Talk:Russo-Georgian War/GA3

GA Reassessment

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During this article's DYK nomination, I found that the article contains copyright infringements, which is a quickfail criterion according to WP:WIAGA. As the problem appears to be extensive, this article needs considerable revision and likely should not be a GA. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

You can check and post your findings here. I'll post a request at GOCE and I'm sure someone will copyedit the article and rephrase the problematic text. --UA Victory (talk) 16:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

There are examples at the DYK page, but this is not a simple matter of copyediting - there needs to be much more significant revision. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Are there any other issues except some close paraphrasings? Please, name them. --UA Victory (talk) 18:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware close paragraphing is also copyright violation, but did not know the article contained any when I listed it. As the reviewer who passed the article I shall of course watch this page and participate in the discussion as much as I can. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 20:42, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I shall be happy to help resolve any incidents of close paraphrasing, as that's one of my specialities. Provide an index of the problems, if you please, so they can be addressed. RGloucester — ☎ 20:54, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I noticed that page is heavily sourced to publications by Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, in particular ref. 16 [1]. That was published in Moscow by people no one really knows about. Does it really qualify as an RS? And even if it does, I think it would be best to use other sources, rather than something published by politologists in the country that belonged to one of the sides in this conflict and still continue to be involved in other similar conflicts. My very best wishes (talk) 05:27, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

When you say it was published by "people no one really knows" do you mean the journalist is unknown or no author information exists? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 17:33, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

The Moscow Times did an interview with the people behind it. They consider it reliable. In fact, BBC found it to be reliable enough to publish a report by it. I think that makes it clear that this is not some "invisible" non-RS source. If BBC is willing to report their claims, then that should be good enough for us. RGloucester — ☎ 17:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Information about this author (Mikhail Barabanov) obviously exists. This is a military analyst in Moscow. But I think he is relatively unknown compare to someone like, for example, Pavel Felgenhauer. My concern here is that article relies too heavily on his judgement (ref 16, for example, was used more than 10 times). In addition, I suspect a promotional editing on behalf of this "Center" and its analysts in Wikipedia [2]. Yes, the quoting by the BBC indicates this might be a valid source. But I still believe it should be generally avoided in the "good article", because there are many better sources on the subject.My very best wishes (talk) 18:06, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it is wrong to cite something as it is done in this article, but further investigation might be warranted. I'd argue that the source is reliable. You seem think it is given WP:UNDUE weight in the article, which may be the case regardless of its reliability. I don't know, now, because I don't have time to investigate. RGloucester — ☎ 00:14, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

A article in MIT journal Daedalus also cites the Defence Brief. It definitely seems like reputable outlets have no concerns with citations to the Defence Brief. Undue weight may still be a problem, but reliability is not. RGloucester — ☎ 00:25, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I am not telling their publications do not qualify as RS, but I would not trust too much their judgement when it comes to the Russo-Georgian war. Now, speaking about your argument in general (high citation means reliability of the source), it does not hold. Consider this source. It was quoted more than a 1000 times in Google books, but reliability of this source is questionable. In fact, it was even blackisted on wiki (incorrectly, I believe). My very best wishes (talk) 01:33, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, if one looks at Google books and doesn't parse the data. That's not what I'm doing. I'm looking at good outlets, like the BBC, like the MIT journal, that have a reputation for fact-checking. Given that they allow citations as such to appear in their works, that means they've deemed the source to be RS. If they have, so can we, as they are RS outlets. RGloucester — ☎ 02:48, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, most of the books which quote Kavkaz Center in the link above qualify as secondary RS, just as BBC. But again, I am not telling that publication by the both "Centers" can not be used. Yes, they can, but with care and not as a major source for GA. My very best wishes (talk) 04:18, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

If one takes the time to look at the citations, most of them are for minor matters, and technical details. It may be cited many times, but none of the citations are for anything other than troop movements and the like. Regardless, I don't have time to verify whether the citations support the text. RGloucester — ☎ 05:00, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that this is a highly sensitive and controversial article and therefore only known, reliable sources should be used. If there are better sources to support better claims I'm in favor of replacing them, but I would not exactly count it as an error. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 14:38, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

That was just a minor comment. Perhaps there is a more serious shortcoming. From what I read about this elsewhere, it appears that the war was well preplanned in advance by the Russian military, and the shelling of Georgian villages was a deliberate provocation to start the war. The Georgians fell into trap by responding to the provocation. However, this is lost in WP version. Unfortunately, I can not help because of insufficient time and because I know that any serious effort to fix these problems would result in prolonged disputes... My very best wishes (talk) 15:10, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

If you don't mind me saying, I feel your last comment regarding prolonged disputes is an exaggeration, but I understand if you need to take some time off Wikipedia per personal issues. And yes, this reassessment is mainly about possible copyright violation, but thanks still for notice. Best regards. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 21:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Nikkimaria: I find it odd that you still haven't told us where the problems are. We can't fix them if we don't know what they are. RGloucester — ☎ 04:03, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• There are examples listed in the DYK nom linked from my opening statement; based on the extent of problems noted there, I suspect a very thorough check of the whole article will be necessary. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:05, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I would love to see a thorough check, so that the problems can be resolved. Are you going to provide one? RGloucester — ☎ 16:56, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm also in favor of having some kind check which detailed describe all problems. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 19:31, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• History 1 [3]
• History 2 [4][5]
• Unresolved conflicts 2 [6][7]
• Russian interests 1 [8]
• Russian interests 2 [9][10]
• Pro-Western policy [11]

That's the Background section alone, and not comprehensive - the takeaway here is that there's more problematic text than not. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I can't see what the takeaway is if the text isn't provided to me. Please provide a detailed description of the problems, comparing the article's text and the supposedly cited text. Otherwise, this article will never be fixed. RGloucester — ☎ 03:37, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that large segments of the article are identical or nearly so to copyrighted external sources. There are already some detailed comparisons in the DYK nom demonstrating this, which a week later have yet to be addressed. You stated above that resolving close paraphrasing is a specialty of yours, so I am confident you will be able to find similar examples throughout the article - a detailed comparison of all instances of problems would be longer than the article itself. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:10, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I can't resolve it if the text isn't provided to me. I need to see the texts side by side, item by item. RGloucester — ☎ 05:17, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you could open each in a different window, to show them side by side. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:23, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what to open, because you've not told me where to look. You've just provided links to books that do not provide text, and you've not indicated the sentences that engage in close paraphrasing of those texts here. RGloucester — ☎ 05:24, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

"History 1", etc, refer to section names and paragraph numbers within those sections; the sources of concern are mostly those being cited, so you can compare the cited source to the text it's citing - or, in this case, the text copied from it. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:54, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to rephrase the above-stated problematic text. I've always been interested in what counts as a close paraphrasing? What are the criteria to determine how close is the cited text to the original text? Sometimes it's difficult to rephrase 100% of the original text in order to avoid distortion of the facts.

I've removed the Kremlin source for the translation of the peace plan, since the New York Times translation seems to be more accurate.

RGloucester, can you look at the text in Media war section that cites Donovan? I was unable to significantly rephrase it. --UA Victory (talk) 20:45, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I've done my best. RGloucester — ☎ 21:08, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Who's going to check the whole article for close paraphrasing? I think that some editors have the tool that automatically detects such issues. --UA Victory (talk) 13:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Everyone has access to automated detection tools like Duplication Detector or Earwig's Copyvio Detector. However, these tools are severely limited both in which sources they can examine (they usually cannot access print sources, Google Books, etc) and in which problems they can detect (they are primarily useful for direct copying, but close paraphrasing is also problematic in terms of GA status). Thus, manual checking is typically necessary, despite being very time-consuming. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:00, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I see that nobody has checked the article yet. I propose that Nikkimaria or some other editor who has strict requirements as what counts as close paraphrasing, should check and then create a copy of this article in the sandbox where the problematic text will be highlighted. This will ease the job for everyone. After the article is revised, then the sandbox version will be deleted. I understand that the article is rather large and it will take some time, however I think that one section per day is a reasonable. --UA Victory (talk) 13:12, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

And in the interim we can close this and delist the article. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:38, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I've undertaken the task to check for closely paraphrased text and I've rewritten large parts of text. I hope I've eliminated all the problematic text. --UA Victory (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2015 (UTC)