Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Asif Ali Zardari/archive1

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 by SandyGeorgia 01:29, 15 August 2011 [1].

Asif Ali Zardari

Featured article candidates/Asif Ali Zardari/archive1

Nominator(s): Reformation32 (talk) 18:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zardari's page highlights the enormous progress in Pakistan-related articles. He was President of Pakistan, a nuclear-armed Muslim nation with ambivalent ties to the United States. This guy has interacted with George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Not only that, his current popularity rating is 11%, down from 20%. His wife is Benazir Bhutto, the Islamic world's first female leader. He has been involved in corruption, kidnapping, scandals, and murder. Its amazing how much this guy is hated! If this article becomes featured it will be a huge accomplishment for Wikipedians. Reformation32 (talk) 18:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural question - has Mni9791 (talk · contribs) been consulted about this nomination. According to edit count tool, he/she has nine times the edits to this article that the nominator does, and has been working on it for several months. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. He/She approves the nomination. Reformation32 (talk) 23:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note that Mni9791 (the primary contributor) is currently indef blocked, as of July 5, 2011. Dana boomer (talk) 15:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Media: File:CleggZardari.jpg has a broken source. A few of the others have direct links to the images, which should generally be avoided, but they all look legitimately PD. J Milburn (talk) 12:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The picture was removed. Reformation32 (talk) 13:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review from Nikkimaria

Oppose - I appreciate the work that has gone into this article but don't feel it currently meets the FA criteria. Here are some specific concerns:

Prose needs copy-editing for grammar, clarity and flow. For example: "reduced his vast presidential powers to only a ceremonial figurehead"
WP:MOS issues - spell out "%" in article text, don't space emdashes, etc
Tone and word choice is problematic in places - tone should be neutral and encyclopedic
There are a number of very short paragraphs and sentences, which make the text seem choppy
Citation formatting needs to be much more consistent. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~The sentence of "reduced his vast presidential powers to only a ceremonial figurehead" has been corrected to "his vast presidential powers to that of a ceremonial figurehead."~~
~~The % was spelled out and the emdashes were unspaced. Any other MOS issues?~~
~~Where can I find copy-editing help?~~
I tried very hard to make citations consistent. I re-did all 265 citations to make sure every single one was consistent. You can verify that by looking at edit history. How are the citations inconsistent? I think I deserve a better explanation than a vague statement such as "needs to be much more consistent". Reformation32 (talk) 15:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can solicit copy-editing help from WP:GOCE. Other examples of MOS issues include hyphen/dash use, overlinking, inconsistent naming (for example, both "US" and "U.S."), etc. The neutrality concern is not because of any widespread bias, but simply an issue of tone and word choice - see WP:W2W for some guidance on this. For citation formatting: all web citations need publishers and retrieval dates, retrieval dates should all be in the same format, be consistent in what is and is not italicized, use consistent naming (for example, New York Times vs The New York Times), etc. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have requested copy-editing. But besides that one ignominious error that you already mentioned, can you find anything else? I don't think there is a need for copy-editing unless you provide more examples.
~~hyphen/dash use? I ctrl-F the whole Zardari page and couldn't understand or find any discrepancies.~~
All citations have retrieval dates now. If you disagree, out of the 265 references, could you find any more examples? If you agree, please cross out.
Retrieval dates are now in the correct format. If you disagree, please elaborate. If you agree, please cross out.
~~italicized? Whats inconsistently italicized?~~
Naming has been corrected. If you disagree, please elaborate. If you agree, please cross out. Reformation32 (talk) 21:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The page has been copy-edited by Clarityfiend. MOS issues, tone and word choice, paragraph lengths have been significantly revamped. Reformation32 (talk) 13:52, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gimmetoo comments

Reformation32 asked me to comment [2]. This article was rewritten starting about 6 months ago. At the time, in terms of edit count Huon and I were the primary editors of the page. Although the rewrite added a lot of sources and content, we both had concerns about bias in the rewrite. The subject of the article has received a lot of criticism, and it takes care - and multiple eyes - to state the criticism as criticism and not as fact. The page is better now (probably due to Reformation32's editing) but I still see instances of bias, such as where ideas appear in succession in a way that suggests something more. But that's my opinion. If others think the article is close, then I'm willing to work on the article and fix the biases I see. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:58, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please do so. I encourage Nikkimaria, Huon, and Gimmetoo to provide examples of bias so I can correct them too. Reformation32 (talk) 13:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.