Death panel

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want it to become "my" first GA. It deals with a factually deficient political outcry that almost stopped the recent health care reform in the United States (and it definitely stopped a specific provision that dealt with end-of-life care). I'd like to receive some tips to prep for a GA, and have it looked over for neutrality concerns. The topic attracted a couple editors who have now been blocked, but nowadays the content is pretty stable.

Thanks, Jesanj (talk) 18:42, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment

The ASCO and AMA logos are WP:FAIR USE - their use in this article as mere decoration does not meet all of the criteria at WP:NFCC and they need to be removed from this article, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed, thanks. Jesanj (talk) 23:18, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A well-researched an interesting read Jesanj. It looks as if some of the initial criticism may have been politically motivated - which is a risk with any article about a political subject - but the tone is sufficiently neutral I think. Hypocaustic (talk) 20:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. And thanks for the edit and checking it out. Jesanj (talk) 22:18, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: I'll be doing this in installments. Here's the first:

Lead

• Since the audience you are writing for is international, I think you need to make clear in the opening paragraph that these events took place in the United States. Obama needs to be identified as the President of the United States, and you should use his full name on first reference. I'd suggest working this in somewhere before the Palin quote because you can't add words to the quote itself.

• I'd link Facebook and Down syndrome in the first paragraph.

• "the American Dialect Society said that it was their "most outrageous" word for 2009" - This sentence poked at me a bit because "death panel" is two words, not one.

Prelude

• "the AARP said her claims were "'rife with gross—and even cruel—distortions' of a provision that 'would not only help people make the best decisions for themselves, but also better ensure that their wishes are followed'". - I don't understand the nested quotation marks.

• "Email and blogs were also conduits of the death panel myth. The Washington Post reported on August 1 that on "religious e-mail lists and Internet blogs, the proposal has been described as 'guiding you in how to die,' 'an ORDER from the Government to end your life,' promoting 'death care' and, in the words of antiabortion leader Randall Terry, an attempt to 'kill Granny'". - The quotation marks make no sense here either. What are the single quotation marks doing? Where is the partner of the double quotation mark at the end?

Other

• WP:MOSQUOTE#Block quotations suggests using blockquotes for quotations of four lines or more. Fancy quotation marks like the big blue ones in this article are generally deprecated.

• The tools in the toolbox at the top of this review page find one dead URL in the citations and three links in the text that go to disambiguation pages rather than the intended target.

• The Sarah Palin image in the upper right faces out of the page. If you can find another in the public domain that faces left (into the page), it would be better. The idea is to pull the reader's eye into the article.

• WP:MOSIM says in part, "Images should be inside the major section to which they relate (within the section defined by the most recent level 2 heading)." Grassley and Gingrich will probably not fit inside the same section, and you might have to find another place to put one of them.

• The two images of the same things in the "Uses" section creates a text sandwich. This is another MOSIM no-no. I'd simply delete one of them.

More to come. Finetooth (talk) 23:40, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Installment 2

• I think the article meets the WP:NPOV guidelines.

• It's an interesting, informative, and important article.

• You have too many direct quotes, in my opinion, and some of the quotations are unnecessarily long. I think the whole article is longer than necessary because the material tends to be repetitive. Groups of politicians, physicians, and others tend to echo one another. Find ways to compress.

• Recruiting an outside editor to copyedit the revised version would be a good idea. You can probably find someone via WP:GOCE.

First use

• Nothing should be linked from within a direct quotation. The two links inside the long quotation in this section should be removed. You'll want to link these terms on first use if they occur outside of any quotations. Down syndrome, as noted earlier, should be linked in the lead.

• What is the purpose of the single quotation marks inside the direct quotation? They surely were not part of the quoted material.

• "Rep. Paul Broun (Republican-Georgia) " - Shouldn't this be R-GA for consistency within the article?

Support after

• "He remarked that "the bill's 1000 pages"[34] and "it has all sorts of panels".[35] - Are some words missing after "pages"?

• "Health economist Uwe Reinhardt responded Gingrich should clarify that the health care bill's provision... " - Shouldn't this be "responded that Gingrich should have clarified"?

• "was far removed from 'death panels' or an intent to shorten life" - In some places "death panels" appears in double quotation marks and in other places without quotation marks and in other places in single quotation marks. Generally, single quotation marks are used to set off something that appears inside a set of double quotation marks; e.g., He said, "When I asked the raven, it said 'Nevermore'."

Legislation

• "In late December 2010, a new Medicare regulation was reported that would consultations during... " - Words missing?

Rationing

• "David Kibbe, MD, MBA" - Rather than using academic abbreviations, it's generally better to use a brief description like "David Kibbe, a physician".

Physicians

• I think it would be good to compress this section by paraphrasing instead of using quite so many direct quotations.

• All of the "Dr" titles should be deleted and in some cases replaced with a brief description.

Politicians

• I don't agree with whoever added the tag calling for expansion of this section.

Palin's responses

• "leading to so many replies from Brits" - "Brits" is slang. I'd recommend something like "British citizens".

Political

• "contributing to Scott Brown's election" - I would add a brief explanation. Foreigners will wonder who Scott Brown is and why his election was seen as significant or unusual.

• I'd turn the list into straight prose.

Other

• Captions that are complete sentences take a terminal period. Captions consisting solely of a sentence fragment take no terminal period.

• Triple dates usually take a comma at the end; e.g., He chased the cat on July 1, 2001, after it scared the dog.

• Linking a term once in the lead and once in the main text is usually sufficient. Linking Newt Gingrich more than twice, for example, will probably be seen as overlinking.

• I would move the Wikisource link down to the "External links" section.

• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 02:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Helpful indeed. I'm working on them. Thanks. Jesanj (talk) 04:51, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]