Talk:Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union/GA1

GA Review[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC) GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria[reply]

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality: 1) "political abuse of psychiatry took place (refs) and psychiatry was abused systematically (refs)" - couldn't it be simplified to "systematic abuse of psychiatry took place?)" 2) "and occasional in other Eastern European countries such as Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia" - I think it should be occasionally; also - what about other countries like Poland? 3) In many cases, short, one-two sentence paragraphs could be merged into larger paragraphs to improve the flow of text

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists: 1) Disambig needed; Craig Thomas 2) I broken link ([1]), check for lesser errors (several green and blue warning signs at [2]) 3) I find the reference style distracting; I've never seen this one before. I'd prefer to see page numbers moved from body to references (footnotes). I'd also prefer to see direct google books page links instead of generic book page links; while this is not an "official" requirement for a GA, I'd implore the editors involved to go beyond what is required and make the refs more functional that way. 4) Per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarize the article, not introduce new information. This lead seems to fail at both counts, primarily by giving the "what is abuse of psychiatry" information, which should be moved to the "Background" section or somewhere similar. For example, "Psychiatrists have been involved in human rights abuses in states across the world when the definitions of mental disease were expanded to include political disobedience" and following sentence is irrelevant to this article; I can see it in the background, but not in lead, which should cover the Soviet angle. Then the lead could be re-expanded with some other content from the article. Also, certain claims in lead are not repeated later, as far as I can tell, for example "One of the first psikhushkas was the Psychiatric Prison Hospital in the city of Kazan". This, and other claims, should be duplicated in the article body (again, lead is the summary, not a place for unique info). 5) The article seems light on links, in particular, red per WP:RED. Many names and institutions are named, but are not linked. For an example: "leading neuroscientists and psychiatrists of the time (for example, Sukhareva, Gilyarovsky, Golant, Shmaryan, Gurevich)" - they need first names (or at least, initials), and of course - links). Also notable, from that para: All-Union Neurologic and Psychiatric Association, Academy of Science, several other names - for example, in "as academicians Anokhin, Speransky, Stern, Beritashvili, and Orbeli,", some are blue, some aren't. Those that aren't probably don't have articles - yet - but should have, and red links encourage filling the gaps. This is just one section, I could create a very long list (an example from last few paras - Lithuanian Psychiatric Association... another - Russian Society of Psychiatrists... or Marina Trutko and Nikolai Skachkov). I'd strongly encourage the author(s) to become more friendly with red links. 6) To many level 2 sections. Please reorganize with a proper "History" section. I find the mixture of history and features section very confusing. After early history, we have for example the "Sluggish schizophrenia" section. Please make sure that 2nd level subheadings cleary organize the lesser ones (History, Features, Cases, etc.). Cases should probably not be a part of History, but its own section, with subsections (it is a bit long). 7) "See also" should not contain any links that are used in the main body Y
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects: Although not totally necessary, I'll note that comparing Polish Wikipedia article to this, Polish Wikipedia notes that the Soviet system has inspired the Chinese system, which is still in force. A word or two on whether this has been adopted outside the European Eastern Bloc (Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, etc.) would be interesting.

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias: 1) While few will deny the abuse of the psychiatry in the Soviet times, I think that for more recent events, we need better sources. I found the "Although for several years, especially after the implosion of the USSR and during the first years..." paragraph, based on a single ref, to be potentially problematic, it makes very strong claims that would benefit from better sourcing. van Voren book is the only source, and Rodopi Publishers is just an "average" publisher. I can see this becoming an issue Y
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales: Please investigage: File:Podrabinek-photo.JPG ("It is free there. The author knows that it is there and here and it is ok"); File:Nekipelov.jpg (needs a better Fair Use Rationale); File:Joseph Brodsky.jpg needs fair for this article; a number of other images, mostly by User:Domitori, have explanations that would not stand up to modern (FA) scrutiny (or to that of a less-copyright paranoia minded GA reviewer). The problem is that for the most part he states he got permission - but he should fwd it to WMF for verification. Somebody should work with him to convert those into proper, WP:OTRS-era tags. Y

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions: On a side note, while it is not necessary for GA, you may want to add alt text to images like I did here recently
Overall: Quite impressive.
Disclaimer: This is my first GA review. I am not a psychiatrist, but a sociologist with some interest in the history of Eastern Europe and history of science. I am also a non-native speaker of English, so while the prose sounds right to me, I cannot claim it is brilliant and always sounds right. I have not verified that all material corresponds to the references cited, some are in language I don't read (Russian), some are behind pay-walls I have no access to, and I simply don't have several hours to dedicate to checking 177 references. Nothing in the article raised a red flag by looking dubious or unreliable, based on my current state of knowledge, to justify more detailed verification. Hence I am assuming good faith and proper referencing standards on the part of the author(s).
Other comments: Please notify me on my talk page when responses are posted here; I'll return the same courtesy (my watchlist can get swamped).
Pass or Fail:

Done Thanks for your review. “...Abuse of psychiatry for political purposes was reported to be systematic in the Soviet Union and occasional in other Eastern European countries” = “It was reported that the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes was systematic in the Soviet Union and occasional in other Eastern European countries.” So the first phrase is correct. I have sipmlified the fist line of the article, substituted the broken link for working one, deleted wikilinks used in the main body from the “See also” section, made the “History” section with subsections, made subsections in the “Cases” section, transferred the fragment from the intro to the “Background” section, added wikification and the non-free media use rationales to mentioned files. Psychiatrick (talk) 23:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am seeing much improvement, please let me know when all issues are addressed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:18, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have addressed almost all the issues except moving page numbers from the body to references (footnotes). I don’t consider it important and reasonable and don’t know how to move them without multiplying the same references to enormous number. In the Russian Wikipedia, the template {{rp|}} is frequently used. See: [3] But if you anyway want to have page numbers moved to footnotes, you may move them by yourself. Psychiatrick (talk) 10:48, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The ref change is not a formal requirement, and I will not insisit on it. However, I see that, for example. "Is it neutral?" issue has not been addressed. Please add a checkmark (Template:Tick) to each issue you've completed in the listing above. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:41, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I addressed the issue "Is it neutral?" by having attributed the claims to Robert van Voren to keep neutral point of view [4]. Psychiatrick (talk) 01:17, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Almost ready. 1) I'd suggest you get rid of all "Dr" and "Prof" titles; they don't seem to be used consistently (I am sure some of the mentioned names are titled, too, but they don't have their title in the article). 2) Try to make sure that each name, at least on the initial use, has a first name. 3) Few red links to be added: Pichot (with name), Kenneth Rawnsley, Zhournal Nevropatologii i Psikhiatrii Imeni S S Korsakova, Darrel A. Regier, Harold Visotsky; this is just a sample from the middle of the article - I see much improvement in linking and RED but there still remains scope for more links (those people seem notable, feel free to correct me). 4) Clarify: Chief Psychiatrist Aleksandr Churkin (Chief P. of what?). 5) Final question/suggestion: shouldn't # 1 Background # 2 Joint Session # 3 Sluggish schizophrenia # 4 Normative documents be part of the history chapter as well? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:51, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1) Done. 2) Done. 3) Done. 4) Chief Psychiatrist means Chief Psychiatrist of country but the title is always used without word “country”. 5) Background explains the structure of mental health service in the USSR and built-in capacity of psychiatry for abuse. That is not history. Joint session is not part of history of political abuse of psychiatry but its precursor. Sluggish schizophrenia is not history but is a diagnosis still used in the Russian Federation. Normative documents is important enough to be separate section. Psychiatrick (talk) 11:41, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good job, I have passed this as a GA. You may want to write an article on the Chief Psychiatrist - or on one of many red links in the article. Thank you for writing of this important phenomena, you may also want to consider a WP:FAC process. PS. Please consider reviewing another article nominee (at WP:GAN), as we have a substantial backlog to go through. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your review very much. Psychiatrick (talk) 12:41, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]