Wikipedia:Featured article review/Hugo Chávez

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[edit] Hugo Chávez

No longer a featured article

Hugo Chávez hardly exemplifies Wikipedia's best work. Looking at the article, one can see the {{POV}} and {{cleanup}} templates, which have, in combination, resided on the page for weeks. It's far from comprehensive (note the Personal Life section especially), although it somehow manages to amount to 73 kilobytes in size. References include websites of questionable legitimacy, such as ZNet and VenezuelaAnalysis.org, which borrows content from Green Left Weekly, a decidedly left-wing Australian newspaper. There are also entire sections, such as the Labor section, that don't have any sources. The great amount of recent discussion regarding the article on its talk page indicates that perhaps (as suggested by some other editors) the article is overdue for a rewrite or at the very least a great overhaul to remove these issues as well as the perceived failure to adhere to the neutral point-of-view policy. On the talk page, it was discussed that perhaps if the article was not restored to some order by May 30, it should be put up for featured article removal. Well, it's May 30; it's time to suggest removal of featured article status. joturner 02:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: This article has 35KB of prose as of 31 May 2006

NOTE: This article has 64KB of prose as of 12 June 2006

• Remove unless it's copy-edited. I noticed the following problems just in the lead:
  • "Chávez was elected President in 1998 on promises of aiding Venezuela's poor majority, and reelected in 2000." Extra "was" required.
  • A few more commas are required, for ease of reading and to convey the intended meaning (e.g., "Domestically, Chávez has launched Bolivarian Missions whose stated goals are ...").
  • "Chávez has been severely criticized during his presidency. He has been accused of electoral fraud, human rights violations,.." (Merge these sentences.)

Tony 04:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - in its current vastly over-long state it's not worthy of an FA, but note that the direction it's going in is positive, thanks to the efforts of User:SandyGeorgia and others - it was 90kb before. Talk page indicates ongoing major effort to trim, re-write, remove bias and generally make FA-worthy. Worldtraveller 09:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think it is over-long; only has 35KB of prose as of now. --mav 17:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Hey Mav, I haven't crossed paths with you in a long time. Great to see you're still around. By the way, you may not be surprised that I agree with you on the article size! 172 | Talk 23:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
      • A lot of the size is references, with the accompanying markup. Much has been trimmed but doing more would actually lower the quality. How much of prose is itself too much?SuperFlanker 02:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Haven't noticed any POV. The problem with gratuitous tags is fixed by removing them altogether, until the detailed rationale is given on talk. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Assume good faith, and please don't remove tags without addressing (and reading) the talk page issues. (We've been working on and improving the issues which led to the tags for several weeks, but more work remains. Much of the remaining POV is by ommission rather than commission, due to the work we've put into the article since I added the tags cleanup tag.) Sandy 04:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: It's quite long and clearly needs a bit of work but this should not take long. Are the issues of length and a few minor mistakes worth removing its featured status? michaelCurtis ^talk+_{contributions} 12:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep ZNet, VenezuelaAnalysis.org, and Green Left Weekly are indeed illegitimate sources. Still, it is quite easy to replace that handful of citations with real sources such as BBC, AP, Reuters, etc. The criticisms are relatively minor and easy to fix. The nomination here seems to be politically motivated. 172 | Talk 13:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• If it's quite easy, why haven't you done it since the revert, which you supported and which removed a lot of current referencing? I don't have access to the resources you do, and I don't find it easy at all. Sandy 17:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• The nomination is not politically motivated. joturner 22:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'll take your word for it. By the way, I saw your user page. You are incredibly articulate for your age. It's quite a distinction for Wikipedia to have you on the site editing articles. 172 | Talk 23:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• It's not so much a matter of whether VenezuelaAnalysis (et al) are legitimate or not (the BBC is as pro-Chavez as Venanalysis, Wilpert, Weisbrot, and other avowedly pro-Chavez sources used), as the lack of balance in the article because of emphasis on similar/same sources. Sources are not balanced, and VenezuelaAnalysis, in particular, is overrepresented in the references (count 'em). I'm not sure it would be easy to replace those sources (as stated above); further, it's not only a matter of re-referencing the pro-Chavez statements, as telling all sides of the story, to attain NPOV. Sandy 04:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

• the BBC is as pro-Chavez as Venanalysis, Wilpert, Weisbrot, and other avowedly pro-Chavez sources used Are you being serious? I can't tell, as this assertion is laughably ridiculous. 172 | Talk 03:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not laughing, and I don't appreciate your ongoing rudeness. Would you be happier with the simpler, "The BBC's reporting has been largely pro-Chávez?" I'll give you one example to work on. The BBC headlined that "Chavez 'will accept referendum'." [1] Now, considering that you have access to Lexis-Nexis and I don't, how long will it take you to produce a BBC report headlining the important developments when 1) earlier, according to Spanish-language sources, Chavez had stated he refused to leave office even if the referendum succeeded and 90% of the country was against him, and, 2) he would talk up arms again if he lost the *constitutional, legal, and democratic* referendum. (These are some of the many bases for claims that he is dictatorial, and POV is created by omitting them. Notice that the BBC article referenced never mentions why the headline is relevant, never discussing the prior events.) If you can find that info quickly in an English-language source, please do add it, to counteract the POV in the article. And let me know how long it takes you to find it, using your resources, because I can only locate that info in the Spanish-language press, and only because I speak Spanish, was there, and knew where to look. Sandy 17:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment ==Bolivarianism== should not be wikilinked, per WP:MOS. I would have changed it myself, but I'm not sure of the best way to work the word bolivarianism into the paragraph so it could be linked there. - The Catfish 23:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• Weak remove. I was between the ones in the discussions prior to the FARC, I moved the whole references to the new system to reduce the article size and make editing easier. Still, this article has been in a not-so-good status during at least two weeks. Many have committed to try to improve the article, but users such as Anagnorisis and Saravask (who worked real hard on it some months ago) don't seem to have any interest in improving the article. Although Ghirla claims that POV and cleanup tags are not needed, I think those issues are clearly stated here, here, here and here. The article has improved in the last weeks, but presidency and political impact still need a lot of work. I feel bad about doing this because I wanted the article to get better, but unfortunately it's not FA material anymore. However, I am confident that this article will become featured again. With the help of SuperFlanker, Sandy and other users currently involved in it, I think that we can get it to FA again before the presidential elections in December. --Enano275 02:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Like Enano275 (and several others), I had high hopes the article could be rescued rather than FARC'd, with an intense effort from multiple editors working together. I worked on reducing a couple of sections, but there are still several that are much too long and rambling, and poorly referenced. My first priority was to get the size down to something reasonable, so that the article would not be so difficult and time-consuming to edit. It needs a complete review of references, as some of the references I checked a few days ago didn't say what they were alleged to say, and so many biased sources are used. Further bias is introduced by portions of the Chavez history that are simply never mentioned (e.g.; what happened to the mudslides? What happened to Chavez saying he wouldn't go even if he lost the referendum? How did the articles manage to ignore charges of treason and conspiracy against people conducting a legal and constitutional recall referendum? Why are not legitimate issues that led to Chavez' election not discussed with good references and statistics?) Several weeks ago, I thought the work was doable, if we could get the article down to a manageable size, so that editing it wouldn't be so time consuming. But it's not doable on a time deadline, and every section we decrease later gets increased by subsequent edits. We haven't made enough progress in the few weeks we've been working on it, and my busy travel schedule doesn't permit me to focus on the article until mid-June. IMO, the talk page history shows the article was never particularly stable, and that biased sources has been a long-standing problem with the article. In terms of all of the problems: the prose is not good, it has numerous sections needing copy editing (still), the article doesn't stick tightly to the subject, POV is a problem, sources are biased, references need to be checked, and the article is hopelessly too long, even rambling and not all succinctly summarizing the topic. Sandy 04:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I don't know why the decision has to be restrained to timelines, considering work is ongoing, SandyGeorgia mentions some good points such as fluidity and size (although it should not be punished for having refs) that said there are other things I disagree with such as the strongly percieved bias (apperantly of omission) particularly on the sources and statistics, they are the government's side but neutrality can only be achieved by adding the other side not removing what is.SuperFlanker 03:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Joturner and Sandy. Rama's Arrow 17:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: We may strive to kee the FA status, after addressing the points being raised. I do not have much knowledge on the topic - others may help. --Bhadani 15:01, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: We have been unable, over more than a month now, to get others to help. The person who brought the article to FA status, when asked to help, said the article should be FARC'd, here "Just FARC it now — I don't have the time or interest in fixing the problems pointed out. Saravask 04:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)". Sandy 04:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - It's not good enough to grant FA status, and then clean up the article. I agree that the article needs clean-up and a serious revamping of its citations (they are largely socialist, and thus inherently biased). However, since the article does not currently meet FA requirements, it should not currently have FA status. Remove FA status, clean-up, apply again. --Tjss(Talk) 04:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - per Tjss. Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 05:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Here is a talk page update on progress made this week. With few exceptions, Wiki guidelines of civility, good faith, building consensus, and resolving disputes have been respected, and work has extended into the overlapping series of daughter articles. Editors working together have helped check facts, references, grammar, punctuation, phrasing, etc., but succinct, brilliant prose needs work and fluidity is a problem. Regardless of FARC outcome, help from a good copy editor/writer (so that we can remove the cleanup tag) is needed. Sandy 14:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Further update The article has been reverted to a much older version (*not* the original FA version) and "Wiki is not a democracy" work is in progress. While I concur that the article was in very poor shape, and don't disagree with the revert, my separate comments on the way this was handled are on my talk page. The reverted version is not the FA version [2], and many of the reasons for FARC still exist.Sandy 21:22, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes it is the main page FA version. The link above is misleading. WGee considered restoring a later reversion, but I talked him out of it. The current text is based on the main page version. To confirm this, compare the diffs between the 10 December 2005 version (the day it appeared on the main page) and the current updated/copyedited version of it. [3] 172 | Talk 23:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
      • The diff link above doesn't appear to be as stated: someone who understands it better than I needs to verify. The significant issues raised in the FARC (now in the article talk page archive) have not all been corrected, and the new version now includes outdated information and invalid links (both external and internal), while POV and balance remain to be addressed. Sandy 12:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
        • Is it necessary to re-summarize the problems with the current version of the article? See talk page. Sandy 14:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC) No answer. I posted an update to the talk page. Sandy 22:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - This article lacks too many of the attributes of a featured article: not comprehensive, not factually accurate, not neutral, and really not stable.(Caracas1830 18:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC))
• Remove A Cleanup FA? Are you kidding?! Raichu 03:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Update I completed enough of the cleanup to remove the tag. There is still a lengthy To Do list. [4] I am unable to find a template for indicating that the article is not current. Sandy 12:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)