Wikipedia:Peer review/Dana Gioia/archive1

Dana Gioia edit

Profile of the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. It's been here for nearly a year and nobody has touched the substance. I'd really like opinions about its chances as a FAC. PedanticallySpeaking 15:40, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

This reads like a newspaper article, not an encyclopedia entry. There are certainly other issues to tackle, but this is by far the most striking one. --Zantastik talk 15:10, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article is presently lacking sufficient content to make it a featured article, the writing style is also too familiar, here's an example from the lead:

he has been chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States government's arts agency, and has worked to revitalize an organization that had become gun-shy after the bitter controversies that surrounded it in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

What controversies? Someone outside the American arts community has no idea what this means. It is short of biographical information, is he married, does he have children, what did he do between 1983 and 1992 etc. The dispute with Donald Hall seems to have been quite significant in the relevant circles and should probably be described in more detail. Since he is actually an artist himself I would also expect to see more in depth discussion of his work like the biographies of other featured writers. --nixie 07:20, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The disputes over the NEA funding people such as Andres Serrano, Karen Finley, and Robert Mapplethorpe were national news and the subject of many hearings in Congress. To describe them here is inappropriate--the material belongs better on the NEA article. As for the time you cited, I quote the article: "After college, he joined General Foods Corporation and served as vice-president of marketing from 1977 to 1992, when he quit to write full-time." I did not talk in detail about his writing as I know little about poetry. Notices were placed last year asking if someone could help in this regard but there were no takers. As for his family, I have heard of him speak of a wife and his son, who died young. But I don't have specifics. I'll see what I can find out in this regard.PedanticallySpeaking 15:29, July 21, 2005 (UTC)