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Jack Kemp

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because there was extensive commentary on FAC4 that this needed a lot of reorganization.

Thanks, TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Finetooth comments: Whew! You've done a tremendous amount of work to research and write this, and it certainly seems comprehensive. However, if I were evaluating this article at FAC, I'd be among those posting a reluctant oppose. I don't doubt that you can improve this to FA, but it needs more work.

I think the first thing to do to improve the article is to reduce its length. This would make it more manageable for readers, for reviewers, and for you. I see two ways to do this. The first is to move the football sections to a separate article, and to summarize that separate article in a short section placed right after "Marriage and family". Readers will tend to fall into three groups: (1) those most interested in Kemp as football player; (2) those most interested in Kemp as politician, and (3) those who want to know everything about Kemp. Since the football comes almost first in the article, readers in the second group have to skip over the football in the existing article to get to the politics. I think you'd make life easier for them if you moved the football to its own space. It would also make it easier for reviewers at FAC, who want to reserve judgment until they've read every word. You don't want to make them read until it hurts.

  • I am curious why people suggest moving the football details to a separate article and not the politics details? As a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, I oppose this solution unless further details on his football career arise.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The existing lead suggests an emphasis on politics, and less than half of the article is about sports. You could make the sports article the main one if you think that would be better. Finetooth (talk) 00:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think if you counted characters the lead is about 40% sports, 40% politics and 20% other. The body is about 20% sports, 70% politics, and 10% other. The reason is that I can find 1980s and 1990s resources much more readily. If the 1960s soon become as accessible as the 1980s and 1990s, I could probably triple the sports section and make a separate article for both sports and politics of equal size. The NYTimes archive is not readily accessible before 1981 for example. The article would likely be in proportion to the lead if resources were equally accessible.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:14, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • P.S. to give you perspective on what I could do to his athletic career if it were recent I show you two college athlete article I have assembled ( Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims) and a pro athlete I have done ( Chris Young (pitcher)). If for example, he were a politician in the 70s through 90s and an athlete in the 21st century, his athletic career might be longer and I could probably make a GA out of just his high school and college athletic careers.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the goal is to get to FA with the existing article, putting the sports off to one side and building the sports article as sources become available to you might be one way to achieve the goal. This is only my suggestion, meant to help, and I'm not in love with it as the only or best idea. You should weigh the options and do what seems best. Finetooth (talk) 18:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The second way to reduce the length of the article is to cut any details that are not necessary. This is a tougher job, because those details by and large are not all in one place. In my remarks below, I've suggested a few whole paragraphs that could be cut, but mostly you or someone will have to go through line by line and idea by idea looking for ways to compress and trim.

I've made a few other suggestions, fairly nit-picky ones, but I'm certain I didn't catch everything. I found enough low-level errors, especially in the lower sections of the article, that I'd suggest finding a copyeditor to go over this once more after you've made revisions.

One other thought: It seemed to me as I read the article that you admire Kemp and many, if not all, of his ideas. That's fine; we all write about what we find interesting. Still, the goal here is to be so neutral that readers can't be sure whether you admire an idea or not.

  • I think it is the secondary source admiration more than my own. Although I admire Kemp as one of the five most important politicians in the history of the city of Buffalo (certainly behind Grover Cleveland and probably Millard Fillmore), I don't intend for that to show in the article. In places where admiration bleeds through the article, I hope it is from the sources. If it is not, it should be corrected. Feel free to point out any such instances. I am a livelong Democrat. I never had a chance to vote for or against Kemp, but don't believe I ever voted for Reagan.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't suggesting intentional bias, and virtually everything is sourced. What I'm responding to is subtle. A thread that bothers me involves Kemp as idea man. In several places, the article cites his love of reading and of ideas. In the first paragraph of "Political career," the text says, "Kemp is a voracious reader, and his political beliefs were founded in early readings of Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative, Ayn Rand's libertarian novels, such as The Fountainhead, and Friedrich von Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty." This is properly sourced to Time, but elsewhere in the same paragraph, the source says, "Kemp's intellect seems to reflect a dogged fascination with ideas rather than a natural brilliance. He talks about ideas the way immigrants talk about America: it is the passionate love of the convert." Thus I flinched when I got to the sentence in "Presidential bid" that said, "Except for a select few cognoscenti, the general public did not recognize Kemp's leadership ability, although he was a successful man of ideas." A convert can be a leader but is not necessarily a person of ideas in the sense of an original thinker. I wonder what Paul Krugman has said about Kemp's ideas. Finetooth (talk) 00:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am certainly not an expert on politics and assimilating the thoughts of a few dozen pundit over the course of nearly three decades of service is likely to lead to some contradictions. My point is POV/bias is a different issue than inconsistency. POV/bias is a point made in isolation. I.E., if each point is an accurate summary of the sources for that time there is no POV even though sources two decades apart might conflict. If at a point in his career he is known as an ideas man (as he was) if the sources say so it goes in the article. If at a later time he not considered a leader and that is the consensus, then that goes in the article. I am not here to judge what makes sense. I attempted to be true to the sources at each point in time. POV/bias is a statement that at a given time I slanted my interpretation of the sources and at several points of time I did so in the same way. I hope at each point in time my interpretation is considered unslanted no matter how confusing things might get as his public perception changes.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to make too much of the POV idea. I'd suggest working on the organizational problems first. If no other editors mention a POV problem, it may be a mote in my eye. My vision is not always 20/20. Finetooth (talk) 18:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy

College

Joe Collier and John Rauch eras

Congress (1971–1989)

Presidential bid

  • "Except for a select few cognoscenti, the general public did not recognize Kemp's leadership ability, although he was a successful man of ideas. In fact, most of the Republican electorate found themselves unfamiliar with Kemp early in his campaign. Political pundits recognized him, however, as a visionary idea man." - Even though these sentences are sourced, they are not neutral. Who are the cognoscenti? Were Kemp's ideas successful? Which pundits? Did all the cognoscenti and pundits agree with this characterization?
  • "the scandals of Samuel Pierce" - Suggestion: include a brief explanation or at least a title for non-U.S. readers and many others who will have forgotten about him. Ditto for Bill Bennett, a bit later in this section.
  • "The goal of these two plans was to transition public housing into tenant owned residences... " - Suggestion: "The goal of these two plans was to change public housing into tenant-owned residences... ".
  • "to lure both industry and business" - Remove "both".
  • "In addition to opposition in Congress, Kemp fought White House Budget Director Richard Darman, who opposed Kemp's pet project HOPE (Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere), which planned to sell public housing units to their tenants, as well as his proposed welfare adjustment of government offsets." - Too complex. Suggestion: "In addition to opposition in Congress, Kemp fought White House Budget Director Richard Darman, who opposed Kemp's pet project HOPE (Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere). The project involved selling public housing to its tenants. Darman also opposed Kemp's proposed welfare adjustment of government offsets". Offsets needs to be explained. What kind? How did they work?
  • "Government expense as the Housing Secretary" - Lowercase "g"

Post-HUD years

Late career

  • "As of May 2007, Kemp sat on the board of the Yellowstone Mountain Club, which is located in Big Sky, Montana on 13,600 acres (21.2 sq mi; 55.0 km2) in the Madison Range north of Yellowstone National Park with 60 ski runs. The Club is a private ski and golf resort where people have come from around the world to build vacation homes. Bill Gates and Dan Quayle are members, and Greg LeMond has accused founder, Timothy Blixseth, of borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from the club without collateral.[292] Blixseth, a close friend of Kemp, describes the club as a resort that has a "wow factor" for even the extremely wealthy." - It's hard to see the relevance of this. I'd suggest deleting it.

Nitpicks

I hope these comments prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 04:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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