Wikipedia:Peer review/Richard Nixon/archive1

Richard Nixon

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for February 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because, after a recent expansion, I would like feedback on anything editors like, dislike, feel should be changed, etc. All comments about anything are welcome! Thanks, Happyme22 (talk) 03:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Sarcasticidealist

This is in many respects an excellent article. Quite comprehensive, though I think a good medium-term goal would be to expand it to the point that the creation of some subarticles would be justified; I think the there's definitely room for expansion of most parts of the article, but especially Early life, Law practice, Congressional career, Vietnam War, Civil rights, and Legacy. Though the POV issues are minor - I don't see an overall slant to the article one way or another - there are a few places where this reads more like a single-author biography than an unsigned one. Some examples, from the "Legacy" section alone (which is the worst in this respect):

• "Richard Nixon was the chief builder of the modern Republican party." Should be either attributed (and cited) or removed.
• "Throughout his career, he was instrumental in moving the party away from the control of isolationists and as a Congressman was a persuasive advocate of containing Soviet Communism." That sentence contains several value judgments, chiefly that he was "instrumental in moving the party away from the control of isolationists" (and also that the party was under the control of isolationists before him - Eisenhower escalated the Korean War, didn't he?), and that he was a persuasive advocate. These too should be attributed or deleted.
• "...began an excruciatingly long peace process." I don't doubt that that's true, but it's not really appropriate for a Wikipedia article.
• "Domestically, he decentralized government by revenue sharing, ended school segregation, reduced inflation (until it rose again as a result of the oil cartels), ended the gold standard, reduced the crime rate, and pioneered positive environmental measures." Some of these—reducing inflation and reducing the crime rate—aren't unambiguously true. You can say that the national crime rate fell while he was president, but there would need to be more detailed (and cited and attributed) analysis to examine his role in this.
• "...the office of the presidency was demeaned."

On the image front, I personally don't think the fair use of this image passes muster. The others look okay. The lead seems slightly imbalanced to me, giving comparatively little weight to his presidency. The biggest issue with the article is likely the prose, which varies from flawless in some sections (especially the earlier ones) to considerably worse in some others. I'll try to conduct a more detailed prose review tomorrow. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Sarcastic. I'll look through them more thoroughly in the coming days. --Happyme22 (talk) 03:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I've started my review of the prose, as promised above. I'm fixing the minor issues myself as I come across them, but here are some issues that I'd like to draw your attention to:

• "...his upbringing is said..." - The passive voice aside (and I must say, the passive voice is generally loved by me), the problem here is that this isn't attributed. There are a few possible fixes. First, and most simply, attribute it to whoever it is that has said it. Second, if this is the consensus view among historians who have studied the subject, delete "it is said". Finally, if this isn't the view of anybody who matters, just delete the whole thing.
• There are quite a few faulty parallelisms in the article, though I've fixed some. When using parallel language, make sure that each of the items in the list grammatically follows the stem. For example, in "Nixon was a formidable debater, a standout in collegiate drama productions, was elected student body president, played football and basketball, and ran track.", the stem is either "Nixon was" or just "Nixon". If the stem is "Nixon was", then "played football and basketball" doesn't work, since "Nixon was played football and basketball" makes no sense. On the other hand, if the stem is just "Nixon", then ""a standout in collegiate drama productions" doesn't work ("Nixon a standout in collegiate drama productions"). My apologies if I'm telling you something you already know, here; I find a lot of Wikipedians use faulty parallelism, so I try to spread the gospel wherever I can.
• This one's a major flaw of mine too: you overuse semicolons. You use them perfectly correctly; there are just too many of them. I generally haven't fixed this issue, so you might want to go through and reconfigure a few of the sentences yourself.

More to come, hopefully today... Sarcasticidealist (talk) 15:29, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• "The discovery that Hiss, who had been an adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, could have been a Soviet spy thrust Nixon into the public eye and made him a hero to many of Roosevelt's enemies, and an enemy to many of Roosevelt's supporters. In reality, his support for internationalism put him closer to the center of the Republican party. This case turned the young Congressman into a national, and controversial, figure. Due to his popularity, Nixon was easily reelected in 1948." This needs to be completely rewritten:
  • Reading the rest of the paragraph, Nixon doesn't seem to have discovered this at all; he merely believed somebody else's allegations.
  • These positions put him closer to the center of the Republican party than what/who?
  • It says that he was controversial, meaning he had many detractors as well as admirer, and then said he was re-elected due to his popularity, which reads oddly.
• "...voted in favor of civil rights..." This is vague and kind of apple pie-ish. The specific legislation, or at least an elaboration on what you mean by "civil rights", would be helpful.
• "other controls" seems very broad to me. Does this mean that he opposed all government regulation?
• How does one vote against illegal immigration? Isn't illegal immigration by definition immigration that Congress has declined to legalize? It strike me that Congress voting in favour of illegal immigration might create one of those universe-collapsing paradoxes we've heard so much about.

More later. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• I've inserted a fact tag after this sentence: "Nixon was the first Vice President to step in temporarily, and unofficially, to run the government."
• "Nixon advocated stimulative tax cuts in what became a supply-side theory." This isn't really clear - how did it become a supply-side theory?

Still not done. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 14:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• There are a fair number of Easter egg-ish wikilinks in the article, in which the reader can't tell what is being linked to without cliking on or hovering over the link. I've removed a few, but I'd recommend a sweep of your own.
• This one's kind of ridiculous, but I'm going to say it anyway: in Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States, Barry repeats the line "This was widely believed to the be end of [Nixon's] career" on quite a few occasions (the Checkers speech, the 1960 election, the gubernatorial defeat, Watergate) for comic effect. Seeing the same line in this article made me think of that book, which probably isn't a good thing; seeing as that it was a best seller, I suspect that I'm not the only one.
• "He then proposed simultaneous substantial withdrawals of North Vietnamese and American forces from South Vietnam one year after reaching a mutual agreement." There should probably be some followup about the North Vietnamese response to this proposal.

More to come, as always. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 17:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

• "Nixon announced new economic policies on August 15, 1971..." What were they?
• " they were relaxed after the initial 90 days, although unemployment did not decrease." Was the aim of the controls to cut unemployment? That would be unusual, since I believe the target of such policies is normally inflation, not unemployment.
• "The limits did help to control wages, but not inflation. Overall, however, the controls were viewed as successful in the short term" I'm not clear on how wage and price controls that didn't affect inflation could be viewed as successful. Is there room for elaboration?
• "The next day, the Dow Jones measured a then-record one day increase." The next day after what?
• "However, despite speeches declaring an opposition to the idea, he decided to offer Congress a budget with deficit spending..." Which year is this we're talking about now?
• "He also explored creating a universal minimum income and universal health care, but was not able to realize either." Did he attempt to realize either, or did he decide not to after exploring the idea? If the latter, "not able to realize" probably isn't the best wording.

More later tonight, hopefully. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

• "The U.S. economy was gradually transformed into tertiary industry;" Not sure what this means; the economy itself can't be a tertiary industry.
• The last paragraph of "economy" has some problems. First of all, I think you're taking Black's words a little too much as gospel; I'm sure there are those who dispute the program's success, and NPOV demands that they be given some space in here (provided the views are sufficiently widely-held among academics, of course, which I presume that they would be). As well, the last sentence is sort of orphaned; some discussion of the incongruity of an apparent conservative using this level of government regulation might be helpful.
• "the suppression of over 10 million people into India." This doesn't seem like the right verb.

Still not done. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 02:58, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

• "Nixon had begun entreating China a mere month into office by sending covert messages of rapprochement through third-party nations such as Romania and Pakistan." First, I'm not sure about the verb here - "to entreat" is normally followed by "to", in my experience, though I'm not certain that this use is incorrect. Second, how is Romania - a Warsaw Pact member - a third party nation? And why would a Warsaw Pact member assist the U.S. in shifting the balance of power towards the west?
• "...and silenced anti-China voices within the White House." If these voices including anybody prominent, I'd suggest naming them.
• "...though the Chinese canceled these." It would be nice to know when and why (especially when, since the sentence says when the talks started).
• "...including the conflict in Pakistan." It's not clear from the article how the U.S. position in this conflict constituted an overture to China.
• "...the first Americans to enter China in more than twenty years" I know this is cited, but it still seems impossible to me. Are you sure this isn't just "in an official capacity", or something?
• Spelling of Chou Enlai's name should be made consistent (I have no idea which is to be preferred, but presumably somebody familiar with English rendition of proper Chinese nouns can be found somewhere on Wikipedia if you need help).
• "...unlike the leftists and the Soviets." Does "leftists" here refer to American leftists? This could use some elaboration.
• "Nixon extended the Nixon Doctrine from Vietnam to his policy toward the Soviet Union, believing that helping Iran become stronger would check the Soviets' power." It isn't clear in the article how strengthening Iran follows from the Nixon Doctrine.
• "...mutual defense pact, détente, and MIRVs." What are MIRVs?

More later. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 13:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

• The 1972 re-election section devotes too much attention to the Democratic primaries. Let the article on the election do that; this article should be about Nixon. I'd actually suggest that that section needs a rewrite in its entirety.
• "He announced the Equal Education Opportunities bill that would seek a moratorium on local school busing." This was part of the election campaign?
• "The bill passed and the poorest school districts were slowly improved." POV.
• "McGovern...gerrymandered the convention for himself." POV.
• Regarding the section heading "Federal government initiatives": isn't anything the President does necessarily a federal government initiative?
• "Nixon believed in using government wisely to benefit all" Does anybody not believe in this?
• "Nixon impounded billions of dollars in federal spending..." I'm not sure exactly what is intended here, but I can't imagine that "to impound" is the correct verb.
• "In 1971, Nixon proposed the creation of four new government departments superseding the current structure: departments organized for the goal of efficient and effective public service as opposed to the thematic bases of Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Agriculture, et al. Departments including the State, Treasury, Defense, and Justice would remain under this proposal." This isn't clear at all.
• "Nixon's plan would have mandated employers to purchase health insurance for their employees, and in addition provided a federal health plan, such as Medicaid, that any American could join by paying on a sliding scale based on income." What happened to this plan?

Just a few more sections. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 15:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

• In the Yom Kippur section, the end of the first paragraph touches on a specific cause of the oil crisis, which is then repeated in the second paragraph, which takes a more general view. This should be cleaned up.
• The bit about Angelo DeCarlo needs a cite.

Almost done. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 06:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

• " Told that he would surely die if he did not go to a hospital, Nixon relented" I'm not sure one can relent unless one has initially resisted; there's not currently any indication in the article that he has.
• "He soon published his memoirs." I'd suggest replacing "soon" with a year.
• "Nixon made his views known regarding Saudi Arabia and Libya" What were these views?
• The later life section is badly organized. I'd suggest a thematic organization: family life, trips abroad, rehabilitation of reputation, relationship with politics, etc.
• I've added some {{who}} tags to places I thought they applied; there's quite a bit of passive voice with unspecified subjects in this article.

That's it. As some final general comments, I'd suggest trying to diversify your sources a little more: you rely heavily on Black's biography, and I think his interpretations sometimes filter through. Mainly, though, you should try to get as many copyeditors/rewriters as possible to look at this, to get out the awkward phrasings and their ilk. Generally, though, excellent work. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your very thorough review and for the compliments, as well as contructive criticism. I will begin looking over the comments in a short while. Thank you again. My best, Happyme22 (talk) 02:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)