Wikipedia:Peer review/Armenian Revolutionary Federation/archive1

Armenian Revolutionary Federation

I would like some feedback on how to make this article featured. It was just recently accepted as a Good article. I believe after alot of research and hard work, most of the work is done, but I'd like to be 100% certain. In this review, I just want to make sure that everything's done to meet FA requirements. I'd like it to be checked for its NPOV, grammar, punctuation etc. Also if familiar with the topic, please state anything you find missing. Thank you! - Fedayee 23:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 21:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trebor

Okay, I'm looking at this mostly from a prose point of view:

Done Sentence beginning The party operates in Armenia, and in countries... is long and snakelike, making it hard to follow. The background information about Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh could probably be cut, it's not especially relevant and detracts from the thrust of the sentence.
Done politically oriented - hyphenate.
Done various small groups - various is redundant.
Done You could perhaps wikilink the names of the founders in the first section as well. I know it's a repeat from the lead, but the lead was very link-heavy so they could be missed.
Done At that meeting the - comma after "meeting".
Done the various chapters - various is redundant.
Done June 12 1903 - wikilink dates with month and a day to allow date preferences to work.
Done the Hunchak and ARF parties supplied - comma after "parties".
Done and to manage to grab - I think "to manage" is redundant.
Done (changed the phrase and added 2 references) It was an important victory for the ARF, both militarily and morally - needs a citation.
There's very inconsistent date formatting. Have a look at the manual of style for their guidelines on usage.
Done Sometimes he was viewed as being ignorant and sometimes he was dubbed a great hero - needs reference.
I'm not quite sure what the templates are doing for Nagorno-Karabakh and Lebanon; they're designed for their own articles and don't really make sense midway through a different page.

My general impression is that all the information is there, but it needs a pretty thorough copyedit, and a bit of standardisation. Good work so far. Trebor 00:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quick work. To clarify further, the problem I had with the templates is that they aren't applicable for midway through an article. They say "This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Lebanon" which is clearly false; if templates are needed at all, these aren't the right ones. I got about halfway through the article last time, so continuing with comments from there (and yes, I could correct most of these myself, but it's easier to list them here than keep editing the article:

Done and by trying to imprison - "by" is redundant.
Done April 19 - wikilink for date preferences. If there is a month and a day, always wikilink.
Done The Dashnaktsutiun was also involved in other, albeit less successful resistance movements - "albeit" is unnecessary, you're not contradicting anything. Will be fine as "other less-successful resistance movements" (I think the hyphen is correct).
Done Later on, the ARF leader Aram Manougian - a specific date would be better than a vague "later on".
Done The Russian Empire collapsed in 1917. As a result, in the winter of 1918 - no need for wikilinked dates here (bet you're getting tired of hearing this). Generally, don't link individual years unless (and this happens rarely) they provide useful context; however, you should link them if they are associated with a month and day. Confusing, I know.
Done The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had drastic consequences for the Armenians; the Turkish forces reoccupied Western Armenia. - this is unclear. If you want to say the drastic consequences were the Turkish forces reoccupying Western Armenia, then use a colon. At the moment, the relationship is unclear.
Done only 3 months - write "three" out in full, as it's smaller than ten.
Done It was eventually decided - eventually is another vague term for a time period; anything more specific would be better.
Done It was decided that they would do battle - not a very encyclopaedic turn-of-phrase, in my eyes. What does "do battle" mean? Be more specific.
Done 28 May, 1918 - just to clarify, this is a case where the year should be linked. The month and day should be linked together, and the year linked by itself, for date preferences.
Done The paragraph beginning With the collapse of the Transcaucasian Federation... needs some work; possibly it should be split. It's got a lot of stubby sentences and doesn't flow very well. It also covers a lot of change: at the beginning they were being attacked; by the end, you are discussing the new ruling party's policies. Try to find a natural point to break it up.
Done Most important governmental posts - this is unclear. Do you mean "the most important governmental posts" or "most of the important governmental posts"? Rephrase to suit.
Done short lived - hyphenate.
Done in over 200 states including the United States - perhaps using "USA" would be nicer, to prevent the "state" repeat.
Done The ARF-affiliated - sudden wikilink of ARF, which is at the least a link to a disambig page, and at the most a link to the page you're reading.
Done Paragraph beginning The passing of Catholicos Garegin of the Holy See of Cilicia... is unclear. I think that the names of these people have places attached too, but that's making it very hard to follow. If by "passing", you mean "death", then say it - we avoid euphemisms. Try to generally rephrase the paragraph to make it clearer.

I've got up to the start of the Modern History section, so will come back and review the rest of the article in a bit. Trebor 19:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll maintain that the templates still don't really make sense (but you know I think that by now ;)). Anyway:

Done "a Free, Independent, and United Armenia." - it's a quotation, so needs a citation.
Done it played a leading role - again, a reference is really needed to assert it played a "leading" role; "leading" implies that it was extra special or inspired others. Alternatively, replace it with a different word.
Done tracing behind the PANM - tracing? I don't know what is meant by that.
Done Today - probably better to say something which isn't time-dependent, for instance "as of 2007".
Done second largest - hyphenate.
Done National Assembly although it currently holds 2 seats - comma after Assembly.
Done Beirut's big Armenian community - large instead of big sounds better to me.
Done First two sentences in criticism have "often criticized" and "often been criticized" which is repetitive.
Done ARF members have also been accused of assassinations - not additive to anything before, so no need for "also". Possibly link to the next sentence to avoid the awkward "such was the case".

That's all I've got from an initial run-through of the prose. When you're done with that, I don't mind having another look at the article as a whole: content, weighting, style etc. Also, I haven't yet looked at the References section. I'm happy to keep suggesting improvements for as long as you're happy to look over them. :-) Trebor 00:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, more things:

Done In the interest of trimming the lead to the bare essentials, I don't think which declared its independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 is relevant enough for inclusion.
Done A member of the ARF is called Dashnaktsagan or Tashnagtsagan in Western Armenian - ambiguous - is a member called Dashnaktsagan or Tashnagtsagan, both in Western Armenian, or is a member called Dasnahktsagan normally and Tashnagtsagan in Western Armenian. Needs clarifying (hope you followed what I said).
Done The ARF's history dates back - could just be "The ARF dates back".
Done and to gain an eventual - remove the "to".
Done independence, it being - possibly use a semi-colon instead of a comma - the sentence is otherwise a bit snaky and hard to follow.
Done It was instrumental - bit of a tense problem, the previous thing referred to was "the Dashnaks" (plural). So change it to something like "they were instrumental" or "the party was instrumental".
Done Convert the bullet-point list of government ministers into prose; just separate them by a semicolon or something.
Done Ref 44 needs an accessdate.
Done You may want to separate notes and references, just to avoid confusion. See Chaco Culture National Historical Park for an example of how it's done.
Done (I made significant changes here, I turned "Diaspora" section into "In exile" sub-section and removed the part about organizations into a separate section titled "Affiliate organizations") .I'm not sure about the titling of the sections. Sections 1-3 seem, to me, simply to be a continuous history and fairly arbitrarily divided into Origins, ARF in the Armenian Diaspora (which shouldn't contain ARF per MoS and Modern History. Perhaps they could be combined into a single section "History" with appropriate subsections, although I'm not exactly sure which way is best. But the headings definitely need the word "ARF" taking out of them.
Done (big paragraph on its political and ideological philosophy added to "goals" section which was turned to "Political philosophy and goals" section) Once you do that, it seems the article is a bit heavily-weighted in terms of history compared to the other sections. I think the Goals section could be renamed and expanded into a general overview of their political philosophy (if sources are available). Perhaps Criticism could be expanded a bit too. I'm not certain here, as I can't find any other FAs on political parties with which to compare.

This is getting there, I feel. Trebor 18:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still a couple of accessdates missing. Other than that, I would now advise getting someone else to have a look at it; a fresh pair of eyes would be helpful. Trebor 12:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yannismarou

Very nice indeed. Some prose issues only (sometimes the prose gets choppy), and some wordings that could (maybe!) attract POV criticism. I think the article is comprehensive, and covers its topic satisfactory. Most of my remarks treat minor issues:

Done "The Dashnaktsutiun is also the most politically-oriented of the parties active ... " Parties (at least, this kind of parties) are political by definition (that is why the article is Wikipedia is Political party). So, I don't fully understand what you mean that it is the most "politically-orientated" political party.
Done "it being the only solution to defend the Armenian people from Turkish oppression and massacres that were widely present in the Ottoman Empire." I don't know if being the only solution may be regarded as POV. I would go for a wording not treating whether this was the only solution or not.
Done(kept greek alphabet but combined problematic citation and note) "people from Turkish oppression and massacres that were widely present in the Ottoman Empire.[6][β]". I have been criticized in FAC for having in an article of mine in some sentences both a citation and a note in a row like here. Maybe you could combine them, keeping the note and citing in it. I had been also criticized for using the Greek alphabet in notes (I shouldn't have said that!).
Done "The party began to organize itself in the Ottoman Empire in the early 1890s and held its first major meeting in Tiflis, Georgia in 1892.[9][3]" Minor, but I would prefer to have citations in their correct order: "The party began to organize itself in the Ottoman Empire in the early 1890s and held its first major meeting in Tiflis, Georgia in 1892.[3][9]"
Done "As a result, the ARF leadership decided to actively defend Armenian churches.[10] This caused many ARF casualties in 1905.[10]" How did they defend them? Where there violent clushes?
Done "In 1915, Dashnak leaders were deported and killed alongside other Armenian intellectuals." Avoid stubby, one-sentence paragraphs like this one, which, by the way, sometimes look "orphan".
Done "it contributed to organizing a social and cultural framework aimed at preserving the Armenian identity." Uncited, and, I do not know, maybe a bit verbalist. Again, this may be just my personal preference (the verbalism; not the lack of citation!)
Done "The Armenian Revolutionary Federation held 9 of the 33 seats in the National Assembly of Nagorno Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave that was assigned to Soviet Azerbaijan under the leadership of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s". When I first read this sentence I got confused: I thought ARF held 9 seats in the Assembly in 1920! Then I understood that this was before 2005 (and since when?!) But the sentence does not say that. Maybe the whole section needs some rephrasing, and a clearer chronological order.
Done "In the 2005 Beirut elections, the ARF was disgruntled because four seats normally reserved for Beirut's large Armenian community had gone unopposed to Hariri's candidates.[44] It called for a boycott.[44]" Choppy prose. This "it called for a boycott" IMO is not nice at all. You can have here just one, well-constructed sentence.
Done (added new english titled map:)) The nice map in "Political philosophy and goals" is in Armenian. Any chance to turn it into English?
Done In "See also" section I see article already linked in the main text (like Operation Nemesis). Clean it up. IMO the best solution is to get rid of this section, and linke these articles in the main prose, if you think that they are useful for the reader.
Done "When the powers of Europe virtually disregarded the massacres of 1895-1896, members of the Dashnaktsutiun, led by Papken Siuni occupied the Ottoman Bank in August 26, 1896." You know, wordings like this one ("massacres disregarded by the powers of Europe") could be regarded as POV by some reviewers. In any case, before going to FAC, try to "shield" the article against claims of bias.
Done "The Russian Empire collapsed in 1917. As a result, in the winter". I wouldn't start a new section with such a short sentence. You can combine with the next one and make a very nice introductory and explanatory sentence.--Yannismarou 16:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Carabinieri

Hi, I've only read the article through the "Role in the Young Turk Revolution" section, but it looks good so far and close to FA. Here are a few issues I've found so far. I'll read more some time this week.

Done The statement "It is the largest political party amongst Armenians in the diaspora, having affiliates in over 200 countries." could be kinda problematic, because "largest" usually implies most members in this sort of context. Is that the case? Then that should also be said, if not then the term "largest" is misleading and the sentence should be rephrased, IMHO.
I do not understand what "most politically-oriented" means in this context. If it is a political party, then its obviously politically-oriented, but how are other parties less "politically-oriented"?
- Response to your comments on my talk page: Do you think something like "Compared to other Armenian parties, the ARP's activities have been mostly focused on political topics and less on educational and cultural projects" (probably needs to be rephrased to sound more fluent) would work?--Carabinieri 23:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done "The ARF dates back to the Ottoman Empire, where its members armed themselves into fedayee groups to defend Armenian villages and gain an eventual independence in order to escape the Turkish oppression and massacres that were widely present in the Ottoman Empire." That sentence needs to be somehow re-phrased and probably split up into several sentences.
Done "although they sometimes subsided this goal in favor of a more realistic approach" what kind of more realistic approach? More autonomy? An example would probably be appropriate.
Done What is the Armenian name for the "Federation of Armenian Revolutionaries"? It should probably be added in parentheses even if its very similar to the "Armenian Revolutionary Federation".
Done Why is "Armenian Revolutionary Federation" in quotation marks, but Federation of Armenian Revolutionaries is not? Both contexts refer to the name itself. Decide one way.
Done The article uses both "Huntchakians" and "Hunchaks" to refer to that party, which is kinda confusing.
- Actually this one still persists. The first sentence of the second paragraph of the history section uses "Huntchakians" and the sentence after that uses "Hunchaks".--Carabinieri 23:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done Section headings: I think "Activities in the Russian Empire", "Activities in the Ottoman Empire", "Role in the Young Turk Revolution", "Role in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution", and "In exile" should be changed to "Russian Empire", "Ottoman Empire", "Young Turk Revolution", "Iranian Constitutional Revolution", and "Exile" respectively.
Done "Opposition leaders including Ahmed Riza (liberal), Sabahheddin Bey, and Khachatur Maloumian of the ARF were in attendance." sounds like all three were ARF members
Done "The ARF decided to cooperate with the Committee of Union and Progress, hoping that if the Young Turks came to power, autonomy would be granted to the Armenians." that's redundant, was already mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph.

I hope that helps.--Carabinieri 16:21, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done The "Democratic Republic of Armenia" seems to mostly re-tell the history of the country during this period. I realize it's important to give the historical background, especially with topics like this one, where most readers often won't know much about the context, but I think it would be better to concentrate more on the ARF itself in this section.

I removed a few off topic sentences...the rest I find important so that it flows a little and doesn't jump randomly so that clueless readers don't get lost.

Done The modern history section claims that "After Armenia fell under Soviet control in 1920, the ARF, now dispersed throughout the Armenian diaspora, fought Soviet rule over Armenia and championed the cause of Armenian independence". Shouldn't there be a section about the Armenian SSR, which describes these activities. In the "Exile" section it sounds like there were (almost) no activities by the ARF in Armenia for over 70 years.

In fact, ARF did not do anything inside Armenia SSR's borders as it was completely banned. I cleared it up so everyone understands that. It did however try its best to fight soviet influence from the diaspora.

Done The division into a history section (19th century-1991) and a modern history (1991-present) seems odd and kinda arbitrary to me. Why not merge the two sections and re-name the "Armenia" sub-section to "Post-Soviet Armenia" or something like that?

Best thing I could come up w/ was change History to Early history, sectionize Exile so that I could include Lebanon as a sub-section and then create section entitled Post-Soviet Armenia w/ 2 sub sections (Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh)

Done Shouldn't the "Nagorno-Karabakh" section give some information on the ARF role in and opinion on the conflict in that region?

Added info on how it armed fighters, gave moral support, supplies etc and how it supported independence since day 1.

Done Shouldn't "Lebanon" be a sub-section of "Exile"? The order of the information in that article also bothers me. It starts with the political situation today, followed by the party's history since 1956 (what about before that?), and then comes back to discuss the current situation. The first paragraph should probably be moved to the end of the section. I'd also like information about the ARF in Lebanon from 1920-1956.

Did turn Lebanon to sub section of Exile, inserted the first paragraph to the end so that it flows chronologically. But I don't think there is much information on them from 1920 to 1956 in Lebanon as this period did not have any notable event except the slow establishment of the ARF in Lebanese-Armenian life. I tried searching the web and google books but nothing came up. I added sourced info of ARF in Lebanon from 1923 to 1958 where the Hunchakian and ARF figures were involved in a mini-sectarian strife.

Done I think the criticism section should be dissolved. The information should be added to the appropriate sections in the article. I'm not a big fan of separate sections for criticism overall, but it really seems superflouos in this case. It makes it seem like you're trying really hard to conform to NPOV. It would be better to make the article as a whole balanced.

Criticism is now gone. I have included all the information in the old Criticism section into their rightful sections.

Some overall comments:

The article still needs some copyediting. I tried to help with this, but I'm not very good at it either. Try to find a good copyeditor to help you. WP:LoCE might be helpful.
There are some POV issues. I take from your user name and your user page that you have a strong pro-ARP and especially pro-Armenia POV. This isn't in itself a problem, but unfortunately I think it has influenced this article to a certain extent. I don't know much about this topic and therefore can neither point to any specific parts of the article, which I find problematic (except for some phrases like "mercilessly slaughtered"), nor help improve this (I could insert my personal POV, but that would be really counter-productive). Do you know of any Wikipedian, who is knowledgeable on Armenia-related topics and whose POV is opposed to yours? It would be good if someone like that would look through the article.
I would like to repeat that aside from the issues listed above, I think the article is really well researched and referenced and very interesting. Great work!!! Just a few steps away from FA IMHO.--Carabinieri 23:29, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]