Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/May Revolution/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Nikkimaria 03:01, 7 July 2011 [1].

May Revolution

Nominator(s): Cambalachero (talk) 14:46, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it is a key event in the history of Argentina, and I have worked a lot with it. I worked first with Argentine books, as those made the most comprehensive study of this topic (not surprising), but I checked some books in English as well. I have also trimmed down some parts to related articles, but trying to keep this as an article that could be understood on its own, having in mind that most readers from outside Argentina or even South America are unlikely to have even a clue on who were this people or the events described.

All the issues pointed during the first nomination were addressed by then Cambalachero (talk) 14:46, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose on sourcing again. I appreciate the work you've done since the previous nomination, but more work is needed here. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:11, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Liniers armed all the population of Buenos Aires, including criollos and slaves, and defeated a second British invasion attempt in 1807." - source?
"Not fooled by the Viceroy's communiqué, some criollos met at the houses of Nicolás Rodríguez Peña and Hipólito Vieytes. During these secret meetings they named a representative commission, composed of Juan José Castelli and Martín Rodríguez, to request that Cisneros convene of an open cabildo to decide the future of the Viceroyalty." - source?
"In the Plaza, the people did not believe Cisneros was going to allow the open cabildo the next day. Leiva left the Cabildo and Belgrano, representing the crowd, requested a definitive answer." - source?
"Leiva requested Belgrano help the Cabildo with the work, as his intervention would be seen by the crowd as a guarantee that their demands would not be ignored." - source? Check for other statements requiring sources
Check for WP:MOS issues - for example, ellipses should not normally be in square brackets
Page ranges should use endashes, not hyphens
Excessive quotes in References section
Multiple inconsistencies in formatting in References
All foreign-language sources need to be noted as such, and these notations should use proper grammar (capitalization)

Sources need considerable work to meet FA standards. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:11, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

done The details about the books (such as the language, if not English) are detailed at "Bibliography", the footnotes cite the author and page. So, if you read "Galasso, pp. 86—87", it is implicit that the details are below, at Galasso's book; not being repeated each time the book is cited. As for the quotes, they are required by WP:NOENG. Cambalachero (talk) 21:38, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Improvements made, but additional work is needed. Unsourced statements remain - for example, "The debate tangentially discussed the rivalry between criollos and peninsulars; proponents of keeping the Viceroy felt that the will of peninsulars should prevail over that of criollos." You appear to be using emdashes for page ranges - needs to be endashes. Further inconsistencies in reference formatting remain. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cambalachero, I'd like to make a few remarks:

You should remove the detailed info in the all references (the English and Spanish texts) as Nikkimaria suggested. Name of author, date of publication and pages used is more than enough. Detailed info should be placed in "notes" section, but only if they are really important. However, I'd suggest you to simply move the detailed references into the talk page, so that it can be used as source in the future in case someone "doubts" you.
"The Portuguese royal family left Europe and settled in colonial Brazil in 1808, after escaping the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal" Perhaps this would be better: "An invasion of Portugal in 1808 by Napoleon's forces led to the departure of the Portuguese Royal family to its South American colony, Brazil."
"Carlota Joaquina, sister of Ferdinand VII, was the wife of a Portuguese prince". You're taking here of King João VI of Portugal, not a minor prince. Perhaps you should change it to "Dona Carlota Joaquina, sister of Ferdinand VII, was the wife of Portuguese King Dom João VI (John VI)."
"Carlota Joaquina finally declined the project". That's not what happened. She never gave up the project. It was her husband who sabotaged her moves in every single moment. The last thing João VI would want was a stable, huge and powerful Hispanic-American monarchy just next to Brazil. Much better a yet another weak Hispanic-American republic, plagued by coups, dictatorships, rebellions, etc... However, it is true that the Argentine monarchists gave up on her, because they wanted a constitutional monarchy, while she wanted an absolustist monarchy. Perhaps something like "Conflicted goals, as her supporters intended her to head a constitutional monarchy, whereas she wanted to govern an absolute monarchy, undermined the project, leading it to failure."

I'm going to read the rest of the article now. --Lecen (talk) 14:01, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I pointed, the translations are required by WP:NOENG, which is official policy. Paragraphs should begin introducing an idea and then expanding it, that's why the one about the Portuguese royal family leaving portugal has that info first, as it is about that and not about the napoleonic wars.

As for John VI, the reference mentions him as "a prince", without even naming him, and the articles here seem to confirm that: as of 1808-1809, Maria I was the Queen regnant (that is, a Queen reigning in her own right, not the mere wife of the king), and John VI is not mentioned as King but until 1816, many time after the events of this article. Unless there is some gross mistake in there, he was a prince regent during the time mentioned, not a king. Even the Anexo:Lista de regentes de Portugal (from portuguese wikipedia) lists him as "Príncipe do Brasil" and "Infante de Portugal" for the 1792-1816 period. So, I changed it from "a prince" to "the prince regent", but not to "king", which would be inaccurate

I have fixed the sentence about the end of the project, with the proposed sentence. Cambalachero (talk) 14:53, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that this particular source does not name him doesn't mean you can't. And you don't have to be so chronologically precise when naming someone. See for example Pedro II of Brazil, a FA which I wrote. You'll see a caption under a picture of him at 10 months old where he is called "Pedro II" ("Pedro II at 10 months old, 1826"). Obviously, he was not Pedro II then, but it's just for the matter of making things more simple and easier to understand. You may call Charlemagne "Charlemagne" even though he was not called as such when he was a young king, for example.

You should also read WP:NOENG again. Indeed, if you quote a Spanish phrase for example, you have to place it translated to English, or else, how would a casual reader understand it? But you don't have to add the exact information which you took from a book in its original language and also the translated form in every single source. Could you image that in article like Empire of Brazil, where most books used as sources were written in Portuguese? "When citing a non-English source for information, it is not always necessary to provide a translation. However, if a question should arise as to whether the non-English original actually supports the information, relevant portions of the original and a translation should be given in a footnote, as a courtesy". This is why I told you to transfer all those Spanish written citations (as well as their translations) to the article's talk page and leave behind only the author and the pages. --Lecen (talk) 17:12, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done I'm not very sure about this, but as two users here request to remove the translations, and there was a consensus a short ago not to make it mandatory, I removed them. I kept a copy of the article with the traslations at User:Cambalachero/May Revolution, in case someone wants to check. Cambalachero (talk) 23:51, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cambalachero, I'm really not trying to ruin your day. I imagine all the hard work you must have writing this article. However, it is clearly below FA standards. There is a lot of issues to work on and the idea behind FAC is not to act as a peer review. There are many, many passages without a single source and the grammar and spelling are very weak. Not to count on other problems, such as reference types. You must be new around here, but I would suggest you to first request a peer review and ask for an experienced editor to help you improve the prose. Once the article is clearly ready to FAC (if said so by other editors), then you should nominate. And after that, you shold invite a few (around five) well known FA editors to review the article and give their votes (do not ask for support, just invite them to review it). I'm only trying to help you. --Lecen (talk) 22:50, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.