Talk:Balloon propaganda campaigns in Korea/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Display name 99 (talk · contribs) 18:58, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I have decided to immediately fail the article. Why this article was even nominated baffles me. It is poorly written, has numerous dead links that torment the eye, and makes numerous statistical claims without in-line citations. I was particularly confused about this sentence under the "History" section:

"Origins of propaganda campaign competitions on the Korean Peninsula can be traced back to the Korean War, when the United Nations forces sheltered Chinese and North Koreans with an estimated total of 2.5 billion leaflets."

How exactly do you shelter someone with leaflets? In short, this article needs a lot of work.

Thank you for the review Display name 99. I have a few comments:

• Good and correct prose is an important Good Article criteria (GAC; GAC 1A) and I appreciate you taking a critical look at it. I've asked a few pair of eyes to look at this since, and the language has been improved significantly (including the example you point out under "History"; it should have said "shelled", not "sheltered").
• These "dead links" are in fact "red links" and are not necessarily erroneously placed and certainly shouldn't be considered a "torment" if they are placed in good-faith. Please note that being aesthetically pleasing is not a GAC separate from those in particular that deal with MoS compliance (GAC 1B). MoS specifically discusses red links (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking#Red links) and says that valid ones are not in violation of any policy. I believe that most of the red linked topics are topics that can have articles in the future (eg. "Campaign for Helping North Koreans in Direct Way" yields some results on Google in English, presumably many more in Korean). Please note that Asian topics (let alone North Korean) are underrepresented on Wikipedia; not all of them have articles yet so links will appear red. However, I've removed red links of names of living people per WP:REDNOT.
• As for citations (GAC 2B), "it is usually sufficient to add the citation to the end of the clause, sentence, or paragraph, so long as it's clear which source supports which part of the text" (WP:CITEFOOT) is exactly what this article observes. I have not found a single uncited fact. If you do, please mark it with {{cn}} to give editors the opportunity to fix it. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:21, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
• I note that another review by you (Talk:Billy the Kid/GA2) was seen as erroneous and I see some of the errors here, too. First, merits and shortcomings of the article need to be weighed against specific GAC, which has not been attempted here. Second, it's customary to give editors time to address specific concerns in order to facilitate the improvement of the article. The things you have pointed out are certainly things that could be (and largely, have been) fixed. Does BlueMoonset think this GAN, too, deserves another look? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:21, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Finnusertop, this article may deserve another examination based upon the level to which you revise it. Here is my assessment of the criteria:

1. It is not well-written.

• Under the section "Balloon contents," there are two articles listed as sources of "Further Information." However, there are no links to either of them.

• There writing in that section concerning Christian evangelism that would be better placed under the sub-section "Role of Protestant Evangelicalism."

• As for the links, whatever you want to call them, there are simply too many links in this article to pages that do not exist. Such things should not be commonplace. As one of many examples, under "North Korea counter-campaigns," there is a link directing the reader to a non-existent article called "South Korean defectors." There is an article called "North Korean defectors." The editor may have been trying to establish a link to that article or a section of it. I admit that I am no expert on Korean history, but errors like these show a lack of proofreading. I have noticed that people have since begun cleaning up the red thinks. I appreciate that. There are still some more left.

• I see that the "sheltering" was changed to "shelling." That is good.

2. The referencing system isn't quite as bad, however, there are still some potential flaws.

• Under "References," there is a sub-section for "Sources," which includes two web links. These links do not follow an in-line citation. I suspect that they may have been used on multiple occasions throughout the article, in which case the editor did not know where to put them. If that is the case, there are guidelines for how to do it. The way it is now, though, I believe requires cleanup.

• There is a potential contradiction between the opening and one of the article sections, and I thought that I may as well place it here. In the opening, it is stated that the two governments both officially oppose the balloon drops, yet the "Launch sites" section claims that launching balloons from South Korea into North Korea "is not illegal." I believe that this needs clarification.

3.

• The section "List of South Korean organizations involved" may be unnecessary, as these organizations could easily be introduced in passing elsewhere. In particular, the purpose of the last paragraph in that section seems to be simply to summarize the motives of the various organizations involved. That is merely repeating information found in other parts of the article, which in some ways is a question of prose. Perhaps this could be deleted as a separate section and the information reworked into the rest of the article.

• There is very little under the section "North Korea counter-campaigns" about what is contained within the leaflets sent by NK into SK.

4, 5, and 6 look good.

I should have been more detailed and less blunt in my first explanation. This was one of the first GA Reviews that I have ever done, and in some ways I had little idea what I was doing. Some positive edits have been made to this article since that time, which may eventually be enough to raise it to GA status. Please respond indicating your opinions of my analysis, and your willingness to edit the article accordingly. Thank you. Display name 99 (talk) 19:25, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for taking another look at it, Display name 99. Some of the issues brought up by you are things I have not considered before and which, if fixed, would significantly improve the article. I'm unsure about how to proceed though, because GA Reviews are a somewhat formal process, and technically speaking this one already failed. I'm willing to have a go at this again and implement fixes. Let's just pause for a second and see how. Maybe BlueMoonset can help here as well? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:20, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Finnusertop, what I would suggest is that you continue to improve the article, and when you've done that consider taking it to peer review for further suggestions and advice that should address what sorts of additional things you should do to prepare for a new GA review. Then, when you think it's ready, nominate the article for a second time. This review here was completed three weeks ago when it was closed; you're right that it has already failed and it shouldn't be resumed. Typically, when a GA nomination fails, any closing comments from the reviewer should be addressed before renominating. It's also helpful to have a different reviewer the second time around, to get another pair of eyes and another viewpoint on the article, which is why I'd also suggest that Display name 99 not pick it again for review. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:29, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, BlueMoonset. I will proceed as you have instructed. Thank you to Display name 99 as well. I'll address the concerns you raised above before the peer review and new GA nomination. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:34, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your work. I apologize for any errors that I made when beginning to review good articles. Display name 99 (talk) 00:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)