Talk:Nikolai Podgorny

GA Review

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

Reviewer: DustFormsWords (talk) 02:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

My review appears below and is ready for responses. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

1. Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct;

Minor problems with text clarity, as below. Once these are fixed, the article will feature clear and concise text with appropriate spelling and grammar. I started making changes to fix these myself but there were too many and some required deeper knowledge of the subject matter.

•  Done Ukraine and national politics - "appointed in 1946 to a Permanent Representative" - this should be "appointed [..] as a Permanent Representative". Please fix.
•  Done Ukraine and national politics - "He acted as a Soviet emissary to the Czechoslovkia, East Germany, Canada and to Yugoslavia." - I think this should read "He acted as a Soviet emissary to Czechoslovkia, East Germany, Canada and Yugoslavia." Please fix.
•  Done Diplomatic protocol - What is "supreme-like" power? Do you mean "nearly supreme"? Or is this a term with a specific meaning?
•  Done Diplomatic protocol - "were opposed to grant Brezhnev more power" - Do you mean "opposed to granting"? Otherwise this doesn't make sense.
•  DoneDiplomatic protocol - What are "diplomatic protocols"? What does it mean that "Brezhnev was third in diplomatic protocols, while Podgorny was first"? Can this be fixed by Wikilinking "diplomatic protocol"? If not you will require further explanation.

I note that you have wikilinked diplomatic protocols. However, the linked article does not assist me in understanding what it means that Brezhnev was third in them or that Podgorny was first, or why either should care. You will require further explanation of this point. - DustFormsWords ([[User talk:DustFor

msWords|talk]]) 00:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I've reworded it, is it better? --TIAYN (talk) 12:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's now sufficiently clear, thank you! - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

•  Done Diplomatic protocol - "According to sources" - Everything on Wikipedia is according to sources. Either say which sources in the text, or remove this as redundant.
•  Done Removal - "The Supreme Soviet, the legislative assembly, on the command of Brezhnev established the new post" - Are the Supreme Soviet and the Legislative Assembly the same body? If so, remove one as redundant. If not, please change to "and the legislative assembly".
•  Done Removal - "There was never given any explanation" - This should be "There was never any explanation given".
•  Done Removal - "He was awarded [...] respectively." What does the "respectively" refer to? It sounds like the People's Republic of Bulgaria gave him the Order of Lenin, while Czechoslovakia gave him "several medals". Is this correct? Please clarify the sentence.

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

•  Done Lead sections - Please consider rewording the phrase "He graduated in the 1920s, and again, in the early 1930s," in the lead. It's borne out by the text but without explanation it looks farcical and designed to astonish. (See the Principle of Least Astonishment.) Either trim it down to only show his tertiary graduation, or expand it out to provide context.
•  Done Lead sections - Remove the words "As many like him". (a) It's poor English, and (b) it's not relevant that he did the same thing as many others, any more than we'd say, "As many like him, he was born from a female human," or "As many like him, he walked upright on two legs".
• Not relevant Layout - "Notes" and "References" should both be level 2 headings, not level 3. "Bibliography" should be retitled "References" to prevent confusion with a list of published works by the article subject. (See WP:FNNR.)

• That's your personal opinion, see Alexei Kosygin (GA), Nikolai Tikhonov (GA), Leonid Brezhnev (GA) and the List of leaders of the Soviet Union (FL) articles. They all use three level headings. --TIAYN (talk) 06:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Those articles may have been passed in error, or passed prior to a change in policy. GA requires compliance with the manual of style for layout. That guideline notes that "Notes and/or References" is a level 2 header (MOS:APPENDIX) and further notes that "in the rare cases when it is useful to sub-divide these sections [...] use either definition list headings (;Books) or bold-faced text ("Books") instead of level 3 headings (===Books===)". WP:FNNR notes that "Bibliography" is a theoretically valid heading but that it is deprecated - ie, it's not cause to revoke a GA, but new GAs should comply with best practice and avoid using it, for the reasons above. At the very least, you should be aware that the size of the image in "Retirement" causes ugly formatting in Firefox under your current formatting scheme (a susbtantial gap - about 3 cm - appears between "References" and "Notes".) - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• The formatting problem has been fixed and while I still believe this is an unpleasant way to format these sections it seems to me that it's probably not necessary to change it to meet GA, so I've marked this concern as "not relevant". - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• Words to watch - The following words and phrases need to be either removed, or made direct quotes attributed to a named entity and referenced through inline citation:

•  Done "one of the most liberal-minded members" (unsupported attribution)
•  Done "There were some rumours" (and all following text - unsupported attribution / expression lacking precision / expression of doubt)

You had this marked as "done", but it does not appear to be fixed. It's still an expression of doubt, you haven't reworded the sentence, and there's no inline citation immediately following the sentence. Who says there were rumours? What was the effect of the rumours? You can't have this here any more than you could go to Tony Blair and add a sentence saying, "He is rumoured to be gay." Information that can't be verified is only relevant in so far as someone who verifiably held it as their opinion took verfiable action based on it. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Still not done; the rewording still doesn't result in anyone taking any verifiable action as a result of these rumours. It's also unsourced - the next citation after the "rumours" sentence points to Time Magazine, which doesn't mention anything about rumours or a Council of State. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, the wording is now fine and the sourcing is also fine. Thanks!

•  Done "second-most powerful man" (puffery, unsupported attribution)

Okay, this is now sourced, but it's still not fixed. It's peacockery - he can't be objectively the second-most-powerful man in the USSR, if only because there's no test defined (a bodybuilder, for example, might also claim to be the second-most-powerful man) - so you need to phrase it in the format, "was thought by X to be the second-most-powerful man" or "Time Magazine claimed he was the second-most-powerful man" or something similar. It's an opinion, and it therefore needs to be atrributed to a notable commentator. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not according to Time. The Supreme Soviet elected a prestige order were Podgorny was second, this ment, literally, that Podgorny was the second-most powerful person in the USSR. --TIAYN (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

That information is not currently in the article, so it's still a problem right now. However, if you add that information (with an appropriate source) it should be fine. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

According to Time --TIAYN (talk) 07:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Getting closer! But now your problem is that where this assertion appears in the article (under "Removal"), it's not sourced to Time, but rather to Daniels. If Daniels is quoting Time, that should be noted in the footnotes. Otherwise please provide the citation to Time Magazine. At this stage I'd just go fix this myself but I'm not sure which source is the one you are intending to cite. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thank you. - !!!!

•  Done "practically became a "non-person" (expressions that lack precision)

You've sourced this to the War Heroes site, but I've read a translated version of that site and it doesn't appear to use any phrase similar to "non-person" or even describe him vanishing from notice, except insofar as it doesn't have much coverage of his late life (which is not sufficient to found such a claim per WP:SYNTHESIS). "Non-person" is both an extraordinary and politically loaded phrase, and furthermore you have it in quotation marks indicating a direct quotation. If you don't have a source that says specifically that he was a "non-person" you need to remove this. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Still not done. "Nonperson" is an extraordinary claim, and short of direct attribution it would normally not be encyclopaedic language. It needs a citation immediately following the sentence. (See WP:INCITE). Ideally, that citation would, in addition to the source, contain the relevant quote from the source justifying the claim. Alternatively, you might be content with merely changing the sentence to encyclopaedic language. For example, "After his resignation, Podgorny's life is not well documented." - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:39, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Done, thank you! - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:22, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

• The fiction and lists style guidelines do not apply to this article.

2. Verifiable with no original research:

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

All references appear in dedicated sections. (However see my concerns under criterion 1(b) regarding layout above.)

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);

The following phrases are not adquately sourced through inline citations:

•  Done Lead: - "industrial ladder". (This phrase is in quote marks but the quote is not attributed.)
•  Done (See following discussion.) - Early life: - Entire section. Running the text of the reference through a translator suggests it supports the assertions of this paragraph, but I am not sure that the site "War Heroes" is a reliable source as it seems to use a fair bit of POV language. You would require a second source in order for this paragraph to meet our policies on reliable sources.

• War Heroes is a reliable sources written by editors who check sources. No random editors can write an article, second it may seem a bit POVish because it is a site for "Heroes" of the USSR and Russia. It is reliable. --TIAYN (talk) 06:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• I've had a further think about this, and while I'm still not convinced it's a reliable source for all purposes (certainly not for political details) I can't see any reason not to consider it reliable for neutral biographical detail about Podgorny's early life. So the uses of it early in the article are fine; just be careful about using it to support claims about his political career. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

•  Done (See discussion above.) Ukraine and national politics - Same problem as above regarding "War Heroes" site where it is used to source the first paragraph here.
•  Done Ukraine and national politics - "Pogorny briefly fell out [...] many likely heirs." The Time Magazine article you have this paragraph sourced to does not support these assertions in anywhere near this depth - in fact, it only supports the last sentence of this paragraph. (In addition, this whole paragraph is in suspiciously POV language.)

• I disagree, the paragraph is sourced by the referenced; the article is about "The Leading Contenders to Succeed a Tired Khrushchev", therefore, it is not wrong to say that Podgorny was a leading contender..--TIAYN (talk) 07:10, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, it supports "leading contender", but it doesn't support "he lied", "blamed bad agriculture performance in Ukraine on "bad weather" when in was due to workers' incompetence", or "doubled its output from the previous year". (The article says "doubled its supply of grain to the state", which isn't necessarily the same as "output".) In any case the article is written in a loose, conversational style that makes me doubt it's intended to present a 100% factually accurate description of events, rather than merely a flavourful bottle-assessment of a handful of personalities. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Reworded it, is it better now? --TIAYN (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Better but still not fixed. The Time Magazine article you cite does not support "due to workers' incompetence". All it contains is a (possibly fictitious) quote that mentions "stolen, pilfered", which doesn't imply either "workers" or "incompetence" - or even that the quote represents a true position rather than someone's alleged opinion. Also, to nitpick, the article only says Podgorny was the subject of a "scorching assault" for blaming bad weather, which isn't the same thing as saying he actually blamed bad weather - the assault could have been mistaken. Also, your new wording "doubled the state's grain supply" is not right - it should be "doubled the Ukraine's supply of grain to the state". - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:45, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Replaced workers' incompetence with stealing and pilfering. --TIAYN (talk) 07:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Fixed now.. --TIAYN (talk) 07:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed it is! Thank you.

•  Done Retirement, death and legacy - "After his resignation Podgorny practically became a "nonperson" in Soviet society." - This sentence includes an unattributed quote, and makes an extraordinary claim requiring direct citation. The sentence should be immediately followed by an inline citation, and the note for that citation should reproduce the specific quote relied on to found this claim.

Still not done - see above. Cited source does not support general gist of sentence or specific quote. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed quote, is it to your liking now? --TIAYN (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

(c) it contains no original research.

Assuming that the sourcing problems under criterion 2b are resolved, there does not appear to be any evidence of original research in this article.

3. Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;

The article is broad in scope and addresses all areas that I would expect from an article of this kind.

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

The article does not go into any unnecessary detail.

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


 Done I have concerns about the paragraph "Podgorny briefly fell out" through to "The truth is that". This paragraph triggers my warning sirens for POV. For a start it's not encyclopaedic language. Consider the bit that starts "when the real reason was". The real reason isn't important to the paragraph. A better phrasing (if supported by sources) would be, "but Kruschev believed that the real reason was" or "but subsequent inquiries suggested the real reason was". This shouldn't be about engaging directly with the truth, but rather with people's perceptions of what the truth was, and as such the people holding those perceptions need to be named.

This paragraph still has problems (see above) but the current wording satisfies my concerns about POV. The article no longer has any POV concerns. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:43, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

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


The article is stable and does not appear to be the subject of any current dispute.

6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content;

* File:Nicolai_Podgorny.jpg - There are technical problems with this file. Copyright appears to reside in the German Federal Archive, but the uploader, MachoCarioca, has relinquished the work under CCBY in her own name. She does not obviously have the authority to make such a declaration. I have little doubt this image is capable of being used, but the tagging and legal status of it needs to be clarified (or at least, explained to me) before you can get the tick for it. (It's possible I am misunderstanding the documentation of this photo so feel free to get a second opinion.)

It can be used, the German Archives gave Wikipedia the right to use some of their photos. --TIAYN (talk) 06:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The GA criteria is not whether the photo can be used (I'm sure it ultimately can be), but whether it is appropriately tagged and whether it has a valid fair use rationale. The documentation currently on the image is not sufficient to fully explain why it can be used on Wikipedia; you will need to improve the documentation to make the position clear. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

All other German Archive photos uses the same fair use rationale.. I'm pretty sure this one passes Commons criteria, if not, this is not the only picture we need to delete. --TIAYN (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

No, you're missing the point. I'm not saying the image can't be used or that it needs to be deleted. I'm saying that the GA criteria require that its legal status be appropriately documented. It is not currently obvious from the image page what its legal status is and why we have the right to use it. It's no good you explaining to me why - I'm with you. But that information needs to be in the image licensing information. I am looking at the image page, and while it is clear to me that the copyright initially resided in the German Archives, it is not clear how that copyright legally passed into the public domain. So you've got the intial status - German Archives - and you have the end result - released under a CCBY licence - but you don't have the connecting step, being that the uploader, MachoCarioca, was authorised to make that release on behalf of the German Archives. (For example, if I, a random person, uploaded an image from a library, and released it, I would not have had the authority to do that and it would therefore not be in the public domain.) You will need to either contact MachoCarioca, or find a person who knows something about the German Archives uploads generally, and get them to either fix it, or explain to me why I'm wrong. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Images in the article are appropriate and suitably captioned. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Here, the original photo was uploaded by BArchBot, a bot that specialises in uploading images from the German Archives. --TIAYN (talk) 08:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

See Commons:Bundesarchiv --TIAYN (talk) 08:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, that answers my concerns nicely. I have edited the image's description page to make the process of its CCBY release clearer and direct the attention of anyone else who may be confused to the information you have provided above. The image is now fine.

Overview - Although the article is attractive, generally well written, and informative, it requires substantial amendments to satisfy the GA criteria. In the absence of these amendments it must be failed. I am not sure if these amendments can be made quickly but I will leave this review open for seven days to give involved editors a chance to address my concerns. Regardless of the outcome, I congratulate all editors on the work that has taken place so far, which is commendable even if it's not quite up to GA yet. - DustFormsWords (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Overview 2 (after first round of cleanup) - There is a significant improvement and I am now reasonably confident the article will be able to be passed during this review. However there is still work that needs to be done, as set out above. I have struck through the concerns that are no longer relevant (due to having been addressed). Please continue work on the remaining concerns. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Overview 3 - Small improvements, but you still have a problem with image licensing and with many of the statements sourced to Time Magazine. Keep working! - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Overview 4 - The only remaining issue is the sourcing for the "second most powerful man" statement. As noted above, the lead attributes it to Time Magazine, but when the statement is elaborated on in the article body it's referenced through inline citation to Daniels. Please ensure that an appropriate inline citation to Time Magazine appears in the article body, or otherwise clarify the situation through the use of a footnote. Once that's done, I'll (finally) give you the tick! - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Overview 5 - All issues are now addressed and I will pass the article as a Good Article. Thank you for your patience! - DustFormsWords (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)