Wikipedia:Peer review/1991–92 Georgian coup d'état/archive1

1991-92 Georgian coup d'état

I've listed this article for peer review because after spending weeks on researching for this article (which I've already published in the French Wikipedia), I have the opinion that it deserves to become a featured article. I understand there may be several structural or other mistakes within the article, which is why I'm submitting this to you all.

Thanks, AlexandreAssatiani (talk) 16:42, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

• My first comment is that the article is very long. At 59kB it is nudging the "Probably should be divided" level in WP:SIZERULE. I will not pretend to have read it all, but one point that stood out from my sampling of the article is the use of the historic present in recounting the day-by-day events. I have never encountered this in a Wikipedia article about historical events, and I found it rather distracting. Whether this would in itself sink the article at FAC I am not sure, but it is not even applied consistently. In this paragraph for instance the tenses clash:

The American reaction toward the putsch shocked several Georgians who had been convinced that the United States represented Russia's geopolitical alternative. However, it soon becomes clear that Washington sees Boris Yeltsin's Russia as a potential ally in the new post-Soviet world and for that reason, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who often criticized human rights violations made by Gamsakhurdia, ignored the same violations done under Eduard Shevardnadze, even supporting and advising the latter's presidency.

• In the lead "a bloody civil war that lased 1994" needs attention.
• I think using the historic present in the caption for Dudayev and Gamsakhurdia is all right. This seems to be the general usage for captions of this sort.
• In the caption "Eduard Shevardnadze became the head of the Georgian state as soon as March 1992", English idiom requires "as early as" rather than "as soon as"
• In the final paragraph the date range should have an en-dash rather than a hyphen, and I'm not sure what purpose the blue link serves for the years, here or elsewhere in the article.
• You need to be consistent in capitalising Deputy (or deputy) Minister of Defense.
• There is some WP:OVERLINKing that needs attention: we do not link the names of countries – Georgia, the United States, Great Britain; and there are far too many names and terms linked more than once: South Ossetia, Zviad Gamsakhurdi, and more than a hundred others.
• The referencing needs a little attention. Reference 70 has an error message. All four footnotes a–d lack citations for the statements in them. The bibliography lacks ISBNs (or OCLC numbers) for some of the books.

I hope these few points are helpful. Tim riley talk 10:23, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Comment from Nizolan

I spotted a few Manual of Style issues with the article and it might be helpful to review the guidelines at MOS:DASH and MOS:SECTION:

• Tim riley already pointed out one example, but in the title, "1991-92" should also be "1991–92" because it's a date range. This also applies to date ranges throughout the article, e.g. "22-23 September" should be "22–23 September". (MOS:ENTO)
  • When an item in a range is more than one word long, the dash should be spaced, so in the infobox "2 December 1991–6 January 1992" should be "2 December 1991 – 6 January 1992".
• Section headers should be in sentence case, not capitalised (e.g. "Historical Background" should be "Historical background"; "City Conditions" should be "City conditions", etc.), and should not begin with "The" (e.g. "The Conflict" should be "Conflict").

It might be worth double-checking the citations. The source for the figure of 113 dead is given as CommunistCrimes.org (which probably isn't a reliable source anyway), but the URL is dead. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 00:14, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Comments from Kaiser matias

Didn't notice this was here until now, otherwise I would have looked it over long ago. Will add comments shortly. Kaiser matias (talk) 17:07, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• The first thing that really jumps out is that it is largely written in present tense ("Since the Red Army invasion of 1921, Georgia is one of the 12 member-republics..."; "...nationalistic feelings develop largely in the 1970s...", etc.). This should all be past tense, as its not a contemporary event being discussed, and is actually part of the MOS: MOS:TENSE.
• This is a subject I'm well-versed in, so I kind of think a little more detail on the rise of Gamsakhurdia and his election as president (coupled with the breakdown of Soviet authority post-1989) should be included. It seems a little rushed here, and is fairly important to give context as to why he was so reviled by 1991. I'd also include mention that Abkhazia declared itself to be a "Soviet Socialist Republic" and reverted to the 1925 constitution, effectively upgrading their status, as that was a major pretext for the strife there.
• I notice the inline citations are mixed between going before the period and after. Ensure they all go after the periods of sentences.
• The references don't link properly at the moment: when you click "Asatiani & Janelidze 2009" for example, it doesn't go to the book. To fix this the bibliography will have to use {{Template:Citation}}; I'd also move the bibliography after the references.
• Speaking of the bibliography, it is missing some key books on the events: Suny's The Making of the Georgian Nation has some important details, as would Rayfield's Edge of Empires. There's also several academic articles that look at things like the ethnic strife and political situation (I have some I can provide). And I don't know if you read Georgian (though the inclusion of a Georgian-language book would say yes), but Ioseliani wrote a book detailing his life, including these events (სამი განზომილება; Three Dimensions). Also note that Tbilisi is spelled "Tbilissi" in the bibliography. Is the French transliteration used for those books?
• The "internal links" doesn't need to link articles already linked within the article (Gamsakhurdia, Kitovani, Ioseliani, etc). If you're going to use that, I'd just keep it under a "See Also" section, and make a separate "External links" section for the stuff on the internet.
• A couple other books that cover these events: Small Nations and Great Powers by Svante E. Cornell, and I believe The Post-Soviet Wars by Christoph Zurcher has some details on it.

That would be a start. I haven't looked through the wording of the article itself yet, but will over the next few days. I also hope I don't sound harsh, I just want to ensure the article is the best it can be. Kaiser matias (talk) 02:52, 9 August 2019 (UTC)