Wikipedia:Peer review/Bell Labs Holmdel Complex/archive1

Bell Labs Holmdel Complex

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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 April 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I've added everything I can find and am looking for advice on what to do next.

Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 23:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from User:TechOutsider

I see the article is of start-class. I will keep that in mind; one step at a time. I will also perform some minor fixes; however I will still bring up the issues for your future reference. Though I don't have a though knowledge of WP:MOS, the following suggestions should be of some value to the article. I suggest consulting WP:MOS for the proper style of hyphenation; I don't think "472-acre" is formatted correctly.

Some issues in the lead. You mention in the lead the complex has functioned as a research laboratory for 44 years. Is it still functioning? The current lead left readers, including me, hanging on whether the complex is retired or still in use. The lead also mentions the complex as the home of Nobel Prize winners. However, towards the end, it again mentions the complex as the site of several Nobel prize inventions. The sentences concerning the Nobel Prizes should be combined for a smoother flow when reading. You also may wish to wikilink words such as physics and modernist in the lead. I see the word "basic" is used, before physics. Attempt not to be vague; I suggest removing the word basic.

There are some issues in the body as well. You may want to rename the cryptic "Post Alcatel-Lucent" section; I have almost no clue what the section concerns based on the heading alone. I also a wikilink incorrectly formatted, "The Cultural Landscape Foundation's". The apostrophe should be inside the brackets. Insert a vertical slash to separate invisible and visible text. Here's how it should be formatted:

(two brackets)actual page name (invisible to readers)|what you want the wikilink to read; put apostrophe here(two brackets)

So, it would be correct as (two brackets)The Cultural Landscape Foundation|The Cultural Landscape Foundation's(two brackets).

Other minor issues include abbreviations. Generally, spell out the abb. the first time. Then, you may use the abb. For example, spell out R&D as research and development. Same thing in the references; spell out NYT as New York Times.

Well, in our parting words, it's a great start! I see a fact from the article was presented on the English Wikipedia's Main Page. This article has the potential to be FA-class. And it's a great topic; nothing too broad or narrow. I undertook a lot of pain by trying to get this one article to just GA-class; it was way too broad of an article. No one ever wanted to read it all the way through, including me, much less peer review it. TechOutsider (talk) 21:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: I read this and wanted to know more, here are some suggestions for improvement.

The current lead is too short and is not really a summary of the article. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article, but the closure is not made clear in the lead, nor are the attempts to preserve it now mentioned.
Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself - the article should list who the Nobel prize recipients were, as well as the work done in the labs that led to Nobel prizes.
There should be a bit more on background and context - there could be a paragraph or two on the history of AT&T and the breakup of the Bell System, for example.
Use {{convert}} to make sure units are given in both English and metric values (squre footage, for example)
I would go back and look more carefully at your sources and see what else can be gleaned from them. I looked at three: the Roadside America website (may not be a WP:RS if you try and take this to FAC sometime) lists some quirky stuff (model train layout in the basement). The Wired article, while brief, makes it clear that basic physics research was done here (which the article does not now do - Nobel prizes are usually not awarded for "inventions").
I also am not sure if there is not some confusion between this facility and Bell Labs in general - the institution has ahd 6 Nobel prizes, but some of them seem to predate this structure.
There are books on the history of Bell Labs which would doubtless have more on this facility.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I originally found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:32, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]