Wikipedia:Peer review/Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1964/archive1

Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1964

This peer review discussion has been closed.
There are a few things I want an outside opinion on:

1. Should there be candidate picture(s) and stats in the infobox, and if so, how should it be presented? Johnson was essentially unopposed, but due to the unique circumstances, there are a variety of candidates as well as a significant portion of "unpledged" votes.
2. The raw data for the state-by-state data can be found at User:Recognizance/Sandbox2. Should this be included? It seemed a bit superfluous given the uncompetitive nature and the existing summary of the results.
3. Wallace's withdrawal is under the "Vice-Presidential choice" section. I had debated spinning him off into a separate section, but the person I was talking to at the time thought it was fine as-is.

Outside these points, the usual feedback on prose and such. I want to make sure the article is clear given the opaque nature of the selection process. Thanks, Recognizance (talk) 02:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Interesting article that seems pretty close to ready to FAC for me, here are some suggestions for improvement.

• I think I would change the layout of images (this is just my idea - feel free to disagree). I would put the LBJ picture in the lead with the caption that he won the primaries and nomination. The Wallace image could be in the Background section. The images of the favorite sons from Wisconsin and Maryland could go in those sections. The Indiana section already has the map and the MOS says not to sandwich text between images, but the favorite son from IN could perhaps go there too. If not there would still be four favorite sons photos that could be in a gallery somewhere.
• Other image concerns - it is not clear to me at all which person of the three in that image is Yorty, so the caption should identify him by position (left or center or right). The map of Indiana could also be made a bit smaller with the "upright" paramemter (if desired).
• Finally, the File:1964 Democratic presidential primaries.JPG map makes no sense to me - it is mostly yellow, which seems to be Porter, but he is fourth in the Results table. I think most casual readers will look at the lead and the images first, then read the article - this just confused me. Brown also took California on the map, but is not on the results table. I also think the shades of yellow are too close to each other to distinguish in some cases - Indiana looks like ther same shade as California, for example.
• I think it might help in the Results table to list the state the person is from and also to indicate who they supported (if not themselves). For example William W Scxranton appears only once in the article - and the link is to a Republican from Pennsylvania, but Pennyslvania did not have a primary that year. How did this happen?
• If the name is standard for articles in this series then don't change it, but I think the name is not the best fit for the article, since it also describes the convention.
• The article also does not really describe all 16 primaries - I know Texas did not have one - but New Hampshire is only mentioned once, for example.
• More later - this is a start

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 poeer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I'll be able to better address the things you mentioned later this weekend, but I wanted to mention that I was also dissatisfied with the map that has the yellow and such. However, I'm not good with images - at all. I made the map in the Indiana section by installing Inkscape and using the paint can tool on an existing image. Also, I do need to add a bit more on LBJ's "Bobby Problem" as far as New Hampshire goes, but in most of the states, there was simply nothing of interest to talk about (see User:Recognizance/Sandbox2). I suppose saying there was no competition in X, Y, Z would help clarify that. Recognizance (talk) 00:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• I think that the article should mention each primary (that is the title after all) although they could just be a sentence or two in most cases. I would also give the percentages of votes received for the major candidates (over 1% perhaps) as most readers can relate to these more easily than the total vote numbers themselves. So for example the New Hampshire primary could be something like "The first primary in New Hampshire resulted in Johnson receiving 95.3 percent of the vote, while Kennedy was second with 1.6 percent and none of the other candidates received more than 0.9 percent. Wallace was not on the ballot." Then go into the unexpected Wallace result in Wisconsin. Where the article gives vote totals for Wallace I would also say what % this was.
• I found the whole paragraph on the vote in Alabama confusing (the one starts with On May 5, 1964, voters in Alabama voted by a five-to-one margin for a slate of unpledged electors controlled by Wallace...). It is in a section called Primaries, but it is not in the table of Primaries or in the talk page data. I assume it is some sort of party caucus? Anyway it needs to be clarified and the sentence on the strategy is also a bit awkward.
• The Background section describes Johnson's reluctance to run, but the article never makes clear when / why he decided to run
• Should some mention of the party meetings other than primaries be made? How did the delegates from states without primaries get chosen?
• The lead mentions that Johnson went on to win the general election in a landslide - this needs to be in the article too.
• I think that the Wallace withdrawal is OK where it is now, but perhaps the section header could be something like "VP choice and Wallace withdrawal"?

Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I think several of the points have been taken care of. Let me address some here:

• The issues with the infobox and candidates have been solved in the best way I think we can. The candidate image in the Indiana primary just didn't feel right no matter how I played with it, so I left the map there instead since it adds something to the article. I'm looking for more information about the individual primaries, but I did allude to the details in New Hampshire with the new section entitled "The 'Bobby problem'". I'll put specific details of each race in there when I do some more digging for sources outside the raw data.
• I have no idea how the states that didn't hold primaries did their meetings. According to the book I'm reading by J. William Middendorf they appear to have been some form of caucus of local party people (he mentions at one point that it went so far as to have people worrying about traffic lights when they planned things out), but it really was an opaque process. The case of Alabama, I hope, is clearer the way it's phrased now. But there were no further details on the specifics in the books I have.
• As for the convention - I will probably move some of the detail in that section onto the article about the convention. As the article alludes to, the splitting of the convention and the primary wasn't complete at this point, so for example, the Goldwater campaign's original plan was to take control of the party delegations and skip primaries altogether. But some of the stuff (e.g. "Hello, Lyndon!") really doesn't belong here.

I'll post a follow-up when I have more information. Recognizance (talk) 22:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the 1968 Democratic primary page and wonder if two things could be done with the infobox. First, the states carried parameter could be added and it could be "x (of 16)" to make it clearer that only 16 states had primaries. The second idea I had was to list "Favorite son (stand in for Lyndon Johnson)" and perhaps have a photo collage with percent and states carried - this would make it clearer that Johnson got a higher percentage of the votes and carried more states than it seems at first. Hoep this helps, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)