Talk:Fall of Mosul/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Parsecboy (talk · contribs) 19:30, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   Some grammar issues, for example:

   ...refers to blitz takeover of the city... - I'd also get rid of "blitz" - it's amateuristic in tone.

   Beside plans of reorganizing the military also arose, where there would be collaboration "between tribal leaders and the US military - there's something missing here, and I can't exactly tell what you mean to say.

   I'd rewrite the first couple of sentences to make clear that ISIS/ISIL captured the city

   The article uses both ISIL and ISIS - should be standardized to one or the other.

   Several duplicate links throughout the article - in general, terms should be linked on the first use and then not again. There's a script you can install to help you find them, in case you aren't aware of it.

   There seems to be extensive use of quotations when paraphrasing would be a better option - I'd rewrite just about all of them, excepting the quotations in the reactions section.

   I'd cut a lot of the links in the see also section - most of these are linked in the article or the two navigation templates.

   Check for WP:ENGVAR issues - I see "defence" and "neighbourhood" but also "neighboring" and "Armored"

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Parsecboy Hi, I have addressed the issues raised. RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি (talk) 09:37, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

There are some more issues, most of which were introduced in your recent changes - for instance, you changed the quoted line "death might avert an attack" to "death might provoke an attack". There are two problems with that change, the first being it changed the meaning to the direct opposite, and the second is that it's too closely paraphrased from the original text. Anything that was directly quoted from an article and now is no longer quoted needs to be completely rewritten with different words and sentence structure to avoid plagiarism problems.

There are also some issues with clarity: the line you rewrote to "hanged the soldiers and lit some of them" - I'd say "lit some of them on fire" for clarity. Also, this line: "though there were 2,500" - 2,500 what? Iraqi Army soldiers? Police?

Still problems with WP:ENGVAR that need to be addressed - the article should use one variety of English. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Parsecboy Hi, I have made the required edits. As of the English variety, I have changed the dates to the format accepted in British English. Please let me know if anymore of this problem persist. RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the English issue is still there. The article has "neighboring", which is the American spelling, and also "neighbourhood", which is the British spelling. I checked the initial version of the article, and it seems to only have American spellings, so the article should be standardized to American per WP:RETAIN. Parsecboy (talk) 11:57, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

There are also still issues with close paraphrasing. See for instance this line from this article:

"On 4 June, the police under Lieutenant General Mahdi Gharawi's command cornered the ISIL military leader Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi in Iraq."

Compared to the line from the source:

"On June 4, federal police in Mosul under Gharawi's command cornered Islamic State's military leader in Iraq, who blew himself up rather than surrendering"

You have to fundamentally rewrite the sentence so it has a different structure and word choices than the original. I haven't gone through the rest of the article, but I expect the same problem continues throughout. We've also gotten further from the correct meaning on the issue with al-Bilawi I mentioned above - now you have it written as though he blew himself up to prevent an ISIL attack on Mosul.

I think the best course of action at this point is to stop the GA review, as we're at a week now already, so you'll have time to work on these issues. You might also consider getting a peer review before coming back to GA. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Parsecboy, I have just completed a GOCE copy edit at the request of RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি. If you wish to reevaluate the prose issue, given that it passed all of the aspects of the review, it should be GA quality. Hampton11235 (talk) 16:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)