Talk:Ahmed Khadr/GA1

GA review of Ahmed Said Khadr

I'm currently looking into issues revolving around presenting all facts available, to avoid the perception of POV. This may take a couple days. Further time should be spent sifting through sources carefully, as everyone has a POV to share on the issue of terrorism. I'm finding facts that may need to be verified, and if OK, mentioned somehow (details to be worked out later). Note that I'm not saying these particular references must be added; instead I'm saying that time needs to be spent digging for and verifying similar:

• • TITLE 31 -- MONEY AND FINANCE: TREASURY
  • SUBTITLE B -- REGULATIONS RELATING TO MONEY AND FINANCE
  • CHAPTER V -- OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
  • PART 597 -- FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS SANCTIONS REGULATIONS
  • PART I -- PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT
  • APPENDICES TO CHAPTER V

  • Appendix A TO CHAPTER V--ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF BLOCKED PERSONS, SPECIALLY DESIGNATED NATIONALS, SPECIALLY DESIGNATED TERRORISTS, SPECIALLY DESIGNATED GLOBAL TERRORISTS, FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS, AND SPECIALLY DESIGNATED NARCOTICS TRAFFICKERS (as of April 10, 2008): [Part 1 of 6]

  • AL-KADR, Ahmad Sa'id (a.k.a. AL-KANADI, Abu Abd Al-Rahman); DOB 01 Mar 1948; POB Cairo, Egypt (individual) [SDGT]

On October 12 [2003] the Islamic Observation centre in London issued a statement that two Canadians were among the dead, Ahmed Khadr and a fourteen-year old it identified as his son, Abdul Karim. The statement called Khadr by his alias, Abu Abd al-Rahman Al Kanadi, and said he was a founding member of al Qaeda.

• • Abu Abdurahman Khadr al-Kanadi

• • Bell, Stewart. (2004). Cold Terror: How Canada and Exports Terrorism around the World. Canada: John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd. p. 186

• "senior Al-Qaida lieutenant Ahmad Saedd Khadr (aka Abdel Rahman Al-Kanadi), considered to be a highly influential figure in the international terrorist financing network..."

  • Progress Since 9/11: The Effectiveness of the U.S. Anti-terrorist Financing Efforts : Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Eighth Congress, First Session, March 11, 2003 By United States Congress. House. Committee on Financial Services. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, United States, Committee on Financial Services, United States, Congress, House Published by U.S. G.P.O., 2003181 pages; p. 109

• Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 01:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, the first part we already mention and even have a Wikisource link to the source document you name, second point should be covered already under "death", as we deal with the "uncertainty" of initial reports of his death - and the third part about his being a "highly influential figure" I think we cover it the opening explaining specifically the accusations from Canada, and from England/United Nations. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 02:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Good, I'll look at what you mentioned... I'll also continue looking for further info. The point is this: if this were an article on trees or flowers I would check for MOS etc. and PASS. Since it's so controversial, it would be very irresponsible of me if I didn't make at least some Good faith effort to check for POV, omissions, etc. Thanks for your patience. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 03:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem, I'm a tad OCD on the issue, so I definitely welcome poking around for new sources or facts not included in the article; I've searched several databases and search engines, in several languages, gone to newspaper morgues and otherwise tried to hit on every possible source I could find for this - but I'd love to see new ones unearthed; I'm certainly not perfect. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 03:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

What does OCD mean? Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 03:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Obsessive-Compulsive Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 03:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

refs need more than a little work

Your refs need more than a little work. They are inconsistently and incorrectly formatted. For example, see ref #50, labeled " Federal Court of Canada, Reasons for denial of bail to Mohamed Harka". Two big problems:

1. It should be properly cited using case citation. I have no experience in legal cites, but I'm sure if you poke around the various wikiprojects you can find someone who is. As far as I can see, however, it should probably look something like this:

   Harkat v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2005 FC 1740. Federal Court of Canada, (December 30, 2005).

2. It is not related to denial of bail; it is a dismissal of an application for judicial release from detention. I suppose you might add that after the (December 30, 2005) bit, just to clarify.

I'm not gonna kill you by making you clean things up too much for GA status, but you're on the Honor System that you'll fix everything carefully before even considering moving this over into WP:FAC. I may be watching ;-) Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 06:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem, I'll try to fix those things slowly over time - I also noticed I occasionally have the references in mixed order. "Jack is a large man[13][7]", where I think MoS suggests making sure they're in numeric order - so I fixed a couple of those today, will hunt down the others. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 06:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Ref#12, " Michelle Shephard, 'Guantanamo's Child', 2008" is cited 51 times. I would not be surprised if that is a record for Wikipedia. Again, I'm not gonna hold up GA for this, but you might wanna spread all those cites across different refs that have the same info. Moreover, that ref is again incomplete. I'll see if i can fix it... Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 06:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I was torn at the time, because I agree it is quite "overwhelming", but with both this article and Omar Khadr, given their "controversial" facts, I tried to provide two sources for every cited fact, rather than just one. I see that the GC book is used thus four times in this article and twelve times in OK; would it be better to remove those four citations and rely on single references which appear more suspect, or leave them intact? Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 07:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

IMO, it's better to leave a more reliable source intact. If you go through FAC, the less reliable sources will probably be dinged as being questionable. Do you have other reliable sources for the info? If so, then try to spread it around a little. If not, then... maybe you're a little stuck. There's certainly no rule against using 51 cites for the same ref; it just looks... somehow... as if the entire article were drawn from one source. It almost certainly isn't a deal-breaker, but it's awkward. That's my opinion, anyhow. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 07:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)

There are two kinds of overlinking (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)), and I think I see examples of both of them in this article:

1. The first is linking to completely irrelevant, low-value topics. I see link to folding chair and [[abandonment|abandoned building]] that are extremely clear examples of this problem; folding chairs have absolutely nothing to do with Ahmed Said Khadr. See if you can find others of the same type. The second is linking too often to the same things; read the MOS link to find more about this.
2. I saw at least two "Easter egg" links (the ongoing battles and their in-fighting). An easter egg link is one in which the descriptive text doesn't adequately explain the link, so the viewer is surprised upon clicking it.

• Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 07:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Images

Oh. I'm a bit out of my depth here, but I see potential licensing problems. You're saying that some of them were released by the Khadr family, and some by Zaynab Khadr? You will probably need WP:OTRS tickets for all of these. I'll see if i can find someone to verify that... Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 08:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Echoing that Ling is correct. Unless there is a website or other online way of verifying the permission was allowed for free use, OTRS will be needed. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 11:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

OTRS problem solved. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 22:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Prose

• The prose needs buffing up as well. See for example this paragraph:

In January 1988, Maha returned to Toronto with Omar to look after Ibrahim so her parents could visit relatives in the Middle East. He became sick during the visit, and was rushed to Centenary Hospital and later to Hospital for Sick Children where he was pronounced brain dead the following morning.[12] A couple of years later Ahmed found The Adventures of Tintin, a favourite book of his childhood, at an Islamabad marketplace. The younger Khadrs developed a love of the series, and Omar would often quote the Captain Haddock character, eliciting laughter from the family.

The pronoun "he" in the second sentence would logically refer to Maha, who is female. It took me two readings to decide that "he" is probably "Ibrahim". More importantly, the "tintin" anecdote, while appealing, is not only completely unrelated to the sentences in the paragraph, it is in fact basically unrelated to Ahmed Said Khadr. It might belong in an article about Omar, I suppose.

Good catch on the first one, fixed it. Rephrased the second one as well. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 22:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• The entire article needs at least one (preferably more than one) thorough copy edit for cohesion etc. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 08:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

2nd opinion

Pardon me for jumping in, but I will have to echo Ling Nut's assessment. The article is in need of someone to copyedit from start to finish. It reads now a bit like an assortment of facts, almost a list, instead of an essay. In particular, there's a lot of material in this article that is not really useful. For example:

"During one of the visits back to Toronto, on July 6, 1985, Maha gave birth to the couple's fourth child, Ibrahim. Diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, he was transferred to the city's Hospital for Sick Children for surgery. Three months later, the family returned to Peshawar." My assessment: so what happened to the child? If he died, say so. If not, the incident is not important enough for the article.

In January 1988, Maha returned to Toronto with Omar to look after Ibrahim so her parents could visit relatives in the Middle East. He became sick during the visit, and was rushed to Centenary Hospital and later to Hospital for Sick Children where he was pronounced brain dead the following morning - the story is wrapped up, the fourth child died of his congenital heart defect. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 22:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

"Ignoring the arguments of Azzam Tamimi, an Islamic academic living in Bahrain at the time, Ahmed insisted that he had no intentions of helping to fight the Soviets, only of helping the victims of the invasion." My assessment: what were those arguments? I don't think they are important to the story, and the paragraph would work without that leading clause.

I think in fairness, delving into Tamimi's arguments would stray off-topic, it's suffice to say he disagreed with Khadr, and readers can click through to his article to learn more. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 22:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I deleted most of a paragraph in the very beginning where Khadr recollects a story his father told him about meeting Khadr's mother. This is way off topic, and is distracting since it appears near the very start of the article.

Anyway, there's a seocnd opinion, Madman (talk) 04:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

GA fail

• After long thought, I have decided to fail this GA nom, at least for this attempt. I really do hope you will address the concerns offered in various sections above this one, and renominate this article. It is very obvious that a huge amount of work has already been put into it.
• The image licensing issues are deal-breakers, as per WP:WIAGA.
• A final note: in the first section above, I offered a quote about Khadr's death. The dedicated editor responded that the topic of Khadr's death had already been adequately covered. However, this misses the main point of the quote: A radical organization explicitly stated that Khadr was a founding member of al Qaeda. This issue must be addressed. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 06:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• • Image licensing has been confirmed through OTRS system
  • Not sure I understand which "radical group" claimed he was a founding member of al-Qaeda; the US State Department or the United Nations? Both are already extensively covered in the article... Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 05:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)