Talk:Manila hostage crisis/GA1

GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: Gatoclass (talk) 04:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

(Discussion moved from header no. 3).

The Chinese government refused to host a Philippine government delegation scheduled to visit Beijing and Hong Kong between August 26 and 27, citing that there was nothing to explain until the publication of a complete investigation report for the incident. This sentence doesn't make a lot of sense, but I can't fix it as the source is in Chinese. If you read Chinese, is there any chance you could rephrase it to make it a little clearer? Gatoclass (talk) 05:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I rewrote that using more information from the source. Der yck C. 09:08, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My basic issue is with the word "explain", it seems rather odd in this context. Would "discuss" perhaps be a better word? Would that conform with the source? Gatoclass (talk) 11:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The official wording is indeed "explain" (see also [1]), however I think "discuss" is an acceptable heuristic if necessary. Der yck C. 16:54, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks for that, I might give that sentence a tweak myself. Gatoclass (talk) 02:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the "Reactions" section it says After the bodies of the victims were brought back to Hong Kong, the Coroner decided that an investigation into the death by the Police should be carried out, and autopsies performed on all eight of the dead.[50] In January 2011, the Hong Kong police launched a further stage of investigation, inviting witnesses from both Hong Kong and to Philippines to testify.[69] Are these the same investigations referred to in the "Investigations"section or different ones? And shouldn't this information be integrated into the "Investigations" section instead? Gatoclass (talk) 06:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it's the same investigation. I think it's convenient to describe briefly how the immediate government reaction led to the investigation in the reactions section, but if you don't think so then feel free to move it. Der yck C. 09:08, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but there's a limit to the amount of time I am willing to spend on this article. I don't mind correcting grammatical errors, or finding and correcting other minor sourcing discrepancies and so on, but I really can't spare the time to be thoroughly familiarizing myself with the underlying sources so that I can construct an accurate narrative. That sort of thing is the job of the nominator, not the reviewer. However, I concede I could have been more specific in my above criticisms, I'll try to rectify that in a few minutes. Gatoclass (talk) 11:28, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The main issue I have with this paragraph is that it mentions autopsies, but there is no mention of autopsies in the associated "Investigations" section. That's what makes it look like a different investigation. I think perhaps if you moved the autopsy info to the investigations section, and then perhaps just left the rest of the paragraph more or less as is with an accompanying "see 'Investigations' section above", that might be sufficient. Gatoclass (talk) 11:38, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh that. Sorry I haven't been reading your criticism properly. The initial autopsies are indeed a separate investigation which preceded the main "Hong Kong government investigation". By the time of the main investigation (Jan-Mar 2011) the victims had already been buried. Should we mention the autopsy and give the main investigation a passing mention in the Reactions section, and give a passing mention to the autopsy and the run-up to the main investigation in the Investigation section? Der yck C. 16:41, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly I think the autopsies should be mentioned in the investigations section. I don't think they need to be mentioned in the Reactions section, but I'll leave that to you. What I do think needs to be included in the Reactions section, as I said earlier, is a note (like "see above" or something) to indicate to the reader that these are the same investigations mentioned earlier. Gatoclass (talk) 02:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You've convinced me. I split the last paragraph of Hong Kong government reactions: information about the bodies returning to Hong Kong is merged into an earlier paragraph; information about the autopsy is moved to the investigations section. Der yck C. 20:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Deryck, IMO that reads a lot better :)

Since this GA has turned out to be a lot more challenging than I anticipated, I've decided to work through it section by section instead of criterion by criterion which is how I've done it in the past. That way we can get each section straightened out in every respect before moving onto the next. I think it will be the quickest way to get it finished. Since I'm assuming a similar number of issues in the rest of the text, I will start a new section at the end of this GA section to address any future issues, in order to keep this GA summary readable. I'm going to be a bit busy over the next day or two so if I don't start on the next section then, I will start on it over the weekend. Gatoclass (talk) 11:10, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
Article has some broken links, see this page. Also, some of the individuals in the casualties list have no citations, and neither does the sentence He also maintained he tried to contact Tsang the next day.
All fixed. Unfortunately the article was written from live news sources as the events unfolded, and so link rot is an ongoing problem. The sentence quoted above was attested by a reference somewhere up that section, and I've re-used that reference on the sentence. Der yck C. 17:46, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:
It appears to cover all aspects reasonably well. Gatoclass (talk) 11:15, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

B. Focused:
I have some issues with the organization of this article. Basically, I think the "Reactions" section should come before the "Investigations" sections, because otherwise the narrative is not chronological. After reading about the ongoing investigations, I suddenly find myself reading again about the immediate reactions in the aftermath of the killings, and that is quite confusing. IMO it would make much better sense the other way around. Some of the other headers may also need to be altered in order to accommodate this change.

I think it was a (subconscious) collective editorial decision at the time that the article is, beyond the "Aftermath > Hostages" section, not meant to be chronological, because so many things were done by so many people in relation to the hostage crisis. The reactions were sorted by type of commentator, then by time, and every section spans the same time-span of about a week. An alternative structure has previous been proposed (which I then changed to the current layout) which was to have the investigations in a separate section after reactions, keeping everything else intact. Does that sound like a good idea? Der yck C. 16:55, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Can you point me to that previous discussion? I would like to read it. Gatoclass (talk) 03:37, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There wasn't a discussion. It was a natural evolution progress of the article. Initially, in the immediate aftermath (within 1 month) of the event, it made more sense for news about the ongoing investigation to go immediately after the section about the hostages' fate.[2] As the investigations rolled on, the Philippine government report came out and was given a section at the end of the article.[3] By then, the Hong Kong government investigation has begun, but was reported in the "investigation" section. So, when the Hong Kong investigation report was published, it made sense to move all the investigation reports to the "aftermath" section to preserve coherence.[4] It may not have been the best sequence of editorial decisions, and from what you've said we probably should've moved the narrative about the investigations to the bottom of the page to go with the report, rather than move the report up the page to go with the investigation. Der yck C. 13:46, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I tried moving the investigations to a new section at the bottom of the page but changed my mind about it, as the Reactions section is very long and the investigations section probably contains more important info. Gatoclass (talk) 09:31, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, okay then. Der yck C. 21:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm becoming more and more convinced that the investigations should be in a separate section after reactions... Der yck C. 20:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I might also add that I'm finding quite a few problems with prose, discrepancies between sources and the article, and so on. It's probably going to take a little time to iron these out.
As I said, this is an article compiled from live news sources, so discrepancies are quite likely. Please point them out so that they can be dealt with. Also note that many Filipinos are known by multiple names. I've tried to unify the names so that each person is only referred to by one name throughout the article, but I may well have missed a few instances. Der yck C. 16:55, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you're having a hard time on Filipino names/locations/etc. contact me. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 18:07, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
This image lacks source information.
I've nominated it for deletion. Hold this part of the review for now and get on with the rest. Der yck C. 17:46, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The image is deleted. Der yck C. 10:21, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail: