Wikipedia:Peer review/SRI International/archive1

SRI International

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like some feedback on the article before I nominate it for GA. Thanks, Disavian (talk) 21:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: Thanks for your work on this article. The prose is highly readable, and the article generally follows the Manual of Style guidelines. However, the article does not yet meet WP:V, as I note below, and it depends so heavily on materials published by SRI that it might not meet WP:NPOV in places. It's hard to be more specific about the point-of-view issues because of the sourcing issues. I have some other suggestions as well.

Infobox

If you can figure out how to do it, I'd suggest moving File:SRI International HQ.jpg up to replace the logo, which simply repeats the name.
- I put the logo at the top of the infobox, and put the HQ image where the logo goes... not sure how I feel about that. Hmm. Disavian (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Layout

If possible, place images entirely within the sections they illustrate. For example, File:SRI Packet Radio Van.jpg would look better if moved up a bit so that it does not overlap a section boundary and displace an edit button. Also, avoid making text sandwiches like the one in the "Recent history" section; just move the images slightly in relation to one another until the text sandwich has been eliminated. Also, directional images should face into the page, if possible. Thus File:SRI Packet Radio Van.jpg should be positioned on the left rather than the right side of the page.
- I attempted to make these changes. I think one issue is that a lot of SRI's really notable history happened in the 1960s-1970s and I had more images than prose for the "Rapid expansion" section. Disavian (talk) 15:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Overlinking

Common terms like "policy", "education", and "matter" should not be linked since most readers of English already know what they mean. Also, it's generally unnecessary to link terms more than once in the lead and perhaps once again in the main text. I would not link "artificial intelligence" more than once in the main text, for example. Most readers will not need even one link to this fairly common term, although I would probably link it just once, on first use.

Lead

For readers who have never heard of DARPA, perhaps "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)" would be better on first use.
- Done. Disavian (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"SRI's mission is discovery and the application of science and technology for knowledge, commerce, prosperity, and peace." - This is what SRI says about itself in its mission statement, but can SRI be neutral about itself? Since it's juxtaposed with the students' alternate view, I'd take care here to attribute the claim with a qualifier like "SRI describes its mission as... ".
- Done. I generally dislike mission statements, and have half a mind to take this one out, but it does mirror well with the student unrest bit. Disavian (talk) 15:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Curtis Carlson, Ph.D." - Wikipedia generally avoids identifying people by their academic credentials but prefers a brief description such as "physicist".
- Ah, yes. I'm usually a stickler about that. Done. Disavian (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Year 2011 revenue for SRI was approximately $585 million." - To avoid using a date as an adjective, maybe this would be better: "Revenue for SRI in 2011 was approximately $585 million."
- Done. Disavian (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"SRI International Sarnoff is being used as a brand name for a period of time for business activities based in Princeton, New Jersey." - Tighten by deleting "for a period of time".
- Done. Disavian (talk) 15:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Early history

The first paragraph lacks a source or sources. My rule of thumb for meeting the WP:V guidelines is to provide a source for any set of statistics (including dates), any claim that is unusual or apt to be questioned, any direct quotation, and every paragraph. If one source support all of the claims in a paragraph, the citation goes at the very end of the paragraph. The same concerns arise in paragraphs 3 and 4 of this subsection and elsewhere in the article. The last part of paragraph 5 also needs a source or sources. It's very important to fix these sourcing problems before nominating the article for GA.
The image File:SRI Air Pollution study 1949.jpg does not appear on my computer screen, but I don't see what has gone wrong. Clicking through to the Commons, I see that the image is directional, facing left. It should therefore be placed on the right side of the article so that it faces into the page rather than out.
- I posted on the help desk about this, we'll see if anyone can help. I don't remember seeing that issue before this week, so it might be a temporary problem. Wikipedia:Help desk#A couple image issues. Disavian (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I believe that it's a problem with the thumbnail generated at the specific size of 220px - if I manually specify another size, it works just fine. I could probably do a little auto leveling on the image, upload the new version, and it will be fixed. Disavian (talk) 15:14, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Diversification

"several landmark education and economic studies" - I'd stay away from adjectives like "landmark", since they imply a judgment that might violate WP:NPOV. Much of this section lacks sources, and readers may suspect that it is SRI boilerplate. Ditto for the next section. Words like "landmark" may add to this impression, and the fact that the Nielson book was published by SRI might make readers wonder whether the article is essentially neutral or whether it wanders into promotion for SRI.
- A lot of the language in the article (particularly the history section) is from long before I "adopted" it. I definitely agree that the article could use a thorough copyediting for NPOV issues, but they're not terribly bad. Disavian (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

References

The date formatting should be consistent throughout this section. Citations 23 and 24, for example, use a different formatting from most of the rest. They should all be done in the same way.
- Done. Disavian (talk) 16:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For books, include the place of publication. If this information is not in your notes, you can generally find it via WorldCat.
- Done. Disavian (talk) 17:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Since most of the ISBNs in the article are hyphenated, I'd track down and include the hyphens for all. An ISBN converter lives here.

Further reading

These should be listed in alphabetical order. Also, I wouldn't list Nielson again since his book is already in "Works cited".
- I alphaed them by title within their subsections, and took the Nielson book out. Disavian (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other

The article has one dead link, here.
- I think I took care of that while you were writing your review. The refs could still use some work, though. Disavian (talk) 23:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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) 22:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review this article. It looks like I have my work cut out for me :) Disavian (talk) 22:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]