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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Russia/archive2

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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 01:59, 24 July 2007.

Russia

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Self nomination. I've been working on this article for a while now, and I believe it is up to FA standard. The article has been overhauled in the last couple of months. The article is pretty stable. Comprehensive article without being excessively large. Well written. History section is well referenced [1].--Ilya1166 06:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. I haven't looked over it thoroughly, but my first impression is that it is excessively large. Loading the page on my crappy Thailand internet connection took forever, and it is about double (or maybe 1.5x) the length I would like to see. I much prefer the length of the Peru article (see below). Calliopejen1 07:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it wasn't excessively large, considering that the Belgium article (a Featured Article) is 106 kilobytes just like this article.--Ilya1166 08:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Prose size is 66KB per Dr pda's pagesize script; pls see WP:SIZE and WP:SS. By the way, references are only 8KB. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I agree that the article is too long. However, on that note, I also believe that the number of citations should be much greater for an article of this length. Just scrolling through the article and stopping at random points, I could find statements needing citations. Here are some examples from each of its sections (keep in mind these are completely arbitrary and most of the article looks like it needs to be cited):

:*History: "Almost 90% of the invading forces died as a result of on-going battles with the Russian army, guerrillas and winter weather."

  • Geography: "Russia has thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water, providing it with one of the world's largest surface-water resources."
  • Politics: "It maintains diplomatic relations with 178 countries and has 140 embassies."
  • Economy: "The economic development of the country has been extremely uneven: the Moscow region contributes one-third of the country's GDP while having only a tenth of its population."
  • Armed Forces: "About 70% of the former Soviet Union's defense industries are located in the Russian Federation."
  • Demographics: "Free higher education is the main reason why more than 20% of Russians age 30–59 hold six-year degrees (this number is twice as high as that of the United States)"
  • Culture: "Russian architecture was influenced predominantly by the Byzantine architecture until the Fall of Constantinople."
Looking through the article, I would guess that to be fully referenced, it may need somewhere between 50 and 100 more in-text citations, or more. I do notice the works of literature also referenced (which isn't wrong), but keep in mind that I don't know which facts come from which book and what may be unsourced or not because of that. The references needed may be something to be discussed by other reviewers. Okiefromokla•talk 18:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reduced some of the data and images and added a lot more references. Also, the comment "Russia has thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water, providing it with one of the world's largest surface-water resources." doesn't need to be referenced because there is a referenced comment following that which says that Lake Baikal alone contains over one fifth of the world's liquid surface fresh water.--Ilya1166 04:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm starting to try to cut out less important facts to reduce the size of the article. Check out my changes and see what you think. This may have the beneficial side effect of cutting unsourced content, as well. Calliopejen1 05:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the works of literature referenced for the history section is how it's set out in the History of Russia article, a featured article.--Ilya1166 15:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Another problem I'm seeing throughout the culture section - it's just a lot of lists (though obviously in prose form), of prominent ballerinas/writers/whatever. I would rather see more synthesis about literary movements (etc) with a name or two used as a representative example. Calliopejen1 08:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the content of the article has now been sufficiently reduced, (106 kilobytes down to 90 including the extra references) and what remains is maybe to reorganise the culture sections and add a few more references.--Ilya1166 09:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to continue cutting stuff, which you can revert later if you want. I still think it's far too long. For comparison, according to Dr pda's pagesize script, Belgium is 34 kb of text (5102 words) and 31 kb of references; this article remains at 55kb text (8613 words) and 9kb of references. I don't think this is going to be at featured article level for a while, especially considering the lack of references. Calliopejen1 09:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and I'm done editing for a while. I've just been discovering several (sourced!) plagiarisms/copyvios in the culture section; it appears that all the sourced literature and ballet stuff was pasted wholesale from britannica. It's not tons and tons of content--just a couple paragraphs--but this is definitely something that should be taken care of by the time of a featured article nomination, especially if the contributor links to where it's been lifted from. I would advise editors of the article to check for furhter plagiarism and to reword the ballet section further. Calliopejen1 10:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose article is fine but definitely not good enough to be featured. Article is edited more or less by one user and edits by other users are reverted. Flora/fauna section was removed for no specific reason instead of expanding - easy way out? Culture is squeezed too much. Copyrighted material should be removed Photos from other countries are used to illustrate Russia which means that there is not even some basic material provided by contributors but rather using whatever can be found on Wikipedia. Avala 13:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Calliopejen1 was right to remove the Fauna section (I was the one who originally added the table and I agree, if ecology in russia is to be covered, this is not the way to do it, no other country article goes about covering fauna like this) and I did not have a problem with him condensing the article by removing large sections.--Ilya1166 15:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since you like to link to Australia article - Australia#Flora_and_fauna and Russia being the largest country sure should have a flora/fauna section. Avala 15:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying it shouldn't have a flora/fauna section, I think it should, I'm saying that having a gallery of images of fauna is not the way to do it.--Ilya1166 16:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well if it should have and doesn`t have it at the moment it is not ready to become featured.Avala 18:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Insufficient density of citations - many claims and even entire paragraphs (and sections (!) like '1927-1953') have no citations. History section can use improvements: for example, the end of the 'Imperial Russia' and begining of the 'Soviet Russia' repeat parts of the history of the rise of the Bolsheviks and Soviet Union, and chronology is mixed. Also, there is no mention of the Polish-Soviet War - certainly a major conflict. That said, the article is looking quite well, and some effort can indeed bring it up to FA-level. But first, do try to pass a GA-treshold.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Like I mentioned earlier, the references for the history section are located in the Bibliography - this is based off the History of Russia article which is a featured article and doesn't use in text citations but a bibliography.--Ilya1166 16:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Standards change, and today History of Russia would not be featured; if challenged with WP:FARC it would loose a Featured status unless inline citations would be introduced. Without inline ctiations, the article is not even fulfilling B-class requirements.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and severely object the extensive section on the Soviet Union, propagating the conflation of the two countries. A reasonable text would deal with the role of Russia within Soviet Union. Also, to ascribe all Soviet achievements to Russia is "Great Russian chauvinism". `'Míkka 16:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. The article relies too much on Britannica, whose claims I find mistaken at times (especially as to the climate section). Russia must be featured right in the lead not only as a territory, but also as a state. As the state of Russia is based on the Constitution, it is worth mentioning briefly when it was adopted somewhere in the article. The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis certainly deserves a place in this article much more than details of the Soviet history. As to the economy section, the 1998 financial crisis is also of tremendous importance for modern Russia and deserves to be mentioned there far more than some vague statements the section contains now. By the way, I don’t know why the sentence about the stabilization fund occurs twice. Major international treaties to which Russia is a signatory are probably worth mentioning. The education section is outdated; as of now, few undergraduate courses require five years. The statements about religion are messy and poorly referenced; the Russian Orthodoxy as a religion and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate are not the same thing. Far from every self-identified Russian Orthodox is an adherent of the ROC, other Russian orthodox churches exist (though they are marginal and need not be mentioned specifically) and a lot of Russians are orthodox, but unchurched. Claims about the number of adherents of the Russian Orthodox Church, if relevant at all, require reliable non-partisan sources. The claims about alleged reform-mindedness of Gorbachev and his motivations are controversial and hardly relevant, as the article is not about him. The arbitrary reference to the journalist we have now is not enough to justify them in any case, so they should be removed. I also agree with Mikka, the article is not about the Soviet Union. As to filmmaking, well, it is now mostly about the Soviet Union. I am not sure that this is ok, but if so, then the award-winning masterpiece The Cranes Are Flying and award-winning bull**** Moscow Does not Believe in Tears should be mentioned as well. But I would rather suggest to concentrate on other films, which are still popular in modern Russia (Seventeen Moments of Spring, the disgusting Gayday’s and Ryazanov’s comedy films, etc.). The bibliography on climate is outdated and completely in Russian. I am not sure that this is useful in English-language Wikipedia. Either make them (or better, some recent English-language sources) inline references or delete them. Many external sources about language are also hardly relevant. Comrie et al. (1996) and Cubberley (2002) are fine and more than enough. Carleton (1991), Matthews (1960), Иванов (1990) -- way too special, Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) -- unrelated, Жуковская (1987), Востриков (1990), Новиков (2003), Филин (1982), Цыганенко (1970), Шанский (1961), Шицгал (1958) -- too special, non-notable and unimportant, Михельсон (1978) is a book for children, if I recall correctly. As to other bibliographies – Fairbanks & Charles (1999), Goldman (1983) – are five-page articles so important? The bibliography requires much work. The article needs better wikification; it lacks many relevant internal links and contains many trivial ones. It also needs better inline references, to academic sources rather than newspapers and tertiary sources, whenever possible (use Google Scholar). I am also not sure that the scrollbox with footnotes is a good idea.Colchicum 18:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some better references for language; this is enough, I think:
Comrie, Bernard, Stone, Gerald & Polinsky, Maria. The Russian Language in the Twentieth Century. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 019824066X.
Comrie, Bernard. The Languages of the Soviet Union. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. ISBN 0521298776.
Timberlake, Alan. A Reference Grammar of Russian. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0521772923.
Wade, Terrence. A Comprehensive Russian Grammar. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0631207570.
Colchicum 19:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And I don't think that tertiary sources (such as Britannica and Encarta) are ok for a featured article.Colchicum 13:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Sources are my main concern. There are way too few citations and way too much unsourced material, including 7 paragraphs (outside of the history section) that have no citation within them at all. In addition, I don't believe the article is an example of Wikipedia's best prose. Taking the "Foreign Relations" section as an example, there are too many sentences that start with the word "Russia," as in: "Russia is this. Russia does that. Russia is this way. Russia once had this." This is just bad writing. At the very least, the word "Russia" should be interchanged with the phrase "the country" (or something) to make it less monotonous. Furthermore, several picture captions have periods when they are not complete sentences, or no periods when they are complete sentences: this needs to be fixed throughout. Finally, regarding the article's bibliography being a source for the history section, it has been discussed in the previous comment but I will try to explain it better: using the bibliography as a citation for the entire section makes readers have no idea what information is sourced, or where, and what information was simply inserted by random editors over time. I would suggest either finding all those books in print form, citing the article completely using in-text citations picking out which information is found within which book (you can regard that as sarcasm), or just finding online sources for the information and using the list of literature as a "further reading" section instead. Also, I think the removal of the Russian books would be prudent. Okiefromokla•talk 18:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Reference #71 is broken.--Rmky87 15:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed.--Ilya1166 15:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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