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GA Review

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Reviewer: Winner 42 (talk · contribs) 00:26, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Overall Comments

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Placing under review, should be done within a week. Winner 42 Talk to me! 00:26, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Winner 42: Is there an issue of posting this article for review? I thought the 7 days norm for posting was applicable only for DYK.--Nvvchar. 01:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Nvvchar: There is nothing wrong with this article. I just plan on reviewing this article and because I am not entirely familiar with the topic area, it might take me a little longer than usual to finish the review. Technically the instructions say that it can take up to 7 days, but I (hopefully) won't need that long, but it depends on how much IRL work comes up for me. Does this answer your question? Winner 42 Talk to me! 02:53, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Sectional Analysis

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  • Lead
    • He was blessed by Krishna and given a boon that his thirst would be quenched in the desert, upon remembering Krishna. Could have improved wording.
    • Done
    • the King Janamejaya -> "the King, Janamejaya" (alternatively "King Janamejaya"}}
  • Done
  • Gurudakshina
    • These sections are quite "plot" heavy, adding third party analysis would be preferable
  • Done in the initial section
    • Once, Veda left for a pilgrimage having entrusted all the administrative duties of the ashram (hermitage) to Uttanka. The guru's wife was in her menstrual period. Possibly merge into one sentence? The wording is also awkward here.
  • Corrected
    • A lovely horse I'm not sure about describing the horse as lovely. Is this how the source material describes it?
  • Corrected
  • Other sections look solid, very nice job with this article, I could barely find anything to improve here

Review

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GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:
    B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. Has an appropriate reference section:
    B. Cites reliable sources, where necessary:
    C. No original research:
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:
    B. Focused (see summary style):
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
    B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:

Additional comments

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This is an interesting article, but coming to it as someone who does not know the religions and legends of India, I found myself at sea more than once, having to carefully parse out the details of what happened because they were not clear at first reading. There are a significant number of places where I did not find the prose "clear and concise", and I also came across grammatical issues, such as tenses switching between past and present for no discernible reason, and sentences that were unbalanced or incomplete.

I would suggest an outside copyedit. In addition, here are some of the places where I feel the prose needs work:

  • Lead section:
  • second paragraph: please don't start two sentences in a row with "In both legends"; the phrasing should vary.
    • Corrected
  • third paragraph, "It is said since then": this sentence is awkwardly constructed
    • Reconstructed
  • fourth paragraph: it is hard to parse this, and the use of "instigated" is unclear both here and in the body of the article. You might want to add this information to the end of the second paragraph, since this is Uttanka getting his own revenge on Takshaka; it only appears to be part of the second legend, which also might be worth mentioning in the context of the second paragraph.
    • Reworded
  • Note that at just under 15,000 prose characters, the lead section should be one or two paragraphs, with three a possibility given how close it is to 15,000. Four paragraphs, however, is clearly longer than the guidelines in WP:LEAD, so this section should be consolidated.
  • Merged into three paragraphs
  • Gurudakshina section:
  • I was confused by the "Malayalam work", as I didn't know Malayalam was a different language; I'd suggest rewording this, perhaps to "A work in Malayalam, also called Utankopakhyana, is another recounting of the story from the 14th book, but uses the name Utanka, not Uttanka."
    • Corrected as suggested
  • Adi parva subsection:
  • "his wife was in hermenstrual period": "his" could be either Veda or Uttanka at this point (please clarify), and there should be a space after "her"
    • Text reworded
  • "to cohabit her": "to cohabit with her"
    • Corrected
  • "honour bound disciple": "honour-bound disciple"
    • Done
  • third paragraph, "While Uttanka hesitated, he finally complied after being informed that his guru, Veda, too had done so." This needs smoothing: one suggestion is to remove the initial "While", replace "finally" with "ultimately", and remove "too", but there are other ways to revise it.
    • Reworded the sentence
  • The rest of that paragraph needs copyediting, including the tense issues in the second-to-last sentence and the grammatical ones in the final sentence (the "as" being the primary culprit).
    • Done
  • Fourth paragraph, "In turn, the king cursed Uttanka that he will not bear offspring." Men don't bear children, women do. Also, "will" is the wrong tense.
    • Corrected
  • Next sentence: "after a while" is very indeterminate; is it later that day, two years later, or what?
    • Corrected
  • final paragraph, "Sarpa Satra was meant to inveigle all serpents, through chanting of mantras to the sacrificial fire to certain death." Were the mantras chanted to the sacrificial fire? The sentence needs revising; when you do, try to avoid using "to the" twice.
    • Corrected
  • Meeting Krishna section:
  • The first paragraph has a number of problems, including switching tense, repetition ("asked him to ask for", "granted the boon … granted water"), and grammatically problematic sentences (third- and second-to-last, for example). It needs extensive revising.
    • Done
  • The second paragraph is inconsistent in its capitalization of "chandala". Also, the last two sentences need to be revised.
    • Corrected
  • Other legends section:
  • "who informed Gulika of the sin of murder, which he would have to live through many births." The wording is unclear: does this mean that a person who commits murder has to be reincarnated many times to expiate this sin? The import here seems to be that Uttanka's warning saved Gulika from this fate (and then he sent a newly dead Gulika on to paradise). The wording needs to be clarified. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:34, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done
  • General issues:
  • The article uses both "earrings" and "ear-rings"; please standardize on the former
    • Done
    • Done
  • @Nvvchar:: Thank you for the work. Some of the changes have not solved all the issues, and there are still tense problems, so I recommend that this nomination remain on hold until the GOCE is able to do their copyedit—the copyedit should take care of the remaining problems, which are keeping the prose below GA level. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I appreciate BlueMoonset's additional copyediting assessment, I disagree with the sentiment that the writing is not "reasonably well written" at the current time. So if the GOCE does not perform a copyedit in a reasonable amount of time, I will pass this article. Winner 42 Talk to me! 02:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Winner 42, the GA criteria under 1a is not "reasonably well written", it is the prose is clear and concise, it respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct. As I noted, some issues remain generally, plus there are tense problems, which violate both the "clear" and "grammar" portions of the criteria. A couple of examples, from the lead: in the final sentence of the second paragraph, there should be a comma inserted after "Nagas", and the final sentence of the third paragraph has structural and tense problems (From then on the rare clouds that shower in the desert are called "Uttanka's clouds". These and the others should be fixed before the article is listed; I'd imagine that the GOCE request will take care of it. Since the current GOCE drive has a goal of completing all outstanding requests from August by the end of September, there is no reason not to wait until the copyedit has been done. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:29, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And the copyedit is either in progress or done. Looks like the editor has found the things I was looking at with a couple of exceptions, which I've just edited myself. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Winner 42:Thank you very much for promoting the article to GA status. As the auto bot does not leave any message on my talk page both at the start and end of the review process, can you therefore kindly leave a message of the GA approval on my talk page?--Nvvchar. 14:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Nvvchar: I think the reason that the bot doesn't leave messages regarding your GA nominations is that the "nominator" field in the "GA nominee" template isn't filled out the way the bot expects. That field is supposed to have two links, the first to the nominator's User page and the second to the nominator's User talk page. Your sig only has one link, to the talk page, so it doesn't have that second link the bot is looking for and uses to post notifications. If you edit that GA nominee "nominator" field value whenever you make a nomination to include both links in the proper order, I think that problem will go away, and you'll get all the bot notifications (which also include the useful "on review" and "on hold" notifications). Since this nomination has been approved and you know it has been approved, there's no need for any further notification at this point. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:35, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The last line remark is unusual.--Nvvchar. 06:44, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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