Wikipedia:Peer review/Igor Panarin/archive1

Igor Panarin

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for May 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I need feedback from experienced editors so see if and how it can be improved to deserve a nomination for a Featured Article status. Note that I am a Bulgarian so some English phrases in the article may not sound natural to you. Some copy-editing by native English speakers has already been done but it's probably still imperfect. Also, it would help if you know Russian as most sources are in Russian. But the main thing is not the language, of course, it's the content and organisation of the article. Your helpful suggestions for improving it to reach the level necessary for a Featured Article nomination will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for reviewing it! --Лъчезар (talk) 12:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• I don't have enough time for a full review, but I'll try to give some suggestions and come back with more. The lead section needs to start out by telling who he is and why he is important, not listing his titles. The first paragraph is nearly incomprehensible and still doesn't give an idea of what the guy does. Something more like what is in the third paragraph should be moved to the very beginning, but it all must be cited to third party reliable references. Saying he is a psychologist isn't true if he doesn't work as one for example. Saying he is a scholar has to be backed up as well. And NPOV states that you can't use only positive terms if a significant portion of the people describing him would describe him in critical terms. 2) The biography section doesn't flow well. It needs to have full paragraphs with transitions between related ideas, not separate sentences. 3) The coverage of his prediction is essentially the entire article with nothing else about anything else he does. While this may be mostly justified by the relative importance of the issue, no matter how important it is, the bio of him should likely cover a little bit of what else he has done. 4) It's hard to tell without reading the sources, but it seems as if too much importance has been given to his predictions and far too much detail in certain areas. While I see coverage in some larger newspapers, that alone doesn't mean the impact of his prediction is high enough to justify that much coverage. I'll try to give more specifics on that, but I hope that helps for a start. - Taxman ^Talk 13:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you! Unfortunately, I don't know how to write those full paragraphs with transitions between related ideas. What positive terms do you mean? To stick to the NPOV, I've tried to refrain from positive or negative terms. I can try to change the positive terms to neutral if I know where they are. Isn't it better to do this instead of trying to balance the positive terms with negative, which could be compared with simultaneously pressing the accelerator and brake pedals of a car? :) I can also repeat in the lead section that his prediction has been widely criticised. Yet another idea would be to separate the U.S. collapse prediction into a separate article, because this one grew rather big. What do you think? Лъчезар (talk) 14:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

• sorry If I wasn't clear. When I said "full paragraphs with transitions between related ideas", you have that for most of the article. It just means that the idea is smoothly discussed with the other related material in at least a 3-4 sentence paragraph. Anything that is just one or two sentences isn't a full paragraph and should only be used in very limited circumstances, but usually not at all. For the bio section either remove the small paragraphs, add more to them so they are a full idea, or merge them with related ideas. As for positive terms, most of the things in the list 'Scholar, writer, intelligence analyst, strategic forecaster, psychologist, ideologist and information warfare expert' would be considered positive descriptions. You're right, just adding negative ones doesn't usually help unless prominent critics describe someone as such. Don't worry about NPOV first, instead worry about getting third party reliable references that say who he is and what he does and is known for and essentially use what they say about him. That generally results in an NPOV description. I hope that helps. - Taxman ^Talk 17:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, now it's crystal clear! I think I fixed most of the problems you noted - please take a look again. Thank you very much for your helpful suggestions - by following them I think the beginning of the article became much better and clearer indeed! (I wonder why I couldn't notice these issues myself? :) Лъчезар (talk) 17:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)