Talk:2023 Rutgers University strike

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:2023 Rutgers University strike/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 21:17, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:17, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

The only image is appropriately licensed. Earwig finds no issues; sources are reliable.

• "demanding the principle of equal pay for equal work": they weren't demanding the principle, surely; they were actually demanding equal pay for work, I would think.
• "the unions asserted their right to resume work stoppage": this might be an American English usage, but I would have thought this should be either "to resume work stoppages" or "to resume the work stoppage".
• "The first strike overall occurred in January 1987": suggest "A strike by 2,800 non-teaching faculty members in January 1987 had ended after ..." to avoid the need for "overall" and to make it clear to the reader earlier in the sentence why this is not the same as the strike of the academics this year.
• Not a problem for GA, but just to make sure you're aware, there's no requirement to add cites to the lead in most cases. Everything in the lead should be in the body, and cited there, so most editors don't bother to cite in the lead as well. Up to you; it's not relevant to this nomination.
• "This ignited concerns of job security among the faculty at Rutgers, along with the requirement for adjunct professors to re-apply to their job every semester." As written this says the lay-off ignited the requirement. I think you want something like "Along with a requirement for adjunct professors to re-apply to their job every semester, this ignited concerns of job security among the faculty at Rutgers".
• "Over 94% of faculty members belonging to the unions involved voted to authorize the strike": this immediately makes me ask what fraction of the faculty did in fact belong to the union. And was it 94% of the faculty members belonging to the union, or 94% of those who voted?
• "The strike runs concurrent with six other strikes at colleges occurring across the country, most notably strikes at three Illinois universities": wrong tense, and why is this relevant anyway?
• "Union leaders argued that graduate students were being paid just over $30,000 per year": I would rephrase; they didn't have to argue this -- presumably it was an uncontested fact.
• "The offer provided by Rutgers, where a wage increase would only occur in the third and fourth years of their contract, was deemed by the unions as unacceptable." I think it would be better to give the Rutgers offer declaratively at the start of the sentence, then give the unions' response, rather than embed the details of the offer in a sentence about its rejection.
• "of which the administration provided varying, non-specific offers": "of which" is an odd usage, and "varying, non-specific offers" is very vague. Presumably the university's offers were vague too, but the article is short and I think we could give a little more detail than this.
• "Holloway warned taking legal action to break the strike if no movement towards an agreement could be made": looks like a verb or conjunction is missing?
• 'New Jersey governor Phil Murphy requested for union officials and university administrators to meet at his office in Trenton, calling for them "to meet in my office tomorrow to have a productive dialogue."' "Requested for" is ungrammatical, and do we need Murphy's words? It says little more than the first half of the sentence already says.

I think the article needs a fair bit of copyediting, though it's not that far from GA. I'm going to pause and do some source spotchecks, and assuming those go OK will come back to the prose after you've dealt with the points above. I would suggest going through the rest of the article and looking for similar issues. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Spotchecks. Footnote numbers refer to this version:

• FN 36 cites "Murphy's intervention in the strike was seen as unique as other prominent university strikes, such as the 2022 University of California strike, did not result in executive interference." Unique can mean very unusual, but I don't think this source supports that -- the only relevant source text just says Newsom didn't get involved, not that it was unusual in any way. And I don't think we can justify "interference" -- the article doesn't refer to it as interference.
• FN 50 cites "Some unions continued to picket after the strike's conclusion, demanding more demands for graduate students be met." Please rephrase "demanding more demands"; but the source doesn't support this. The only mention of graduate students is that two are quoted, but neither one says that the unmet demands relate to graduate students.
• FN 19 cites "Over 94% of faculty members belonging to the unions involved voted to authorize the strike." I checked this one because of my comment above about it; this one is verified.
• FN 28 cites "Other demands raised by the unions included the deletion of any language from contracts allowing for raises to be cancelled as a result of "financial emergencies," extended parental leave, rent freezes on campus student housing, and loan forgiveness for some students." I don't see anything about the "financial emergencies".
• FN 38 cites "His suggestion to use state funding to help end the strike ignited controversy and accusations of favoritism among lawmakers." This doesn't really support favoritism -- I think this must be relying on "How do you start picking one over the other? How do you make it that one deserves more attention than the other?" but that only says there's a danger of favoritism, not that anyone accused Murphy of favoritism for suggesting using state funding for Rutgers.

I'm going to go ahead and fail this; it's borderline, but the spotchecks are finding problems, and it really does need a copyedit as well. I would recommend checking all the sources to make sure there are no other imprecisions in the source-text integrity, and then renominating. If you'd been waiting a long time for the review I might leave it open to be worked on, but by chance I picked it up just a few hours after you nominated it. Best of luck with the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, no worries, I will do copy-editing on the article before I submit it again. Is there a set amount of time I am recommended to wait before renominating, or should I just submit it once I have reviewed every section of the article? I'm going to take a week or so to go-over the article either way. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 02:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

There's no minimum; when you're sure you've fixed everything go ahead and renominate. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Images used

@Technocactus, I appreciate you uploading more media on the strike, and I'm glad you came to the strike and took photographs. However, I removed some of the images you uploaded. According to MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE, images should be depictions that clearly represent their subjects. The black and white images you uploaded are of artistic quality, but they are difficult to see and their lack of color detracts from their purpose of demonstrating the strike.

In the future, please discuss in the talk page before removing the lead image of any article if said image was uploaded as the own work of another editor out of courtesy. Replacing images without discussion would be only be appropriate if the existing lead image is used without permission or said image is of poor, un-encyclopedic quality. I retained an image of protestors outside The Yard, but it might be removed as diverse geographical depictions are usually recommended- if you have any color photographs of campuses outside of College Avenue (such as picketing in Busch or Livingston), I'm sure it would be greatly appreicated. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 18:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Duly noted. That makes sense! Technocactus (talk) 19:51, 21 April 2023 (UTC)