Talk:Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sadads (talk) 15:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Unfortunately I have to fail this article for several reasons which cannot be solved in a short amount of time. First and foremost, the article relies almost solely upon the publications of the Union of International Associations which means that the content is not reliable secondary sources for use in as references to verify information. Currently it reads like an informational blurb for a the encyclopedia, not a Nuetral encyclopedia article. Additionally, the article focuses too much on the content of the encyclopedia and hardly covers more pertinent information such as the publication history and the critical reception of the work, as well as the scholarly context in relationship to the UAI and other international discussions. Also, the footnotes are very poorly formated, for more information about footnote formatting, see Wikipedia:Citing sources. I encourage you to consider revising the article in order to meet more of these criteria. If anything is unclear or if you have questions feel free to leave them here or on the article's talk page I will be watching both. However, I do not see this article being ready for GA status in a resasonable amount of time. Happy editing, and I am sorry to have to fail this review, Sadads (talk) 15:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Sadads. Your assessment looks fair enough to me. I do have one question: where, specifically, is the article failing on "MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists"? With regard to secondary sources, you are right, most problems are linked to their lack. I don't think there exist much other sources than those mentioned in the article references, but there could be a way to change the perception by systematically pointing to the sources outside of the UIA rather than using, like I did, the UIA pages citing those sources. That is true mainly for 'reviews' of the Encyclopedia, which are more or less the only secondary sources that I know of. It might well be the case that those reviews would suffice to give the impression of verifiability, and to cover the aspects that you mention: publication history, critical reception, scholarly context. All this is linked somehow to the footnotes, whose formatting I should learn. For the rest, I agree with you that the article reads too much like an informational blurb, but I would not say that it focuses too much on the content, or that info such as publication history, etc, is more pertinent than the content. I understand the kind of balance you are asking for, and I thank you again for your care. --Robert Daoust (talk) 22:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

On the MOS stuff, first the lead isn't long enough per WP:Lead. Second the section "Databases, entries, and interlinks" could be much more prosy, and cover things with more summary and less explicit fact listing. Additionally, the reference stuff I mentioned is relevant to MOS. Your paragraphs sometimes get long too (but that is a silly thing, which is easy to clean up :P). Also, the section "Notes and commentaries within the Encyclopedia projects" is a little too detailed and doesn't give weight to the content at the same level with the commentary on the content. I would suggest suggest giving the content as much weight as most reviews and discussions would: less then 1/3-1/2, instead focusing on implications and history, etc. Sadads (talk) 00:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that's very clear now on MoS stuff. But I am baffled by what you say about 'content'. You say that the section on "Notes and commentaries..." doesn't give weight to the content at the same level with the commentary on the content: I don't get at all what you mean exactly (especially since we're talking about a content of the UIA Encyclopedia which consist of commentaries...). And lastly, when you suggest giving the content as much (i.e. less) weight as most reviews would, I understand that you would want the article to be more review-like than description-like. If that is the meaning of your suggestion, then I must disagree, because this Wikipedia encyclopedic article should be first (shouldn't it?) about the UIA Encyclopedia and its many thousands pages of content, rather than about the few pages of reviews and discussions that exist. Or am I missing something? --Robert Daoust (talk) 14:03, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, if someone wanted to know what is in the book, they could read it, the point is to cover the scholarship related to the book itself (Themes, publication history, criticism, etc.). In standard book reviews, the reviewer spends about 1/3-1/2 the time precisely describing the content, the rest talks about the context in which the book is written or the relationship of the content to the context. The principles I am drawing this from are talked about at WP:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article, and featured articles like Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men, The Slave Community and the various novels at WP:FA reinforce such an opinion as the product of consensus. I personally feel less emphasis on summary and more emphasis on discussion is better, but currently your article's weight on summary is even well more than the average reviewed article. Content can be discussed in relationship to the other topics, but the summary is there in order to provide an unfamiliar reader with the key facts which will help the rest of the article make more sense, not provide an extremely elaborate guide to the book's content, Sadads (talk) 14:23, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I get you loud and clear now. I hope the article will be improved along the lines that you suggest. Some improvements can be easily done, others are extremely difficult, given the highly unusual scope and nature of the work, and the relatively quite inadequate scope and nature of secondary source writings about it. Ironically, it is within the Encyclopedia itself, especially on its website which intricately embraces its 40 year long history, that the most relevant material can be found with respect to criticism, implications, publication history, themes, the scholarly context, etc. In other words, the Encyclopedia is itself a work of review and criticism (on countless topics and often upon itself), but nobody has been able yet to respond to its challenging presence, except for a few papers very shortly 'reviewing' the very gigantic work on one of its special dates of issue. I should perhaps make here a declaration of no conflict of interest: I never contributed anything to the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, nor collaborated to it in anyway, I am simply a user and as such I wish it the best success. --Robert Daoust (talk) 17:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Good. I never suspected you of COI. I look forward to revisions! Happy editing, Sadads (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)