Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Belgium/archive2

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[edit] Belgium

This is more or less a selfnom. But the article existed before and many participated in particular for copyediting. It grew to 41K a bit larger than the 40K Australia and South Africa FA but much less than the 53K of People's Republic of China. The length of this article is due to the difficulty to obtain a NPOV on Belgium which is a controversial country submitted to strong separatist trends. The balance must be always sought between the different communities and ethnic groups -- whose very existence is controversial to some extend. This article had already been featured. You can find the reasons why at

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Belgium/archive1

It was later on removed. You can find the reasons why at

Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Belgium

It was reedited to reply to the critics and submitted to peer review. The comments are listed at

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Belgium

I think all critics have been taken into account.

• support of course --Vb 13:40, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose The history section is too long and should be trimmed. The culture section is a collection of too-short paragraphs that should be combined into a couple longer paragraphs. Is there a reason the Main article: Economy of Belgium summary style isn't used here? The references also don't really look very satisfactory, especially without inline citations. Do we need the non-English names for all the provinces in this article? It's ugly, distracting and not very useful, and should be kept at Communities, regions and provinces of Belgium. Tuf-Kat 16:44, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • History: I think an alternative to the present version is the quite good article on Belgium at the US dpt of State [1]. One could easily wikify this but I really think wikipedia can do much better and bring more links and infos than that. I think the present version is a summary of the history of Belgium which is just a bit more expanded than this. Making it shorter would make it less good.
  • Culture: I personnaly think it is easier to read like it is. Do you think it would be nicer if litterature and cinema were merged. I think it would be ugly.
  • Economy: could you be more precise? Why don't you like the style used?
  • Provinces: Your last point is easy. I agree with you. It is addressed now--147.231.28.83 09:54, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
• Object -- my comments in PR on Demographics, History and Culture aren't addressed. User:Nichalp/sg 18:46, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Your comments have been addressed in part. Could you precise a bit more what in your opinion is still to be done.--147.231.28.83 09:54, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
    • I said to summarise the history. Reasons of wars etc and lists shouldn't be mentioned here. Also the subheadings under the culture section are out of the ordinary. Yes, it may help a reader but it is not recommended and not used in any other country article. User:Nichalp/sg 17:51, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • OK. I'll try to improve that.--147.231.28.83 07:53, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• VERY strong oppose - I recently listed this article to be removed as a featured article, which passed with little argument. This article has not been improved in any way, and still lacks competely when compared to other featured country articles. The images are awful, the history is terrible, the government section is mostly lists. It actually takes a little gaul to list this article so soon on FAC after being removed with so few changes. Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 05:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
  • What you say is not true. The article has been thoroughly re-edited since the removal of the FA status. Look at its history. Some example: the history and culture section have been utterly rewritten. References have been added and all numbers appearing can be checked from the inline references. Much has been done in the style with numerous copyedit and the NPOV has been really ameliorated. How can you say the figures are awfull! It is maybe a matter of taste but I believe your comment is strongly biased. --147.231.28.83 07:53, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Call it strongly biased if you'd like, however, I pretty much wrote South Africa and was a large contributer to Hong Kong, both two country featured articles. I know what it takes to get there, and Belgium isn't anywhere close. Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 16:00, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

OK It is not necessary to quarrel. All people here seem to be your opinion so, since it was my first trial, I think I'll try later on. Cheers. --147.231.28.83 08:19, 26 August 2005 (UTC)