Talk:Ernesto Pérez Balladares

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ernesto Pérez Balladares/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Shudde (talk · contribs) 02:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey. I'll go through and add comments as I read the article. Then I'll address each of the Good Article Criteria. I'll try to get through the review relatively promptly. - Shudde ^talk 02:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Shudde, for volunteering your time for this review! I'll look forward to your feedback. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:59, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

• When did he marry his wife, and does he have any children? There is not much in the way of information about his personal life. I find this a bit surprising considering he held such a public position.

• I've written several articles about post-Noriega Panamanian presidents, and run into the same problems with each, unfortunately. While president, their major actions get covered in international press, but I have great difficulty finding English-language extended profiles, much less book-length biographies. When he dies, an obituary might cover his life in more detail, but until then things are a bit patchwork. A fluent Spanish-speaker could probably find this information, but my own slow searches of Panama papers using Google Translate haven't had any luck. Panama's a pretty small place (4 million citizens), making it more like looking for information on the mayor of Bogota than the president of a nation--it just doesn't show up in international press that much outside of huge events, whereas the local press publishes so many thousands of articles that it's difficult to sort out what's important.

Don't read any of that as argumentative, though, because I'm honestly of two minds where this leaves the article for GA purposes. I'm pretty confident that I've covered the "main aspects" of his life according to English-language sources, having combed through Google Books, Google News, Highbeam, and EBSCO; the sources just don't discuss his marriage, children, or post-presidency career that I can find. (You'll notice that even the section on later charges relies mostly on Spanish sources--this seems to be the only reason he appears in even the Panama papers any more.) On the other hand, I agree that this information is presumably out there somewhere in Spanish. (I keep hoping someone will add it to the es.wiki version of the page, but no one has yet.) The GA policies don't seem to give clear guidance for this situation--if "main aspects" for a non-English topic means the "main aspects" in English reporting/scholarship, or in all languages.

For now I'm nominating these because I think it's as far as a non-Spanish-speaker can reasonably take them. But I agree that there are holes. This came up in the Guillermo Endara review, too, which ended up passing basically by default (the reviewer left Wikipedia halfway through). Where that leaves this one for the "main aspects" is your call, and I won't object at all if you feel this isn't ready for listing.

Hey. I completely understand what you're saying. I am in two minds about it as well, I added the comment in the hope that it was an oversight rather than because the information was itself hard to find. After I read the article I immediately looked at the Spanish language article to see if there was anything there that could help! I will think it over, it is no rush, and might try and find some information myself. The only advice I can give is to try and find a Spanish language speaker that may be willing to spend an hour or so looking for some of this information. I certainly agree that the information I've asked for is much less important to the article than his political career, that is why I too am in two minds about it. - Shudde ^talk 09:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Can the first use of the term US be United States?

•  Done

• Brief time in exile? Can you be more specific?

•  Done

• Would "passed several months inof exile in Spain" read better? - Shudde ^talk 09:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• How is "Carlos Duque, Noriega's candidate"? This is a bit confusing.

• Basically, Noriega was the effective ruler of the country, who had a string of puppet presidents (popularly known as "Kleenex presidents" for their disposability) who were the nominal civilian rulers. I added a "chosen" here to try to clarify. Let me know if you think more is needed.

• I think you've reworded it pretty well here, but maybe you could add a footnote clarifying things similar to that reply for me? - Shudde ^talk 09:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Done. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:40, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• "government was characterized by pro-free market policies" - the reference for this statement was an article from 1994 - is it really possible to make that statement about a political term that is so young? Maybe further into his term could the policies be characterised as anything, but not that early surely?

• The citation is more there for the free-market economists claim; I've divided this into two sentences to clarify this. Anyway, Perez Balladares' record shows that it's not just a 1994 thing: WTO membership, privatization of public utilities, reform of labor codes, and (arguably) closer US ties. The Economist, for example, also describes a trend toward free markets when writing in 1997 [1]: "He has a case. He has pushed through constitutional changes to secure much, albeit not full, autonomy for the all-Panamanian board that will run the canal. Aided by fiscal discipline, privatisation and other structural reforms, the economy is back to solid growth. Lowering of tariffs and other barriers helped Panama into the World Trade Organisation last year. The Colon free-trade zone, at the north end of the canal, turns over $5 billion a year." I believe Harding also broadly emphasized the free-market aspect, but I'd have to get the book again to be absolutely sure.

• Happy with that. - Shudde ^talk 09:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Could you be more specific about reforming the labour code - specifically the reforms that prompted the protests?

• Unfortunately, my only source here is Harding, and I don't believe he offered any more specifics.

• I'll live with it. - Shudde ^talk 09:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Is there anymore information about his career following the end of his term as President? He must have been doing something for the last 13-14 years, especially before the corruption allegations in 2009. Doesn't need to be a lot, but considering his age I doubt he just retired into obscurity.

• I agree, but have had great difficulties finding this--see above.

Criteria

• 1. Well-written:

 Done

• 2. Verifiable with no original research:

 Partly done Only a few issues with references - see above. Many I cannot access which makes it hard, but not problems that I can see. No BLP problems.

 Done

• 3. Broad in its coverage:

 Partly done Need more information about personal life, and life after 1999 (except for the corruption allegations). This is a bit of a problem, probably the biggest obstacle to a pass at the moment.

• 4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

 Done

• 5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

 Done

• 6. Illustrated, if possible, by images:

 Partly done The fair use rationale needs to be expanded. "Not replaceable with free media because " needs to be added. I'm going to get a second opinion on this.

 Done

Congratulations. The article is pretty good, but I think could do with an expansion on the areas I mentioned above. It's very well written though, and thoroughly referenced. Hopefully everything can be addressed and I see no reason why the GA Criteria can't be reached. I'll place it on hold for a week. If you have any questions or need clarification on anything let me know. - Shudde ^talk 03:23, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks--I'll be on tomorrow to look at these suggestions in more detail. -- Khazar2 (talk) 05:41, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again for the helpful suggestions and taking the time to double-check all this! Much appreciated. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:41, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment in response to the question at Wikipedia:Good article help#Fair use rationale for an image during GA Review regarding the non-free use rational for the image in the article. I will just copy what I wrote there:

"I am pretty sure you are not supposed to have fair use media to illustrate living people. Basically as long as they are alive there is always the possibility that a free one may one day exist, so it fails policy number 1. I would think that it would need a really good explanation as to why it is exempt (WP:NFC#UUI is relevant)." AIRcorn (talk) 02:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes this was my thinking as well. Unless the fair use rationale is substantially improved, I'm going to insist that the image is removed. - Shudde ^talk 09:30, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Done. Thanks to Aircorn for the outside comment. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:29, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Additional comments Hey Khazar2. See my comments above, maybe try my suggestion of contacting a Spanish speaker regarding that information I requested. I'll leave the article on hold for now, and maybe come back in a few days and give the article another read if you can't manage to find any more information. That may help me decide — sometimes giving things a bit of time clarifies my view on these things. Regarding the fair use image. This needs to be fixed — I'm not confident you can come up with a satisfactory fair use rationale, but I'm willing to wait and see. I may ask for a second opinion on that again. Any more questions let me know. - Shudde ^talk 09:30, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. I posted to WikiProject Central America and WikiProject Politics to see if I could get assistance. We can see if anybody takes me up on it in the next few days and then check in again. I think I'll also post to WT:GAN for some broader input on this issue, just because I'm curious about it--I write a lot about non-English-speaking countries, so it's come up in my GAs before and presumably will again. Whatever they say there though, I'm completely fine with whatever you decide. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:29, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah not a bad idea to see what the general view is on foreign language sources. It's a tough problem and would be good to hear what others think. - Shudde ^talk 09:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

We can give it another few days, but it doesn't look like my call for Spanish speakers or my post at WT:GAN are going to get any response, unfortunately.

The closest I can find to a relevant policy is the footnote to 3a at WP:GA?: "This requirement is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles; it allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics." I guess I'd argue that the "main aspects" of his career are covered here (pre-presidency, presidency, later corruption charges), and that his post-presidency career (whatever that is), wedding date, etc. would fall under some "major facts" that are left out. But ultimately, it's up to you, and I'm happy to abide by your decision either way. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah I know it is weaker than FA standard, which is why it is a closer call. I would agree that the main aspects have been covered as well. Let me put it this way — I'm from a small country of similar size to Panama. Of course it is English speaking, but even so, you'll struggle to find good information about our Prime Ministers from sources outside New Zealand. For Panamanian politicians this challenge is compounded by the fact that the sources are going to be Spanish rather than English. For that reason I'm leaning towards a pass for this article. - Shudde ^talk 23:55, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Decided to pass it. I think we both agree on how hard these articles are to get up to standard. Congratulations on all your work—there is a definite systematic bias towards English language topics on en-wiki (this is to be expected), so your work is really valuable. Been an interesting discussion regarding non-English sources — shame that comment on WT:GAN hasn't generated much discussion. Congrats again. - Shudde ^talk 00:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Yay! Thanks for taking on the unusual issues of this review. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:30, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

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