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I added an infobox, and a lot of information (previously, this page was simply auto-generated.) If anyone has ideas for expansion or anything else, perhaps we can bring this page to a more "complete" status. - Minute Lake21:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Article could probably use the official Congressional portrait, if it's accessible, and be placed in at least a few more relevant categories. John Carter15:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Update to this: I contacted Chris Dodd, and his staffers released the two images that they took with Bedell under a compatible Creative Commons license, and I uploaded both to Commons. I put one in the article already. I will try to modify the other in order to leave just the face, which could be used in the infobox. What do you think of trying to take Bedell out of the image, and putting it in the infobox?
The image in the infobox indicates that there's a problem with it, which should be resolved. In addition, the bottom picture need to include some time information to contextualize the picture (ie. in 2007, so we know approximately how old is he, or something similar)
In the lead, the phrase "He would win in a rematch, however, two years later." needs to be replaced with something more formal sounding. Same with the "Running for Congress" section.
The "Early life" section could use some expansion. Who were his parents and what did they do? How did his familial life affect his future career? How and why did he decide to get into politics? You don't have to answer all of these questions, especially if the information is not available, but these are the types of questions that you can ask to get you started.
"This type of communication told Bedell of the types of issues affecting his farming constituency. Thus, though Bedell had not farmed in his life, he would take steps in Congress to benefit farmers." (Running for Congress) These sentences also have poor wording, and also make me worry about original research, especially without a citation.
This wasn't OR, Reid said this. Bedell only found out about Waterway Usage Fees because of the meetings with constituents. I added the cite. Minute Lake22:24, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"He also claimed that certain large oil companies underpaid their "windfall taxes" in certain cases and wanted to pass legislation to increase regulations on these corporations." (Investigations of large businesses)
"Since then, he has founded a center for alternative medicine. Due largely to his friendship with Tom Harkin, he remains an important political figure in Iowa, with politicians such as Howard Dean meeting him in their trips to the state." (After politics)
"Bedell said that it was unbelievable for the United States to settle disputes with war, and he said that an Iraq war would be similar to the Vietnam War." (After politics)
"As an opponent of the Vietnam War, Bedell signed a petition urging against United States military intervention in Iraq. This petition was signed with the names of 70 former Congressmen from the 1970s and was presented on March 15, 2003." (After politics) Presented to whom or what?
Overall, a lot of the prose seems too colloquial for an encyclopedia. There are several examples, in addition to the ones mentioned above, such as "his fish tackling business took off" (Early life) and "Reagan's agricultural plan called for a gradual reduction in farm subsidies, among other things" (Clashes with Reagan)
The whole article paints somewhat of a glowing picture of Bedell, although the controversy section is there. If there's anything to balance the article out a bit, please add it.
Therefore, to allow for these changes to be made, I am putting the article on hold for a period of up to seven days, after which it may be failed at any time. Thank you for your work thus far. Cheers, CP04:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On further reflection, the "Early life" section is passable for a Good Article, though expansion couldn't hurt. It would definitely need to be expanded if you wanted to move up to A or FA Class.
Regarding citation templates, anything that has an author (as in, one that you can easily find in the article) should list the author in the citation. Reference #17 needs beefing up (author, source, etc.) Also, every source needs an access date (Refs 7 and 8 are good examples of this: Retrieved on.... they can all be today's date, but it needs to be there)
Under "Controversy," if there's a citation or newspaper article that mentions that no charges were filed against him, then it should be cited at the end of the sentence. If not, however, that's fine too because A)It's unlikely to be challenged and B)It's a bit hard to prove a lack of something if no one goes out at says it.
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