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Mitt Romney

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because several people have suggested it prior to another FAC attempt. (If you're wondering if it's a good idea to make featured a BLP of a high-profile, active candidate like this, there is strong precedent for it. In 2008, the Barack Obama article was FA through the campaign, and the John McCain article became FA during his time as presumptive nominee.) I'm interested in any kind of feedback, but especially on issues of language usage, style, formatting, and the like. (There are lots of editors here looking at content, as you would expect, but few that see it through the prism of MoS conformance, and I tend to lose editorial 'distance' after working on it so much.)

Thanks, Wasted Time R (talk) 12:27, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 20:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • "He signed into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation": I'm fairly apolitical and I don't know anything about the history of this article and any compromises that have been made ... but in general, it's best for the tone of the lead to match the tone of the article. The article makes a clear case that he promoted the legislation; generally, when news sources report only that an official "signed" a bill, without previously or currently saying that they did anything else with the bill, that puts some distance between the politician and the bill, so I don't think that wording is accurate in this case. "He promoted and later signed" would work for me, although I understand that some editors feel that "promoted" can in some contexts have a slightly negative connotation. (Damn, I have to be so careful with copyediting political articles! What a pain.) - Dank (push to talk) 20:49, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. More than promoting it, he also was one of the ones responsible for creating it, so I've changed it to "He helped develop, and signed into law, the ..." Wasted Time R (talk) 03:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for your copyedits. The only one that is a problem is the shortening of "... some of which he later said may have gone too far and apologized for". This was compromise wording after a lonnnng debate that ran across four or five Talk archives, so it needs to be left as is (and another editor has already backed it out). As for continuing on, that's of course completely up to you. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, thanks for checking my edits. Legal writing, for instance, is full of redundancy; I'm completely okay with redundancy if that's what was needed to get everyone on board. I'll think about continuing in the morning; I need to think about whether my skill set is up to it. - Dank (push to talk) 04:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, thought about it. Many things in the article represent consensus, and by that measure, they're fine like they are. When the article hits FAC, then it's up to the editing community how much you guys want to bend in order to accommodate FAC ... but there are things I don't want to ask for except in the context of FAC. Also ... I'm really pressed for time, and it would be nice not to have to do this twice before it gets through FAC. (If someone opposes at FAC based just on prose, I'll explain why I waited.) - Dank (push to talk) 11:09, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: I will have to review this in segments, as time allows; at present I have only looked at the first few sections. Very briefly, thus far my main concerns are about overlinking, some awkwardness in the prose, and overdetailing, particularly in the "Private equity" subsection. I have detailed these concerns in the list of issues below:

Lead
  • "Romney entered the management consulting industry, which led in 1977 to a position at Bain & Company." Needs rephrasing. Suggestion: "Romney entered the management consultancy industry, and in 1977 secured a position at Bain & Company".
Did the phrasing change. Web searches show that "management consultancy" is the British term, while "management consulting" is the American term.
  • " Later serving as chief executive officer..." → " Later serving as Bain's chief executive officer..."
Changed to "Later serving as its chief executive officer ..." I try to never say just "Bain", because it's ambiguous between the two firms.
  • "relaunch" is not hyphenated in any of my dictionaries
Fixed here and in article body.
  • Wikilinks on "France" and "chief executive officer" are in my view unnecessary overlinking.
Done. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:00, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Early life and education
  • The "see also" link, placed between the main section heading and the first subsection heading, creates an untidy gap. It gives the impression that there is no text to follow the heading. Since there are individual links to all the Romney family members as they are mentioned, I wonder if the "see also" is necessary at all.
I put it under the "Heritage and youth" subsection, which is what it pertains to. It's necessary because there are a lot of other members in the greater Romney clan that aren't mentioned here.
  • "Romney was preceded in birth by three siblings: Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott. Mitt followed after a gap of nearly six years." Rather stiff and heavy-footed. Suggest: "Romney followed his three siblings—Margo Lynn, Jane LaFount, and G. Scott—after a gap of nearly six years".
Done.
  • Use of "Mitt" and "Romney". It's OK to call him Mitt when describing his childhood years, but once he becomes "Romney" he should stay that way (unless it is necessary to distinguish him among other Romneys) He becomes "Romney" in the fourth paragraph of the "Heritage and youth" subsection, but in the next subsection we have "Mitt was nervous that she had been wooed by others while he was away", and "Mitt said that U.S. involvement in the war had been misguided". "Mitt" also appears in two of the image captions in this section. I suggest you purge the rest of the article for stray "Mitts".
I changed the "Mitt was nervous" one, but all of the others are in the context of other family members of the same name. So for example "Mitt's father George ..." seems better to me than "Romney's father George" (not parallel) or "Romney's father George Romney" (too many 'Romney's) or "Mitt Romney's father George Romney" (ditto). I think this is allowed per WP:SURNAME "Family members with the same surname".
  • Brit readers require a link on "sophomore"
Since this context had a year associated with it already, I just removed this.
  • Why hide Lansing with a link?
Changed.
  • Reconsider these links: "conservative", "civil rights", "ice hockey", "southern France", "basement apartment". I also question the appropriateness of the link on the phrase "that prohibits alcohol", that goes to the Words of Wisdom article. There are a number of these extended prose links throughout the article, an aspect which you should also reconsider; the excess of blue print becomes extremely tiresome.
I unlinked "ice hockey" and "southern France". But "conservative" means something very different in modern America from other places and times, so that needs to be linked. "Civil rights" is also a reference to a specific movement in American during the 1950s and 1960s. As for extended prose links, I use those to indicate the specificity of the link. For example, "converted to the Mormon faith" as the link text says that the link will describe conversion to Mormonism specifically; if I just linked "converted", that could be a general article on religious conversion, that the reader might not feel is pertinent enough to follow. Ditto for something like "May 1968 general strike and student uprisings"; if I just link "May 1968", some readers may just think it's a general link to things that happened during that month. As for the "sea of blue" effect, to me all articles look like that, no matter how much or how little they are linked. I think the solution is for the MediaWiki software to have an easily findable setting to turn off links if they bother the reader. Doing a "Print preview" also accomplishes this. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Homemaker" should be linked at first, not second mention
Done. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Business career
  • "Management consulting" or "management consultancy"? The latter seems a more professional description
See above.
  • Awkward phrasing: "The practice at that firm, learned by Romney, was to immerse the firm in a client's business[57][67] and not just issue recommendations, but work with the client until changes were implemented." Surely could be expressed better. And the sentence has five citations associated with it, which seems excessive.
Reworded and cites reduced to two (the others were to support the "Bain way" term, but an admin removed that term as non-neutral).
  • "Bill Bain offered him the chance to head a new venture that would buy into companies, have them benefit from Bain techniques, and then reap higher rewards than consulting fees." Something wrong with the sentence construction here. Who, or what, is to "reap higher rewards than consulting fees"?
Reworded to clarify.
  • "Romney spent little money on costs such as office appearance, and saw weak spots in so many potential deals that by 1986, few had been done." First, these are two unconnected facts inappropriately joined by an "and". Secondly, as the firm evidently started trading in 1985, it's perhaps not as surprising as you imply that it had concluded few deals by 1986.
Removed the first part, altered and relocated the second part.
  • "He ran Bain Capital for fourteen years..." Pronoun inappropriate, as Romney has not been named for several sentences.
Changed.
  • "...during which time the firm's average annual internal rate of return on realized investments was 113 percent.[61] Much of this profit was earned from a relatively small number of deals; Bain Capital's overall success–to–failure ratio was about even". The Internal rate of return linked article will be gibberish to many of your readers, and they may not understand "realized investments" either. So I think this sentence will be either not understood or misunderstood. Maybe it could be rephrased in more general language.
Found a second source that stated the same thing in less technical language, so did that in article too, and relocated to better spot.
  • This is a long article, and at this point I am thinking there is far, far too much detail about the workings of Bain Capital. I fear you will not keep your readers, or they will skip over this section. It is possible to be comprehensive without accumulating exhaustive detail, and I would suggest that this section could be cut by about half.
I hear you, but this is the most important and controversial period of Romney's life. It's the raison d'être for his political career, including his current presidential campaign, and it illustrates a lot of the fault lines in how people view modern American capitalism. I will concede that it's been made even longer by some additions due to news stories regarding his separation from Bain Capital that could fairly be labelled recentism ... but after long Talk discussions and various edits, what's in the section now seems to be something all the editors involved can live with. So as a practical matter, I don't see this section getting much shorter. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Would you allow me an edit for brevity in this section? We can work out details if needed.--Amadscientist (talk) 13:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit :-) Go for it ... Wasted Time R (talk) 13:56, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I trimmed the section by approximately 50%, removing what I felt were details that need not be there to get the same point across.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. You've eliminated the entire paragraph ("Bain Capital's leveraged buyouts sometimes led to layoffs [... through ...] Bain was among the private equity firms that took the most fees in such cases.") that speaks to the negative side of what Bain Capital did. And you've kept in the minutiae of his leave of absence arrangements. Not exactly what I was expecting. But we'll see what others think ... Wasted Time R (talk) 03:36, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I removed portions of what I felt went into too much detail about the company on the biography and seemed critical of Romney by being critical of the company. I felt such criticism was best left on the Bain page, but felt the fees were directly tied to section narrative-this company having specific records in income generation. Not just a negative really. (I didn't write the stuff, I just edited for brevity and a slight general edit to adapt) I am more than willing to return something that you feel strongly about but thought the section still reflected what it did before but without too much detail on Bain alone.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:24, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First, realize that not every reader is going to look at the Bain Capital article - for this month, the Romney article has 784,000 views while the Bain Capital article has 73,000 views - that's a 10:1 ratio. But more importantly, in your reduction you've kept all the firm's success stories but removed all of their failures. That doesn't seem balanced at all! To the extent that Romney is responsible for the good, he's responsible for the bad as well. Why is success eligible for both the Bain Capital and Romney articles, but failure eligible for only the Bain Capital article? I've read a lot of detailed, mainstream biographical profiles of this period of Romney's life, and all of them cover the failures in a fair amount of depth. Who are we to say that those should be ignored? What Romney and Bain Capital did is not just an abstract exercise in financial manipulations - it had a real effect on real people - this article has to describe that too.
Aside from that, I disagree with some of your other removals too. Most important is what made Bain Capital different from every other VC/LBO outfit, which is that it applied Bain & Co. consulting techniques to the companies they did deals with. That was the synergy between the two Bain's; it was their 'secret sauce', so to speak. His opting out of the deal that involved R-rated films is not important to Bain Capital itself, but does illustrate how he handles conflicts between the business world and his faith, so is relevant biographically. In contrast, as I indicated above, I think some of the minutiae of his leave of absence arrangements should really be shipped into a Note.
I also want to revisit the notion that this section was too long. As it stands now with your reduction, at 754 words, this section is now shorter than the 1965-75 section (1125 words) and the 2008 campaign section (935 words), and about the same as the 1994 race (704 words), and the 2002 Olympics (785 words). Yet this section covers 15 years, longer than any of those other periods, and it covers the second most important portion of his life so far (next to his governorship) in terms of actual effect upon the world . It should be long, relative to the other sections.
We haven't seen the rest of Brianboulton's comments, but I suspect he's going to think that some of the other sections are too long as well. I'm sympathetic to the argument that at 11,000 words, the whole article was too long for someone whose career basically comes down to running a firm and being a one-term governor. (That length is actually an advantage to us editors, in that it reduces the howls of outrage of 'Why doesn't this article include X!?') But if a size reduction is in order, I think it should be looked at holistically, across the whole article, and not just on this one section. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:27, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's been 48 hours, and Amadscientist hasn't further responded, despite being active on other articles during this time. I'm restoring the section to how it was before the 50 percent reduction, for the reasons I have given. I agree that the length and clarity of this section is a valid topic, as it is for the whole article, and per Brianboulton subsequent comment just below, we should return to it once his review is complete. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:23, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As someone involved with this article, I'd like to agree with Brianboulton that the Business career section is much too long and difficult to read. The subsection on Bain Capital is especially so, even though it's supposed to be a summary of the sub-article. In addition to pruning material from the Business career section (and moving some of it to pertinent sub-articles), some of this material could be moved within the article to the section on the 2012 campaign, because the material only became notable as a result of the campaign.64.134.98.120 (talk) 01:11, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The relationship between this section of this article and the Bain Capital article is not main-to-subarticle, and this section is not supposed to summarize that article. That is, some material about Romney at Bain Capital is really Romney-oriented and belongs only in this article; some material about Bain Capital is not especially Romney-oriented and belongs only in that article; and a fair amount of material is important to both and belongs in both. As for material being moved to the 2012 campaign section, I totally disagree. First of all, what happened at Bain Capital has been a topic in all his campaigns, not just this one, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to replicate it four times. Secondly, this applies to other aspects of his biography as well - you can't move the whole discussion of Romneycare out of the governorship section and into the 2012 section just because Santorum kept bashing him about it during the primaries. Thirdly, pretty much everything in this article became magnified by the fact that he's a politician and a presidential nominee. If he was still just the managing partner of a private equity firm, even if he was worth $3B by now, he's have a really short article if any. That doesn't mean we shove all the biographical narrative into one big campaign section. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:38, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, then I guess the obvious question is why are there so many sub-articles for Mitt Romney, but none for his business career? Suppose you have a BLP about person X having sections on five distinct phases of his life, each equally important; four of the sections are short summary sections, but one is very long because there's no sub-article. Isn't that a glaring undue weight problem?64.134.98.120 (talk) 03:00, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Biographical subarticles = lots of duplicate work for editor + extremely low readership = avoid until absolutely necessary. The two longest sections in this article should be business career and governorship, because those are when he had the most effect on his life and/or on the world, and they are. And main article weights should never vary based on whether there are subarticles or not. If a section about a particular period is worth six paragraphs, it's worth six regardless of whether someone comes along and writes a fifteen paragraph subarticle on that period. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:24, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I disagree with you. If there is a sub-article, then that sub-article should be summarized in the main article, per WP:Summary style. And there ought to be a sub-article about his business career. The info in this section is overly detailed. The precise amounts or percentages of income that he paid in taxes, the precise international locations where his blind trust has deposited funds, and much more is excruciatingly boring to read. And you won't find anything like it in other BLPs, including for other rich presidential candidates like Ted Kennedy or James Cox or John Kerry or the like.24.181.178.235 (talk) 04:50, 29 August 2012 (UTC) (also IP 64.134)[reply]
Try this thought experiment: Imagine the perfect article, with everything in balance and consistently weighted down to a moderate level of detail. In this perfect article, a particular section is six paragraphs. Now, somebody else comes along and writes a long subarticle corresponding to that section that drills down to a much great level of detail. That does not mean that the perfect article is suddenly imperfect, and that the six-paragraph section has to be boiled down to two or three paragraphs. The perfect article should remain unchanged, except for the addition of a "main" hatnote at the start of that section.
That being said, the Romney article is hardly perfect. And I agree that the "Personal wealth" section is in danger of becoming a magnet for a bunch of random facts about his finances. Right now the article is numerically dominated by editors who view the article as a collection of facts that can be backed with sources, rather than a coherent whole that is consistent within itself and with other articles regarding structure and level of detail. Will have to keep an eye on it ... Wasted Time R (talk) 11:28, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When this article was pending as a good article in March 2011, I supported your position then Wasted Time R, that no Business career sub-article was necessary. You and I prevailed in that respect, and overcame the reviewer's concerns that the section was too long. I said:

The Business career section was then 1300 words. Now it is 1800 words. Because the section is now much longer than 1300 words, I strongly support a sub-article and strongly support only having a summary in the main Mitt Romney article. The main Mitt Romney article will never make featured article while the section is this long and tedious. Also, much of the article's instability is due to haggling about this overly-detailed section. It is also becoming a POV problem, because it plays into Romney's opponents to over-emphasize minutae about his finances. Brianboulton is right that the section is too long. Amadscientist is right that the section is too long. I agree with them.64.251.57.46 (talk) 18:53, 29 August 2012 (UTC)(Also IP 24.181)[reply]

I've gone back to the version that came out of GA approval and arranged the text into the same subsections we are using now for Business career. Here are the comparisons:
  • Out of GA: Management consulting 315 words, Private equity 943 words, Personal wealth 111 words, total 1369.
  • Currently: Management consulting 280 words, Private equity 1246 words, Personal wealth 220-333 words depending upon edit warred version chosen, total 1746-1859.
The original Brianboulton comment, and the Amadscientist reduction edit, were about the Private equity section, whereas you seem to be mostly upset about the Personal wealth section. I think I can get the Private equity section back to around where it was before. Personal wealth is another matter, I think the genie is at least partly out of the bottle on that one. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:28, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm concerned about the length of the Business career section as a whole, including unnecessary detail therein. Would you be opposed to my creating a sub-article? Such a sub-article could also include stuff omitted from this main article, like searching in NYC for the missing 14-year-old daughter of a partner, and putting through medical school the daughter of another partner who died suddenly. I'm not sure where to put that he delivered firewood to a single mother whose heat was cut off, or that he rescued a family from drowning in 2003.64.134.98.120 (talk) 02:46, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My hope has been that no further subarticles would be created until and unless he gets elected, at which point they become inevitable. Biographical subarticles usually get 1/100th the readership of the main article, and aren't worth the effort that editors put into them. In any case, a joint "Early life and business career of Mitt Romney" as you mention above doesn't make sense to me, because his business career runs until 2002 and age 55, hardly 'early' (and later still if you count boards of directors). I'm sure that an "Early life of Mitt Romney" isn't needed right now - of the five American politicians who have such articles, four are presidents (McCain is the exception, basically due to his time as a POW, which was much written about well before he ever ran for president), and I don't think anything in Mitt's early life warrants a separate article at this point. If there's anything that's too long now, it can just be cut. As for a "Business career of Mitt Romney", I had been hoping that the Bain Capital and Bain & Company articles could serve to take up any extra material, although as I point out above, there isn't an exact relationship between them and we can't overweight those articles with Romney-era material. And while there are plenty of "Governorship of ..." and "Military career of ..." subarticles, there don't seem to be "Business career of ..." subarticles - the closest I could find is Professional life of George W. Bush. So my preference would be to continue along the current path and see what the election brings.
As for the good deeds, I was close to adding the daughter search at one point, then I found a story somewhere that tried to make the case that it had been exaggerated, and I haven't gone back yet to sort it out. The Lake Winnipesaukee episode happened while Romney was governor and could be included in that section or the governor subarticle. The firewood story was in connection with a church member's relative and would go in the Local church leadership section. So I think only the daughter search and medical school ones would go in the business career sections. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:01, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, there is now an article titled Business career of Mitt Romney.64.134.98.120 (talk) 22:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Will return later. Brianboulton (talk) 19:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your comments, I will begin addressing them in the article and giving responses here. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:51, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton further comments:

  • First, on the Bain section, my comment that it could be halved in length wasn't meant to be more than a guide. I do think in its original form the section was too long, but more importantly it was hard to read. A more modest cut, combined with some prose polishing, might be an answer. Perhaps this issue could be held over until the review is complete? I have looked at the next few sections; here are some further comments:
Personal wealth
  • Romney's personal wealth is said to be "twice the net worth of the last eight U. S. presidents". That's Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon. Yet you say this would place him "among the richest [presidents] in American history if elected". I am curious to know which president or presidents before Nixon were even more fabulously wealthy than Romney.
I added a link to the article on this, but the details get sticky and I don't want to get into them in the text here.
  • "An additional blind trust existed in the name of the Romneys' children and grandchildren..." The past tense indicates that it no longer exists. Is this the case?
Tenses corrected.
  • I'm not too impressed with the graphic. Although the names of Bush Sr and Obama appear, there are no mentions of Reagan, Clinton or Bush Jr, and no means of relating the various dots to individual presidents. If the dotted line equates to zero on the income scale, why are so many dots below this line? I'm clearly misunderstanding the chart, except the obvious point that Romney, with by far the largest income, is one of the lowest-rate tax payers among recent presidents and would-be presidents. That point should I believe be noted in the text, rather than the bland reference to "13.9%".
The graphic is a very recent addition by another editor and I agree it is substandard. I've replaced it with a text mention of the comparative rates. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Local LDS Church leadership
  • "...the local lay clergy, which generally consists of males over the age of 12..." The word "generally" implies "not exclusively"; are there exceptions, e.g. female clergy?
Clarified to 'worthy' males.
  • "He forged bonds..." I'm not being facetious, but given Romney's financial background, that phrase is worded, well, unfortunately, and may give rise to a few giggles and possible press scares ("Exclusive! Wikipedia claims Romney was bond forger!") Maybe "He forged links"?
So changed.
  • "while it was rebuilt" - Pronoun not properly aligned; I'd say "while the church [or chapel] was rebuilt"
Changed to 'while the structure was rebuilt' (to avoid complications regarding what exactly an LDS meetinghouse is).
  • It is generally poor prose practice to introduce the subject in new paragraphs by pronouns, as in: "From 1986 to 1994, he presided over the Boston Stake", and "He took a hands-on role..."
I totally agree. A few months ago an editor appeared who was near-obsessed with minimizing the number of 'Romney' usages and replacing them with pronouns. I argued with him for a while then gave up out of exhaustion. Anyway, I fixed these and two more further down in the article.
  • I would not qualify "requests" with "modest", as this has the whiff of editorial judgement
So changed. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
1994 U.S. senatorial campaign
  • "...this was Kennedy's first election since the William Kennedy Smith trial in Florida, in which Kennedy had suffered some negative public relations..." Too many Kennedys - suggest make the last one "the senator"
Good idea, so changed.
  • "Due to" is a rather clunky formulation. In this case, "during the 1994 campaign" would be neater.
Changed to just "he stepped down from his church leadership role in 1994", since he never resumed it.
  • "the young, telegenic, and well-funded Romney". He was 47; that is relatively old for a first shot at elective office, e.g. older than Clinton on his election as president. So I would drop "young". For the record, Kennedy's Senate opponent in 1988 was 34 years old.
I changed it to "younger", since he certainly appeared much younger than Kennedy (several sources say that Mitt generally looks ten years younger than he is).
  • Rather than simply saying that George Romney "re-emerged" during the campaign, it might be worth saying briefly what if anything he did.
I removed the mention - it's already covered in the article on George and on the election, it doesn't really need to be here too.
  • "When his father died in 1995, Mitt donated his inheritance to BYU's George W. Romney Institute of Public Management and joined the board and was vice-chair of the Points of Light Foundation (which had incorporated his father's National Volunteer Center)." I'll pass the Mitt, but otherwise the sentence is overlong, with two "ands" and intrusive parentheses. Suggest split.
Split done. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More later, Brianboulton (talk) 18:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BB continuing: Two more sections

2002 Winter Olympics
  • "After two years of severe difficulties with the disease, she found while living in Park City, Utah (where the couple had built a vacation home) a mixture of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that gave her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. This is too convoluted; too much information for one sentence, and awkwardly arranged. It surely isn't relevant where she was when she found her palliatives. I'd shorten it to "After two years of severe difficulties with the disease, she found a mixture of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that gave her a lifestyle mostly without limitations".
I've used a dash to better separate the aside and make it easier to parse. As for where they lived, it actually is relevant, because it helped motivate him to take the Olympics job and because the number of different residences they have had (which sometimes brings political flak) is partly a result of her treatments.
  • " to take over the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics": At this stage the Games themselves, three years in the future, can't be described as "troubled". It was the organisation of these Games that was failing.
So clarified.
  • I am none too keen on the Boy Scoutish flavour that pervades this sentence; I would replace the "and" after " she urged him to take it" with a semicolon, and replace "he did", with "he accepted".
So changed.
  • "Before Romney came on..." Weirdly informal phrasing. Perhaps "took charge"?
Changed to "took the position".
  • "the Games" appears three times in one line
One of them changed to use a pronoun.
  • The comma after "top officials" destroys the grammatical structure of the sentence. It needs to follow the word "bribery", with "involving" changed to "against" to avoid the double "...ing". And Jollick need not be so extravagantly described. Thus: The Games had also been damaged by allegations of bribery, against top officials including former committee president and CEO Frank Joklik".
So changed, except now I don't think it needs a comma at all.
  • " between approximately $400 million and $600 million..." The word "approximately" is unnecessary; the range idicates the approximation.
Unfortunately, the bounds are both approximations too, so I think this has to stay the way it is.
  • "Garff believed the initial budget shortfall was not as bad as Romney portrayed, given there were still three years to reorganize." If this is a reference to the $379 million, this was mentioned earlier as a factual sum, not as a "portrayal" by Romney.
Changed "shortfall" to "situation", meaning that even if the numbers were the same, Garff thought a recovery would be easier than Romney was portraying.
  • "Already" twice in one sentence
True, but I think they work together and don't read poorly.
  • "in order to" → "to"
Have to respectfully disagree, I think just "to" doesn't read right here. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
2002 gubernatorial campaign
  • You need to identify Massachusetts in the opening sentence, e.g. "In 2002, the administration of Massachusetts' Republican Acting Governor Jane Swift was plagued..."
So changed.
  • "The campaign was the first to use microtargeting techniques..." etc. The first in Massachusetts, or the first anywhere?
Anywhere ... but changed to "one of the first", since I see some earlier claims out there.
  • I have no idea what is meant by "fine-grained" in the context you use it. This entire sentence is heavy with politico-jargon.
Clarified to "The campaign was one of the first to use microtargeting techniques, in which like-minded groups of voters were identified and reached with narrowly tailored messaging."
  • Passing comment: I am a little baffled by the impression given here, that the gubanatorial election was purely a matter of whether Romney's adverts were good or bad. His attempts to portray himself as a regular guy were bad ads, so he falls behind O'Brien. He responds with a series of better ads which suggest O'Brien's spouse was tainted by Enron, forges ahead and wins the election. That is the story of the campaign as told here, giving the impression that the electorate was pretty easily manipulated. Am I being naive in imagining that there might have been other issues that helped determine the election's outcome? Or is it really all down to spin?
Alas, many American elections are pretty substance-free and negative-ad-heavy, and this was one of them, but I have added a sentence on a couple of real issue differences. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:26, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More to follow, but I'm tired and I want to go to bed. Brianboulton (talk) 22:25, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for your valuable comments, especially as they come from an outside-the-U.S. perspective (yes I'm sure jargon has crept in ...). However, I'm leaving on vacation for a few days, but I will definitely respond to them and any other comments when I get back. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:05, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yet more from BB

Tenure, 2003–2007
  • The first paragraph reads very jerkily, mainly because the opening sentences are unconnected; each deals with a separate fact. Can they not be made to connect in some way? For example, was his meritocratic cabinet selection a consequence of the Democratic majorities in the state legislature? The sentence about his declining the governor's salary seems inseted at random, unless it is related to his deficit reduction policies. The paragraph needs some attention, to improve the prose flow.
I've split the start of the deficit reduction into a new paragraph. What's left is a bunch of initial happenings as his term started; I can't really see a way of connecting them.
  • "Romney supported raising various fees..." I think you mean he raised them; also the syntax is wrong at present. I suggest you redraft the sentence: "Romney raised various fees, including those for driver's licenses, marriage licenses, and gun licenses, to produce additional revenue of $300 million."
The fees had to be approved by the legislature, so I can't say he raised them directly. Other change done.
  • I don't see the necessity for parentheses in "(Opponents said..."
Removed.
  • "... to increase tuition by 63 percent..." → "... to increase tuition fees by 63 percent..."
So changed.
  • Some of the citation in this section looks excessive (three citations for relatively straightforward statements)
Several of these have now been reduced to two or one cites. A couple of 'three's remain, that are needed because several different sources' worth of facts are combined in a sentence, or because some controversial material needs extra support.
  • The sentence beginning "This came after Staples..." is long and winding, needs pruning and/or splitting.
Has been split.
  • Ditto the sentence beginning: " In May 2004, the governor instructed town clerks..."
Has also been split.
  • "In June 2005, Romney abandoned his support for the compromise amendment, stating that the amendment confused voters who oppose both same-sex marriage and civil unions". Close repetition ("amendment") and tenses clash ("confused"/"oppose")
Corrected.
  • The word "instead" which follows the above sentence is inappropriate (instead of what?)
It's instead of the compromise amendment, mentioned in the previous sentence.
  • Petitions can't ban anything; insert the words "for legislation" before "that would have"
Clarified that this was a ballot initiative (which if approved does change the law)
  • Briefly explain that the Family Marriage Amendment was a proposed constitutional amendemnt that would have banned same-sex marriages and civil unions throughout the US.
I'd rather stay away from trying to do that, since some of the amendment's implications are unclear, especially regarding civil unions. Let the reader click ...
  • "wresting control", I thinks, breaches the requirement for encyclopedic neutrality, by possibly suggesting victory after a heroic struggle
I just looked at the definitions of 'wrest' in a couple of dictionaries I have at home, and none of them imply anything heroic; at most they imply a power struggle, which after all is what politics is all about. I'm going to hold on to this one; I think it qualifies as 'engaging prose'.
  • "he spent part or all of more than..." is a very clumsy formulation
Couldn't think of a good alternative, so just changed it to "he spent all, or parts of, more than 200 days ...".
  • "lopsided win" sounds un-neutral, and is anyway not informative. Maybe mention the figures (55 to 35 percent, evidently)
Changed to "20-point win". Wasted Time R (talk) 04:43, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure how much more of this I will be able to do; it is very time-consuming. The article keeps growing, with over 700 words added since I last posted here, which makes me feel I'm no nearer the end. I've raised enough points, I think, to keep you busy for a while after your vacation, so I won't post any more comments during the next 5 days. I'll try and return at the end of the week. Brianboulton (talk) 22:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks, understood. I now have my own catching up from a week away to do ... Wasted Time R (talk) 12:23, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've caught up on your comments now, and almost on all the other changes that went on in the article while I was away. If you want to continue the review, that would be great, but if you don't, that's fine too. This is a volunteer activity and when involvement in any particular article starts to become drudgery, that's always a good clue to step away. And admittedly this article has taken several turns for the worse; going forward to FAC at this point seems unlikely. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

IP Comments
Just like the wealth sentence makes you curious how wealthy other candidates have been, so too with release of tax returns. This article says, "Romney has faced demands from Democrats to release additional years of his tax returns, an action a number of Republicans also think would be wise, but has been adamant that he will not.[327]" Can we rephrase a little, while including wikilink?

"Despite requests by Democrats and some Republicans, Romney has steadfastly declined to release as many tax returns as some previous candidates have done.24.181.178.157 (talk) 23:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the persistence of the tax return issue is a function of not releasing as many as some past candidates - if he were some average candidate, nobody would much complain over only two years being released. It's due to Democrats thinking that there's embarrassing stuff in some of the prior returns - an even lower effective tax rate than for 2010 or 2011 - and due to Republicans fearing this is going to be drip drip drip damage all the way to November. Also, the current wording on this has been through a lot of Talk page discussion, so I don't want to reopen it. And I'm not sure where an underlink would go. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:42, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, not sure I agree with you about that. Per ABC News, "Romney's father, George Romney, disclosed 12 years of his tax returns in his failed 1968 White House bid, a precedent that Democrats have cited gleefully to accuse the Mitt Romney of hypocrisy."[1] I have contributed a bit to this Wikipedia article, so I won't comment any more at this peer review, as a "peer", but I do think you're short-changing readers by not wlinking to the actual precedent. Cheers.24.181.178.31 (talk) 01:39, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's a convenient comparison to make, but they wouldn't bother unless they thought there was something worth getting. Let's say Chris Christie had run and gotten the nomination. One of his actual tax returns showed $450K in joint income and $120K in federal taxes paid. Completely uninteresting ... how many more of those would opponents want to see? Anyway, I've added the underlink, I think it's close enough to the overtext that it won't violate WP:EASTEREGG. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, the section has moved from Tax return (United States)#Public release by presidential candidates to United States presidential election#Financial disclosures.64.251.57.34 (talk) 22:57, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So changed. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:53, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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