Wikipedia:Peer review/Special Relationship/archive1

Special Relationship

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I've listed this article for peer review because it seems really good in places but is only a C class. Where can it be improve by NPOV and sources. Thanks, Lizzie Harrison 12:21, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The article seems to have been abandoned by its main contributors, so it's not clear who would respond to the detailed points that would arise from a peer review. Maybe it needs a little TLC before a review? What about it, Lizzie? Brianboulton (talk) 00:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Agree with Brian, but it is the oldest article on the backlog and so I will make some general comments / suggestions for improvement.

For me the biggest problem is focus - how is this article different from the article on United Kingdom – United States relations? What are the criteria for including material here vs the other more general article?

The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article but the current lead is too short per WP:LEAD. 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. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way
The article uses {{cquote}} but according the documentation at Template:Cquote this is for pull quotes only, and this should probably use {{blockquote}} instead.
Needs a ref Their troops had been fighting side by side—sometimes spontaneously—in skirmishes overseas since 1859, and the two democracies shared a common bond of sacrifice in World War I.
The whole thing is a bit muddled - the section CHurchillian creation starts with the fact that the special relation was recognized in the 19th century (so did he really create it?), then points out that he first used the term in 1945, but with reference to both the US and Canada. Then the next section says no it all started in 1941. This is just confusing. What is the special relationship? Is it it just the unusually close relatiuon between the two countries since the early stages of WWII (although I would say if that is the case, Lend-Lease might be seen as an earlier start than the joint chiefs.
Now I see Lend-Lease is not even in the article!
In the Personal relationships section, I would add a Churchill and Roosevelt header - otherwise the Table of COntents looks very odd.
Dab finder finds several diambiuguation links that need to be fixed
External link checker finds several dead or problem linksthat need to be looked at more closely and repaired if possible.
This reads like a disjointed collection of incidents and facts and does not flow smoothly in many places. The Public opinion section is especially choppy - polls from 1942 to 2008, then a 1967 letter to The Times with no attempt made to tie these two sections together, then the Friendly Fire section on the first Gulf War but it also includes the 2003 invasion of Iraq, then a section on that.

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 found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 05:31, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]