Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Hugo Chávez/archive1

'The amount of prose is tiring to the reader.'

Could you perhaps give us a source? Or is this opinion?

Policy question

The major revert converted the article to a much older version, without (as yet) concurrent updating of the old version or its references and links. Following the revert, which was done with no prior talk page discussion or consensus, very few editors have returned to working on the article. Progress towards completing the updates, necessary because of the revert to a much older version, seems to have stalled. It is not clear that the architects of the revert plan to complete the work, in spite of several talk page queries. The article still fails to meet featured article criteria, but a new detailing of the problems may be in order. I am prepared to re-list the problems (both pre-existing and resulting from the revert), but don't know where to include the update. Should I post it here on the talk page, add an addendum to joturner's original nomination, add a comment to the end of the FARC, or wait until this FARC closes? Sandy 14:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

No answer.

OK, I'll post the update here, and it can be moved to the main page if it belongs there.

Update

The article was reverted to a version that is six months old, yet (most unfortunately) the edits necessary to bring it back to its former status have not happened. It is not clear, in spite of several queries on the talk page, that anyone is prepared to undertake the work to make the article current; a task which includes updating content, references, wikilinks, and issues raised during this FARC and on the talk page. Tjss's comment (above) still applies: "since the article does not currently meet FA requirements, it should not currently have FA status. Remove FA status, clean-up, apply again."

I have not gone through the entire article, because I encounter too many problems on the first pass, whether beginning at the top or at the bottom. Most people work from the top down for examples, and the bottom of the article sometimes gets neglected. I'll list samples starting from the bottom:

• 1) "best work"
  • Wiki links are outdated, leading to redirects (not all correct), and not reflecting new articles created in the interim or changes made to the article by the author who brought it to FA status (Saravask), before he stopped working on it in February 2006. For example, Saravask created the featured daughter article, Military career of Hugo Chávez, which is not in the first daughter article summary link one encounters in the article (and appears not to be included at all), so others may be wrong or missing as well. I corrected, but another editor may revert.
• 2a) Prose (since Tony's examples came from the lead, I'll take some from the conclusion).
  • Several of the objections raised by Tony (above) are still present, and now there are others.
  • "This view is closely aligned with the school of Liberation Theology." Relevance to the article? The section seems to fall apart, as this is the lone concluding sentence. Awkward. Strange way to conclude a section about Chavez's personal life.
  • "Chávez had another daughter, Rosa Inés, through that marriage, in addition to a son-in-law, Raúl "Raúlito" Alfonzo." I had to read that twice: it sounds like his wife gave birth to a son-in-law.
  • altering Venezuela's economic and cultural landscape of Venezuela. No comment.
  • been significant drops ... in the government's definition of "poverty," The government's definition dropped? It appears the intent was to say that poverty dropped, according to the gov't definition.
• 2b) Comprehensive
  • "In the process, the changes in Venezuela's political structure dramatically weakened Chávez's AD and COPEI opposition." Can anyone understand the relevance of this sentence to the article? How on earth did this article come to FA with no definition of or link to AD or COPEI? From reading the article, does one understand anything about AD and COPEI's role in the rise of Chávez? How is the average reader to understand what this sentence means? There is too much information left out of the article, which creates POV.
  • It can be argued that the recall referendum in Venezuela would never have happened were it not for the efforts of Súmate. Considering the significance of this organization in the history of Venezuela, how is it possible to write the history of Chávez without mentioning Súmate? The context of all that Chavez did to avoid legitimizing two prior petitions goes a long way towards explaining why he is viewed as dictatorial, but this information isn't mentioned.
• 2c) Factually accurate
  • The article is now six months old; hence, outdated, particularly with respect to recent foreign affairs, economy, issues affected by oil prices, and other areas one would have expected to change in six months.
  • References have not been updated, and there are dead links.
  • Election result userboxes are unreferenced
  • References are currently being removed, rather than updated and/or tagged.
  • If you work from the top down, the first reference in the article has been removed: a reference which Saravask defended heavily (and accurately) in the original FA nomination. (The statement that Chávez is 53rd president must be cited, due to the complex history of Venezuelan presidential succession, which is not stable as in a country like the USA: the reader might want to know which "Presidents" are included in that tally.) If you work from the bottom up, you also encounter the first reference as a dead link (see Government of Venezuela under Titles and Honors, which is outdated, by the way).
• 2d) Neutral
  • "Official Links" ??? According to whom, or what criterion? What *is* PortalAlba, and how is its "official" status established (to the casual, English-speaking reader)? How does Súmate end up in other links, when it also represents an "official" NGO? *Seven* speeches by Chavez, with no others for balance? Anyone hear the Rice confirmation hearings, and her exchange with Senator Dodd over Chávez?
  • The POV (by omission) is too lengthy to detail (and has been discussed on the article's talk page). [1] One example is the complete omission of Súmate. Another is the absence of discussion of Chávez's gerymandering of the new Constitution and the recall referendum constitutional provisions. Another is the example given above on this page: that he stated he wouldn't go even if he lost the referendum by 90%, which is the context for why he is viewed as "dictatorial".
• 2e) Stable
  • The article was reverted to a six-month old version, with no talk page consensus. That alone shows it's lack of stability. I respected the revert, and have worked for several days towards developing consensus, to prevent edit wars. However, as of today, there has been some edit warring between me and another editor, who is removing references, rather than updating them. Consensus is difficult.
• 3) MOS
  • The structure of the article originally conformed with MOS, but it should be noted that the Summary Style articles have not been updated since the revert, are no longer accurate, and do not reflect current Wiki articles (based on the few I checked). A recent edit pointed out the lack of categories, another issue which was not addressed when reverting six months. I corrected all, but another editor may revert.
• 5) Length
  • Current daughter articles, created by Saravask (the editor who brought the article to FA status) after this version, are not reflected. Some content could be moved, but there is talk page resistance. Excessive length was raised when it was originally reviewed for FA status, and never addressed, as far as I can tell. Saravask indicated, two months after the article was promoted to FA, that the article needed to be shortened ("I'm planning on cutting this article to 1/2 – 1/3 its current size ..."), [2]) but I'm not aware if he did that (I believe that he did). The recommended amount of prose exceeds guidelines, at 64KB, and can be shortened by merging content to already-existing daughter articles. In fact, much of the content was possibly already moved to daughter articles by Saravask. The amount of prose is tiring to the reader. Summary Style structure is already in place, and should be used.

Hopefully, this listing will encourage those supporting the revert to bring the article up to date, but talk page queries have not been successful. Sandy 22:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)