Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Decline and fall of Pedro II of Brazil/1

Decline and fall of Pedro II of Brazil

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delist: While work has been done to improve the tone of the article, overquoting remains. Femke (talk) 19:17, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

This article is not neutral; it frequently editorializing about Pedro II's character and describes him in exclusively positive terms. It describes him as "a monarch who grew tired of his crown" and says he was "beloved by the Brazilian people"; he was "a man grown world-weary with age", and so on. The section titles are hardly encyclopedic: "A tired emperor" and "The monarchy's fate: heirless" are overly dramatic. Also, there is no basis for including the claim "through action and inaction, consciously and unconsciously, he had been sabotaging both the monarchy and the prospects of his daughter's future reign for nearly a decade." Overall, it focuses on Pedro II's psychology as much as the actual rebellion, and it venerates him to an almost propagandistic degree.

@SaturnFogg: Have you notified major contributors, such as User:Lecen, and any related WikiProjects? I will look at the article soon and try to save it or support its reassessment. FredModulars (talk) 02:23, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

• The first issue that jumps out at me is the overuse of extended quotes to express basic facts that could just be written in wikivoice. For example:
  • It "had an economy that was rapidly developing in 1880s".
  • To give an idea of the economic potential of the country during the Empire, if "it had been able to sustain the level of productivity achieved in 1780 and managed to increase exports at a pace equal to that verified in the second half of 19th century, its per capita income in 1850 would be comparable to the average per capita income of the Western European nations"
  • The "countryside echoed with the clang of iron track being laid as railroads were constructed at the most furious pace of the nineteenth century; indeed, building in the 1880s was the second greatest in absolute terms in Brazil's entire history. Only eight countries in the entire world laid more track in the decade than Brazil."

And that's just from the first two paragraphs of the body. The whole article is written like this. There is no reason these long quotations couldn't be replaced by paraphrase (see MOS:QUOTE). This has the effect of making the prose difficult to read (GACR#1a). In cases where direct quotes are used, they should generally have in-text attribution (they currently don't). I would be inclined to delist for this reason. Colin M (talk) 17:31, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Colin M above. Not only does it fail the prose requirements the over quoting is borderline 2d (copyright) as well. A bit of a shame as it is a relatively easy fix if someone is interested in saving the article. Aircorn (talk) 22:21, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Comments from FredModulars

I have reworded the two section titles you have described as dramatic. I removed "a monarch who grew tired of his crown" since it seems inappropriate for the infobox, but there are no issues with the statements "beloved by the Brazilian people" and "a man grown world-weary with age." ("Beginning in late 1880, letters from Pedro II to the Countess of Barral reveal a man grown world-weary with age and having an increasingly alienated and pessimistic outlook."). Put into context, this statement doesn't seem out-of-the-ordinary or exclusively positive. And why would the statement "beloved by the Brazilian people" be a problem if it is reliably sourced?

It also seems that the article regards him in a positive light because that is how historians and sources have evaluated him as — a great monarch. "Through action and inaction, consciously and unconsciously, he had been sabotaging both the monarchy and the prospects of his daughter's future reign for nearly a decade," is a statement immediately supported by a historian's remark and fits what the article is trying to convey. This also brings me to your claim that he is regarded in "exclusively positive terms"; the article seems to put blame on Pedro II for the fall of the monarchy. It is even quoted in a source in the article: "The 'Emperor's indifference towards the fate of the regime was also one of the main factors in the fall of the Monarchy.'" This would have been excluded had this article been created to a "propagandistic degree," along with all the other mentions of Pedro's lackluster attempts at saving and contributing to the downfall of the monarchy.

Finally, you say "it focuses on Pedro II's psychology as much as the actual rebellion." Of course, it does! I clicked here wanting to read about Pedro II's decline, not the Empire of Brazil's sudden disestablishment. The article places equal emphasis on Pedro's psychology, personal thoughts, and life as it does to the factors which contributed to the military coup. If anything, it places more emphasis on the latter at some points. If I wanted to read on the "actual rebellion," I would look up the Proclamation of the Republic. I clicked here in search of Pedro's decline and Pedro's life in this time period, and the article explains both well. For these reasons, I strongly oppose this reassessment and will notify WikiProjects and any significant contributor(s) for them to weigh in. FredModulars (talk) 04:03, 24 November 2021 (UTC)