Wikipedia:Peer review/The Doon School/archive1

The Doon School edit

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I've listed this article for peer review because… it is a potential Good Article (Schools). Not many good school articles have emerged from India except this and a few others. I will be extremely grateful for any suggestions and constructive criticism from experienced school editors. Thanks very much!

Thanks, Merlaysamuel (talk) 17:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look at it, time available determining exactly when (teaching responsibilities on my part). I already note:

The lead is a bit confusing to those with different educational systems ("C form"? "D form"? taking a test at age 13 but with the entering grade specified - do you not have any students who are promoted two or more grades/standards?); at the minimum, some explanatory links would help. (I realize that it's in British English, and that this should not be changed.)
The automated checker found some problems, as did the alt text checker.

You might want to work on these in the meantime. Allens (talk) 18:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your time and suggestions Allens. Will get on it right away....!

Merlaysamuel (talk) 08:03, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quite welcome. I also note that there are quite a number of {{cite web}} instances that should actually be {{cite news}} or {{cite book}}. For instance, the Wall Street Journal's online edition should be {{cite news}} with "|newspaper=Wall Street Journal"; similarly, a book cited from Google Books should be cited as a book, with ISBN (can be gotten from the book's Google page). (Both of these will have "|url=" still.) Allens (talk | contribs) 11:37, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, I'm going to have to do a complete overhaul or the references, probably in line with what was done at SMAC (some cite templates for books and such in the bibliography section, then individual notes would only be page numbers linking to the larger citation). CW to CN/CB...alright, on my mental checklist :P Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 13:17, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The only problem with notes + page numbers is that, unless one constructs them manually, they don't seem to allow for separate URLs (e.g., different Google Books links) for different pages. I'm still trying to figure out how to solve this - see Joan Pujol Garcia for an instance. Any thoughts? Allens (talk | contribs) 13:42, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We ran into that same problem over at Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri#Notes, but it was an easy choice since all of the sources were either offline books or fairly short online sources in which we felt comfortable linking to the first page and letting the reader navigate to the fifth. Of course, there's always the ability to, in a format like "1. ^[[#Shah|Shah (2000)]], p.1.", link the page number separately (and individually) to Google books. Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 14:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. I should also mention that I've installed a script (User:Ucucha/duplinks - Stfg over at the Guild of Copy-Editors told me about it) that checks for duplicate links, so I'll be going through the entire article with it soon, thus saving some manual effort. Allens (talk | contribs) 13:45, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{doing}} Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:21, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone! Any more suggestions for improvement of this page? Is it time yet to nominate it for a GA?

:: Merlaysamuel :: (talk) 17:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Sorry to take so long wioth my review. This sounds like quite an interesting school. Thnaks for your work on the article. I do not think this is close to ready for WP:GAN yet, here are some suggestions for improvement.

A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow. There are several FAs on schools at Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Education that seem like they could be useful models.
Some dead external links that will need to be fixed. Done
Toolbox on this page shows one circular redirect link that will also need to be taken car of.
Just looking at the lead, there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article, but I do not think the current lead is a good summary of the whole article. Please see WP:LEAD
My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, but I see nothing in the current lead on Mountaineering or DS 75, to name just two examples.
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. So for example, the bits about Rishi Valley School taking the first place ranking or the Economist saying Doon School has the second most influential alumni network are not repeated in the body of the article that I can see.
Looking at the article more closely, the ref for the second most influential alumni network is to the Economic Times, not the Economist. Clarifieddf
In any case, the lead needs to be rewritten - one way to do this is to fix the rest of the article, then re-read it, then rewrite the lead to summarize it. Another way is to pretend that a reader can only see the lead - what would you want in there to summarize the article?
The lead can either be referenced like everything else, or can have only refs for direct quotes and extraordinary claims (with the refs in the body of the article, which it summarizes). This seems to be a hybrid of those approaches.
Per the WP:MOS 'single quotes' are only used for a quote within a quote - direct quoatations use "double quotes" - so fix things like Doon is often referred to as the 'Eton of India' by international and home press alike.[13][14][7][15][16][17][18] Note this is another item found only in the lead that I can see. Done
Make sure all fair use images comply with WP:NFCC Done
Per the MOS, images should not sandwich text between them Done
The article has a lot of places that interrupt the narrative flow. These include bullet point lists and short (one or two sentence) paragraphs. Where possible, the lists could be converted to prose, and the short paragraphs could be combined with others or perhaps expanded.
Explicitly give abbreviations on first use, so With the money, Das formed the Indian Public Schools Society (IPSS) whose objective ... Done
Make sure to provide context to the reader, especially those not familair with India and its history. So in Kashmir House, after Maharajah Hari Singh promised a contribution of 1 lakh which was delivered in 1935.[23] it would help to note that the Maharaja ruled Jammu and Kashmir. See WP:PCR Done
Or why is the name Doon? Seems to be for the Doon Valley, but this is never made clear Done
Some places need refs - On October 27, 1935, the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, came to preside over the formal school opening. There were 70 boys enrolled in the first term, and another 110 boys had signed up for the second term. or In 2009, the Rose Bowl underwent a major structural change while retaining its amphitheatre style. (both examples are also very short paragraphs) Done
My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref. Done
Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V Done
Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.) Done

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 _><>°^° 16:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My huge thanks to you for your invaluable suggestions for the Doon School page. I will take each of your points one at a time and work thoroughly on it. I'd just like to clarify one of the points - the info about Doon's network being second-most influential in 1990 after Harvard has the Economic Times (ET) reference because, in fact, it was mentioned by the ET in that article (mentioning the Economist). Though I'm still looking for a primary source and will add, when i find it. But, really, thanks very much Ruhrfisch for taking the time to review this article. I will work as advised. Many thanks once again! :: Merlaysamuel :: (talk) 17:54, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are very welcome - if something is quoted in another source, then I would say "Quoted in...". You might try contacting the school itself, my guess is that they would know when the Economist wrote this. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just want to give my thanks as well :) Nolelover ^Talk^·^Contribs 19:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are we ready? Merlaysamuel : Chat 14:10, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]