Talk:BLT/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Intelligentsium 02:28, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I will review this article. It does not meet the quick-fail criteria, but in its current state I think there is a great chance it will not pass.

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   You can't really push a POV about a sandwich.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

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Comments

The article is short, but good articles of this length are not unheard of. I will review this article in depth over the next day or so, but here are some preliminary comments.

• The article seems to go into too much detail about the recipe, almost to the point of being a recipe in itself
  •  Not done I have difficulty over this point. A BLT is Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich, and there's a lot of discussion over the recipe. I attempted to reduce it to the important points and not certain how much more it could be reduced.
• Edward Lee needs to be disambiguated Done
• The article should be expanded to contain the 'major aspects', especially the extremely short sections at the bottom
  • I've reorganised, so that it's a larger section at the bottom with subsections. Along with the removal of the Lina Morales I hope that improves things there. Still looking around for more popular culture references.
• Recentism is relevant to the section #Lina Morales controversy; despite the 'controversy' occurring in 2004, it is not particularly relevant to the topic from an historical perspective. Please consider removal.
  •  Done I was iffy over this when I wrote it and since I couldn't find anything about the outcome it really does stink of recentism.
• Some of the sources are not reliable, for example check 3, 4, 9, and 15. I also have qualms about using multiple cookbooks as sources.
  • Re: the cookbooks, there are 3 in there - two are actually more just cookbooks as they discuss the "lore" around bacon. The other one is a published source, which included a useful correlation between club sandwiches and BLTs. Now removed - found alternative. Disagree with 3 not being reliable, when discussing a person's opinion, sourcing it from their blog does not seem unreasonable. 4 & 15 removed, no question. Still looking at 9, the food timeline. removed 9.
• The sentence "The lettuce is used to counter-balance the texture of the bacon, giving an opposing feel and temperature" needs a source or it will risk seeming like original research. The same holds for the next sentence Done fixed I hope.
• "Controversially, food writer Ed Levine..." - Why "controversially"?  Done "shocking"!
• Under Variations, the relationship between " A club sandwich can be defined as a three-layered sandwich, where one layer is a BLT." and the previous sentence is unclear  Done new para + expansion.
• Same section, "The BLT sandwich has also been deconstructed into a salad, a pie and a soup." is not sourced  Done removed until I can find some decent sources (more than just lots of examples!)
• The statement: "In the 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book, a recipe for a club sandwich included bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and a slice of turkey sandwiched between two slices of bread." (in History) is of unclear relation to the rest of the section. I suspect you mean to say that this may have been a predecessor to the BLT (supporting the assertion that "the club sandwich ... likely influenced the BLT's creation"), but in this case you have cited the cookbook directly, so to say this borders on original synthesis (unless the cookbook also says this explicitly, of course) no, you're right. fixed that.  Done
• Under Popularity, the statement "The popularity of the BLT sandwich comes from its simplicity." is unsourced  Done removed
• I would like to see some more examples of the "BLT in art" if possible. It can be changed to "BLT in popular culture" if necessary.  Done per above, with reorganisation. Hopefully it's acceptable, but not stricken just yet.
  • The subsections are so short that I think they can be merged into a single BLT in culture section. Intelligentsium 01:00, 12 February 2011 (UTC)  Done
• The lede section might be expanded a bit  Done
• Same for the Variations section
  • Difficult with the variations section as the page history attests to. For example, a "TLB" salad was vetoed previously, as was a BLO (bacon lettuce and onion) sandwich. I think that I could probably get a bit about the soup/salad/pie in there, but I haven't found any good reliable sources for them other than cookbooks.
• "The bread can be of any variety ... but should be fresh" [emphasis mine]; this part doesn't seem to be in the source given. If you find a source I would recommend that you word it something like "but fresh bread is recommended by [so-and-so]" or better (if you can find a source) "but fresh bread is widely recommended". This is an instance where the article may cross into guidebook-territory; Wikipedia should not be telling the reader what s/he should do.  Done I re-read the sources and think I put my own POV in there. now removed.
• Under Popularity, saying that the study "discovered" that people who prefer BLTs are conscientious perfectionists is an overstatement. There is an obvious conflict of interest (the study being commissioned by the company that makes a crucial ingredient in the sandwich), but even besides that you can't really tell anything about a person's personality from his or her sandwich preferences. It reminds me of the Chinese zodiac paper placemats I get when eating at a not-very-authentic Chinese restaurant; they tell you things about your personality based solely on your birth-year. Personal digressions aside, a less "definitive" wording should be used, because studies don't really "discover facts", they only support or contradict hypotheses. Done changed it down to suggested
• I am vaguely uneasy about citing a campus newspaper (17), but it doesn't seem unreliable in itself. I remember one of our policies provided guidance on this specific respect but I have not been able to track it down.  Not done Having read some other articles, it didn't seem unreliable to me, but if concensus is against campus newspapers I can take it out.
• "In 2003, the world's largest BLT was made by Michele Anna Jordan, measuring 108 feet (33 m) in length. It was prepared at a 2003 tomato festival in Sonoma County, California and had a total area of 14,976 square feet (1,391.3 m2)."; this sentence is uncited  Done Press Democrat source.
• Under World record, the statement that "In 2003, the world's largest BLT was made..." seems incongruous with the rest of the section, which goes on to state that the record was broken. I would recommend changing it to emphasise that it was the world record at the time, but this particular phrase doesn't fit  DoneI think I've got this sorted now.
• Under British politics, there is a lot of information that is not related to the BLT. "The article was summed up" is also a very awkward phrasing  Done partially. I'll think about whether to cut down the rest.
• One (hopefully) final issue: you variously have "The bacon ... is the strongest flavour of the dish", "The lettuce is used to counter-balance the texture of the bacon", and "The tomato counter-balances the flavour of the bacon, adding sweetness to the bacon's saltiness", but none of these are cited

Overall, the main concern is length. I strongly urge you to expand this article to be more comprehensive. Intelligentsium 01:00, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll have a look at the lead, see if I can expand that a bit more. As to concerns over length, I'm more worried about comprehensiveness - length in and of itself should be an issue. (Eg Tropical Depression Ten (2005) is a featured article which is only ~4000 chars in length!) I am not sure how much more information there is for expansion on BLT. Worm^TT 12:31, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I must say, this article has developed nicely. I'll give you a few days for any last minute expansion and tidying, but even without it the article could pass. Intelligentsium 18:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Really? Wow. I was just trying to get this to be as good as it can be, very pleased if that's the result. I've got another source which I'm hoping to put in regarding the BLT salad as a variation. May not get a chance to and I'm not sure how happy I am with the source (a NY times review of a book [1]). Oh and thank you very much for the copy edit Worm^TT 18:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Now added bacon salad variation... and I think I'm done! Worm^TT 13:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you might have overlooked a small last comment I made (copied here). You variously have "The bacon ... is the strongest flavour of the dish", "The lettuce is used to counter-balance the texture of the bacon", and "The tomato counter-balances the flavour of the bacon, adding sweetness to the bacon's saltiness", but none of these are cited. This is not a minor issue so it should probably be addressed, at least as a formality, before I pass it. Intelligentsium 21:01, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Good point, I did overlook that. I'll have a look for sources tomorrow. I think the MSNBC article should cover it though, but will certainly check Worm^TT 21:50, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I think I've fixed it, sourced that the bacon "carries" the other flavours and removed the other two comments Worm^TT 10:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks good, now I have no qualms about passing the article. Intelligentsium 22:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

cheers for doing this. I was iffy about the good status, but I did thing it was close enough to be worth a shot. Even if it doesn't pass, your review will only help the article. No rush though, I don't edit much on the weekends so I am unlikely to put in any fixes before Monday :) Worm 08:07, 5 February 2011 (UTC)