Wikipedia:Peer review/Liberalism/archive1

Liberalism

• 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 August 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article is at A-class according to the talk page - how can I bring it to featured status? Master&Expert (talk) 07:44, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The script has several useful items that need to be addressed. I have re-assessed the article, as it is not remotely close to A-class. It is severely lacking in citations, contains weasle words, extreme listiness in See also and Further reading, a rambling TOC, and needs significant WP:MOS cleanup. It will take a lot of work to bring this to WP:GA standard; I suggest using the tips at WP:FCDW/March 17, 2008 to locate other editors interested in collaborating in this content area. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:15, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

A few general remarks:

• I'm not sure how appropriate the Roman parts of the history section are. Without any academic references to back these statements up, I'm tempted to say that they don't make much sense. Aristotle has his own limited contribution to Liberalism, for example - one sentence in Livy or Marcus Aurelius doesn't say much. In short, get a reference to back this up.
• Cite the Oxford English Dictionary in a footnote in the paragraph about it.
• As it is currently written, the last section belongs in the "Development of thought" section, where most of the material here is repeated, in fact. Write a few very factual sentences on etymology and usage of the word and leave the historical notes for the development section.
• Please delete the whole trends section (well, move it to a sandbox or so). It is utterly confusing for the article structure, and parts of it are blatantly false or at least controversial enough to not merit inclusion without sources. The section equates political liberalism with individualism (no, it's not), and equates economic liberalism with classical liberalism, which is only makes some kind of sense from a modern American perspective. Moreover, most of it is redundant with the Development of thought section.
• The development of thought section is ok, but suffers from an utter lack of sources. There's some questionable statements in there which just need sourcing. Also, I think the current section could use a bit of structure.
• Subsequent sections are questionable.

... that's where I stopped reviewing and decided that I could better go and edit the article. I've got the sources in my bookcase here. :) User:Krator (t c) 09:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)