Talk:Kraków/Archive 3

Latest comment: 14 years ago by SilkTork in topic GA again?
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

stateuniversity.com

While I do think that the material which lies on the blacklisted source/ spam site is worth including, there needs to be a good source or it needs to remain as [citation needed]. There are four options here:

1) Leave things as they are, with a blacklisted source that fails verifiability standards
2) Remove the source and the material, something that I concede might be harsh
3) Remove the source, leaving the material uncited; I'd rather not, considering the article's quality
4) Remove the source and add '{fact}', which I did to allow someone else to verify

1 and 3 are not really good options to me, but I am open to dialogue. I am not a fan of spam, but I sincerely want to do what was best for the article. Stealthound (talk) 00:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

  • Please read again what the spam content guideline says. There are only two types of wikispam: advertisements masquerading as articles and external link spamming for the purpose of solicitations for a business. This is neither. The website in question is NOT being linked, and the page is being stripped of formatting, but regardless of that, verifiability has nothing to do with advertising. Information provided at the source is well developed and viable. You say, the website is blacklisted? By whom? By a pseudonymous user with an axe to grind? I don't know that? What I know is that the added link works fine against the wiki filter. That's all that matters really; besides, the actual info is not at all controversial. --Poeticbent talk 03:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
First off, I believe I was very civil in my post; questioning motives is a bit low. I'll cut to the chase:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2006/12#stateuniversity.com. This is the link to the blacklist - not personal, but sitewide. Please seek to assume good faith. Stealthound (talk) 23:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Please assume good faith on my part also. The external spamming described at the link to Wikimedia archives which you provided, and for which I'm thankful of course, was dealt with successfully over two years ago. The spam links, which were inserted repeatedly, at that time, by an anonymous dynamic IP from Orange City Broadband Services in New Dehli, India, never again became a problem. The system works. I'm glad to have it confirmed Stealthound. --Poeticbent talk 02:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

pronounciation

Working at the call centre of one Europe's leading lowcost airlines, I noticed that most Brits tend to pronounce the name like CRACK-ov or CRACK-off, resembling the original Polish pronounciation. It is mostly Polish people that pronounce it as the article suggests presumably because they were taught so. Wells' Pronounciation Dictionary also notes -ɒf as an alternative version. 85.221.209.245 (talk) 00:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

GA again?

Other then a few citation and clarification tags, all requests made in the last GA review have been addressed. If we can address the (few) tagged issues, we can renominate this article again... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Save for the major issues, like the naming, and concealing of the significant German and Austrian history of Krakau. -- Matthead  Discuß   02:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
what concealing? what are you talking about? Loosmark (talk) 09:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I've added links to Austrian partition and Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

All issues addressed, nominating. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I have not passed the article for GA. There is a bit of work to do on checking the statements and references. And there is some work to do on organising the material to give an appropriatly weighed overview of the city. In doing some work on this I am aware I am crossing over from reviewer to contributor, and I am also aware that there is still a bit to do. Fuller details here. Now that I have failed this, I will continue working on it to help bring it up to scratch. SilkTork *YES! 15:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Getting a new editor to help is much better then passing a review if the article is not ready :) Thanks for you help, could you explain in more detail what's wrong with the article as it is, so we can all help? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Yes. I do have an intention to work on this article, and I do apologise that I have been rather busy elsewhere recently. It seems that every time I log on there's an issue to be dealt with on my watchlist or on my talkpage and I can't get to the things I want to do!

The lead section is a summary of the topic and an overview of the article. As such in the first paragraph it needs to say what the topic is, and what are the main points of interest. The second paragraph would summarise the history. Then pick out the important sections of the article and summarise them. The first paragraph, for example, should mention that Krakow is a World Heritage Site; later in the lead (after the second paragraph) the Culture section, which mentions the World Heritage Site, should be summarised.

When working on complex topics such as a city with a big history, it can be difficult to achieve a good balance of material, and getting the lead right can be quite tricky. It's easy enough to say what needs to be done, but actually doing it can be hard. What are the main points about Krakow?

  • It is and was a capital city.
  • The historic centre is a World Heritage Site.
  • It was and is a major academic and cultural centre.
  • It is a popular tourist location.
  • It has a long history.
  • It is one of Poland's most important economic centres.

Agree which are the main points, then how they should be worded, and that becomes the first paragraph of the lead.

Next, trim some more of the history section.

Then, trim and make sense of the material I brought over in a simple cut and paste in the Culture section.

Look over the whole thing, make sure everything is properly referenced to working links.

That's my plan of action. And I will be working on this article on and off for the next two weeks to attend to these matters. I have, though, promised I would give Van Morrison my priority as that is currently going through a GA review which is revealing that more work needs to be done. Please keep in touch with me if anything is not clear. Regards SilkTork *YES! 18:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


GA Review

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

Starting review. SilkTork *YES! 15:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

A good article is—

  1. Well-written:
  2. (a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and
    (b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
  3. Verifiable with no original research:
  4. (a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
    (b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose); and
    (c) it contains no original research.
  5. Broad in its coverage:
  6. (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
    (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  7. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
  8. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  9. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
  10. (a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
    (b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Rather a lot of images. The initial impression is not good. The layout is too messy, cluttered and confused. Will fail 1(a) for layout.

Images are forced.

Structure follows guidelines apart from placing Etymology section at the start.

The History section is rather long.

This is a big subject, so reviewing this may take a little bit of time. I also note that there have been editing issues in the past, and there are signs of edit conflicts still in place.

I notice a variety of challengable statements uncited.

Kraków deserves to have a decent article, but I'm unsure from first impressions that what we have is quite there yet. I'll be taking a closer look later, but I suspect there is a fair amount of work to be done for a GA tag. SilkTork *YES! 19:02, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm making some simple edits to declutter the article. It was very busy with overlarge images of different sizes which was rather distracting. I notice that this issue has been brought up in at least one previous review. I've also moved Etymology as the City guidelines have an accepted layout of sections which works well. SilkTork *YES! 16:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


The Lead needs to be looked at to ensure it reflects the contents. And the History section needs trimming. If this is not addressed shortly, then I'll tackle it. SilkTork *YES! 16:08, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


I've been working on addressing some of the issues as I see them, though the more I work on this article the more that I see there is a fair amount of work to do (I noticed today some cite tags that needed sorting). I am getting to the point where I feel I am about to cross over from being a reviewer to being a contributor, and it would be inappropriate for me to continue. As such I feel the best course of action is for me to close this GAN; then continue working on it to bring it up to standard. DIfficult to say how long it will take to bring it up to standard - but given the background reading involved and my own sporadic WikiTime, probably a month.


Article not passed as a GA:

Fails 1a - Lead section needs to comply with MoS - expand to reflect more closely the content. Fails 2 - Some statements need supporting, and refs need checking - there are dead links. Fails 3 - Possibly. This needs closer examination. Difficult at the moment to work out the priority of information importance. History section still needs trimming. Culture sections needs sorting out. I have brought in a bunch of material which needs sorting. SilkTork *YES! 15:23, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Demographics question

I am having trouble understanding what this is actually saying. Could someone help and explain? Ostap 00:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

"Statistics collected by the Ministry of Education reveal that, even though only 1% of adults (as per above) claim their official status, as many as 3% of students participate in programmes designed for ethnic minorities."

I believe, what it means is that not everybody from within ethnic minorities living in Krakow wants to declare (on paper) their official minority status, but they'd like to send their children to programs designed for them nevertheless. --Poeticbent talk 15:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)