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Latest comment: 19 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Isn't the photo used a bit too obviously propagandist? He looks mean and "in-your-face" and grumpy. Isn't this just a very basic, a very crude way of immediately portraying him as a villain?
I'd think the article- or the man's works themselves- would do a proper job of displaying him for, well, himself. Having an unflattering picture, while it works on "the plebs", will have the opposite effect on the sort of people who might actually bother reading him.
How about finding a neutral picture? Something that doesn't bias the reader one way or the other?
(Sorry if my editing isn't proper; I very, very, very rarely engage in this sort of thing)
Latest comment: 3 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
In the article, it states that "Irving's affairs caused his first marriage to end in divorce in 1981." - but there is no citation. I think this should be removed as per WP:BLP. 45.178.73.82 (talk) 21:02, 8 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't think the problem is as great as you lay out. The article is written well, and covers a lot of territory with appropriate detail. 156 kb isn't outlandishly big. WP:TOOBIG says "the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material."
The GA version in 2011 contained block quotes, too. The block quotes convey a great deal of information including Irving's deeply hateful tone, which would disappear if summarized.
@Binksternet: Sorry I did not respond to this sooner: I missed it on my watchlist. Responses below
I do not think the scope of this topic can justify the length: if there were already attempts to spin out the article, I could agree with this, but this article has not done so yet so I do not think all of this information should stay here.
Regarding block quotes: WP:NOR says we should not be making interpretations of the work. Instead, Wikipedia should be presenting what secondary sources have said about the topic. If the block quotes "convey a great deal of information including Irving's deeply hateful tone" then it should be presented from secondary sources. Also, direct quotes might bring copyright concerns if done too often, which is why I recommend using them sparingly and summarising the information instead.
Do whatever you think is right. I think the GAR process will unnecessarily waste the community's time. For 14 years now, the article has contained a bunch of blockquotes. In 2010, the peer-reviewed version had 1,162 words worth of blockquotes. The previous GAR attempt (archived at Talk:David Irving/GA2) was a biased attempt to whitewash the article resulting in affirmation of the GA status. The article has been improved bit by bit for more than a decade, and represents standing consensus on the topic. I don't think a new GAR is necessary. Binksternet (talk) 22:50, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply