Talk:Attachment therapy/GA1

GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   "From the 1990s onwards there was a series of prosecutions for deaths or serious maltreatment of children," subject/verb agreement? That's in the lead. "This form of therapy is scientifically unvalidated and is not considered to be part of mainstream psychology either as to understanding of attachment theory..." as to? Again, lead section. "The screaming and tantruming five year old was buckled into a highchair" Tantruming is a verb? MoS compliance, using WP:SS, looks mostly good, but the Cases section could be more consistent. Citation style is also mixed--pick one and be consistent throughout.

Sorry - I can't think how to reword "as to". Unfortunately when I was at school grammar was not taught as it was considered elitist. I'd be glad of some help on this point. Fainites ^barley 22:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Done Fainites ^barley 16:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Done the refs. Well spotted! I thought I'd changed them all to {citation} Fainites ^barley 22:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"Was" agrees with "series". Fainites ^barley 16:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

You're right, actually. Sorry about that. However, I'd still recommend changing it to something less ambigious, like "From the 1990s onwards there have been multiple prosecutions for deaths or serious maltreatment of children" How does that sound to you? Jclemens (talk) 16:58, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Or there have been a number of... Fainites ^barley 21:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely, that works too. Jclemens (talk) 21:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. Done the cases too.Fainites ^barley 22:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

1. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   Looks very well referenced, didn't notice any OR on first pass.

2. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

3. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   "It is distinct from mainstream forms of therapy based on attachment theory as it is primarily based on misapplied psychoanalytic theories about suppressed rage, catharsis, regression and the breaking down of resistance and defence mechanisms." That's in the lead.

This is a summary of the part of the article which deals with the background and development of attachment therapy. Are you saying it must have a reference in the lead? Fainites ^barley 21:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The NPOV problem with the sentence is "based on misapplied psychoanalytic theories"--You and I may agree they're misapplied, but the proponents obviously do not agree. Word that in a more neutral way, such as "which mainstream organizations such as the APA have termed 'misapplied'."--with appropriate citations, of course. Jclemens (talk) 21:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I could just remove "misapplied" from the lead. There is a collection of sources in the history section about this topic which explains it. Fainites ^barley 21:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I've also added Zaslow who is the basic root. Fainites ^barley 22:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

1. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

2. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Are there no images available of any advocates, logos of an associated organization, nothing?

I did find some very good pictures of angry or sad looking kids but these were objected to for various reasons (not least because they didn't actually illustrate the subject - just added interest). I must say it hadn't occured to me to add logos of proponents. ATTACh certainly acknowledge their AT history but I'm not sure the same can be said of many therapists. Mind you - the attachment therapist who used to control this page with 6 sockpuppets objected to any suggestion that ATTACh was connected with attachment therapy despite their own statements.Fainites ^barley 22:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You don't actually need images for GA (or FA for that matter). It would just be nice to have some.Fainites ^barley 22:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

1. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Prose needs subtantial work--examples are just that: examples. Please go over the article thoroughly for NPOV and style issues. ON HOLD for up to a week for review and improvement. Jclemens (talk) 02:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I've redone most of the historical roots section - hopefully to provide more clarity. Fainites ^barley 09:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Updates

There is still a lot of passive voice in the article, as well as many sentences which are needlessly long and complicated. I don't like the way you have year citations in the text, but use <ref>...</ref> style footnoting. I think you ought to drop the years from the text throughout, or go to straight APA citations--what you've got is a mix of the two. Several things seem to be referenced in multiple places throughout the text.

I'm thinking more and more that this ought to go through peer review for copyediting before it's really ready to pass GA. Jclemens (talk) 21:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I can deal with the inline cites and all your tags tomorrow and look at the long sentences. Don't give up yet! Seven days is up on the 3rd September. Fainites ^barley 22:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way - cannot two sentences be referenced by one citation? For example here, there are two sentences summarising a bit from Speltz with the cite at the end. You have added a fact tag after the first sentence. Is it really necessary to repeat the ref after each sentence?

• "In relation to the use of the Z-process and holding for autism, Zaslow's ideas have been dispelled by research on the genetic/biologic causes of autism. Unlike Zaslow’s techniques, interventions based on behavioral principles have proven effective with autistic children."Fainites ^barley 23:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It can, but it wasn't necessarily clear to me that it did. I'd rewrite the two sentences to be more clearly connected. There's multiple instances of "Some people say foo. Jones says bar.[cite]" construction, where it's not unequivocally clear to a non-specialist that "foo" and "bar" are related. I tagged a bunch of the ones I noticed with {{who}}. I much prefer something like "Some people, such as Jones,[cite] Smith,[cite] and Brown,[cite] say foo. Brown further says bar." --In that case, unless it's a different cite for Brown's additional statement, the reader has just seen it in the prior sentence. Make sense? Jclemens (talk) 23:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

OK. Actually, thinking about it, the bit about what does work for autistic children is probably otiose anyway. Fainites ^barley 21:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

On this bit There have been professional licensure sanctions against some leading proponents where you've tagged it "who", this is from a passage in the Taskforce Report. Is it necessary to name names? I thought, this being an encyclopaedia article, listing actual therapists, who presumably were acting in good faith whatever the mainstream clinicians and theorists think about attachment therapy, seems unecessary. As the Taskforce is a very notable source, is it not enough that they say what they say? Fainites ^barley 21:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Second Review

Hi! I'm dropping by after noticing that the second opinion tag had been on the GAN page for a while. This isn't my area of expertise, so I probably won't be able to tell you if anything big is missing, but I can give you some help on prose and references. I'll have my comments up in a little bit. Dana boomer (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

• On references:
  • All of your links to the Advocates for Children in Therapy link (including the external link) should be updated, as they have changed their domain name from advocatesforchildrenintherapy.org to just childrenintherapy.org. For the moment, this isn't a big deal, but if they ever decide to take down the old domain, it will make a good chunk of your references deadlink.

Done.Fainites ^barley 19:14, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• • The Informaworld references (1,44,76) are timing out on me. I'm not sure if this is just a temporary issue or not.

Seem to be working now. I note Dr Hughes website seems to have been disabled though.Fainites ^barley 19:18, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• • Please make sure that all of your references have publishers and access dates. For example (note, these are just examples, not an exhaustive list), #34 doesn't have an access date, while 47, 48 and 102 don't have publishers.

Sorry - you've lost me there. 47 is a journal. 102 is a newspaper.

Looks good now.

• • For your Taskforce Report inline references, please put the author first, as this is how you have the publication listed in the references section.

Do you mean "Chaffin et al" rather than "APSAC"? Is another alternative to put (APSAC Taskforce report) in front of the reference.Fainites ^barley 19:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The way you have it now will be fine. The only thing I can see now with this is that you have a couple (notable refs 5 and 67) that don't have page numbers.

• • You need to be consistent in how you format your references. If you are going to use the split reference format for books and journals, you need to do it for all books and journals. Basically, all of your book references have to be consistent with each other, and all of your journal refs have to be consistent with each other - the groups themselves don't have to be consistent with other groups, if this makes sense. Also, the consistency has to extend to either always using cite templates or never using them. This consistency is especially important if you plan on taking the article to FA - you'll really get hammered on it there.

Bother. I thought I'd done all these. Fainites ^barley 18:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Citation template used throughout. They should all now be consistent.Fainites ^barley 20:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The citation templates should be used in the references section as well then. And also, there are still full book citations for a few books in the in-line refs. There needs to be consistency in using either full refs in-line or split refs.

I've fixed the refs section citation templates but I'm being a bit dim on the next bit. Do you mean where I have used page numbers for refs with the full citation in the references section? I did it like this at FAC for RAD as it is the only way I could find to do it where you are citing multiple times with different page numbers from the same source. The only alternative was to cite the same book over and over in the notes section.Fainites ^barley 21:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the split refs format, like you have for most of the books now, with most of the info in the refs section and just the author name and page number in the notes section. What I'm saying is that if you do this for some of the books, you have to do it for all of the books. For example, you have refs 32 and 78 (just picking two at random) that are in the split format, but refs 2 and 3 have the full information in the notes section. Consistency is what I'm aiming for here. Dana boomer (talk) 21:36, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

• • I've added a few fact tags.
• On prose:
  • The lead is supposed to be a summary of the entire article. Therefore, it shouldn't include original information, and so doesn't need references unless they are backing up a direct quotation.

I've reduced too detailed info from the lead and put it in the body. However, various FA psychology articles like Aspergers, Autism and Reactive attachment disorder all use refs in the lead. I'll check the policy on this.Fainites ^barley 21:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The ones that are backing up direct quotations (5 and 6) are fine to leave in. The rest should be citing information that is already in the body of the article, and so doesn't need to be repeatedly cited.

Hey, Fainites :-) Sorry to jump in here, but it looks like you're FAC bound, so I wanted to weigh in on citations in the lead. Have a look at Wikipedia:LEAD#Citations, which conforms with the citation level you see at Tourette syndrome, Asperger syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, etc. There is a lot of confusion "out there" about citations in the lead, and WP:LEAD sums it up well. You won't be led astray by citing in the lead all hard data and anything likely to surprise the reader or that looks like an opinion or controversial info. In terms of the other sample FAs I've pointed out above, for example, schizophrenia should have a cite on the 40% hard data. You don't want to overcite the lead, and you don't need to cite common, summarizing info, but there is no exemption from citations in the lead on quotes, hard data, or anything surprising or likely to be challenged. I think if you were to remove the citation, for example, on six documented fatalities in the lead, that would most certainly be challenged at FAC, as it surprises the reader. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well;[1] sorry for the interruption. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh bugger. I just spent the last half hour removing them all before I saw your comment here! Still - they can easily go back. Fainites ^barley 20:00, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I bow before Sandy's wisdom: do whatever she says :) Dana boomer (talk) 20:09, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

• • There should not be external links in-line like there are in the Prevalence section. These should either be converted into references or moved to the external links section.

OK. Will do. Fainites ^barley 21:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

• • You go back and forth between using "Task Force" and "Taskforce" to describe the APSAC group. Please pick whichever one is used in the official description of the group and stick with that throughout the entire article.

Done.Fainites ^barley 20:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

• Other:
  • Are there no pictures that can be used it illustrate this article? This is a long and fairly technical article, and a few images would help to relieve the text.

I had some pics of angry looking children but others said that they weren't children actually diagnosed with anything or undergoing AT so were POV or irrelevant. I've tried getting pics of AT in action but the therapists are very hot on copyright violations. A quick look at this very short remaining YouTube video may explain why [2] Note the elbow in the midriff and the therapist indicating "eye contact". The lengthier YouTube extracts have recently been removed as they were training videos and so presumably there were copyright issues.Fainites ^barley 18:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I see. I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't want photos/videos of controversial techniques out there - extra material for critics... Oh well, if there's nothing, there's nothing. Please just keep this in mind if you ever do happen to come across some non-copyright photos/vids.

Overall, this looks like a nice article. The issues above are fairly minor, so I think this article should be left on hold to allow my concerns to be addressed, and then the article passed to GA status. If you have any questions, drop me a note here or on my talk page. Also, Jclemens, as the original reviewer, please add any comments that you may have. Dana boomer (talk) 17:32, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I bowed out because I thought I'd gotten too close to/involved in the article, and you've brought a set of fresh eyes that have seen issues that I missed. I have no objection to any of your comments--thanks for finishing this up. Jclemens (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully I can get all this sorted by the end of the week. Fainites ^barley 18:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I updated my comments above and made a few replies. The article is definitely progressing, and shouldn't take too much more work to get it to GA status. Dana boomer (talk) 13:07, 20 October 2008 (UTC)