Talk:Rogue Chocolatier

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Rogue Chocolatier/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Rollinginhisgrave (talk · contribs) 12:06, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 00:53, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Reviewing. The nominator is already a very experienced GA reviewer, and at a first glance the article appears to meet the GA standards for prose quality, MOS guidelines, overall quality of sourcing, depth of coverage, and neutrality. As an article about a defunct company, promotionalism is not a serious concern, and despite being a very new article there does not appear to be any likely stability issue. The logo image is tagged PD on commons (correctly, I believe); it should be categorized but is otherwise unproblematic. The image of a chocolate wrapper or wrapped bar has a valid fair use rationale per WP:NFCC, and is properly captioned.

Re source reliability: I think the Alicia Kennedy newsletter and Giller Chocolate Noise blog can be justified under WP:EXPERTSPS. The Gastronomica source is reliable, but because its link is on wordpress it is tagged by a script as needing scrutiny; the wordpress site is by the author of the article so it is ok with no copyvio concerns. The formatting of footnote [10] (Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute) is inconsistent; why does that one have the full reference in the footnote while all the other footnotes are short pointers to sources? That leaves the Silvasy-Neale Chocolate Clinic blog as the only one whose reliability I am unconvinced of. Can you convince me that Silvasy-Neale counts as a recognized expert or find other sources for the material from that source?

Earwig found a fairly high level of copying (53.4%), particularly from the eater.com source (28.6%), but inspecting the details found that much of it was from properly marked quotes, paraphrases of quotes properly described as such, proper noun phrases, and the title of a reference. Although some short set phrases were repeated, there was not enough of a pattern of the same main ideas in the same order to call it close paraphrasing. I didn't see anything that needed cleanup in this respect.

More detailed source check to come. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:53, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

More detailed reading and source check

A more detailed reading found that, disappointingly, the close paraphrasing hinted at by Earwig was actually a serious problem. I would have expected someone with so many GA reviews to know much better.

"Its name was a misnomer; it was a chocolate maker rather than chocolatier": I think this is a misreading of source [3], which says "There’s no mistaking these chocolate makers for traditional chocolatiers". Here, the source is saying that they're not traditional, as chocolatiers. It is not saying that they are not chocolatiers at all, nor that it is the wrong word to call them. The fact that the source uses both "chocolate makers" and "chocolatiers" here can be ascribed to elegant variation rather than an intentional distinction of meaning.

"In 2006, a boss from a Minneapolis Whole foods where Gasko worked selling cheese taught him how to make rolled truffles or ganache": [1] says Whole foods, ganache, but no Minnesota cheese or truffles. [2] says 2006, Minneapolis, and rolled truffles. [4] says cheese. Anyway, rolled truffles and ganache are related (you make rolled truffles by rolling thick ganache in cocoa powder) but not the same thing. I do not like the word "or" here, as it implies that the boss taught him only one of these two things but we are not sure which one. I think "rolled truffles and ganache" might be a more accurate reading of the combination of sources.

"He learnt about chocolate making by reading technical manuals, experimentation and discussions with industry figures.": problematic close paraphrasing missed in my scan with Earwig. The sentence in source [5] is "He learned everything he knows by experimenting, reading industrial manuals and talking to people in the industry.", almost the same. Also, why are we using British spellings ("learnt") for an article about an American?

"Between 2015 and 2016, Gasko developed a cacao quality screening method with anthropologist Carla Martin and coffee grading instructor Jamin Haddox.": [10] is a primary source, and this material appears to be off-topic (it is not about Rogue Chocolatier).

"saying a minimal positive social impact was outweighed by a large environmental impact": not in source [4]. "saddened that the message he had been attempting to communicate in producing his chocolate had not been as widely received as expected": nothing about attempting to communicate a message in source [4].

"Profiles of Gasko described his approach to chocolate as intellectual": not in [2]. And [1] describes Gasko as intellectual, but not really in the context of his approach to chocolate.

"He was characterized as passionate, focused and giving great attention to details": [2] sources only attention to detail.

"Cocoa beans were sorted by hand to remove debris (such as sticks, rocks) and germinated seeds. They were roasted in a convection oven, cooled and then hulled using a machine Gasko had designed and built. The nibs were ground with cane sugar to a paste containing particles smaller than 20 microns. They were then conched for between one and three days, and then molded, cooled and packaged." Ok, Earwig didn't catch this one, but this entire passage really is problematic close paraphrasing. Steps of a sequential process are hard to describe in any other order but a lot of the wording and the details of each step are also described in almost the same words as source [2]. This part needs a ground-up rewrite. Also the passive voice may hide some of the copying but it is bad writing.

"Producing each batch of bars took at least 45 days, significantly longer than competitors,[2] with each individual bar requiring three days to make.[15]": I don't think this is an accurate reading of source [15], which says only that the whole process took three days without saying anything about making bars one bar at a time. This is in direct contradiction to source [2], which says 45 days. It could be explained as coming from different times in the development of his production process, but should not be rationalized as both somehow describing the same process.

"beans sourced from the north-west of Madagascar": almost an exact copy of the phrasing from source [8].

"A later bar was called the Hispaniola, a 75% cocoa chocolate named after the Caribbean island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic where the cocoa was sourced. Going further than usual with single-origin chocolate, the cocoa was entirely sourced to a single drying and fermentation on a small co-op." More close paraphrasing: going into this detail about what the name means was entirely copied from source [9].

"Other bars included Jamaica, Porcelana, Balao": Balao not in footnote [2].

"Sambirano": source says Sambriano. Is this a typo in the source, or did Rogue really call it the Sambriano?

"The chocolates were expensive, the Jamaica bar for example retailed for US$18 in 2015.": please fix the comma splice.

"Rogues chocolates were noted": missing apostrophe.

"Rogue was not as widely known as other bean-to-bar manufacturers such as Mast Brothers.": this comes across as out of place in this section. It is not an appraisal. Is it necessary to include this comparison at all?

Sherred [11]: archive link is blank.

Please address these, especially the close paraphrasing. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

David Eppstein, thankyou for this great review. Due to the holidays I'll only be able to address these points at the end of this week/early next week. Hope this is okay and I hope the Christmas period is treating you well. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 10:15, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Not a problem at all! I'll put the nomination on hold, not because there is any problem with the delay, but to prevent it from looking stale until you have time to get back to it. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:52, 27 December 2024 (UTC)