Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Nelson Mandela/1

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Nelson Mandela[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · WatchWatch article reassessment pageMost recent review
Result: Delist due to content imbalance (criteria 3 and 4): see comments below. Geometry guy 19:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It desperately needs a criticism section in order to be fair and balanced. Right now the critism is buried under individual topics with wikilinks, but the acclaims seciton is huge. Is it really a good article if we bury the protest but stress the supposed unadultered good of this individual?Titbear (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The acclaim section is a bit of out of hand. Most of it can fairly easily move to List of Nelson Mandela awards and honours. No article "desperately needs a criticism section in order to be fair and balanced". The article should state cited facts, period. Zaian (talk) 18:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Criticism sections are not required, or indeed necessarily a good idea. It might instead be better to rework the "Acclaim" section as "Legacy". Geometry guy 19:47, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment — This article is missing a lot info and needs a decent copy-edit. Really needs a lot of work to keep its GA status. Zaian, do you know much about Mandela? If you did you'd understand what I'm meaning. However, I'm no expert on him so can't provide examples at the moment. Aaroncrick TALK 02:12, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, actually I'm not sure what you mean. You'll need to give at least some sort of example, or point to areas of improvement, if you are suggesting removing the GA status. Copy-edit examples should be easy enough even if you're not an expert on the topic. Zaian (talk) 13:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it's not too much of a worry for GA; however, if this article was ever to go for FAC it would need expanding slightly. I just popped in to comment as I am interested in helping with taking the article to FAC one day and just wanted to have a look over it. Aaroncrick TALK 10:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, progress in South Africa was slower than Mandela had hoped, due to inheriting a country that was virtually bankrupt because the previous government had deliberately caused enormous harm to the nation’s economy. Large loans had been taken out on the eve of the transfer of power and Mandela had no choice but to honour these obligations. This or the flow-on effects aren't even mentioned. Aaroncrick TALK 01:00, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Content is not good enough. His retirement and old age is longer than his presidency and is really a load of fluff given that anyone who gets old and doesn't die suddenly will become frail and physically weak; this is covered more than his domestic policies or whatever changes he made. And his leadership has less info than some charities he set up. His policies can make a lot more difference to economic development, public health etc than raising money for charity. His third wife has more than his presidency. Also, I'm not up to speed with Mugabe, but didn't Mandela strenuously say that Zimbabwe should not get a sporting boycott (unlike apartheid SA) and defend Mugabe? The content is far from even B-class YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 01:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, both of you. Those are definitely comments we can work with. (Much of the imbalance you mention is due to "recentism".) Zaian (talk) 21:28, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thankyou for understanding. Aaroncrick TALK 22:34, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]