Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Schabir Shaik Trial

Schabir Shaik Trial[edit]

Self-nom. I am relising this as I truly believe it deserves to be a featured article. Its first listing received little attention, despite this being one of the most important court trials in South African history. Previous lising is here. User:PZFUN/signature 07:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Mild Support This article seems very interesting to research and expand even more. I think that some people whould also like a large article on the front page. Wikizach 16:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Everyking 08:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Well written, but I'm a little surprised at the coverage of in-line citations in the article - All 31 30 of them are between the first four (excluding the lead-in) sections, and nothing else thereafter. I presume they all covered by the later two references? - Mailer Diablo 12:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Um wait, there are 31 citations but only 30 at the footnotes...did I see something wrong here? - Mailer Diablo 12:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One citation points to the same footnote, and I found it silly to continuously repeat the same footnote when from reading the articles its fairly obvious. User:PZFUN/signature 20:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The numbers in the citations and footnotes should line up. See Saffron for a nice little method of citing one footnote multiple times and keeping the numbers lined up. The Catfish 23:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and fixed them The Catfish 18:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support - More pictures would be nice, though. - Cuivienen 23:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. But an external links section would be good, and there are few references in the 'References' section - More pictures would also be a nice addition to the article. — Wackymacs 20:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Good use of footnotes, but at the very least they should have 'last retrieved on...' date, and preferably they should be all mentioned and sorted in the reference section (see Wikipedia:Inline citations and Wikipedia:Manual of style.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Object; it's not intuitive to me which citation goes with which fact in the last two-thirds of the article—inline citations are necessary there too. If only one source was used, then just put one citation per paragraph or even section. An external links section would be nice too. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 16:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - presumably all of the "Footnotes" are, in fact, "References" in addition to the two quoted "References"? Two online references seems a trifle slight for a featured article these days - are there no paper references? It also seems a little soon to be featuring a court case where the first instance decision was only given a few months ago and remains subject to an appeal that may not be heard for a few years. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Object - The article contains a lot of information, however, there are numerous, significant problems, primarily with writing style, including basic writing quality (construction), section organization, and citations.

The writing is overall rough, with many awkward sentences and redundancies, and repetitive use of words and phrases Some examples: a member of the wealthy and important Shaik family of Durban, proved to be important in re-establishing Zuma's life, The first joint ventures Thomson made bids for were not for arms: instead they made bids for an upgrade to Durban International Airport, The money for the construction was not paid by Zuma himself; instead it was paid in instalments by ..., At the same time as Zuma was answering his questions, Mbeki made statements that threatened the continued existence of the Scorpions., Schabir Shaik's trial started amid an intense media circus. It is more than a matter of individual sentences, many paragraphs are broken at odd spots. The writing simply needs to be tighter as a whole.
Sections and section titles inconsistent Sections are created at odd breaks, particularly the first four. "Nklanda" appears in one title, and apparently misspelt since it doesn't appear anywhere else (Nkandla?)... The Arms deal section apparently changes topic halfway through. And so on...
Inline citations seem to end after the third section They just stop, as if a top-down footnoting effort was cut short... It doesn't make sense and looks odd and is somewhat unsettling...
The subject is not clearly and concisely summarized There is a ton of detail, but little synthesis; combined with the loose writing, this does not add up to a cohesive, summarized encyclopedia article, but more a chronological compilation of news report highlights. This makes it difficult and somewhat tedious to read, and therefore doesn't clearly present the topic. --Tsavage 03:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]