Wikipedia:Peer review/Blue discharge/archive1

Blue discharge

This peer review discussion has been closed.

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 January 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to get it to GA and would like another set of eyes on it before making the nomination.

Thanks, Otto4711 (talk) 11:40, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Casliber

I only noted the name and had absolutely no idea what it was about. Fascinating topic! Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK - Following intense criticism in the press and in Congress, the blue discharge was discontinued in 1947. - I'd probably say 'revoked' here. 'Discontinued' to me implies passively sorta disappearing, whereas a verb which has more of an active implication may be better.

The word 'discharge' appears alot in the lead; reducing the numbers of times it appears would be good but not sure how. have a think. Some other words, such as 'homosexual' and 'African American' are repeated, so if one can remove or reduce repetition without introducing ambiguity it is ofetn helpful for flow.

The lead is pretty short.

In the Aftermath section, the It has been suggested that the.. is weaselly, would be good to get who suggested this first here.

I agree, but I have no idea who suggested it first. It's a concept that's been around for at least 50 years. I have interviews from a number of the early homophile leaders and several of them make the point, but the interviews were conducted anywhere from the 1970s to the 1990s and there's no way to determine if this was something one or another of them discussed at the time or if it had become common knowledge by then. Any suggestions on re-wording it? Otto4711 (talk) 05:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, somehow I managed to miss that you had made other comments as well. I've been reworking a table for the last...good god, 12 hours on and off and I'm getting punchy.

Anyway, yeah, it has been interesting researching it. Just a tip, don't ever Google "blue discharge" without some additional search term because you will not like some of the sites it returns. Think other meanings of "discharge" if you get my drift. ::shudder::

I agree the lead is short, but do you believe there are any areas of the article that are not adequately summarized? I did expand it slightly and changed one "discharge" to "ticket" and removed another (down to five) but I'm wary of swapping it out too many times. The correct legal term is "discharge" so I can't use "separation" or "dismissal" (which have different legal meanings) and using "ticket" too many time may make the article too slangy and have an effect on the encyclopedic quality of the writing. Part of the lead expansion was to mention that two new discharge classifications replaced this one so do you think that strengthens it and makes it clear that these were affirmatively halted?

I count "African American" five times. The problem is that four of them are in the same paragraph. I could substitute "black" for one of them ("black-interest newspaper") but the others I don't know.

I count twelve "homosexual"s and they are more widely scattered. I can change a few of them to gay here and there but some of them, dealing with military regulations ("homosexual conduct" for instance) I think need to stay as is. "Gay" was not really in wide usage at the time outside the gay community; no newspaper would ever have used the word "gay" (it would likely have been either "homosexual" or "pervert" if they covered anything at all) so I was tending to use the language of the times.

Let me know what you think. Otto4711 (talk) 05:41, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no, don't change to "gay". I mean try to switch sentences so one subject can be used for two clauses. I will try to find one. Accurate information always comes first, so don't lose any sleep over it :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]