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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Russian language/archive1

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

The article was removed 12:47, 23 August 2007.

Russian language

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Review commentary

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Messages left at the following WikiProjects and User talks: Russian notice board, WP Languages, Aeusoes1, Shetsen‎
Messages left at Mikkalai and Poccil

Nominated per 1b and 1c. The article is lacking inline references and is not comprehensive. Some important sections (notably, grammar) are merely stubs, information about studies of Russian language is lacking altogether. The further reading part of the references is inadequate. E.g. Ladefored & Maddieson 1996 is not about Russian; Востриков 1990 is a textbook from a Russian university without a good program in linguistics, covering a very special topic; Михельсон 1978 is a book for 10 year old children about early Russian history, which has nothing to do with the language; Filin is usually considered Soviet academic bureaucrat rather than reputable scholar, the short article by Filin published in the journal edited by him is not very illuminating and doesn't look appropriate; there are much better etymological dictionaries and grammars than those listed. It’s a shame rather than FA. Seriously, it should not even become a B-class article.Colchicum 18:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The language is not probably not going to survive this FAR with its star intact and I agree that it fails several criteria. However, I'd like to defend the article on a few points:
  • There is no further reading section. If it was, it would be called just that; "Further reading".
  • Ladefoged and Maddieson are among the leading phoneticians in the world. For encyclopedic purposes, a reference to it can be quite informative.
  • The grammar section is a stub, but links to a quite rather comprehensive (if not particularly well-written) main article. Content could easily be imported from that article.
  • I don't know what "studies about of Russian language" actually refers to, but it sounds like some sort of general summary of the status of research of Russian. This is something no current language FA has and is not something stipulated by the Languages project.
Peter Isotalo 20:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is no further reading section -- Then what is the section? It doesn't source any claims in the article. Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996 is about all the languages of the world, without special reference to Russian. Because it is not specifically about Russian, it could only work there as an inline reference, regardless of how important this book is in general. Now it doesn't illustrate any particular point. Colchicum 09:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article needs some improvement rather than defense. I was not going to attack this page, but I think that Wikipedia shouldn't deceive its readers claiming that this article is definitive, outstanding, thorough; a great source for encyclopedic information; no further editing is necessary unless new published information has come to light. It is not. Colchicum 10:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was only defending that which I felt needed defending. I've been thinking about FAR:ing the article myself for some time now, but I've been busy with other project, and I agree that it needs to be improved or demoted.
Peter Isotalo 13:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, demote it by all means. The article today is not even the one that was featured in 2004. As regards further improvement, others may care about it more than I. A. Shetsen 16:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • And, indeed, reviewers here have their time cut out just reviewing and trying to maintain standards. Please fix them yourself.

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 06:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove unless it's fixed up. I'm glad work is still being done on this article. Here are random samples that indicate the need for a thorough massage.
    • First caption is "Countries of the world where Russian is spoken."—MOS breach WRT the period; and "of the world" is redundant. Of Mars? Can the note about Unicode go on the larger version you click to view, not the thumbnail?
    • "Russian phonology and syntax (especially in northern dialects) have also been influenced to some extent by the numerous Finnic languages of the Finno-Ugric subfamily: Merya, Moksha, Muromian, the language of the Meshchera, Veps etc." Two issues: the "especially" applies to one or both of the preceding items? "Also" suggests that phonology and syntax have already been mentioned. They havent'. Remove "also".
  • Is it necessary to link all of the countries so that almost a whole paragraph is bright blue? I'd go with the first one (Commonwealth of ...), but heck, let them type in the names of the others if they really want to interrupt their reading to go there. And I see that quite a few are linked again further down—that would be sufficient. And then again!
  • "Leveling"—no link, so explain this technical term, please.
  • Citation tags ....
  • "difficult to reckon"—no, "estimate".

This is definitely worth retaining, so I hope people are around to work on it. Tony 09:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The list of countries with "a sizeable number" of Russian-speakers needs a credible source for the countries and a sourced estimate is needed for each country. I was extremely surprised to find Denmark on the list and I've removed it as Russian wouldn't even be on the top ten of immigrant languages in Denmark. Several other countries look very dubious as well. What is "a sizeable number" btw? 500 people? 50,000? Ethnologue's list looks somewhat more credible [1] Valentinian T / C 16:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
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