Wikipedia:Peer review/Nawa-I-Barakzayi District/archive1

Nawa-I-Barakzayi District

This peer review discussion has been closed.
. I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to be able to nominate this page for a Good Article. Unfortunately, this is my first time doing a Geographical Place so I'm sure there are plenty of errors in it. Comments and criticisms are appreciated.

Thanks, Palm_Dogg (talk) 00:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments by doncram Interesting article, glad to see you contributing.

• About the administrative district. How long has this been an administrative district. Of what entities is it a sub-district? Does the name Nawa-I-Barakzayi refer to a town / village / area, historically and/or currently, in addition to applying to a current, official district of some kind?
• About references for Stars and Stripes: I just edited the references for one source to display as "John Vandiver (February 4, 2010). "Stable now, future uncertain for Afghan town". Stars and Stripes (a publication of United States Armed Forces)." You should create one main reference for each source, like that, then invoke it multiple times where appropriate. For this one, I was aware that Stars and Stripes is a U.S. military publication. For an article like this in a world-wide encyclopedia, the Stars and Stripes can be used as a source, but I think it is important to disclose clearly, even heavy-handedly, that it is in fact a U.S. military-controlled publication. Perhaps similar concerns apply for other sources used.
• About general article tone: I think it is important to provide some distance between encyclopedic view and the view of U.S. military or any other potentially biased sources. In the article it is stated that "In November two officials were killed by insurgents." with source being the Stable now... Stars and Stripes article. That might be an innocuous statement. I don't have knowledge or perspective, myself, to know whether there is possibility of contention or bias in the statement. Could someone else contend that they were killed, but by non-insurgents? Is "insurgent" a biased term? It sounds like a U.S.-military-centric term, perhaps. So, a way to avoid that would be to cite/quote more explicitly. Perhaps then: According to the Stars and Stripes (a U.S. military publication), two officials "were killed by insurgents" in November. Please understand, this is just an example of a possible rewrite. Honestly i don't have perspective to say which are potentially non-encyclopedic statements. But I do have general concern that the article could be perceived as reporting a very U.S. and/or U.S. military perspective.
• About scope coverage of history. Obviously the article's history section is substantially covering U.S. involvement, and obviously it lacks many thousands of years of other history. The gap is huge. I am not familiar with sources that might be available to address the gap and cover older times, or provide different perspectives. I suspect the gap may make it difficult to attain a high article rating, like a Featured Article rating, if not addressed.

Hope these quick comments are helpful. --doncram (talk) 22:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is interesting, but I share User:Doncram's concern that the article presents a narrow view. I also have concerns about Manual of Style issues. Here are my comments and suggestions:

• You mention the goal of achieving Good Article status, and I applaud the goal. A succinct re-statement of the first of the six Good Article criteria (listed in full at WP:GACR, is that the article be well-written and that it comply with Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation. I see problems with the lead, the layout, and jargon.
  • The lead, per WP:LEAD, should be an inviting summary of the whole article. It's easier to write a good lead after the rest of the article is done or nearly done. A good rule of thumb is to at least mention each of the main text sections and not to include anything important in the lead that is not discussed in the main text. If you imagine a reader who can read only the lead and nothing else, you get an idea of what the lead needs to be.
  • The existing article has more images than the text can support, and that's a layout problem. If you expand the text (which very well may happen), the problem may go away. Meanwhile, I'd suggest removing the image from the References section, and I'd remove the Gallery. Readers who want to see more images can click on the link you've provided to the Commons. In addition, images should normally be placed within a single section rather than overlapping two sections. Some of the individual sections are too small for images to fit; they won't fit properly unless the sections are expanded or merged with other sections.
  • The audience for Wikipedia articles is global and diverse. Many readers will know little about Afghanistan or the Marines. They will appreciate any help you can give in understanding the basic terminology. For example, readers may not know that FOB is the abbreviation for "forward operating base" or that IED is the abbreviation for "improvised explosive device" or that NGO means "non-governmental organization". The Manual of Style suggests spelling out most abbreviated terms on first use; then the abbreviation alone makes sense on second and subsequent uses; e.g., Non-governmental organization (NGO). Likewise, many readers will not know what the 1/5 stands for in "1st Battalion, 5th Marines (1/5)". They will not know what "M-K" refers to in "was built by M-K replacing the old system". They may have no idea what "USAID" is. I see other terms like "shura" and "mujahideen" that should probably be linked or briefly explained.

• Another of the GA requirements is that the article be broad in coverage. Many questions arise in my mind about the Nawa-I-Barakzayi District. What was its history before 1978? How far is it from Kabul? How many square miles does it cover? What is the name of the river mentioned in the geography section? Where does this river go? What sort of climate does this place have? What kinds of soil? Has anything been published about the geology of the region? What is the elevation? What's the topography like? Are there any mountains in the district? Lakes? What kinds of rocks, trees, animals? What are the buildings like? What are they made of? How do people get around? Cars? Trucks? Horses? By walking? Where do the roads go? Are there any parks, public buildings, places of worship, public art, places of entertainment? How big are the villages? What goes on at the bazaars? What special holidays are celebrated here? What language or languages are spoken here? You don't have to answer all these questions. What I'm getting at is that I don't get a broad sense of the place from the article. Only two of the images include Afghans; to judge by the images alone, the article is about American soldiers rather than a place in Afghanistan. The article is heavy on foreigners and light on locals, the reverse of most Wikipedia articles about places. I realize that reliable information in English about the missing things may be hard to come by. Perhaps the NGOs have published material that could be cited, and historians no doubt have published general accounts of Afghanistan and Helmand province. Geologists have probably written about Helmand. I'd suggest looking for a wider variety of sources. A map of the region would certainly be helpful.

• Most of the citations are incomplete. For example, citations to Internet sources should include author, title, publisher, url, date of publication, and date of most recent access, if all of these are available. Citations to books should generally include author, title, publisher, place of publication, date of publication, ISBN, and page number. Something like citation 3 is mysterious because The Bear Went Over the Mountain might be a book or it might be a journal article or book chapter; it's impossible to tell from the data provided. Part of the idea with a reference section is to make it as easy as possible for readers to find more information on the subject.

I could say more, but perhaps this is enough. I hope these suggestions prove helpful. Good luck with the article. Finetooth (talk) 02:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments

• I agree with pretty much everything doncram and Finetooth have said above. While it is clear that a lot of work has gone into this article, it needs a fair amount more work to get a place where it would pass GAN.
• When you expand the lead, it can be up to four paragraphs long - see WP:LEAD for details. Currently the lead is just one sentence. As noted above, it is often easier to write the lead last to summarize the whole article.
• Would this map File:Helmand districts.png be helpful here? It shows all the districts in Helmand. I do not think that all four adjoining districts are currently even mentioned in the article.
• Watch WP:OVERLINKing - for example Mullah Mohammad Nasim Akhundzada is a (red) link twice in the same section, or Lashkar Gah is linked twice in the article.
• When a reference USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, the WP:MOS says it is acceptable to rewrite that as "Uses All Capital Letters" here
• One of the things that I try to keep in mind when writing is to Provide Context to the Reader - not only does this apply to the geography (name the surrounding provices and the river or lake) but it also applies to things like the "Operation Khanjar" section. The year is not given in the section (assume it is 2009 from context and the previous section). There is never a simple statement that the military operations described in the section were indeed part of Operation Khanjar, or even what the goals / objectives / rationale for Operation Khanjar was. There is a Main article tag at the top of the section, but it is to an article with a completely different name, Operation Strike of the Sword. Now a click on this link shows that this is just another name for Operation Khanjar, but I think the article could briefly explain this.
• I also look for gaps in chronology - there is an 11 year gap here bewteen the last date mentioned in the Afghan Civil War section (1995) and the Operation Enduring Freedom section (2006) - not to mention all the history before the civil war.
• The dab finder tool finds one disambiguation link.
• There is no alt text for images per WP:ALT (not a GAN requirement, but is a FAC requirement)
• Try to avoid short (one or two sentence) paragraphs as they impede flow
• A model article is useful for ideas and example to follow - Ratanakiri Province is a very recent FA and seems like it would be a good model here (in Cambodia, so it also deals with war in its history section)
• I also wonder if this article might be renamed - perhaps if it were something like "Nawa-I-Barakzayi District since 2001" or "Nawa-I-Barakzayi District in Operation Enduring Freedom"? Not sure if this would even work, but you get the idea?
• I would also read WP:RECENT

Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 05:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Palm dogg comments: Many thanks for your input. I think I have a good roadmap to GA status now. Palm_Dogg (talk) 10:21, 1 March 2010 (UTC)