Wikipedia:Peer review/Baba Amte/archive1

Baba Amte

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for January 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… Baba Amte, was an well known, important personality in western India and his article has been siting "start class" article for a long time. Would like to get it to atleast A class article in near future.

Thanks, Kedar (talk) 08:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments:

There are four main problems with this article:-

• Comprehensiveness: Baba Amte lived a long, important and interesting life, yet the information you have is extremely sketchy, with nothing like the detail required for a proper biographical article. For example there is nothing about his childhood or young manhood. After his foundation of Anandwan, which was apparently while Ghandi was still alive, we jump to 1990, with only the most general information as to what filled his life in between. There must be a great deal more detail.
• Sources: This, I think, is the primary problem – you are relying on an assortment of internet sources. Have you read any books which give an account of his whole life, rather than the odd bits of information you get from the web? Have you taken steps to determine whether these internet sources are reliable? A wikipedia article needs to be based on the best available sources, not simply the most conveniently accessible. I believe a great deal more research is necessary to bring this article anywhere above start-class.
• Prose and structure: The prose is uneven – quite good in parts but rather poor in others. The article's structure is pretty well non-existent. There is a great shortage of dates, so it's difficult at times to follow the chronology. Also, within sections facts are often given indiscriminately, sometimes with no regard to relevance. The extensive stuff about the lives and works of Baba's sons is an example of irrelevant material.
• References: the article is light on in-line citations. For example, no sources are given for the large numbers of awards and honours received by Baba. There are other facts within the text that require citations to sources. The on-line references you have listed are not properly formatted.

To give you a better idea of the problems with the article, here are some specific examples:-

• You should not refer to him as "respected" in your opening line. You can call him that later, when you have established from reliabe sources that he was, indeed, respected.
• He was born into rather than "in" a wealthy family.
• "He was called as baba..." - you don't need "as". I suggest this whole sentence is reworded anyway, along these lines: "His parents nicknamed him "baba", an affectionate term in Marathi; it can also be conferred on older persons as a title of respect".
• Whoa! we have just met him as a new-born baby, and suddenly he has trained as a lawyer. What happened in between?
• Dates are necessary: "It was then that he got involved..." Whay tear was this?
• "got involved" is poor. Again, I suggest you reword as follows: "In [year] he joined the Indian freedom struggle, acting as a defence lawyer for imprisoned leaders of the 1942 Quit India movement".
• "Mahatma Gandhi, with whom he spent some time..." When did they meet? How long is "some time" - was it days, weeks, monthe etc?
• There is no such word in English as "upliftment". Perhaps you mean "betterment"
• "got married to" should be written simply as "married"
• Eliminate all the material in the Early life sectionAfter the bracketed ""elder sister" in Marathi). all the stuff about the sons is irrelevant and should be struck out of the article.
• The section on the ashram ("Anandwan and the fight against leprosy") has hardly an structure. We need to know, at the beginning of the section, when and where it was established, and where thew money to found it came from. We need to now when Baba took the orientation course, how long it lasted, etc. We need an actual foundation year for the ashram. You need also to get rid of por prose such as "He used to set up about 11 weekly clinics..." sounds casual and vague), and "Taking his work to the next level" (informal, non-encyclopedic)
• The section on Ghandism is also muddled. You shoud start by saying "Baba Amte believed in Gandhi and followed his ideals". Then you don't need to say, also, "All his life, Baba Amte was a follower of the Gandhian philosophy", because we've just said more or less the same thing. Also "all his life"? Or after his stay at the Sevagram? Which was when?
• "...had not been keeping well" should be "had been in poor health"
• "As per his last wish" should be "in accordance with his last wish"
• Citation needed for the details relating to his award of the Gandhi Peace Prize (and elsewhere).

These are all examples of things that need doing. I am giving examples, not compilng an exhaustive list. The article cannot be raised to B or A or GA etc., until much more work is done. Sorry if this puts a rather gloom prospect, but it's a big challenge, and could be most rewarding if it were caried through. Brianboulton (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)