Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Agatha Christie/1

Agatha Christie

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Result: Delist. Article is ripe for improvement and renomination, but not currently GA standard. Geometry guy 00:46, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, this article was recently passed by a new reviewer, and has significant problems. I have suggested on the the talk page that this reassessment might be a good way to provide advice on improving the article and at the same time allow the reviewer to better understand the problems that were missed in the initial review. Therefore I would suggest that people don't immediately !vote delist or keep, but provide comments and advice on the article, only progressing to !voting if there is no subsequent action.--Jackyd101 (talk) 11:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have noticed a large number of quite major problems with this article:

There is no requirement for article length at GA, but there is one for an article to be "Broad in its coverage". I am no expert on Agatha Christie, but I am certain that for such an important figure in her literary genre there must be more to say. I notice that only one biography appears among the references, sourced only once. There are also a number of articles in the further reading which make no appearence in the article. The level of research here is far too weak to support an article of this importance.
The use of references: The number and type of references are inappropriate for an article of this importance. Even at GA, it is expected that an article makes use of available print resources to reference a detailed description of the subject's life. Here only one print resource is used once and as a result we are left with a very patchy description of Christie's life. The references are also improperly formatted.
The prose is poor: an article should be constructed from organised, developed paragraphs. Here were have a lot of short anecdotes, largely unreferenced and mostly unconnected to one another. There is no sense of Christie's development either personally or in literary terms and a poor description of her literary style and reception.
There is an "In popular culture" list, which is a huge negative: such sections should be written in prose and incorporated into the text as appropriate.
From "Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple" to the end, there seems to be a lot of OR and speculation: this must all be properly sourced in the constructed paragraphs described above.
The lists are inconsistantly formatted and untidy. They also should be moved to another article along the lines of List of works by Agatha Christie as they dominate this one.

There are other issues, but these are the major ones that should have prevented this article reaching GA at this time.--Jackyd101 (talk) 11:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all your feedback. As the original nominator, I have (and still am) going around fixing things, adding tidbits of information, and formatting/placing references. I'm currently attaining a few biographies about her, so that should beefen her short section about her life. As suggested, I'm moving the works to another page. Again, thanks. Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 14:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually about to nominate this article for reassessment myself, when I saw that it had already been done. My objections were the same as have been mentioned above: poor and stubby prose, few references, excessive lists. At the moment there is no way this is a GA, but it has potential, and I appreciate the above editor's willingness to work further on it.

Also: has anyone undertaken to contact the reviewer, to give some friendly advise on the GA review process? Lampman (talk) 15:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In case anyone has worries about the stubby bibliography, don't worry about it. pure gold. That, and I'll continue when I receive the bibliographies I've ordered...Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 15:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be delisted and then renominated at GAC when it's ready; I'm glad that the nominator has decided to work on concerns, but these concerns should have been addressed before the article was erroneously promoted to GA-status. María (habla conmigo) 15:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - I was about to pick this nomination up when I saw it had disappeared from the page. I agree that it needs some significant work to be of GA status. There is much needed in the way of referencing, and the book biographies of Christie should be utilized to a much greater extent than they are now. Also, web references need to be properly formatted with publishers and access dates at the very least. I also agree that the lists of her works should be moved to a subarticle, named, as Jackyd101 suggested, List of works by Agatha Christie. This list can then be linked in the article and a short section or two can be devoted to describing her works in prose form. The current list setup overwhelms the article and makes the already short biography section look even shorter. Dana boomer (talk) 15:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. BTW, I've already moved some of the works to the subpage; I've found a few newspaper clippings related to this case, as well as the link posted by me above at the nytimes.com. Those should leave me quite busy for a few days. Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 15:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. I agree with the issues raised, except that the "In popular culture" section was not as bad as the title suggested, and has now been prosified. Concerning references, two print biographies is an excellent start. The main missing material in the article is sourced critical analysis of her life and work. Instead the article has the "Formula" section, which is almost entirely original research, and has got to go unless it a reliable secondary source can be found for it! Geometry guy 17:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Funny how you mention that the two print biographies which were "excellent start" and the "In popular Culture" section weren't too bad; I spent a few hours changing them from lists' :/. XD Thanks for the advice/compliment, though. Right now, I just received yet another print biography which I'm going to use to expand the biography section. See [this. Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 17:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've noticed: that is what "prosified" means. Also I was referring to Morgan and Wagoner as the two biographies. If you intend to use Thompson as a source as well, even better. Keep up the good work! Geometry guy 18:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,thanks for the feedback, perhaps I was a bit to lenient. The fact that one of the photgraphs said, in the fair use policy, Source: made by me; Author: Me :).Oli ^OR Pyfan! 19:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I mean a LOT too lenient now I look back on it.Oli ^OR Pyfan! 19:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delist. Needs far more sourcing, and i agree that she is too imporant for broad in coverage to result is such a short article. Plus there are many instances of single line paragrpahs (often unsourced). The list of works should be moved to the subarticle, only leaving the most important here (per summary style). Needs too much work to reach GA in a reasonable time, unless someone will be working on it full-time (its already had 2 weeks, so i think is going too slowly to keep). YobMod 12:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. I agree, the article seems quite short on the scope of coverage and truly needs a lot of deeper citation work. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]