Talk:Matthew Cox

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Good article Matthew Cox has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on April 9, 2007.
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Contents

[edit] GA on hold

I have placed this nomination on hold for two to seven days. There will soon appear additional notes and issues as well as a mock review for you to reference. Very interesting article, btw. Thanks for your patience. IvoShandor 08:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Issues/notes

  • Prose etc.
  • Remove bolding in article text, except for the first mention of his name in the lead.
  • Watch for redundancies, the very first sentence contains one: Matthew Bevan Cox (born July 2, 1969), commonly known as Matthew Cox, also sometimes known as Matthew B. Cox and Matt Cox, is an American convicted felon and con man who has been convicted of conspiracy and grand theft.
  • Make sure the lead represents a succinct summary able to stand alone per WP:LEAD, especially with expansion.
  • Try not to use ambiguous terms such as: Authorities (be specific)
  • Structure
  • Suggest coming up with a better title for "Similarities between unpublished novel and actual life"
  • See second broadness comment.
  • The hypenated asides are kind of distracting.
  • Copy edit for awkward wording, examples follow (look at the bold):
  • Cox fraudulently obtained vary from $5 million,[1] to over $15 million,[4] to potentially upwards of $25 million.
  • News broadcasts aired showing photos of Cox and Hauck, and requesting viewers to provide information as to their whereabouts.
  • Shortly thereafter, Cox mortgaged several properties on two houses in a few days in Columbia, South Carolina
  • Just all around awkward: The week that Hauck was sentenced to prison, Cox, who at the time was living in Nashville, Tennessee under the name Joseph Carter, narrowly escaped arrest again.
  • To chatty: To begin with, there are physical similarities.
  • Broadness
  • "Early life" section is kind of stubby.
  • To really cover all major aspects there should be something more about the two year manhunt/investigation. What agencies were involved? What was the big break? Why didn't they catch him before? What put them onto him? etc. This also comes back to structure, try to organize the article better so its coverage is more well represented.
  • Any current info? Where is he held at? etc. (as such becomes available)
  • NPOV?
  • NPOV?: He was so bold in these activities that he even took out one mortgage in the name of "C. Montgomery Burns", in an homage to The Simpsons television character
  • NPOV?: Cox escaped capture this time due to a chance series of events (are we sure it wasn't planned?)
  • NPOV?: was finally arrested by a half dozen
  • References
  • Being subject to WP:BLP make sure you go over this article thoroughly for any additional assertions that need citation, here are a couple examples:
  • At this point, due to remorse and anxiety, Arnold called the FBI and confessed. She was sentenced to two years in prison for numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft.
  • After filing false documents that indicated he owned the home, Cox took out several mortgages on the property in the amount of several hundred thousand dollars.
  • She was sentenced to two years in prison for numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft.
  • Arnold called the FBI and confessed

That's all I have for now. If I were to conduct the review today it would look something like the following.IvoShandor 08:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] If the Good article review were now

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is well written.
    a (prose): b (structure): c (MoS): d (jargon):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (inline citations): c (reliable): d (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Pass/Fail:
    a Well written:
    b Factually accurate:
    c Broad in coverage:
    d NPOV:
    e Stable:
    f Images:
    g Overall:

If the article failed the nomination, the comments below will help in addressing the problems. Once these tasks are accomplished, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, please feel free to take it to a GA review. You can see how I, personally, applied the six criteria above at this link. I sincerely thank you for your work so far.

If your article passed the nomination, congratulations on making Wikipedia all the better. Your contributions are greatly appreciated. If you didn't know there is a groovy user box, {{User Good Articles}}, for those users who have significantly contributed to a good article. The "essay" linked above is also how the criteria are applied to passing articles as well. Thanks again for your hard work.

Review by: IvoShandor

[edit] Comments

I copied the comments down below and will cross some of them out as I get to them,

  • Prose etc.
  • Remove bolding in article text, except for the first mention of his name in the lead.
Incorrect as to the bolding, see MOS:BOLD all of the names in bold redirect to the page, perhaps some of the recirects are unecessary such as the last woman. In general if you read the sources he is referred to be yseveral varations of his name even in news stories. Quadzilla99 09:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I read that and didn't see anything about redirects, I saw this: In the first paragraph of any article, put the article name and any synonyms (including acronyms) in boldface. Thus the names are fine, which is what I meant but the women's names are unnecesarily bolded. IvoShandor 09:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay. Quadzilla99 09:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Watch for redundancies, the very first sentence contains one: Matthew Bevan Cox (born July 2, 1969), commonly known as Matthew Cox, also sometimes known as Matthew B. Cox and Matt Cox, is an American convicted felon and con man who has been convicted of conspiracy and grand theft.
Fixed good eye.
  • Make sure the lead represents a succinct summary able to stand alone per WP:LEAD, especially with expansion.
What is left out? I think it summarizes the events fairly well. Quadzilla99 09:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
This is kind of a catch all reminder thing. IvoShandor 09:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Try not to use ambiguous terms such as: Authorities (be specific)
The sources don't list a specific agency:[1][2]
I see, well if you find it . . . IvoShandor 09:22, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Structure
  • Suggest coming up with a better title for "Similarities between unpublished novel and actual life"
I changed but I'm not very happy with it. "Comparison to fictional character"
Perhaps something simple like "Novel," you do say he was an aspiring novelist in the lead. Seems apt. IvoShandor 09:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • See second broadness comment.
  • The hypenated asides are kind of distracting.
They're all grammatically correct, that's a personal preference. Quadzilla99 09:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Grammatically correct they may be, but I was speaking as a reader, which most users of Wikipedia are. IvoShandor 09:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Copy edit for awkward wording, examples follow (look at the bold):
  • Cox fraudulently obtained vary from $5 million,[1] to over $15 million,[4] to potentially upwards of $25 million.
Tweaked, have a look. Quadzilla99 09:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Much better wording, I wonder if we need to use over and more than back to back like that though. IvoShandor 09:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • News broadcasts aired showing photos of Cox and Hauck, and requesting viewers to provide information as to their whereabouts.
How would you word that? Quadzilla99 09:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
News broadcasts showed photos of Cox and Hauck and requested that viewers provide any information as to their whereabouts. Maybe something like that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by IvoShandor (talk • contribs) 09:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC).
Done. Quadzilla99 09:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Shortly thereafter, Cox mortgaged several properties on two houses in a few days in Columbia, South Carolina
That's just a gaffe. Should be "filed several mortgages on two houses" Quadzilla99 09:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Just all around awkward: The week that Hauck was sentenced to prison, Cox, who at the time was living in Nashville, Tennessee under the name Joseph Carter, narrowly escaped arrest again.
Re-worded. Quadzilla99 09:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • To chatty: To begin with, there are physical similarities.
I kind of liked it, maybe it's not really necessary of course now the next sentence might not flow out of the previous one. Quadzilla99 09:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
If you can find a manageable way to merge it into the next sentence . . . IvoShandor 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Broadness
  • "Early life" section is kind of stubby.
That's all the info there is about him at the moment. He's only been the subject of newspaper stories and if I hadn't stumbled upon two weeks he probably wouldn't even have an article. Quadzilla99 10:47, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Alright that's okay then, see if anything turns up in the future. IvoShandor 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • To really cover all major aspects there should be something more about the two year manhunt/investigation. What agencies were involved? What was the big break? Why didn't they catch him before? What put them onto him? etc. This also comes back to structure, try to organize the article better so its coverage is more well represented.
Comment I'll try to fill that out but there's not really much info as of yet. Even though there are alot of the sources, they're mostly news stories that often repeat the same things and most investigations as you probably know are kept secret. The investigators interviewed talked almost solely about him. There is some info I can add he was on the Secret Service Most Wanted list (the Secret Service has it's own most wanted list, similar to the FBI list, for criminals that committ fraud and identity theft), he was caught after the babysitter saw him on their website. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough. Quadzilla99 10:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Whatever you have that is relevant, for GA, it should at least touch on all major aspects, may be just a paragraph or whatever but it's there to fulfill the broadness criteria and makes it easy for future editors to add information as well. Sometimes I will include pertinent sections of only a paragraph or two to make sure I touch on everything. IvoShandor 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I'll try to add new information, I don't think a new section is a good idea though. I would incorporate it into the text. Quadzilla99 07:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Any current info? Where is he held at? etc. (as such becomes available)
Comment All the source says is he was in an Atlanta courtroom when plead out:[3] It doesn't have the prison name and I don't want to guess. A good wording would be "He is currently is Fulsom County prison..." but I don't know that. Quadzilla99 10:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Fulsom County indeed. Heh. Does the State of Georgia's Corrections Dept (or Federal Corrections if he is in Fed custody, which it seems he would be) have a database of some sort. I know the Illinois Department of Corrections does, might be worth a bit searching for. IvoShandor 07:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Coming up blank so far:[4] I'll keep looking. Quadzilla99 07:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I think he's here, but that search should have found him if he was. Quadzilla99 07:50, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Must be in the custody of whatever state he went to trial in, Tennessee? Georgia? Florida? Hmmm. IvoShandor 09:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • NPOV?
  • NPOV?: He was so bold in these activities that he even took out one mortgage in the name of "C. Montgomery Burns", in an homage to The Simpsons television character
Sourced. Quadzilla99 09:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe, but if its POV in the source we don't want that I would assume.
I'll think of another way to say it the pooint is he was brazen and the women he worked often said that he did things in a brazen way. Quadzilla99 09:28, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah I knew your point, I like to discuss these things, thats why I put the ? after NPOV. IvoShandor 09:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
My main point is that this sentence (minus the bold and add the parenthetical): Cox even went so far as to tell (told) co-workers of the novel and elaborate on the novel's details easily speaks for itself how brazen this guy was, there is really no need to qualify it. IvoShandor 10:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Same with the Simpsons one. IvoShandor 10:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
On second thought, I think those two verbiages are fine giving the events, I'm re-inserting them. Hate to do it, but we are allowed to use appropriate descriptive terms, I think we go too far some times in limiting them. Quadzilla99 09:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
  • went so far as to tell: Is not an apt descriptor, the facts can speak for themselves there is no need to formulate an opinion for Wikipedia about Matthew Cox, that's what this does, it accomplishes the same thing as saying he told coworkers, the fact that this is crazy speaks for itself. IvoShandor 02:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
It is possible to describe the facts without descending into POV. IvoShandor 02:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that it's POV, we're allowed to use appropriate descriptive terms, see FAs like Leo Ornstein, among other where descriptive terms are used where necessary. There's no need to get upset. Quadzilla99 02:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Wow, I came across as upset? Sorry, I certainly wasn't. IvoShandor 02:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
A misunderstanding then, I'll try to get quotes to express what I want to express it read very dryly in the former wording. Quadzilla99 02:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
  • NPOV?: Cox escaped capture this time due to a chance series of events (are we sure it wasn't planned?)
No read the source, his home was burglarized and he moved the family to a hotel for a couple of days when he returned they were waiting for him. Quadzilla99 09:23, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I am just saying, he is a con man. IvoShandor 09:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay this time he had no heads up. Quadzilla99 09:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • NPOV?: was finally arrested by a half dozen
Removed finally. Quadzilla99 09:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • References
  • Being subject to WP:BLP make sure you go over this article thoroughly for any additional assertions that need citation, here are a couple examples:
  • At this point, due to remorse and anxiety, Arnold called the FBI and confessed. She was sentenced to two years in prison for numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft.
Sourced, she was interviewed in source 1. Quadzilla99 10:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • After filing false documents that indicated he owned the home, Cox took out several mortgages on the property in the amount of several hundred thousand dollars.
Done. Quadzilla99 10:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • She was sentenced to two years in prison for numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud and identity theft.
Done. Quadzilla99 10:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Arnold called the FBI and confessed
Done, see above.

That's all I have for now. If I were to conduct the review today it would look something like the following.IvoShandor 08:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

Incidentally, it wouldn't hurt to break the lead into a couple paragraphs, large blocks of text are kind of daunting to some. IvoShandor 10:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I put a break in the first para, kind of arbitrary though. There could be a better way to split the lead up. Quadzilla99 01:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA pass

I am passing this article as I believe it meets the GA criteria. Good work and expand as possible. I went ahead and removed the bold from the women's name per the above comments, I figured you just forgot. Good luck in the future. : ) IvoShandor 12:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the review I'll put the disputed text into quote form as recommended above. Quadzilla99 12:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good. And no problem, I just like to be thorough. As FAs should be exemplary, GA should mean something a little extra special. Nice job. IvoShandor 13:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article review

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (inline citations): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
  7. Pass/Fail:
    a Well written:
    b Factually accurate:
    c Broad in coverage:
    d NPOV:
    e Stable:
    f Images:
    g Overall:

If the article failed the nomination, the comments below will help in addressing the problems. Once these tasks are accomplished, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, please feel free to take it to a GA review. You can see how I, personally, applied the six criteria above at this link. I sincerely thank you for your work so far.

If your article passed the nomination, congratulations on making Wikipedia all the better. Your contributions are greatly appreciated. If you didn't know there is a groovy user box, {{User Good Articles}}, for those users who have significantly contributed to a good article. The "essay" linked above is also how the criteria are applied to passing articles as well. Thanks again for your hard work.

Review by: IvoShandor

IvoShandor 13:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Just in case you wanted to know, I posted the "review" above, the lone no vote for major aspects is only because a few bits of info are missing, i.e. his prison. Just find that noted above and this is fine too, not a major enough issue to halt passing. IvoShandor 13:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review — kept

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Ruslik 09:04, 27 September 2007 (UTC)