Wikipedia:Peer review/Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev/archive1

Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I'm planning on submitting the article to FAC, and I'd like to meet all the FA requirements beforehand, so I don't waste reviewers' time at FAC. I'd appreciate it if the reviewer were familiar with the FAC process and FA requirements. --TIAYN (talk) 13:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Not sure how this slipped through the cracks, but I saw it had been archived with no comments, so here are some suggestions for improvement. Thanks for your work on this interesting article.

• I would look carefully at the FA criteria. I am most concenred with criteria 1a "well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard"; (b) "comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context"; and (d) "neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias".
• Some examples of problem prose follow:
  • incorrect use of "whose" Leonid Brezhnev was the leader of the CPSU from 1964 until his death in 1982, whose eighteen-year reign was recognised as the time of social and economic stagnation in the late Soviet Union. This could work as something like Leonid Brezhnev, whose eighteen-year reign was recognised as the time of social and economic stagnation in the late Soviet Union, was the leader of the CPSU from 1964 until his death in 1982.
  • Poor stucture / unclear antecedent for "this" (the previous sentence is about Soviet citizens mourning his death, but the this refers to Andropov's role in the state funeral): When Leonid Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 Yuri Andropov was elected chairman of the committee in charge of managing his funeral. According to Time magazine Brezhnev's death was mourned by the majority of Soviet citizens.[1] First World commentators saw this as proof that Andropov would become Brezhnev's successor as general secretary.[2]
  • "opinion measurement poll"?? Also try to avoid two uses of "as good" in During the Gorbachev Era Brezhnev's rule was considered less successful then that of Joseph Stalin; in a opinion measurement poll only 7 percent chose the Brezhnev Era as good, while 10 percent picked the Stalin Era as good.[13]
  • Or this could be simpler Historians have expressed criticism for Brezhnev and his rule. Why not "Historians have criticized..."?
  • Missing word? According to Brown "The Brezhnev era was a time when tens of millions of Soviet citizens lived a [more?] peaceful and predictable life than hitherto"
• Ib comprehensiveness - the chief concern I have is that there is no brief summary of Brezhnev's rule to refer back to. The lead does some of this (which is against the idea of WP:LEAD - the lead is suuposed to be a summary of the article and, as such, should not have anything in it which is not repeated in the body of the article itself).
• I also expected more on some topics - for example with the gerontocracy, there is no mention made that Brezhnev's two successors each ruled for less than two years (as they were old men to start with). I seem to recall some people saying that Gorbachev's rise to power was a result of dissatisfaction with Andropov and Chernenkov's short times in office and inability to get much done.
• I do not have any sort of expert knowledge about Brezhnev, but having only five book sources in the Bibliography seems as if it may run afoul of FA criterion 1c "well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". Why are there no Russian books listed?
• On looking more closely, I see there are ten books in the refs that are not apprently listed in the Bibliography section. One thing FAC looks at is being consistent - what is the reason for including some books, but not all in the Bibliography?
• Moving on to 1c, a neutral point of view, I note that the GA review failed the article on neutrality grounds, but still passed it as a GA (which I do not understand, as I thought all criteria had to be met for an article to become a GA).
• Again I am not an expert, but there is no mention that I could see of human rights, and only one mention each of the KGB and forced labor camps (but that mentiojn is only that his relative was sent to one).
• Or there is no mention of the SALT I and II treaties, and only one mention of Afghanistan (and no mention of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the boycotts of those games by the west and the 1984 Los Angeles games by the Warsaw Pact countries).
• There are lots of little things that would be a problem at FAC, where every i has to be dotted and every t crossed.
• The article is badly WP:OVERLINKed, both in terms of repeated links and in terms of common terms that do not need links (does the average reader really need a link to economic stagnation when Era of Stagnation has already been linked?)
• At least one space between punctuation and a ref (saw it reading, not sure now where)
• I am not sure what the numbers mean in several of these polls A poll by the Public Opinion Fund in September 1999 similarly chose the Brezhnev period as the time in the 20th century when "ordinary people lived best", having a clear majority of 51 to 10. 51 in favor, but what is the 10 for?
• Being consistent on little things, is it just "VTsIOM" or "the VTsIOM"? (both are used)
• Any mention of his legacy in the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries - I always think of his kiss with Honecker - see File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F088809-0038, Berlin, East Side Gallery.jpg
• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^°

Thanks, but aren't most of you're points relevant to the Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev article??? Even so, thanks for helping me! :) --TIAYN (talk) 07:47, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean. I hope that ALL of my points are relevant to Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev as this is a peer review of the Legacy article. All the PR comments about it were made from reading the Legacy article. After I finished this peer review, I also peer reviewed the Leonid Brezhnev article, but when I did this PR I had not yet read the main Brezhnev article. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry.... I ment something else.... Sorry.... :p --TIAYN (talk) 21:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

No worries - sorry to come across so grouchy too. Thanks for two interesting articles on Leonid B. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)