This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because of on-going disputes that have hampered the page progressing into an interesting, (reasonably) non-partisan piece of work. Some editors appear to be driven by strong political views that hamper their ability to edit in a way that suits Wikipedia's guiding principles.
Currently I cannot believe it will ever achieve FA status - maybe not even GA status. It is already very long, yet there appears to be no drive or interest in reducing it either by cropping unnecessary text or moving information into articles on the subject in question. Indeed some users appear to want to add even more material.
What the article needs is a comprehensive report from a non-involved editor with no strong interest/position on the matters it addresses. The main questions would be what existing material is good and should be kept, what existing material is good and should be moved elsewhere (if so, what), and what existing material is bad and should be deleted/replaced. Furthermore what areas, if any, could be expanded on the page.
Essentially, explain where the page "is" now, where it needs to go and how it is going to get there.
Thanks, John Smith's ( talk) 19:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
That, in addition to believing it too long John Smith also feels that the page suffers from too great of a POV slant. Unfortunately, he has yet to make any specific suggestions or contributions besides asking that content be deleted. We have suggested that he begin a sandbox to show us the direction he envisions for the page, but as of yet we have seen no response.
Furthermore, i have a nice little script that strips citation, footnote, and reference formatting from articles. I ran it on the page content and discovered that, absent the massive footnoting and cited sources at the bottom of the page (and the accompanying formatting within the article), the page comes to only about ~64K (i actually measured 63K, but that was only a quick look).
64K is a common page length, and i must point out that this particular article suffers from a much higher level of challenge and scrutiny regarding its assertions. Consequently, the content length cannot be effectively estimated by merely glancing at the history or edit page and using the file length as a measure. This is apparently what John Smith has done, and i would suggest that if one truly wishes to reckon the content size then in articles such as this -- where there is, of necessity, just a huge, huge, huge number of footnotes, citations, and sourced referents -- that one must take into account these elements.
I would, therefore, suggest that for now the question of whether or not this page is too long is moot, and that this particular peer review request is nothing more than content dispute moved to this page. Since the editors of that page have yet to see any clear or focused suggestions or contributions made by John Smith, it is my opinion that this minor disagreement ,is more appropriate on the talk page.
Finally, i would like to observe that this particular objection seems as if it would be a relatively easy thing to abuse. Determinedly antagonistic editors would, without a doubt, attempt to fluff articles up with citations and sources (the work of which would fall to their opponents, thereby wasting their time) and then demand that content be trimmed upon its growth to some unspecified length. While that might seem an ineffective means of censoring content, it has been my experience that on wikipedia certain political issues are a magnet for all sorts of extremely determined extremists who seek to censor ideas not to their liking; when unable to utilize other means i have no doubt that such people would be willing to avail themselves of these methods, also. While it might not succeed in eliminating pre-existing content it would, nevertheless, be an extremely effective means of limiting further development of the article by enforcing an artificial cap on what may or may not be presented there. Stone put to sky ( talk) 12:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I did not say the request was "bad" for the page. I simply indicated that the points used to justify the request are spurious. That is a big distinction.
You are entitled to your opinions about the value of certain sources, but unless your opinion accords with established Wikipedia precedent then it really doesn't matter. Granma may seem merely a propaganda machine to you, but then many people around the world feel the same way about the U.S. State Department, the CIA, or even the New York Times and Washington Post. Fortunately, Wikipedia policy steers a more neutral path between those extremes.
Also, it seems odd for you to suggest that it is in Wikipedia's interest to eliminate the sourcing and citations for included material. Essentially, what you are suggesting is that the editors of this page willfully eliminate evidence demonstrating that the article is accurately sourced; clearly, that would open up the possibility for later editors to come along and delete the material because it is not properly sourced. That seems quite contrary to the fundamental principles upon which this project is based. Stone put to sky ( talk) 07:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because of on-going disputes that have hampered the page progressing into an interesting, (reasonably) non-partisan piece of work. Some editors appear to be driven by strong political views that hamper their ability to edit in a way that suits Wikipedia's guiding principles.
Currently I cannot believe it will ever achieve FA status - maybe not even GA status. It is already very long, yet there appears to be no drive or interest in reducing it either by cropping unnecessary text or moving information into articles on the subject in question. Indeed some users appear to want to add even more material.
What the article needs is a comprehensive report from a non-involved editor with no strong interest/position on the matters it addresses. The main questions would be what existing material is good and should be kept, what existing material is good and should be moved elsewhere (if so, what), and what existing material is bad and should be deleted/replaced. Furthermore what areas, if any, could be expanded on the page.
Essentially, explain where the page "is" now, where it needs to go and how it is going to get there.
Thanks, John Smith's ( talk) 19:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
That, in addition to believing it too long John Smith also feels that the page suffers from too great of a POV slant. Unfortunately, he has yet to make any specific suggestions or contributions besides asking that content be deleted. We have suggested that he begin a sandbox to show us the direction he envisions for the page, but as of yet we have seen no response.
Furthermore, i have a nice little script that strips citation, footnote, and reference formatting from articles. I ran it on the page content and discovered that, absent the massive footnoting and cited sources at the bottom of the page (and the accompanying formatting within the article), the page comes to only about ~64K (i actually measured 63K, but that was only a quick look).
64K is a common page length, and i must point out that this particular article suffers from a much higher level of challenge and scrutiny regarding its assertions. Consequently, the content length cannot be effectively estimated by merely glancing at the history or edit page and using the file length as a measure. This is apparently what John Smith has done, and i would suggest that if one truly wishes to reckon the content size then in articles such as this -- where there is, of necessity, just a huge, huge, huge number of footnotes, citations, and sourced referents -- that one must take into account these elements.
I would, therefore, suggest that for now the question of whether or not this page is too long is moot, and that this particular peer review request is nothing more than content dispute moved to this page. Since the editors of that page have yet to see any clear or focused suggestions or contributions made by John Smith, it is my opinion that this minor disagreement ,is more appropriate on the talk page.
Finally, i would like to observe that this particular objection seems as if it would be a relatively easy thing to abuse. Determinedly antagonistic editors would, without a doubt, attempt to fluff articles up with citations and sources (the work of which would fall to their opponents, thereby wasting their time) and then demand that content be trimmed upon its growth to some unspecified length. While that might seem an ineffective means of censoring content, it has been my experience that on wikipedia certain political issues are a magnet for all sorts of extremely determined extremists who seek to censor ideas not to their liking; when unable to utilize other means i have no doubt that such people would be willing to avail themselves of these methods, also. While it might not succeed in eliminating pre-existing content it would, nevertheless, be an extremely effective means of limiting further development of the article by enforcing an artificial cap on what may or may not be presented there. Stone put to sky ( talk) 12:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I did not say the request was "bad" for the page. I simply indicated that the points used to justify the request are spurious. That is a big distinction.
You are entitled to your opinions about the value of certain sources, but unless your opinion accords with established Wikipedia precedent then it really doesn't matter. Granma may seem merely a propaganda machine to you, but then many people around the world feel the same way about the U.S. State Department, the CIA, or even the New York Times and Washington Post. Fortunately, Wikipedia policy steers a more neutral path between those extremes.
Also, it seems odd for you to suggest that it is in Wikipedia's interest to eliminate the sourcing and citations for included material. Essentially, what you are suggesting is that the editors of this page willfully eliminate evidence demonstrating that the article is accurately sourced; clearly, that would open up the possibility for later editors to come along and delete the material because it is not properly sourced. That seems quite contrary to the fundamental principles upon which this project is based. Stone put to sky ( talk) 07:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)