Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gerald Ford

This is the latest production from Wikipedia:WikiProject Michigan. There was a peer review that was just archived. Comments, fixes and questions will be addressed by Project members. Jtmichcock 15:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Nice work... meets all my criteria for an FA. Good prose, well-referenced, only found one uncited POV claim (which I removed for now), covers all the bases pretty well with one slight exception (noted below) etc. It still needs some slight work which I'm confident can be done. Concerns I wasn't able to address:
  • "Before he could commence a law practice, though, overseas developments caused a change in plans. Like others, Ford responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor and joined the military." Eh prose just feels a bit cliche and hackneyed there... I couldn't figure out how to fix it though.
    • It actually started out slightly more cliched, saying "like others of his generation, Ford responded. . ." I keep looking at the sentence to see if there's a work-around.
  • Could use a bit more post-presidential info. Doesn't even say what state he lives in now, for example.
  • Rancho Mirage, California. It was in there, but I fixed to make that clearer.
  • Mentions the SNL skits, but perhaps a bit more on pop culture role? He was on The Simpsons for example. Might seem trivial but part of the role of the president is as a cultural icon, whether they want it to be or not.
  • I have to confess to not watching the Simpsons. Was it actually him or a reference to him? A voice-over would be notable; a mention not so notable since as ex-President, his name comes up a lot in pop culture. The one reference I did focus on it the Chevy Chase episodes since it's Ford's own opinion that it likely changed the presidential race,
  • Article is 48k. Could perhaps use a subarticle, or some trimming. This is a common problem with articles on widely-documented historical topics, but I feel like I should mention it. --W.marsh 15:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Duly noted. Although there was one article on the front page that was well over 100 last week. Thanks for reciewing. Jtmichcock 18:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I looked at where I might trim and it's difficult to figure out where a subarticle would belong -- although the 76 Presidential race has its own.
  • Support, though I'd like to know why all those books are listed under references but are not used in the notes section. If they really are references, I'd expect them to have citations in the article, and if they aren't references, they belong in "Further Reading". Other than that, however, this article covers the basics. I'm not concerned about size; probably this is closer to 35-40kb if only prose is counted. —Spangineer[es] (háblame) 17:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]