Wikipedia:Featured article review/History of Russia/archive1

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 12:39, 24 August 2007.

[edit] History of Russia

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at the following WikiProjects and User talks: Russia noticeboard, Russian history, 172

Additional messages left at Ghirlandajo, Ben-Velvel, Irpen and Ezhiki

Nominated per 1c (the article has only 4 inline citations). Colchicum 17:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Unless there is a massive undertaking to properly cite this article, I say, by all means: Remove per 1c. Okiefromokla•talk 21:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Hold up with that idea, WP:SPOTLIGHT is going to give fixing this one a shot. Feel free to join and help us! —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 22:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

How long could/would this spotlight collaboration go on? Wondering if it would conclude within a relatively short time so we can assess if it improved enough during this review. But don't get me wrong, the longer the better... What ever it takes. Okiefromokla•talk 05:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

It gets done when it gets done, feel free to join us :), more hands make light work. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 06:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, this is exactly the purpose of FAR. Wikipedia is as good as it is sourced. Could you please give preference to academic sources (from Google Scholar, technically) and also pay attention to the sources that contradict others? Colchicum 11:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Really? This only works if you have a large enough group to do massive cleanup with it. :S I count at least 5 editors editing that page at some point as part of spotlight.... User:Danny is doing most of the work though. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 17:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Up to 70+ cites.... —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 05:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I will see if I can help with Poland-related cites.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! we are up to 100+ citations now. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 21:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Good job guys. There are still way too many citation needed tags, though. Maybe find some sources that can cite more than 2 or facts. I would also suggest shortening the article by getting rid of anything not in Summary style; There could possibly be main articles created for some of the longer subsections. Also, maybe shorten the lead a little bit too; it could be much, much less detailed. And once the NPOV concerns about the article are met I believe it would be kept as a FA. Okiefromokla•talk 21:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to help us, and yes we know about the citation needed tags :) we stuck them there. If you would go ahead and do one of the two a) Make a list of long sections on the talk page, or b) be bold and do it yourself :)—— Eagle101^{Need help?} 22:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Trying to shame me into it, huh? :) Well, I looked over the article in more detail and for its size, the lead is appropriate. And though I do feel the article is too long, I'm not sure if I consider this appropriate to bring up in a FAR because it would not be a real reason to demote the article. Perhaps this issue can be taken up after the FAR, and we should just focus on the references during this FAR. Don't worry, I'll help out with that within the next couple days, as soon as I get some more time. Okiefromokla•talk 04:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, more hands make light work. Since spotlight started on that page 280+ edits have been made to it, not all by the same person :). We still have another 200 citations to figure out. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 04:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Prose size is currently 72KB per Dr pda's page size script; recommended maximum per the WP:LENGTH guideline is 50KB. Better use of summary style would also lower the need for citing this article. While adding citations, please keep the correct format in mind (see WP:CITE/ES). All sources need a publisher (I see the "Work" parameter is being used in the cite templates here rather than publisher), all websources need a last access date, and publication date and author should be provided when given. Page numbers should be given on book sources. Please post progress updates here, and don't be alarmed if the article isn't ready at the end of the two-week period and moves to FARC; extra time is allowed as long as work is ongoing and progress is evident (see the instructions at the top of WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:35, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Many facts refer to the classical academic works of Russian historians, such as "History of Russia from the Earliest Times", (ISBN 5-17-002142-9) by Sergey Solovyov and "History of the Russian State" (ISBN 5-02-009550-8) by Nikolay Karamzin etc. In these cases the multiple inline citations are absurd and the tag "fact" should be removed. I shall make this work in the near future. The article should be certainly kept. Ben-Velvel 11:21, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid that those 19th century historians are desperately outdated. Their point of view should certainly be represented, but it shouldn't be the only one. This is, by the way, one of the reasons why their claims have to be properly referenced.Colchicum 19:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Colchicum. It would be like having a History of France article sourced from Michelet or a History of England from Macaulay. See WP:V, especially this section [1]: "Because this is the English Wikipedia, for the convenience of our readers, English-language sources should be used in preference to foreign-language sources". There are several up-to-date general histories of Russia available in English and we should use them. --Folantin 08:27, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: put this FAR on hold and allow the editors to continue addingg the necessary in-line citations and other improvement. Much of the great work has already been done in this direction. --Irpen 18:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Much good work has been done indeed, although recently some editors have been advocating (and acting on that advice) to simply remove citation tags (as "ugly" or "common knowledge"). I hope, in the end, we will see the article properly referenced, not "prettied". I am also still waiting for my review on talk to be addressed...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I am afraid you misquote or misunderstoodd the editors who objected to incessant tagging. Anything taken to an extreme is ugly, including the tags, citations or lack of them. My summary of the problem seems to present one side of this disagreement more adequately. --Irpen 00:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment This article has gone downhill since this review was started. First it was indiscriminately bombed with hundreds of fact tags, many of them for the most obvious things like "Peter the Great won the Great Northern War" or "Napoleon invaded in 1812". Now it's been given a makeover by "Russia forever" types trying to put the best possible light on every action by Russian (or Soviet) leaders. All we need is some Mongolian or French nationalists ("in reality the Retreat from Moscow was a brilliant strategic move") to turn up and the party will be complete. A shame, since this was a decent article with a few problems that should have been easily fixed. --Folantin 07:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

  Comment Funny you should say that, Folantin. I was actually just thinking what a great job everyone has been doing finding references, which, by the way, was and is a major problem of the article and certainly isn't fixed easily. I am in favor of putting this FAR on hold. Work is getting done but it will probably talk longer than most of us want a FAR to go on. *:Okiefromokla•talk 06:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

  Your comment and Folantin's are not mutually exclusive. The article indeed has been greatly improved by the addition of many inline citations, as you say - but Folantin also has a good point that there seems to be some neutrality problems in recent edits. Overall, I'd agree that the article is improving, but the danger of being non-neutral is also increasing.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

  Yes, after I entered my last comment I went through and read most of the article for the first time since the start of this FAR. My apologies, the article is indeed getting a bit bias. There are parts that seem overly tilted in favor of Russia, while other parts seem overly tilted against Russia. Partly because of this, there are issues with tone changing rapidly and randomly, as I think has been pointed out by someone. Nevertheless, it makes the article confusing to read. We might even have to consider completely rewriting it in a more narrow summary style and with a better NPOV. Okiefromokla•talk 21:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Some information was shockingly inaccurate to say the least, for example that West Ukraine or Galicia was part of Russian Empire[2]. In reality it was part of Austro-Hungarian Empire[3]. This correct information was reverted several times[4]--Molobo 01:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Narrow summary would be good-right now they are too many complicated details that need to be explained are balanced in order to lose bias.--Molobo 01:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), size and focus (4). Marskell 06:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Inevitably, the more citations it has, the longer it gets. As far as I can see, you can choose conciseness or you can choose hundreds of references, but not both. Focus has gone completely askew with outbreaks of "whataboutery" among Russian and Polish editors over World War Two. --Folantin 12:39, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

It's just too long, and also suffers from imbalance issues. Large chunks of what's there should be creamed off to subarticles. This is supposed to be a summary, not an over-detailed battleground for individual incidents. Moreschi ^Talk 15:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. We should be careful not to lose any good work - move stuff to sub articles, don't delete. I'd however suggest adding another criteria for review - neutrality - per Folantin's comments above.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comments. Current prose size (per WP:SIZE and Dr pda's prose size script) is 67 KB. The wikilinked bolding in the lead doesn't conform with MOS. Please revisit the use of "The" in section headings per WP:MSH. Reference formatting is going to need cleanup (see WP:CITE/ES). All sources should have a publisher, websources should have last access date, and author and publication date should be listed when available. Date formatting is inconsistent throughout the footnotes, and different biblio styles appear to have been added by different editors—formatting should be consistent. Some have used cite templates, others use individual styles. There is incorrect use of dashes vs. hyphens, mixed reference styles (inline URLs), and lots of cite tags still. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC) Overlinked as well (see WP:MOSLINK and WP:CONTEXT). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, perhaps you'd like to go ahead and fix those minor stylistic problems you've noticed. There are still major problems with content. --Folantin 17:25, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

They aren't minor. First, I don't want to twiddle the section headings or the lead wording; that should be done by editors familiar with the topic. Second, correcting the footnote and date formatting will take many hours; if editors working on the article will adopt a standard style now, less cleanup work will be needed later. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Remove, significant issues not addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• Folantin, it's not our article: you do the fixing, please. Remove unless significant refinement is carried out. Prose needs a massage throughout, not just a fixing of the following samples.
  • Ungrammatacal: "with the weaknesses of its economic and political structures becoming acute,"
  • Awkward, repetitive word order: "Russia attempted to build an economy with elements of market capitalism, with often painful results"—"with often".
  • "Even today Russia shares many continuities of political culture and social structure with its tsarist and Soviet past."—Unsure about the first word; would be more neutral without it. And a comma after "today", please.
  • MOS breaches in the history box—read up on en dashes and year ranges.
  • "Noted for their laws, tolerance, and cosmopolitanism,[17] the Khazars were"—Big, bold statement here about a long time ago in a very different cultural/ethnic setting. I hope your single reference is very authoritative.
  • "Eighth" then "8th". See MOS.
  • Caption "Yaroslav ..."—no final period, since it's just a big nominal group. Read MOS. Tony 00:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Update There's probably no need to deal with such cosmetic details in any case. This article is still seriously unstable and likely to remain so. There's no way we could put this on the main page. Delist. (Oh and Tony, this was no more my article than it was yours before this review, yet I - along with others - got my hands dirty trying to fix it, so spare us the "reviewers here have their time cut out just reviewing and trying to maintain standards", please). --Folantin 19:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to second Folantin. There are still citations missing and POV issues; unless they are addressed (and I'd be happy to change my vote then), delist.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems this went from four to 167 citations. Seems a shame to lose it after all this work. Is it really hopeless? Marskell 13:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, at the moment the POV problems can't be resolved satisfactorily so it fails criteria 1(d) and (e). I'm not sure we could feature this on the main page. Of course, it could be resubmitted as an FA candidate at a later date, I suppose. --Folantin 13:06, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Given all the trouble around this and related articles currently the instability is bound to continue. Also, I've never liked the lead - it's overheavy on the 20th century, but that's a minor point compared to the larger battle over the(se) article(s). DrKiernan 13:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

it's overheavy on the 20th century. Yeah, given that it's covered in its own separate article, I would have liked to have dealt with the Soviet era in a more summary fashion but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. On the other hand, oddly enough, before this review there was no mention of the recent wars in Chechnya. It's a shame it's going to be demoted but it happened to History of Scotland too, no doubt for similar reasons. --Folantin 13:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It's better. But it's not good enough.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

An experienced and committed user can derail any FA. The recipes are well-known.

• One: add to it some referenced but POVed stuff (WP:UNDUE) or referenced but irrelevant stuff for which articles already exist (paste from there is the easiest thing to do), or referenced but out of place stuff because of WP:ILIKEIT. Then revert war against "removal of referenced info". In case of WP:UNDUE followed by a rv war to keep it the other side failing to remove the stuff turns to adding the context to prevent the article from being misleading, thus further sacrificing the brevity, scope, smooth text flow and style. This has happened here.
• Another recipe: tag-trolling. 300+ "fact" tags (Hitler attacked in '41"fact". Napoleon attacked in 1812"fact) is a true disgrace
• One more: image games.
• more, you name it, we've got it all here.

Plus, POV-pushers from all sides came here anyway, not necessarily committed to destroy the article, but to "improve" it towards their worldview.

This article needed an improvement in the course of a slow and unobstructed work of knowledgeable editors. Instead some of such editors had to devote all their time to defending it, others went off the pills out of anger seeing the attacks like outlined above and "compensating them" with other unnecessary additions, yet others threw the hands up and left the article to the mercy of the attackers in disgust.

I am sorry, but I don't see the solution now. Thanks to all who tried to improve it. Good work but repairing vs destruction is always an uphill battle. Also, thanks for the awful lot of refs, although I think if something can be refed to EB or Columbia, chances are the ref is redundant. Pity the destruction element have prevailed this time. That the article got more refs does not compensate its deviation from the scope and branching. And, knowing from experience, once delisted this particular article will highly unlikely be able to get back the label. Oh, well. Let it be so. There are so many flaws in the FA process that it is long since inconsistent and much less relevant than it used to be. On the brighter side, unFAed it might be a less of a target. But at the same time, FA label not only attracts the wrong edits but gives some leverage in removing them. So, one never knows whether delisting helps or obstructs the real improvement of the content.

But what a pity! --Irpen 20:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Closing: I guess that's it then. If it can't be saved, it can't be saved. Marskell 12:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

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.