Wikipedia:Peer review/Alan Khazei/archive1

Alan Khazei

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I think that this article will be viewed a lot over the next week. Alan Khazei is running to become US Senator from Massachusetts to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. The special election Democratic primary will occur on December 8,2009. I think that improving the quality of this article & other articles related to the upcoming election will be really useful for people coming to Wikipedia to find information about these candidates. It would be great to get this article & other articles related to the upcoming election to good/featured article status. Thanks, CordeliaNaismith (talk) 06:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: Khazei sounds like a very deserving character for a Wikipedia biography, and I was interested to read about him. This article is a commendable effort, but has a way to go yet before it can be seriously considered for GA or FA.

• Infobox: the long list of "Awards" details belongs in "Awards and recognitions" subsection. No need for it here (infobox info should be brief)
• Lead
  • This short lead omits significant information contained in the article. For example the article has a section on SeviceNation which is not mentioned in the lead. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should be a summary of the whole article, with everything of significance at least mentioned.
  • First sentence should follow name with (born May 28, 1962); standard practice for biographical articles
  • Spell out Chief Executive Officer at first mention (some may not know what CEO is)
  • "Non-profit organisations" rather than "non-profits" (an unknown abbreviation in the UK)
  • Final sentence needs updating per this
• Upbringing etc
  • Minor prose point: two successive sentences beginning with "He graduated...". I'd begin the first "In 1979 he graduated from St. Paul's School...", thus avoiding the repetititon
  • "St. Mary's Church" is a bit too vague - there are about half a million of them. A bit more identification is necessary (also delete the gap between punctuation and citation).
• City Year
  • You describe City Year as an AmeriCorps organisation, but later report that Clinton was "inspired by visiting CityYear to found the Americorps program." Chicken and egg?
  • "In 1988 Khazei and his then–Harvard roommate..." Former roommate, surely? Khazei graduated from Harvard Law School in 1987.
  • More important, I am interested to know why a 27-year-old Harvard law graduate with a lucrative career beckoning should found a community service project. There is nothing indicated here in his background to suggest he would do this. Do we have any information as to what motivated him? There's other things we need to know, like was this his full-time occupation or a spare time thing? How was the organisation funded? Did it grow rapidly or gradually?
• Save AmeriCorps campaign
  • Let's name and shame: who cut the AmeriCorps funding by 80%?
  • 100 hour → 100-hour
  • This sentence confuses me: "This campaign led to half of the AmeriCorps funding being restored in 2003 and to all of the previous funding plus a $100 million increase appropriated for 2004." First, if funding was cut in 2003 and restored in 2003, wouldn't it be more appropriate to refer at the beginning of the section to a proposed cut? Secondly, "half of the AmeriCorps funding being restored" – does this mean that half of the (proposed) cut was restored? Thirdly, what does "all of the previous funding" mean? I assume that $100 million was added to the 2003 funding prior to the cut, but the prose must make all of these facts clear.
• ServiceNation
  • Begin the section by explaining what ServiceNation was, rather than with Khazei being honoured for organising it.
  • To what does "NonProfit Times' 2008" refer? Is NonProfit Times a journal? If so it should be italicised. The apostrophe is confusing. Perhaps rephrase as "Khazei was recently recognized by NonProfit Times as one of its 2008 "Executives of the Year"...
  • "...700 other national service leaders." Your use of "other" reads as though Obama and McCain were national service leaders.
  • "At the summit, Obama and McCain together pledged to expand national service in an event that was broadcast on national television." Needs rewording: "At the summit, which was broadcast on national television, Obama and McCain both pledged to expand national service." (note "both" rather than "together")
  • "The ServiceNation coalition..." What coalition?
  • Second paragraph: first sentence is way, way too long and meandering - needs to be broken into two or three sentences.
• Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act: a single short sentence does not justify a separate section. Either expand the section, or merge the sentence into another section.
• Other work
  • Khazei's work for Save Americorps has been mentioned earlier, in a section entitled "Save AmeriCorps campaign", and doesn't require repeating here.
  • I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure that some of the bodies listed in the second paragraph could be wikilinked. Have you investigated?
• United States Senate campaign: this will need to be updated, and presumably redrafted in the past tense.
• Positions on key issues
  • What is "deficit-neutral health care reform"? (Jargon like this should be avoided)
  • Roe v Wade should be briefly explained - the link is insufficient on its own
  • Another impenetrable sentence: "However, he has stated that he would vote for a health care reform bill that includes the Stupak–Pitts Amendment, and would work later to change this amendment." This should be reworded in a way that enables the general reader (a category that includes many non-Americans) to understand it.
  • Style issue. The sudden adoption of single-sentence paragraphs is unwelcome. This part of the section needs to be rewritten to give a proper prose flow.
  • "He calls for a pragmatic approach to improving education by strengthening programs proven to work, including public charter schools and higher salaries for teachers." I question use of the word "including" in this sentence, as it suggests that "public charter schools" and "higher salaries for teachers" are being offered as examples of "programs proven to work". Neither is a "program" in the accepted sense of the term.
  • "He has stated that gambling costs taxpayers $3 due to increased bankruptcies for every $1 earned in revenues." Clumsily worded. Try "He has stated that, due to increased bankruptcies, gambling costs taxpayers three times as much as is collected from gambling taxes" (though I'm still uncertain as to how this is so; perhaps more explanation necessary?)
  • LGBTQ - spell it out.
• Senate endorsements: Out of date stuff now. Suggest reduce to a few brief comments and incorporate with the earlier section.
• References: These are nearly all bare links at the moment, and need to be properly formatted. The required information is Author (if known), Title, URL, Publisher, Date and last access date. See ref 2 which is correctly formatted. Something has gone wrong with No. 10
• External links: These should be formatted so that we can at least see what they are. See the last but one item.
• Images lack author information. You probably need the help of an expert image reviewer to ensure that the licenses are correct.

Much work needed then, but I wish you luck with it. As I am not watching peer reviews regularly at the moment, please contact my talk page if you have issues arising from this review. Brianboulton (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)