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Vami IV (talk | contribs)
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→‎Simón Bolívar: oops here's some comments
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* Nominator: {{user|Vami_IV}}
* Nominator: {{user|Vami_IV}}
* Comments: Vital 3. The Liberator. Revolutionary. Beloved leader; hated tyrant. The Arch-Liberal; emancipator. Abjured by Marx; beloved by Chavez. Unstoppable force; immovable object. A name for an ideology, a generation, and a continent. ''The Hope'', he would be called, ''Of The Universe''. He is Bolívar. A name that echoes across history. &ndash;&ndash;[[User:Vami_IV|<span style="background:crimson; color:white; padding:2px;">♠Vami</span>]][[User talk:Vami_IV|<span style="background:black; color:white; padding:2px;">_IV†♠</span>]] 20:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
* Comments: Vital 3. The Liberator. Revolutionary. Beloved leader; hated tyrant. The Arch-Liberal; emancipator. Abjured by Marx; beloved by Chavez. Unstoppable force; immovable object. A name for an ideology, a generation, and a continent. ''The Hope'', he would be called, ''Of The Universe''. He is Bolívar. A name that echoes across history. &ndash;&ndash;[[User:Vami_IV|<span style="background:crimson; color:white; padding:2px;">♠Vami</span>]][[User talk:Vami_IV|<span style="background:black; color:white; padding:2px;">_IV†♠</span>]] 20:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
* Judge's comment: While the article is sufficiently long already (almost 8,000 words), it certainly needs a large clean-up: some unreliable sources, a large excerpts from a books, some of the paragraphs are uncited, one-sentence paragraphs. Sources are a bit old, but I'm not sure how much modern scholarship there is on the topic. Will make an interesting read. [[User:Femkemilene|Femke]] ([[User talk:Femkemilene|talk]]) 14:45, 10 April 2022 (UTC)


===[[Southern Africa]]===
===[[Southern Africa]]===

Revision as of 14:45, 10 April 2022

The contest runs over six weeks. Generally editors nominate the articles they intend working on beforehand as it might help folks to reserve an article so they can prepare by gathering some book/paper sources, however nominating material after this period ends is okay too—editors can still submit material they improved during the period. When the six-week editing period ends, the judges will review the submissions and announce the winners within two weeks. Other editors are welcome to comment on the entries.

The potential article pool includes vital and core articles. Editors are also welcome to improve and nominate an improvement to a broad or important article not on the two lists if they explain why their article should be considered.

When you submit an article you improved for the contest, please list a specific revision that you're happy with, as well as a link to the revision on which you built your improvements. For example, this would show improvements made to the article Lebensraum. Only edits made during the contest period may be included in the diff link.

List of contest entries

List here articles submitted, and the diffs showing the improvement. Multiple segments are allowed to clarify the diffs submitted by a particular editor in a busy article. Co-submissions are allowed. Judges will comment on entries immediately below them, clarify benefits gained and offer feedback on what else needs to be done. Within two weeks of the conclusion, prizewinners will be announced. An example of how to lay out a sample entry as follows.

Ancient Greece

  • Nominator: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: Level 3 vital article; over 3,500 hits per day. The skeleton of the article is okay, but the detail needs work. I did some work on this back in the 2017 contest, so the text in the sections on §Classical Greece and §Literature and theatre is basically sound. After that I somewhat ran out of steam, so a lot still needs doing. I don't know how much I'll actually do, but I'm signing up here to try to give myself some motivation to have another crack at this.
TL;DR: More analysis of the article's present state
Aside from the sections I worked on in 2017, the article is largely uncited. Many of the refs used outside those sections are not the kind of "survey written by an actual academic aimed at intelligent undergraduates" works that most of the citations for an article like this should be (I see popular history, generalist tertiary sources, and extremely specific academic articles on niche topics, all of which should probably not be there; thankfully nothing horribly outdated and no excessive primary sourcing). Images could do with some thought – do we need nineteen(!) (twenty if you count the one in the navigational sidebar) separate maps, more than every other kind of image put together? Other sections can probably be cut – is a chronology section doing anything other than duplicating what is in, or should be in, the sections on either historiography or history? Is the long list of "empires, kingdoms, and regions" (I believe new since my 2017 efforts!) useful, or should everything in it that's relevant to a survey of the entirety of ancient Greece be covered in the sections on history, geography, and political organisation? Women are mentioned in the text exactly once. There's surely more to be said of the post-Roman history of Greece than the couple of sentences it currently gets. The lead defines the scope of the article as including the Greek dark ages, but they're barely mentioned in the body. The discussion of art spends more words on Greco-Buddhist art than it does on Greco-Roman, and doesn't mention pottery or vase painting at all. The section on economy doesn't discuss things like agriculture, Mediterranean trade, or the development of coinage.

Decolonization

  • Nominator: Guettarda (talk · contribs)
  • Level 3 vital article that's a bit of a mess. I don't know nearly enough about the topic to really get it where it needs to go, but the fact that it's written almost entirely from the perspective of the colonisers, the fact that there isn't even mention of people like Aimé Césaire or Franz Fanon or Kwame Nkrumah, bothers me. There are problems with structure, with sourcing, with tone, with balance. It's 119k, but it says too little about theory, about postwar decolonisation. It's a fairly daunting task, tbh.
  • Comment: obviously vital article. At 9,000 words to 92 citations, the raw numbers suggest it's undercited, especially for such a contentious and highly-studied subject. Some paragraphs, even whole subsections, are totally uncited; in other cases there are multiple citations where one would probably be sufficient. I also see at least two theses (one an MA thesis!) cited: an article like this can and should do better. The lead is very short for such a long article. Even without reading the article in detail I have concerns about the existing structure – why, for instance, is "assassinated anti-colonialist leaders" a top-level section? Looks like there's plenty to keep you busy here! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:51, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: At the moment the article includes blurbs on the process of decolonization for a lot of countries. I would gently suggest to reject this approach. It seems unrealistic to try and sum up specific decolonization cases for every country on earth—a more general approach would work much better, and be far less disjointed. Aza24 (talk) 08:57, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • A pretty terrible article, so a good choice. Far too many lists of facts/events, and too little analysis . This removal from the lead, 2 years ago seems a mistake to me. It needs more like this, not less (but with appropriate refs). Almost the longest section is on the US. More proper historians needed, imo. 802 views pd. Johnbod (talk) 16:55, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Judge's comment: Brave choice. I'm surprised how little controversy the article attracts. Loads of possibilities for improvements, foremost the NPOV issues. Femke (talk) 12:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excellent choice and something that is going to be tricky to get right, without turning yourself into a target in the process! Ealdgyth (talk) 20:33, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Italian Renaissance sculpture

  • Nominator: Johnbod (talk · contribs)
  • Currently only a redirect to a pathetic paragraph: "In sculpture, the Florentine artist Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, or Donatello, was among the earliest sculptors to translate classical references into marble and bronze.[1] His second sculpture of David was the first free-standing bronze nude created in Europe since the Roman Empire.[2]" - Literally, that's it! So starting from a blank slate (this was for a long time my standard example of a missing important article, until someone added the redirect). I might end up with Renaissance sculpture, currently a redirect to a shortish section by me in Sculpture, an entry here some years ago (I notice now that only covers Italy at present). Either way, a gaping gap in our coverage - typically, we have literally hundreds of articles on individual artists and works, many not bad, but nothing to pull them together and give context. Should be Level 4 vital at least, like Empire style and Dada, and two of the specific works, by Michelangelo and Donatello. But since it doesn't yet exist, it isn't. By contrast, Italian Renaissance painting (220 views pd) is a large and good article, with Themes in Italian Renaissance painting as a large sub-article. The very patchy Renaissance art (612 views pd) is also almost exclusively about painting + Michelangelo, so the new one needs reflecting there. Johnbod (talk) 18:19, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Rollyson, Carl Rollyson. 2018. “Donatello.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia. Accessed 8 January 2019.
  2. ^ "Il David di Donatello – Lettura d'opera" (in Italian). 11 September 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2021.
  • Wow, maximum points for crapness of starting point – Donatello is really the only sculptor mentioned in the entire article on Renaissance art?! (Michelangelo is only mentioned as a painter!) Given that it doesn't exist as a standalone article yet, it's surprisingly core, if not absolute top-level. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:01, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks! The current redirect is (wrongly really) to Italian Renaissance. Renaissance art has a few words on Michelangelo's sculpture ("Michelangelo in neither his painting nor his sculpture demonstrates any interest in the observation of any natural object except the human body. He perfected his technique in depicting it, while in his early twenties, by the creation of the enormous marble statue of David and the group Pietà, in the St Peter's Basilica, Rome. He then set about an exploration of the expressive possibilities of the human anatomy..." and namechecks for Ghiberti & Donatello. Johnbod (talk) 02:39, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow... our art topics really do suck, don't they? Good luck, at least you have a free hand... Ealdgyth (talk) 20:31, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Simón Bolívar

  • Nominator: Vami_IV (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: Vital 3. The Liberator. Revolutionary. Beloved leader; hated tyrant. The Arch-Liberal; emancipator. Abjured by Marx; beloved by Chavez. Unstoppable force; immovable object. A name for an ideology, a generation, and a continent. The Hope, he would be called, Of The Universe. He is Bolívar. A name that echoes across history. ––♠Vami_IV†♠ 20:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Judge's comment: While the article is sufficiently long already (almost 8,000 words), it certainly needs a large clean-up: some unreliable sources, a large excerpts from a books, some of the paragraphs are uncited, one-sentence paragraphs. Sources are a bit old, but I'm not sure how much modern scholarship there is on the topic. Will make an interesting read. Femke (talk) 14:45, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Southern Africa

  • Nominator: Amakuru (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: Level 4 vital article; has around 730 hits per day apparently. A slightly tricky topic, sitting as it does in between the individual country articles and the overall Africa article. And it does receive somewhat fewer hits than the continent or any individual country. But on the plus side, it's quite crap-looking at the moment. The history section is just a couple of paragraphs with a whole string of "empty section" tags slotted between them. Culture and Demographics are similarly lacking, while Economy is a little better looking. I honestly can't promise how much I'll be able to get done as it's a very busy time for me on multiple fronts, but you've got to be in it to win it so I'll at least put my hat in the ring if the judges think this is a sensible choice. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 18:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good choice - loads to do, which may not include expanding every one of the empty section tags. Johnbod (talk) 02:46, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Important subject that needs a lot of work, it looks like. Ealdgyth (talk) 20:31, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pollution

  • Nominator: Trainsandotherthings (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: This article is level 3 vital, an obviously important topic, but it needs a lot of work. It's more of a list than an article in some places, the see also section is reportedly visible from space by astronauts on the International Space Station, and in general the article is very unfocused. The image [1] used to not even depict pollution until I changed it a while back. At under 4,000 words, there is some room for expansion as well, though I do believe there is merit in keeping broader articles to a reasonable length by adhering to summary style. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:18, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Judge's comment: good choice. Undercited, poorly structured, outdated sourcing. The neoclassical notion of pollution as an externality and the notion of an optimal level of pollution is presented as the only viewpoint, ignoring criticism (https://epub.wu.ac.at/8108/ seems like a good starting point for criticism of that POV). Femke (talk) 12:31, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, good luck. I wouldn't even have the slightest idea where to start so props to you for tackling this. Ealdgyth (talk) 20:32, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's as you say - also the earlier parts of the history are pretty inadequate. Johnbod (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Geoffrey of Monmouth

  • Nominator: DanCherek (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: This is a level-4 vital article about a key figure in the history of Arthurian legend. Lots to improve and lots of available sourcing that can be used to expand the article. DanCherek (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, good choice! I thought about him, but I am still having flashbacks to a seminar in college where that one guy kept droning on and on about Geoffrey... I hope you'll do justice to the guy! Ealdgyth (talk) 20:26, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tricky writing a biography of someone about whom so little is certainly known, but good luck! Johnbod (talk) 21:47, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Judge's comment: Perhaps less core than other entries, here, but certainly an important topic. The advantage of writing about somebody about whom little is known, is that reaching comprehensiveness within 6 weeks is doable. I would argue it is currently a C-class article, even if the sourcing is quite old. Femke (talk) 11:29, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ancient history

  • Nominator: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: Vital level 2. 111 wikis. Gets around 49K views a month, 590K a year. Right now, rated C-class. 13,200 words, with 142 footnotes, so about 92 words per footnote. About 8000 words unreferenced, so about 61% unreferenced. Has five big section cleanup banners. The sources... oh, the sources. (and the icky timelines that are useless). A pile of very very old sources. Some popular "histories" (Time Almanac anyone?), personal websites, answers-dot-com, mailing lists, ancient sources, BBC, newspapers, etc. Utterly unbalanced in coverage - way too much on chronology, the Middle East, and Europe; while not enough elsewhere - a whopping 1560ish bytes on sub-Saharan African history. Thanks for those who helped me decide! Let's hope dealing with the article doesn't break my will to edit... Ealdgyth (talk) 20:24, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Certainly loads to do - I commented on the CC talk. Johnbod (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Asteroid

  • Nominator: Artem.G (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: Extremely important article that got ~400K views last year. Though it's classified as B-class, there are 7 'citation needed' tags, '[unreliable source?]', 'more citations' template, [excessive citations], multiple unsourced statements, broken layout, WP:PROSELINE in some sections (f.e. in 'Exploration'), giant 'See also', and some strange choice of images. I'm not sure I'll rewrite everything, but will try at least to address all problems mentioned above, and update that article to reflect latest missions to asteroids, etc. Artem.G (talk) 10:49, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Judge's comment: Another VIT3 article! In addition to the points mentioned, the lead is also in a poor state. It's on the difficult side, not sufficiently understandable to a broad readership, and it's too short. Femke (talk) 11:39, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It got rated as 'B' when it was delisted as a Good Article in 2009. So is an artefact of days gone by and probably not looked at since. Good choice of article - lead could be more comprehensive. Has an overview section which needs to be redefined, also lots of choppy paragraphs, and a llarge see also section which needs reviewing. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Space station

Succubus

  • Nominator: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: I nearly forgot about this... This is a Vital 5 article that pulls Million Award-tier pageviews and is in dire shape. It's Start-class, has a fairly brief explanation of the mythological concept, and absolutely no discussion of any of the cultural portrayals of the last few centuries. Only 891 words long! 21 citations, some of which are good, but others of which aren't great (dictionary definitions, primary historical sources, sketchy 90s websites, shoehorned-in Skeptic's Dictionary). Hoping to do some good work here. Vaticidalprophet 02:30, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps less broad than some of the other topics chosen, but still reasonably core, and clearly of interest, as the million page views per year and 47 articles in other language wikipedias attests. Clearly an absolutely dreadful article in its current state – other than Johnbod's choice of an article which doesn't even exist yet, this might be the worst of the bunch. The "scientific explanations" section is a particularly horrific offender (this book is about as far from being a reliable source as it's possible to get) but the whole article is so bad that I'd be tempted to ignore it completely and write something new from scratch. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, that's my plan. It's a similar tier to the pre-rewrite prehistoric religion of last year, which I also redid from scratch -- it looked like this at the time. The nicest thing I can say comparatively is this one has fewer galleries. Vaticidalprophet 10:21, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Duck

  • Nominator: MeegsC (talk · contribs)
  • Comments: I started this one for last year's contest, but RL got in the way and I didn't get very far. So here it is again! This level-4 article is rated as C-class, but that's probably generous. I added a taxonomy section and a bit on prehistoric hunting last year, but most of the rest of the article is bitty and unreferenced. The references that are included for those sections are pretty appalling: Self-published books? Mythbusters? "How to draw cartoon birds"??! Yikes! Judging by the large number of other languages with "Duck" entries, improving this one in the English Wikipedia might result in a cascade ripple elsewhere. It gets an average of ~1500 views/day (last 90 days). MeegsC (talk) 08:51, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Judge's comment: great choice, again. The readership here will consist of a lot of younger people, and non-biologists, so make sure WP:MTAU and WP:EXPLAINLEAD are well adhered to. Femke (talk) 18:30, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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