Talk:Sri Lanka/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) 08:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello all,

After looking through this article I have decided it does not meet the Good Article Criteria, and so am failing this nomination. My below comments are not a thorough run-through of the article, and I suggest any future nominators go much further before renominating in order for the GAN process to be smooth.

1) Well-written

This article can do with major prose improvements. This is clear from the first paragraph, where there is redundancy in "...is an island country in South Asia near south-east India. Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest...". The rest of the lead is also stilted. The prose in the body is better, but its organisation is lacking. There are numerous one- or two-line paragraphs, and single paragraph subsections. The table of contents is longer than my computer screen. The article as a whole has 64kB of prose, which is a bit more than expected under guidelines, albeit not excessively so.

2) Verifiable

While some areas are lacking sources, they aren't numerous. However, the quality of some sources and the correct usage of sources is lacking. There are blogs and personal sites that do not appear to meet our guidelines on reliable sources, especially given this article covers a broad topic of which there should be numerous academic sources. Synthesis is visible from the beginning. A source for importance during the time of the silk road and a source for importance in the Second World War do not together make the island important for the entire intervening period. The source after the sentence claiming the oldest hospital was in Sri Lanka does not say this. References need patching up anyway. Online sources need access dates, book sources need page numbers. There are numerous naked urls used as titles for web sources which have actual names.

3) Broad

This article is indeed broad. I question how much of that is balanced however. For example, the history section dwarfs all other sections, and I suspect room currently given to history could be useful elsewhere, as history goes into quite unnecessary detail for such a broad overview article.

4) Neutral

This article is decidedly not neutral, and many lines read as boosterism, such as the questionable strategic importance and hospital statements I noted above. Being one of the "two countries of South Asia" rated anything seems particularly desperate, given that's a quarter of the countries in South Asia. Much rewriting needed in this regard, the article should inform, not promote.

5) Stable

Article is stable.

6) Illustrated

The article is illustrated, perhaps too much. Illustrations should support the text, not overwhelm it, and be placed in useful positions alternating down the page where possible. The Geography section is particularly overloaded. I have not checked any image copyright statuses.

Best, CMD (talk) 08:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)