Talk:Richard Francis Burton/GA1

GA Reassessment

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This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, listed below. I will check back in seven days. If these issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far.

• This is obviously a nice, well-written article on Burton, but I'm afraid that it does not meet GA criteria 2, in particular 2b: "it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". No doubt related to this is that the tone of some of the writing seems to verge on the author's unsubstantiated opinion. As a rough rule of thumb I would be expecting to see at least one citation per paragraph.

• The Early explorations (1854–1855) section is completely uncited.

• From Diplomatic service, scholarship, and death (1861–1890: "The couple are buried in a remarkable tomb in the shape of a Bedouin tent ...". Whose opinion is it that the tomb is "remarkable"?

• There is an outstanding request to clarify this statement, from the Burton and Speke section: "Some biographers have suggested that homosexual friends of Speke ...". Who are these biographers?

• The last paragraph of Burton and Speke—another that is completely uncited—is particularly troublesome, as it without attribution it seems to be a reflection of the author's opinion. For instance, who says that "it was clear that Speke had committed suicide as he was a skilled hunter and knew how to handle guns"?

• The Appearances in fiction and drama section looks rather like a Trivia section.

• That Burton was a fencer is considered important enough to tell us in the lead, yet all the body of the article tells us is that he visited a fencing school in Boulogne.

• The lead also tells us that Burton was a hypnotist, a claim both uncited and not elaborated on in the article itself.

--Malleus Fatuorum 16:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

As these issues remain unaddressed, this article has now been delisted. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.