Talk:Gamal Abdel Nasser/GA1

GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: Canadian Paul 01:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will be reviewing this article very shortly, but I just wanted to set up the review page now. Canadian Paul 01:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
some bias :
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Overall, a very good article. Some comments:

Could the caption on the picture in the infobox be more descriptive? Perhaps some information on when it was taken? Right now it's not very informative, as it's obvious that it's a picture of Abdel Nasser if it's the lead picture of the infobox
The fourth external link is just a bare URL, which needs to be fixed, particularly as it is a foreign language site and not everyone can just click on it and figure out what it is.
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:SURNAME is going to be a tricky in this article, since Arabic names do not easily fall into the "given name - surname" pattern, but I do have one question - since "Abdel" means "servant of" in Arabic, can it be separated from "Nasser" in English usage? In other words, in all the instances where it is stated that "Nasser did X" or "Nasser said Y", shouldn't it be "Abdel Nasser did X" instead?
In this case Nasser is acceptable since he is commonly referred to as Nasser and Abdel can just be skipped. Various books just refer to him as [Nasser http://books.google.com/books?q=Nasser&btnG=Search+Books].--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Influences" - "According to Aburish..." - You haven't introduced Aburish yet so the reader has no basis of understanding why this person's opinion is important or relevant. Is he a personal friend? A biographer? A historian? All of these can affect the reader's opinion of what follows and this becomes particularly important later when you're using him a source for information that differs from the norm.(e.g. "Aburish states, however, that he and Amer were posted to the Sudan in 1941.")
Said Aburish is an American Palestinian journalist and writer... I'm not sure now if he qualifies as a historian as much as Nutting.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Family" - "Tahia's parents had died in Tahia's early life" - At least one, if not both, of these "Tahia's" could be replaced with a pronoun
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "1948 Arab-Israeli War" - "During the war, he wrote of the unpreparedness of the army, saying "our soldiers were dashed against fortifications."" - As this contains a direct quote, it requires a direction citation.
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Free Officers", third paragraph, same problem with "According to Sadat, Nasser decided to wage "a large scale assassination campaign.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
First sentence under the third paragraph of "1952 Coup", same problem.
done
Under "Disputes with Naguib", third paragraph, "The RCC then "joyfully...proclaimed Nasser as Prime Minister";[50] Soon after, large numbers of citizens joined protests demanding that Naguib be reinstated." - There's a grammar problem here... either that semicolon should be a period or "soon" should not be capitalized.
fixed with period.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Assuming the presidency", fourth paragraph, the final sentence requires a citation.
done moved the reference to the end of paragraph after checking the book on Google books.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Nationalization of the Suez Canal", direct quote issue with "the Eden government of Britain was agitated by Egyptian campaigns undermining the Baghdad Pact which Nasser viewed as disrupting "Arab solidarity.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Suez Crisis", first paragraph - "After this agreement, "Nasser estimated that the danger of invasion had dropped to 10 percent." He was wrong, however, because shortly thereafter, Britain, France, and Israel colluded in a secret agreement to take over the Suez Canal and occupy parts of Egypt." - This seems a bit off to me because "He was wrong" seems to be worded as a personal opinion, or at the very least it stands out compared to how well the rest of the article has been written thus far. It could be argued, for example, that he was not wrong, because he still thought that there was a chance that it could happen. Perhaps it might be more neutral to stick with "Shortly thereafter, however, ..."
fixed through replacing by "Shortly thereafter, however, ...".--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same paragraph, there's a hidden note - their attempts to cover it in diplomacy - which is true.
Under "Pan-Arabism", first paragraph, direct quote issue with "Nasser berated Hussein on his Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs radio station, accusing him of being "a tool of the imperialists.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Influence on neighboring Arab countries", direct quote issue with "stated that "any attack on Iraq was tantamount to an attack on the UAR.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, second paragraph, the big quote definitely needs a direct citation. Also, if it's such an important quote, you may want to highlight it in quote box rather than copy it into the prose of the article, as it does somewhat disrupt the flow of the paragraph.
created quotation box--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Revival on the Arab stage", second paragraph, direct quote issue with "Nasser berated the attendees for being "phony nationalists" and constantly changing direction."
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Internal dissent and shifts in policy", direct quote issue with the first sentence.
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, the first, third, and fourth paragraphs greatly overuse dashes in places where commas could be used instead, which becomes very distracting to the flow. In one place ("Nasser used his influence with al-Azhar to create changes in the syllabus—which trickled to the lower levels of Egyptian education, allow gender-mixed schools, introduce evolution as an acceptable subject matter to discuss, amend divorce laws, and merge religious courts into civil ones") it ruins the verb tenses of the sentence. Overall, through the entire article, I think that fewer dashes would be beneficial for flow.
fixed--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, fourth paragraph, direct quote issue with "Nasser blamed the lack of unity among the Arab states for what he deemed as "the disastrous situation" regarding the water diversion scheme."
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, fifth paragraph, direct quote issue with "Qutb wrote a book from his jail cell condemning Nasser as the representative of a "new age of ignorance""
fixed--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Six-Day War", first paragraph, direct quote issue with "After the blockade, he gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 29 May saying, "the issue was not UNEF or closing the Strait of Tiran; the issue is the rights of the Palestinian people.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, third paragraph, direct quote issue with "It was here, that the simmering conflict between Nasser and Amer came into the open when, according to present officers, they burst into "a non-stop shouting match.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Resignation and aftermath", first paragraph, you might consider my previous advice regarding big and important quotes.
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "War of Attrition and later life", third paragraph, direct quote issue with "The attending heads of states launched verbal denunciations against each other, while Nasser pleaded with Arafat and Hussein "to stop it.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Death and funeral", first paragraph, direct quote issue with "As a testament to his unchallenged leadership of the Arab people, following his death, a Beirut-based newspaper stated, "One hundred million human beings—the Arabs—are orphans.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Legacy", second paragraph, the final two sentences require citation.
removed not mentioned in source.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same section, third paragraph, "Traditional Western political scientists claim his largely charismatic and direct relationship with the Egyptian people "rendered intermediary organizations and individuals unnecessary."" - Aside from the direct quote issue, what are "traditional Western political scientists".
fixed--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under "Nasser vs. Sadat", direct quote issue with ""I have come to you along the path of Gamal Abdel Nasser and I believe that your nomination of me to assume the responsibility of the presidency is a nomination for me to continue the path of Nasser.""
done--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's other, more minor punctuation/grammatical issues. I've fixed a couple of them along the way, but mostly these would be concerns for a FA, rather than a GA, nomination. I may also have to go over the last few sections again after all of these issues have been cleared up, as one tends to miss/ignore more things when they've been reviewing for a long time. Anyhow, to allow for these changes to be made I am placing the article on hold for a period of up to a week. I'm always open to discussion on any of the items, so if you think I'm wrong on something leave your thoughts here and we'll discuss. I'll be checking this page at least daily, unless something comes up, so you can be sure I'll notice any comments left here. Canadian Paul 03:35, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed many of the issues, please review if they are correct. I'm not sure if I fixed the direct quote problems correctly. I put the references that were at the end of the paragraph which contained the quote to the end of the sentence of the quote.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look over it a little later tonight, when I have a bit more time! Canadian Paul 16:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the direct quotations, yes, that is exactly what I was looking for! So the only important thing remaining is the little hidden note after "their attempts to cover it in diplomacy" - I think if you just removed this (it's not too important) that would take care of the issue. There's also the picture caption, but I'm not going to fail this article over either of those issues, so I believe that the time has come to pass this as a Good Article - there's only ever been one other article that I reviewed for GA that I enjoyed as much as this one, and I have to say that I learned more about Abdel Nasser here than I did in any of my university courses. The next time someone makes fun of Wikipedia for its quality, I will be pointing them here as evidence to the contrary. So congratulations and thank you for all your hard work - good luck getting it to FA if that's your goal! Canadian Paul 23:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot for the encouraging words and the aim is FA, but I'm afraid to proceed to a nomination before a thorough review on FA quality. I'll improve the article as much as possible then proceed to an FA nomination. Thanks again.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 07:56, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]