Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Slovenian presidential election, 2007/archive2

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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 User:SandyGeorgia 21:11, 3 December 2008 [1].

Slovenian presidential election, 2007[edit]

Nominator(s): Tone
previous FAC (01:36, 23 September 2008)

After I believe all the issues raised at the first FAC have been fixed, I am renominating the article. The images now have proper OTRS, the references are attributed to reliable sources with direct quotes where needed and copyediting has been done. Thank you for your reconsideration. --Tone 13:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. The article covers all important criteria. Definitely improved from when I last looked it over in the previous FAC. All the shortcomings I pointed out have been fixed. --Eleassar my talk 15:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

*Image:Danilo Turk.jpg - At Flickr, this image was not released under a CC 2.5 license, as is claimed on the image description page - all rights were reserved. Second, the image description page claims that the image was released through OTRS, but there is no OTRS ticket number.

That's up to people at commons to decide. If any problem appears, the image can be removed. At the moment, I am happy with the description there. By the way, there are two sources for the photo, it is possible that the admin of the other website released the copyright. Any suggestions what else could be done? --Tone 18:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is no OTRS ticket number to confirm and the license cannot be verified - at present, this image does not violates the copyright laid out on Flickr. This image needs to be deleted from the article or an OTRS ticket needs to be obtained. Awadewit (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A new photo has been recently uploaded to Commons, a gfdl one. I have temporaly changed it, when the otrs problem is resolved, the old can be put back. --Tone 16:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image:Coat of Arms of Slovenia.svg - There is ultimately no source for information for this image - where did the information to make this image or its parent image come from? Also, who are the authors of this image and when was it made and/or uploaded?
The image was, according to the Commons page, created and uploaded by User:Zscout370 in 2005. The source is the flag of Slovenia. I don't see any problems here. --Tone 13:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Commons page lists the uploader - that is not always the same as the creator/author. Please add the uploader's name to the author field, if you know that they are same. We cannot use the svg image as the source - it is a user-generated image. We have to have a reliable source that depicts the flag. Awadewit (talk) 17:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Source added. --Tone 18:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Author issue still needs to be resolved. Awadewit (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This has been fixed now. --Tone 16:32, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image:Glasovnica za predsednika republike 2007.jpg - The source listed is "Slovenian WP" - what is that exactly? The metadata hints that this is an amateur photograph taken by the user listed in the image description. Is that correct? If so, the source should say something like "own work" or "self-created".
I fixed that now. --Tone 13:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As the author and the uploader are not the same, how can we be sure that the author released the copyright? We need a statement from the author on the image page releasing the copyright. Awadewit (talk) 17:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I added the link to sl: wiki where the image was uploaded first. That should do the trick.

With some careful attention, these issues should be easy to resolve. Awadewit (talk) 16:47, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Inconsistent date formatting: " ... 11 November 2007 ... " but " ... On December 22, Türk was sworn ... ". Which is it? Also, see WP:MOSNUM regarding percentage ranges and spelling out vs. using digits for numbers, example: " ... with nearly 3 in 4 voters ... " SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:47, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I don't think the prose is of the standard required. There are too many one- or two-sentence paragraphs, and too many awkwardly-worded sentences (e.g. "The Slovenian National Party (SNS) nominated its leader, Zmago Jelinčič, who had already run for the office at the 2002 election, finishing third with 8.51% of the votes."), along with a few run-ons ("Peterle replaced the head of his campaign, and concentrated on questioning Türk's role in the 1991 secession from Yugoslavia, alleging that at the time when Peterle as the Prime Minister struggled for Slovenia's independence, Türk continued to act as an official representative of Yugoslavia in international institutions."). In my view, a complete rewrite would be required to get the prose to FA-standard. I also have some concerns with 1b and think that a few of the shorter top-level sections could be merged (for example, the five sentence "First round results and reactions" could easily be merged with "first round campaign"). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 06:33, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The dates formats are now consistent through the text and through the references. Regarding the sections, this was discussed at the previous FAC. A new paragraph is used when a something unrelated with the previous paragraph is introduced. Merging them would make the article less comprehensible IMO. By the way, where do you see problems with 1b criteria? The reason why I left the campaign and the 1st round results separate is that the paragraphs deal with different things again. Also, we have 2nd round and results separate. Regarding the prose. I went through the text several times. Since I am not professionally trained in writing English texts, I'd appreciate if you could point out other bad formulations so that I can fix them (a good practice for me as well). Thanks. --Tone 14:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some more improvements to the text have been made. If I left anything, please point it out. --Tone 16:22, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I know it's been poor of me not to have followed up on this in the last week; I swear I'll get to it within the next twenty-four hours. Apologies, and thanks for your patience. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 06:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Man, missed my own deadline; that's unlike me. Anyway, to demonstrate what I mean by the writing quality, I took a section of the article at random ("Leading candidates") and went over it with a fine toothed comb. Here's some of what I found:
  • "Pahor himself confirmed that he is ready to run for the office." - wrong tense.
  • "Instead, Social Democrats nominated Danilo Türk, a former Slovenian ambassador, high official in the United Nations, and a professor at the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Law." - faulty parallelism here, as the indefinite article is included in the first and third items, but not the second. Alternatively, if "former" is only intended to modify the first two items, there should be a conjunction.
  • Some of the party names are preceded by "the" and some aren't, with no apparent reason for the differences. Even within a single party (e.g. Liberal Democracy) this isn't consistent.
  • "All of them managed to collect the enough support votes with Peterle reaching the required number in the first 4 hours of collecting." Superfluous "the".
  • "...who had been campaigning for months and cultivated the image of a "man of the people"..." Tense shift.
  • Besides the above objective problems, there are plenty of stylistic problems, in that much of the wording is awkward and inelegant. Many words are repeated unnecessarily from sentence to sentence, for example.
I'm sorry to be the sole opposer like this, but in my view the article requires a rewrite by a native English speaker. I'd offer to do it myself, but I'm frankly unlikely to have time to do a proper job until the new year. It would be great of somebody else could step in within the next few days and do so, because most other elements of a featured article are in place. Let me also add that, having visited a few years ago, I very much agree with Todor Bozhinov's comments about Slovenia rocking. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 05:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article is now undergoing a copyediting. User:Scapler was kind to help. --Tone 21:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, well done! The article is pretty thorough and well-written; it provides a good introduction and background. The sources look fine in terms of credibility (generally usually the top Slovenian media or well-known international news agencies and publications). I found the article very well illustrated for an election article, with photos of all major candidates and a handy map. Overall, I do think some paragraphs can be merged: although they do represent different lines of thought at present, they are related in most cases, like the short nominations paragraphs in Leading candidates. I don't consider that a big deal really: I'm all for reviewing the overall quality of the article instead of focusing on almost-bureaucratic WP:FA? details (copyright of the Slovenian coat of arms?!) and subjective stuff like writing style. If someone's opposing because he doesn't think the prose is good enough, please provide a thorough review so the stuff can be fixed, or even copyedit it yourself; the ultimate goal is to improve the article after all! And one last thing that didn't influence my supporting decision, however: Slovenia rocks! :) Todor→Bozhinov 14:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose by karanacs. Disclosure: I know very little about Slovenia, and nothing about their political system, so this article was my introduction to that topic. I thought that the article had too much detail in some places, and not enough in others. The prose is also okay, but needs work. There are grammatical errors, and there are many sentences which don't read well. (For a non-native speaker, this is quite well done, but I recommend getting a good copyeditor to do a bit of polishing.) Please note that the issues below are in many cases just examples of areas to be fixed:
  • I don't understand why the referendum is mentioned in the lead. Yes, it was held on the same day, but that does not appear to be directly related to this election (and it is not mentioned in the body of the article at all)
  • The first sentence of the lead seems very unwieldy to me (The 2007 Slovenian presidential election was held in two rounds, on 21 October 2007 and 11 November 2007, in order to elect the successor to the second President of Slovenia Janez Drnovšek for a five-year term) but my brain is tired and has not come up with something better.
  • I am unclear from reading the lead why there were two rounds of elections and who exactly won the election
  • In the background section, I am not entirely sure why we learn about Drnovsek's change in lifestyle - that seems to be unnecessary detail to this article.
  • In the requirements for candidacy, what is meant by "support votes"? Do they have to file a petition? I'm a bit confused by this.
  • Why did Peterle, Turk, and Gaspari decide to run as independents? It looks like they were already endorsed by multiple political parties?
  • It seems weird to me to have the same pictures in the infobox and in the body of the article.
  • There seem to be many awkward sentences. Examples only:
    • The candidates appeared in televised debates during which they discussed various topics, including the rules governing the voting of non-resident nationals, which had been changed by the National Electoral Commission during the campaign
    • The campaign was backed by the Prime Minister Janša and the Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel who went so far as to confirm Peterle's claims on the Foreign Ministry's official website. - no need for "the" before PM or FM, "went so far as to" is overly wordy -> could just be "who confirmed"
    • "Later, he also stated that he would work closely with Janša's government during Slovenia's six-month EU presidency." - Later and also are redundant
    • Türk's candidacy was also endorsed by Zares, a splinter party made up of many of the members of the National Assembly who left the Liberal Democracy, which quickly disintegrated in opposition after 10 years in government,[21] and the pensioners' party DeSUS - seems to have too many ideas in it
  • The First round campaign section does address some of the issues facing the candidates, but there is really no information on what type of campaigning the candidates did (beyond debating). What did they do?
  • What impact did the journalists' petition have on the election or campaign? Were their complaints directed partially at measures in place due to the election? I'm not sure why this event is important in relation to the campaign
  • Need a citation after every sentence with a quotation, even if that means some citations are repeated in subsequent sentences. This is an issue in multiple places in the article.
  • Nowhere in the article is it explicitly explained how many people go to a runoff, or what percentage of the vote is necessary to win
  • Jelincic is described as "flamboyant", but we are never told in the article what he did during the first round that might have made him appear such - how did he differentiate himself from the others?
  • How much time was allocated for campaigning in both the first and second rounds?
  • I am not sure what this means: "Since the EU presidency was closing"
  • Make sure all newspapers are italicized in the references. It appears that some, like International Herald Tribune, are not
  • Any other information about the supposed movie that Artur Stern was making?

Karanacs (talk) 20:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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