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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ba Cut/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 20:41, 21 July 2009 [1].

Ba Cut

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Nominator(s): YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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An interesting, infamous but obscure Vietnamese warlord of the Hoa Hao religious sect. Basically all of the research done on the Hoa Hao is on their religious/political aspects and the military wing is basically neglected, probably because most historians regard them as little more than brainless bandits unworthy of study. For example, the book by Hue-Tam Ho Tai that I cited is regarded as the leading work on new peasant religious movements and has about 50 pages on the Hoa Hao and only about 5 sentences on this guy. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Interesting I agree, and I'd really like to see this article promoted, but it's not there yet for me. I'll give more detailed comments elsewhere if anyone's interested, but here are just a few examples of the problems I see, picked randomly:
  • "Despite his weak military situation, Ba Cut sought to interfere with a fraudulent referendum that Diem was staging in order to depose Bao Dai as head of state." The phrase "interfere with" sets up a false expectation in the reader's mind that Ba Cut interfered by initiating the referendum, an expectation that's dashed as the sentence unfolds, and is therefore jarring.
  • "Tho agreed to meet Ba Cut alone in the jungle, and was not ambushed." Why would a reader be expecting that Tho would be ambushed?
  • "Ba Cut broke from the VNA in August 1954 with his 3,000 men, and began resisting it with force, whereas most of the other Hoa Hao leaders had accepted payments to integrate their forces into the VNA. The phrase "resisting it with force" seems strangely unidiomatic, and the tense switch between "broke" and "had accepted" seems a little jarring.
  • "... possibly due to the fact that details of the planned attack ...". Everything here unless stated otherwise should be a fact, no need to underline that fact. "Possibly because ..."?
  • "In mid-1954, General Nguyen Van Hinh, head of the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) of the State of Vietnam announced that he did not respect the leadership of Prime Minister Diem, and vowed to overthrow him. This did not materialise ...". What did not materialise? The vow or the overthrow"?

--Malleus Fatuorum 18:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed these and done another copyedit, please have a look YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 04:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it still needs some serious attention. Just look at the first sentence for instance: "Lê Quang Vinh (1923 – July 13, 1956), popularly known as Ba Cụt (Short Third in Vietnamese, referring to a shortened third finger), was a military commander of the Hoa Hao religious sect, which had operated in the Mekong Delta." Had operated before what? Shouldn't that just be "operated"? --Malleus Fatuorum 04:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it should have been. Obviously I was careless yesterday and left a few random words/typo in there. I've swept it again YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 04:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images fine, ideally should be moved to commons Fasach Nua (talk) 21:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 15:25, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I improved it a bit. Eubulides (talk) 16:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • The second paragraph of the lead makes me think that I'm reading about a folk hero. It's full of colorful wording that I normally would not expect in an encyclopedia article. Rewording needed?
Well all books mention his finger at the start and start by telling us that he is demented, more or less. The body has it in more detail that analyses of him are scathing. I don't see any colourful words there, the topic is inherently colourful YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "weak position"? You should probably elaborate a bit on this.
Done YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "paddies" - rice paddies or paddy fields?
Done YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's a sense of choppiness in the first paragraph of the "Early life and background" section. IMO, the sentences don't flow smoothly. In one sentence you're talking about Ba Cut being an orphan and in the next you're talking about his fanatical hatred towards landowners. Transitions, better flow?
Rearranged it, but there is still nothing else of his childhood except that he was illit so moved that to the front. that Tai book is the most authoritative Hoa Hao book. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I assume you're only saying that his prophecies about WWII were correct, not his miracles. You could probably clarify the ambiguity there. In addition, maybe you could detail some of the prophecies or miracles he supposedly performed?
Expanded, without giving specific examples of diseases and minutae of his predictions YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "During World War II, Imperial Japan invaded and seized control of Vietnam from France, and its defeat and withdrawal at the end of the war left a power vacuum in the country." – possibly split these into two sentences?
semicolin I think YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • At the start of the third paragraph, you refer to Hoa Hao followers as "The Hoa Hao". The Hoa Hao was simply the religious tradition, not the name given to its followers, right?
    • Same issue with Cao Dai.
Some people use "Cao Daists" but the dominant wording is "The Cao Dai" etc instead of Buddhism<->Buddhists YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with a couple of minor conditions: I understand that all images need alt text now, per WP:ALT; also can you pls review the References section and ensure that all books with ISBNs have them noted - some won't have them but there seems to be a larger-than-normal proportion of those here. Took the liberty of making a few minor copyedits but apart from above can't see anything to withhold the bronze star: well structured, meticulously cited, engagingly written - well done! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:44, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alt is all there and every book after 1965 has ISBN as given. The journal article doesn't have an isbn YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 13:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Cool - apologies re. the alt text, I didn't look when I was editing but just moused over the infobox pic afterwards and for some reason it didn't appear as it usually does... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I like this article. There are a few areas still where I think the phrasing needs to be made more idiomatic, but I'm confident that can be done easily and quickly.
  • From Career: "By this time, with France on the way out ...". I know this is referring to France preparing to leave Indochina, but it's actually suggesting that it was the country of France that was on the way out, i.e., in some kind of terminal decline. Which hasn't quite happened yet. :-)
  • From Career: "As the French tried to dilute his autonomy ...". Not sure you can dilute autonomy. Would something like "undermine his authority" perhaps be better?
  • From Last stand against Diem : "... his remaining forces were dismantled in battle." Dismantled seems like a strange choice of word to me. Might defeated or destroyed be better?

--Malleus Fatuorum 15:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 16:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good now, thanks. --Malleus Fatuorum 17:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support with reservations I have three nitpicks here. The Vietnamese article cites three sources-- two are encyclopedias, but one might provide additional information. Have you looked at these? Second, I would ask that you look for an additional photo for the large second section. Finally, it could be useful to use the proper accent marks for Vietnamese words, e.g. Hòa Hảo. Shii (tock) 03:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The encyclopedias didn't shed any more light. Added photo. I tend to not use diacritics for convenience although if the person goes to the page they will get it in full via the link. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC) [reply]
  • Support: I believe that this article meets the criteria. The dashes seem consistent with WP:DASH, images check out, there are no dabs and no external link errors. I have one query, though. I believe that the rank of 'general' in the infobox should in this case be capitalised as 'General' as it is technically the start of a new sentence/line. I also feel it would be improved with a few more images to break up the text, but understand that it is not always possible so I do not feel it should hold the article back. Well done. — AustralianRupert (talk) 03:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Will add a pic of Diem and Tho. Fixed the G YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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