts the most important info first. I can re-arrange it if that is what is required. Woz2 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Done! Woz2 (talk) 13:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Why is Hannigan's name (as author) bolded in the citations, whereas other authors are not?
    • It seems to be an artifact of authorlink attribute of the citation template. It generates a wikilink and when a wikilink appears on the page to which is refers, it is automatically bolded. If the bolding is an issue, I can fix it by deleting the authorlink attribute. Woz2 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Fixed per recommendation on the help page for self-links. Woz2 (talk) 03:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Other consistencies in the citations: websites should not be italicized (inboundmarketing.com), and why not include the proper name of the website, rather than a shorthand URL? inboundmarketing.com = Inbound Marketing.
    • The citation template has an attribute "work" which gets italicized. My understanding was that the work attribute should be set to top level domain. I'll check.Woz2 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
    • OK. Fixed per the citation template example. Woz2 (talk) 03:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a good start, but it simply doesn't seem complete or polished enough for FA. I made some simple punctuation/MOS fixes here, but there may be some I missed. I totally understand the inherent issues with writing good-quality BLPs, and if the information isn't available, it just isn't available. If you have any questions, let me know. María (yllosubmarine) 21:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I will. Woz2 (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

This FAC seems stalled after ten days, with two opposes and no supports. This article may have a better shot at Featured status if the two opposers can be satisfied, and the article revisited in a later FAC. Good luck! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:26, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.