Talk:Ni Yulan/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Aussie Article Writer (talk · contribs) 17:21, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Failed "good article" nomination

This article has failed its Good article nomination. This is how the article, as of June 11, 2021, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Paragraphs are two sentences long, which I tend to find means there is detail that needs to be fleshed out in the article. The lead section is too many paragraphs and is not enough of a succinct summary of the main article. There are a lot of lists of dates where things happened (proseline) to Ni Yulan (which, btw, is dreadful to read about, it is a terrible situation) but we need to convert this to readable prose with connecting phrases that give better context.

2. Verifiable?: Pass

3. Broad in coverage?: Ni Yulan is currently 60 years old. There are large swatches of her life that are not documented here. She has a daughter, she was married, we don't know where she went to school, and her life is only documented for her activism which started in 2001. This means we have close to 40 years that have not been documented. An article about a person needs to have far more detail about a person than just their activism, worthy though it is.

4. Neutral point of view?: I'm not entirely sure this is neutral. In this I am setting aside my personal feelings and own opinions of the Chinese government. As it only speaks of her activism, it doesn't give the side of the Chinese government. Now I know this is distasteful, but on Wikipedia we allow the reader to work out what the think by themselves. I'm sure the Chinese government have made statements on Ni Yulan, but we do not have anything in the article about their views and positions.

5. Stable?: Pass

6. Images?: Pass

The subject is worthy. I can see that effort was put into the article. I encourage the editor to not give up, as this article is far too important. I genuinely am unable to help on this one as my focus will be on Australian articles about women, and I have no idea how to start research on Chinese nationals, however worthy, so I must apologise for this. Thank you for your work so far, keep researching and writing. If you need help copyediting, I may be able to lend a hand.

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to have it reassessed. Thank you for your work so far.— Aussie Article Writer (talk) 17:21, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

From my user talk page

Hi Aussie Article Writer, thank you so much for your GA review on Ni Yulan and for your encouraging words. I've read your comments, and I agree with the issues you pointed out. As you said, I would certainly like to fix these issues and renominate it. But it seems like it is very difficult for me to remedy the first two, perhaps due to my lack of experience.

The first issue is proseline. This is a very significant issue, and it's primarily due to the lack of detailed content on the events covered. But the difficulty is, I've looked almost everywhere on the internet, including journals, online books (many do not have available free previews), and news articles, and the content we have in this Wikipedia article is pretty much all I could squeeze out. Unfortuantely, most sources do not go into these events in detail.

The second issue you pointed out is due to a similar problem. You said that it failed to provide Broad Coverage as most of Ni Yulan's first 40 years of life are missing. But I can't seem to find any information regarding this on the internet either.

Do you have any possible solutions (perhaps some kind of database you know would work?) Or is this article inherently incapable of getting to GA status? Thank you very much for helping. Thomas Meng (talk) 19:43, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Thomas Meng: I am asking for a 2nd opinion as I’m not sure about this. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 03:55, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Second opinion (and solving some issues)

Thanks both for working on this article. The main question for me was whether this article would be inherently incapable of getting to GA status. I do not believe so, and have tried to solve, or provide pointer to resolve various aspects mentioned in the review. I believe the broadness criterion is not super strict when sources are absent.

• Criterion 1. I don't mind short paragraphs in general, but they are on the short side. I wouldn't fail an article solely on this (I merged two related paragraphs). Also did a light ce to reduce proseline to a level I find acceptable at GA.
• Criterion 3. If there is no information, there is no information, and only very short articles (like half the size of this or shorter) are typically judges to be inherently incapable of getting the GA plus in my experience. However, there is some more information about her online if you scrape a bit harder: The Chinese Wikipedia has some of her former jobs, unsourced:
  • In 1978, Ni Yulan was admitted to the Beijing Language Institute and studied in the Chinese Department with a bachelor's degree. Later, he studied at China University of Political Science and Law [Source Request] and obtained a Bachelor of Laws. From 1986 to 2001, Ni Yulan worked as a legal consultant at China International Trade Corporation and as a lawyer at Justice Law Firm [Source Request]. (Google Translate)
  • This source provides part of that information: http://cuawg.wdfiles.com/local--files/ni-yulan/Case%20file%20for%20Ni%20Yulan.pdf. This group seems to be legit, the NYTimes reports on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/world/asia/swedish-rights-worker-held-in-china-said-to-apologize-for-his-actions.html.
• Criterion 4: Hmmm. They don't seem to be available in English, and statements from Ni's side are appropriately attributed. I have added the reason of her second imprisonment and removed the word regime once (we all know that China aint a democracy), but I think this is alright. FemkeMilene (talk) 20:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

As further feedback to the initial reviewer: consider putting an article on hold instead of failing it immediately if it's not too far from the criteria. I think it's almost there and the outstanding issues could maybe have been solved within 7 days. Thanks both for your work! FemkeMilene (talk) 20:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Femkemilene thanks, still working out the systems around GA, this is good advise. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 04:49, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome. As for the next steps: we'll first wait for User:Thomas Meng to make some further improvements to the article (my opinion is that the article is on the verge of GA), and I would be nice if some more work is done in the broadness criteria the source that I provided, or with Chinese sources if they are available. Then, they after a seven day wait, you decide whether you think it is GA material and implement that decision. I'll be on a wiki break until the 15, by I think you can manage it from here. FemkeMilene (talk) 07:57, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

That’s fine, I agree with your suggestions. If the changes are made during your wikibreak I should be able to assess them. @Thomas Meng: I think you are quite close to getting to GA status, can you incorporate the suggestions made above? - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 16:15, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Aussie Article Writer, Femkemilene Yeah definitely. Thanks a lot to you both! I'll do my best to further improve this article within the next seven days and then maybe ping you when I'm done. Best, Thomas Meng (talk) 02:56, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Aussie Article Writer:,@Femkemilene: Hi, I've incorporated the China Action source Femkemilene provided as well as a newly found Radio Free Asia article, along with some other changes. Do you think this article is acceptable now? Thanks. Thomas Meng (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a source for her Bachelor degree in Chinese? I haven't been able to find it. I read the NYT article, but that doesn't contain information about her first degree. If you can't find a source either, it will regretfully have to be removed again. FemkeMilene (talk) 19:42, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Femkemilene, I found this info here (the newly found Radio Free Asia article). It briefly mentioned her first degree in this sentence: 倪玉兰1978年考入北京语言学院，就读于中文系，而后获得学士学位. "北京语言学院" translates to Beijing Language and Culture University, and "学士学位" translates to bachelors degree. Thanks, Thomas Meng (talk) 01:08, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@Thomas Meng: I used Google translate to translate the quote. Can you please check on this for me? - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 02:57, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@Aussie Article Writer:, Thanks for the Google translation! I just fixed some inaccuracies. Usually people use Deepl.com instead of Google translate. You can see that Deepl offers a much better translation here; much closer to the orginal meaning: Ni Yulan, 51, entered the Beijing Language Institute in 1978, where she studied Chinese, and later received her bachelor's degree and attended China University of Political Science and Law. She worked as a legal advisor for the China International Trade Corporation from 1986 to 2001, and also worked as a lawyer at Justice Law Firm.Thomas Meng (talk) 17:34, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Femkemilene this looks pretty solid. What do you think? - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 21:33, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I think it looks great! FemkeMilene (talk) 21:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Thomas Meng congrats, you got this to GA status! Well done, thank you for persisting in the GA process. It can be tedious and frustrating at times, but ultimately it makes for a higher quality article. Keep up the great work! - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 01:08, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

@Aussie Article Writer:,@Femkemilene: Definitely! And thank you so much for your tireless effort in reviewing! Thomas Meng (talk) 01:53, 13 July 2021 (UTC)