Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/1964 Gabon coup d'état/archive1

Ling's oppose

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"I'm afraid I am not as willing as others to sweep dirt under the rug. Under no circumstances will I be supporting this nom, as it is an egregious case of disdain and disrespect for WP:5P."

I admit that I still haven't managed to give this FAC as much time as I would like. But Ling, such a declaration of "under no circumstances" does seem a little drastic, and perhaps melodramatic. --jbmurray (talkcontribs) 12:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

  • Hi. :-)
  • I teach college students. If they copy/paste, then I give 'em an F. How could I do otherwise here? FA noms are supposed to be held up to "professional standards", and my freshmen/sophomores etc. are teen-aged second-language learners in Taiwan whose lack of grammatical proficiency leads them to write sentences like "Today I was go to the town of [town's name]". Should I hold them to a higher standard than I do FAC nominees?
  • I understand the instinct to hold hands and sing Kumbayah here. Really, I do. We all have to get along together. There's been too much vitriol etc., too many cliques, etc., as we can all see in various dispute resolution forums. So who will end up looking bad when this is over? It is perhaps more likely to be me (as per your comments) than others. But that's OK. I've made a conscious decision that I'm willing to take the rap in order to stand up for WP:5P. It's simply a value judgment. Ling.Nut (talkWP:3IAR) 12:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
Heya, Ling. My problem's with the "under no circumstances." I teach college students, too, as you know. And sometimes one or two of them do the equivalent of copying and pasting. But if and when they recognize that that's not the way to go, and start checking things out for themselves, they have as much chance of getting a good grade as the others. No need to write anyone off! That's not dropping any standards. Anyhow, just my 2c. --jbmurray (talkcontribs) 15:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
I'm curious as to how this violates the 5P. Your friend Eddy of the wiki[citation needed] 19:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
So even if the sourcing concerns are all completely addressed (which they should be in the next few days, since I will also evaluate all the sources), you still won't support this nomination? Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 22:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

(undent)

  1. I've already pointed out substantial omissions. Substantial ones.
    Reiterate them to us, please. Your friend Eddy of the wiki[citation needed] 22:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
    Contradictory sources, missing details, NPOV and sourcing issues. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 22:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
  2. I've also already shown conclusively that the facts weren't checked. The fact checking didn't take place. It never happened. By extension, we come to the concern: "Are there any other surprises here?"
    And the fact checking has taken place... Your friend Eddy of the wiki[citation needed] 22:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
    Well, it's still going on actually... Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 22:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
  3. WP:5P obviously includes WP:V.
    And how does this violate WP:V?
    See Sandy's explanation on the FAC page. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 22:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
  4. Moral hazard. Get away with cutting corners and shoddy workmanship once; why do otherwise in the future? And that bodes extremely poorly for Wikipedia. If we have a culture of slapdash-gimme-the-gold-star editors/editing, then we end up with even FA being as shitty as Wikipedia's detractors say the whole encyclopedia is.
    How is this a moral hazard? Your friend Eddy of the wiki[citation needed] 22:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
    Failing to factcheck French sources wasn't intentional in any way. I did have that on my to-do list with FHB and M'ba, but I failed to tell this to EoTW before he had submitted this FAC. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 22:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
  5. Simple fairness; see the argument about my freshmen above.
    How does that at all relate to the article? Your friend Eddy of the wiki[citation needed] 22:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
  6. Could say more but my wife is calling me... Ling.Nut (talkWP:3IAR) 22:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Renata's earlier oppose

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Now that you all have the sources, I'm going to bring forward Renata's oppose from before the restart:

  • Neutral leaning oppose - nice article, but should be expanded. The article completely skips a month between Jan 21 and Feb 17. What was opposition doing then? how did they won over the military? who planned the coup? Other questions that need answering: why students protested? why public did not support the coup? why M'ba quarreled with Aubame? was all military for the coup? Ref is needed in the lead that Gabon was politically stable (ref given later alludes that it was economically stable in West Africa). Shouldn't it have military conflict infobox? Renata (talk) 19:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

None of these queries were resolved (I haven't checked if they have subsequently been addressed in the article): perhaps the new sources reveal responses. Since the translations were done by an online translator (wholly inadequate), how do you all plan to address translation concerns? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Will look into it. Regarding the translations, as I mentioned before, I used online translators, dictionaries and the good people of #wikipedia-fr to obtain an accurate translation of the fr.wiki article. I discussed the translation of virtually every sentence with at least one French speaker. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 23:02, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, Nish. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Closing rationale

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I will type up a closing rationale after I finish processing FAC tonight. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

The perseverance and the effort expended by Editorofthewiki, Nishkid64 and Ling.Nut towards improving the article is commendable.

Although much productive work has been underway in the last ten days and I had hoped that keeping the FAC open might be the best course forward, the issues were mounting and Support was decreasing. I now believe the best way forward for this article will be a new FAC once concerns have been addressed (and possibly reviewed in a Peer review, inviting previous Opposers). The FAC has been running for almost six weeks and was already restarted, almost three weeks ago; thus, another restart if issues could be addressed was out of the question.

Issues raised were serious (WP:WIAFA 1b, 1c and possibly 1d) and included:

  • Sources. The original sources initially weren't consulted, most of them were in French, and Editorofthewiki stated that he doesn't read French. Text wasn't always supported by the sources, and additional sources surfaced that hadn't yet been consulted. Considering that editors now have access to the new and original sources, proper research to write a comprehensive article of featured caliber can now be conducted. Of greater concern is that a number of supporters didn't understand that Wikis aren't reliable sources, and an article translated from another Wiki without consulting the original sources does not meet WP:V.
  • Translation. Several translation issues were raised; writing a featured article without being able to read most of the original source material is a greater challenge. The article was initially translated from the French wiki, using Google translator. I speak fluent Spanish, and ran several samples through Google translator and found that the results weren't usable for a quality article; they might provide an adequate start to fill in a redlinked stub or perhaps to raise a stub to a start-class article if I (as a fluent speaker) also consulted the sources to correct the errors introduced by Google translator, which are substantial.
  • POV. Some of the discrepancies identified by Ling.Nut in his userspace analysis of the sources indicate the possibility that some POV may have crept in, either from the original article, from the translation or from the incomplete sources. It will take some time to analyze all of these issues, re-consulting the original and new sources.
  • Comprehensive. Questions about the comprehensiveness of the article were raised early on; they continued to emerge as new and original sources were examined. Having access to all of the sources should be helpful in doing the level of research required in a featured article.

Of the initial Support declarations the candidacy had before concerns were raised, two were struck, one was switched to weak, one was from a significant contributor, and one was from a contributor who argued against WP:V policy on reliable sources. As additional concerns surfaced, it appeared less and less likely that the candidate would succeed during the FAC.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

It really is. Ed and Nishkid have done some great work, and Ling's fixed a lot. —§unday {Q} 11:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)Reply