Talk:Riyadh International Book Fair

Commons:Help desk#Riyadh International Book Fair معرض الرياض الدولي للكتاب

Smny2018, I am sorry this AfC submission has dragged on for so ridiculously long. I have worked on this article, trying for balance and more independent sources; the topic is notable and there are independent sources, so I'm sure that it will pass review soon. This isn't strictly necessary, but I can't find a suitable illustration; have you been to the fair? Did you take any photos you could upload to Commons? HLHJ (talk) 06:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Can't find illustrations... Does anyone have any? HLHJ (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing

Sourcing this article is interesting. The event is run by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Culture and Information, and the government also controls all the media in Saudi Arabia, so there are no domestic independent sources. Some publishers are also a bit beholden. Some notable bloggers are actually better sources than the domestic conventional media (especially reporting on their own direct experiences). And no doubt there are lots of good non-English-language sources, and I would welcome their inclusion. HLHJ (talk) 00:38, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I've inline-text-attributed claims made by non-independent sources (and contrasted them, where they contradict). This seems to be a highly-politicized event. HLHJ (talk) 21:42, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Publisher reliability, on-record

“Riyadh book fair is the most important book fair in the Arab world in terms of sales and attendance. This is not in question,” said Adel Al Hawshan, owner of Tuwa Media and Publishing. “This book fair accounts for at least 70% of our sales, and I know the number is similar to many Arab publishers.” The first is contradicted by independent sources; the second estimate seems a bit high, too, really, considering that more independent sources say that there are a half-dozen or so Arab-world book fairs which have larger attendance than Riyadh, in some cases by a factor of two.[1]

Given the financial pressures not to contradict the government, which also makes inflated statements of size, I don't think we can rely on on-record statements of publishers to be accurate. HLHJ (talk) 04:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

References

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 19:44, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• Reviewed: Ocelot
• Comment: First author created as an AfC, abandoned draft balanced and re-sourced by second author. A book fair which really cannot be called boring. I'm not sure what to use as a hook. Video presentations on how to reverse magic spells? Censorship of a discussion on censorship? Segregated discussion panels? Shouting matches, with accusations of blasphemy and idolatry? A war-themed book fair? Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion (permitted)? Dimples (forbidden)? Dramatic reversals on attitudes to women's driving activists? Women Who Deserve to go to Hell? Opinions welcome.

Please see talk page on the sourcing. HLHJ (talk) 04:35, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Created by Smny2018 (talk) and HLHJ (talk). Nominated by HLHJ (talk) at 04:35, 21 December 2019 (UTC).

• A hook needs to be proposed before this can be reviewed. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:40, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• Also, there are numerous maintenance tags on this page that need to be resolved. Give me a ping and I'll be happy to suggest some hooks for you when these are fixed. epicgenius (talk) 23:44, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• epicgenius, I've removed the maintenance tags, mainly by explaining the COIs of some of the sources inline. Independent sourcing is a difficult task for this topic (which is why it languished so long in AfC). HLHJ (talk) 03:42, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

• @HLHJ: Looks better. However, there's still a few "better sources" tags. Here are some choices you can come up with (all of which were mentioned in the article):

• ... that Saudi clerics issued a fatwa against book fairs during the 2012 Riyadh International Book Fair?
• ALT1 ... that many Arab publishers make around 70% of their annual sales at the Riyadh International Book Fair?
• ALT2 ... that the Riyadh International Book Fair, which formerly had gender-based admission restrictions, has been criticized for supporting gender mixing?

• Lots of possibilities to choose from here. You don't have to pick just one. epicgenius (talk) 18:21, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

I'll try to give this a review over the next few days, but tentatively ALT2 is the best hook among the three proposed. With that said, if we are to go with ALT2, we have to be careful with the hook wording and make sure that it doesn't make it look like we are condoning the criticism. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 22:25, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

It's a bit more complex even than that; I'm drafting a section on the political context to make that clearer. The first and ALT2 are part of a political dispute, reported on by interested parties, and ALT1 is a statement by a publisher anxious not to be banned from the fair. The local media carry claims about the size of the fair that are not only strikingly inflated relative to more independent sources, but as not consistent with one another (note that these do not appear in the article). The source for ALT2 is “Riyadh book fair is the most important book fair in the Arab world in terms of sales and attendance. This is not in question,” said Adel Al Hawshan, owner of Tuwa Media and Publishing. “This book fair accounts for at least 70% of our sales, and I know the number is similar to many Arab publishers.” The first is contradicted by independent sources; the second estimate seems a bit high, too, really, considering that more independent sources say that there are a half-dozen or so Arab-world book fairs which have larger attendance than Riyadh, in some cases by a factor of two.[2] Some other sources have publishers speaking off-the-record in fear of losing market access. The COIs here are complex, and the more I look into them, the more complex they get. I'll have another go over the whole article as soon as I have time. HLHJ (talk) 17:07, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

• @HLHJ and Epicgenius: It's been several weeks since the last comments here. Have the neutrality and COI concerns been addressed yet? The nomination cannot be passed while those are still unresolved. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Narutolovehinata5, I've had a first go at it. It's prolix, poorly-phrased, and probably the balance needs work. Crit welcome. ALT0 would still work if we specified "some" Saudi clerics; opinions and clerics vary. No-one thinks any of the hook topic suggestions I made are good? I grant that some are rather trivial. HLHJ (talk) 04:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

All of them sound like good hooks, I'm more worried about possible neutrality or sourcing issues in this case. For example, with ALT1, it was already mentioned above that some of the sources that discuss the Book Fair might be promotional or puffery. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:20, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, Narutolovehinata5 I meant the ones I made in the "comment" of my initial nomination. Here are some newer suggestions:

• ALT3 ... that women's rights activists at the Riyadh International Book Fair have been shouted down, honoured, and disappeared?
• ALT4 ... that publishers sometimes have their preapproved books confiscated, or their book stall secretly dismantled overnight, during the Riyadh International Book Fair?
• ALT5 ... that the US government has distanced itself from the Riyadh International Book Fair, after enjoying unexpected popularity there?
• ALT6 ... that a discussion on censorship at the Riyadh International Book Fair ended in shouting, intimidation, and physical assault?

I will cite any serious contenders. HLHJ (talk) 20:13, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

ALTs 3, 4, and 6 sound interesting, but I'm really concerned about the neutrality and political nature of these hooks. I'm not really comfortable with these sort of cases so I think it might be a better idea to ask an editor experienced in this area to do the full review, although I'm willing to help review other more technical aspects of the nomination. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 22:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I have to say I also find this an uncomfortable article, Narutolovehinata5, and not what I expected when I adopted an abandoned draft on a book fair. The fair seems about as non-political as a US election... although government-controlled media have stated that it isn't political. The sourcing is difficult. I had gone over the whole article as promised, and removed most of the sources with COIs; the COI sources still used are flagged in-line ("The Saudi Ministry of Culture has announced", I will cite government media for). I also flagged all teh COI sources in teh ref tags, so that other editors would notice. I've just gone over it again, and strengthened the inline flagging of COIs (I may have overdone it, but I want to be clear). The remaining sources all seem to be independent of the fair, and reasonably reliable.

For any willing reviewer: In the hooks above, I asked myself if the message in question was one any of the parties involved wanted to put out; I felt that if it was, it would be more likely to be non-neutral. ALT4 is one that was publicized by a publisher, but clearly wasn't a situation they wanted. The rest involve contradictions between policies. I've tried not to include anything that either the Saudi government or the religious police (major parties to conflict at the fair) would put in a press release. For the next reviewer, on the solidity of sourcing:

• ALT3 , "shouted down, honoured" is sourced to two notable journalists' blogs (these are seriously among the best independent sources on the fair); one of the journalists is one of those currently in prison. "Honoured" has a photo of an activist under an official sign naming an aisle at the bookfair in her honour. The disappearance of an academic after expressing something which could be construed as support for the women's rights activists (including the journalist currently in prison) is well-documented in the international media; apparently the academic had a post in France. This seemingly inconsistent policy path has more broadly (not with direct reference to the fair) been covered in major international media; activists campaigned for women's right to drive, the government legislated to allow women the right to drive and arrested the activists. It seems to be about discouraging activism on principle.
• ALT4 , the publisher posted photos and gave interviews; the government confirmed the ban, though not the details of the actions.
• ALT5 , the US one: sourced to US diplomatic documents and a State Department press conference, as I recall; the latter is only described in The Algemeiner, which I'm not very familiar with; it says that the questions were asked by a named AP journalist, but I haven't been able to find an AP report.
• ALT6 , sourced to a Committee to Protect Journalists report; they say a journalist got assaulted

I'd really like to get this done. HLHJ (talk) 04:52, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

• Full review of this nomination needed by a new reviewer; review should include neutrality of both hook and article, and address other concerns expressed above. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:47, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment/question: I find this article fascinating: it seems much more deserving than many (I think most) to which attention is drawn via DYK. Back in December, Epicgenius wrote that "there are numerous maintenance tags on this page that need to be resolved". The article still has numerous maintenance tags, but I think that all but one say "(government-controlled domestic media, and thus not an independent source)". I don't understand what "domestic" adds here. (Also, I'd say "medium", but I'll skip the pedantry.) As much of the sourcing for the article isn't from the government-controlled media, and the sourcing that is from these is clearly so labelled, I'm not so concerned by this use of dodgy sources. There's just one other tag that I notice: "(not an independent source)", on just one of the four references to MidEast Posts. A brief explanation would be helpful: "([blah blah blah], and thus not an independent source)". It was HLHJ who added it: any comment, HLHJ? -- Hoary (talk) 09:20, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you, Hoary! I have been struggling to give enough background that the history isn't just a series of incomprehensible events being enacted for inscrutable reasons, without making the article too long and digressive. Most of the sources on this topic are not independent, but I've found independent sources for most of it, and think I've flagged all the non-independence in the body text, as well as in the references. I have cleared the inline maintenance tags.

There are no domestic media in Saudi Arabia which are not government-controlled (people can vanish over a tweet), so I've removed the redundancy. Saudi Arabia is also currently spending a lot of money on influencing media overseas. As the Saudi government is not stupid, that probably includes a campaign to influence Wikipedia (noticeboard discussion). At the same time, it can be very dangerous for Saudi citizens to edit Wikipedia. I'd be grateful to any editors willing to keep an eye on Saudi-related articles, especially for independent sourcing.

I considered "medium", but decided to plump for comprehensibility, especially as I do in principle favour the regularization of English plurals, for all that "medias" sounds very very odd to me... I have explained my flagging of the MidEast Posts source (whose byline seems to indirectly contradict the WP page on the author, but maybe it was outdated). HLHJ (talk) 18:58, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

"I think it might be a better idea to ask an editor experienced in this area to do the full review" (wrote Narutolovehinata5 above on 30 January). I do too. But none have offered their services. Would you settle for somebody inexperienced and unqualified? -- Hoary (talk) 13:25, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I would welcome a review from anyone, Hoary, though it looks to me as though you do have experience with difficult and COI-ridden sourcing, so you must mean someone else. Sadly, an ideal independent-expert reviewer seems intrinsically unlikely to volunteer. HLHJ (talk) 00:27, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

My experience of the scrupulous use of dodgy sourcing is minimal. My knowledge of Saudi Arabia is minimal. My ability to decipher written Arabic is limited to its numerals (when not too stylized); I don't know a single word. My experience of DYK is limited to two submissions, one evaluation that I screwed up and one that I managed not to, and a minor miscellany of kibitzing. (But the doughty editor of Wikipedia isn't hindered by mere lack of qualifications.) Real Life may hinder. Today's newspaper headlines suggest that Real Death may too. If Narutolovehinata5 wants somebody better qualified, I shall be neither surprised nor offended. But if it's OK with him, I volunteer. -- Hoary (talk) 01:08, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not really comfortable involving myself in any nomination that involves ethnic or religious conflicts, which is the reason why I would have preferred a topic expert or at least someone familiar with the issues to either do the review or at least take a look. I'm open to another editor like Hoary doing it though, if that option is simply not forthcoming. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 22:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the very reasonable comment, Narutolovehinata5. Thinking that an expert review is better than an inexpert one, but that an inexpert one is better than none: One week from now, if (i) nobody better qualified (and there must be many) has stepped up, (ii) nobody has objected, and (iii) I haven't succumbed to the dreaded lurgi, I'll embark on a review. -- Hoary (talk) 22:34, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both. I'm currently doing some more reading and note-taking in an attempt to raise my own expertise; I launched into this with the idea of doing a quick clean-up of a draft article about a book fair, and rather fell down the rabbit hole. I know a tiny bit of Arabic, but not enough to read any Arabic-language sources, so none are cited. I'm pretty sure there are some things that should be changed. If I knew any permanent-self-exiled Saudis, I would ask them, but I don't feel comfortable telling people about this article if it might put them in danger; Saudis who have written material critical of the Saudi government have, recently, gotten 10-15 year sentences under terrorism legislation. Talking to people who once worked in KSA is not as useful as they tend to have been rather cut off from Saudi society. Expertise and inability to edit may go together here, and I do not want to put the slightest pressure on anyone to engage with this content; I would far rather withdraw the nom. As Hoary is the first volunteer in a month of waiting, I'm very grateful for the offer. On the nomination Hoary feels was borked, Hoary just suggested a better hook, which the original nominator also liked better, and thus needed a second reviewer to sign off on the review; perfectly reasonable. I hope Hoary messes up my nomination the same way! HLHJ (talk) 03:31, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

HLHJ, thank you for your kind comments, and I should say: Let's wait till (a) somebody who knows their stuff comes along, or if nobody does, then (b) for one week. But no, I'd like to make one comment early on: In order to understand Riyadh International Book Fair (RIBF), you really need to understand its context; and if this were, say, a chapter in a book about book fairs, then the ambition and scale (let's ignore the content for now) of the current section "Political context" would be appropriate. But this is an encyclopedia, we don't normally provide bagfuls of context. Rather, we tend to provide quick summaries of what's immediately relevant, using links within the text (or sometimes "Further information:" or similarly introduced links outside the main text) to point people towards resources for a deeper education. However, this article has no link to the article Censorship in Saudi Arabia, and, though I haven't looked for them, there are likely to be other articles that would work similarly for other aspects of what's currently in the "Political context" section of the RIBF article. -- Hoary (talk) 04:27, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm working on it. I hope to post my review in a day or so. -- Hoary (talk) 05:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Preliminary review:

• Article newness: Five times expansion (by HLHJ) within seven days of its (long-ago) nomination here.
• Previous appearance: Not directly checked, but the quality and length of the article before its December 2019 growth make this inconceivable. Impossible, as before its 5× expansion it had been a mere draft. (Comment amended Hoary (talk) 22:55, 21 March 2020 (UTC))
• Article content: Substantial; more than adequate.
• Article sourcing: Adequately sourced. A minority of the references are to sources that will not be disinterested; these are clearly flagged as such. I'm satisfied by the way in which this has been done.
• Disputes: None.
• Plagiarism, etc: I made three attempts to run Earwig's copyvio detector on the current version of the page. Twice, it gave up or froze or anyway didn't give me results. The third time, I limited it to “Use links in page”, and the result was “Violation Unlikely / 29.6% confidence”. The score of 29.6% is held by this page; no other link scores higher than 18.7%. Confession: I have no idea what this means.
• Article neutrality: Deals with contentious issues, but does so in a dispassionate and I believe neutral way.
• Other article issues: Two oddities are so glaring (for me, anyway) that I think they should be addressed. First, “The 2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests saw calls and petitions for a constitutional monarchy and more electoral power.” These protests sound – from this sentence, which is all I know about them – as if they'd merit at least a section within some larger article. Where? Better make “2003–2005 Saudi Arabian protests” bluelink somewhere. (Or, if it's misworded, fix it.) Secondly, one photograph is captioned “A woman selling books at the 2019 Cairo International Book Fair; female bookstall staff were rare at the Riyadh fair”; it seems perverse to illustrate an absence via a presence elsewhere. (Also, the woman is hardly conspicuous within the photograph.)
• QPQ: Done.
• Hook formatting: Complies with the rules.
• Hook length: Within the limit. (The longest seem to be ALT2 at 146 characters and ALT4 at 161 characters.)
• ALT0 Slightly problematic. “Saudi clerics issued a fatwa against book fairs during the 2012 Riyadh International Book Fair.” The assertion is there in the article. It's sourced to this. But “a fatwa against book fairs” (as the hook phrases it) suggests to me that the issuers are flatly against book fairs. However, as I read/misread the source, they're instead against certain aspects of book fairs; it's not clear that they view book fairs as unsalvagable. A change of “against” to “concerning” might be better. Hooky enough.
• ALT1 Fail. "[M]any Arab publishers make around 70% of their annual sales at the Riyadh International Book Fair." This assertion was in the lead of earlier versions (example) but it has since gone – not only from the lead, but from the article as a whole (as far as I can see).
• ALT2 Needs attention. “[T]he Riyadh International Book Fair, which formerly had gender-based admission restrictions, has been criticized for supporting gender mixing”: The second half of this, yes. But as for the first half, there's an implicature here that the book fair no longer has gender-based admission restrictions. That these restrictions have been removed is not at all clear from the article, which on the contrary suggests that they have been restored. The veracity of this hook aside, I'm not sure that it's “hooky”. It just implies that some non-trivial faction objects to the support for gender mixing; and as the context is not Finland (for example) but instead Saudi Arabia, this comes (to me, anyway) as no surprise.
• ALT3 Needs a bit more work. "[W]omen's rights activists at the Riyadh International Book Fair have been shouted down, honoured, and disappeared": The shouting down is primarily sourced to Saudi Jeans, which is a blog. It appears to be a blog worth taking seriously, but can we demonstrate this? (There's no article about it, there doesn't seem to be one about its author, and it doesn't seem to have been mentioned on WP:RSN.) Another source for the shouting down is this, but if you look at it you see that it refrains from saying this directly, instead quoting this, which again is a blog post. (And again, the blog post looks as if it should be taken seriously, but we don't have any article about Crossroads Arabia.) ¶ Being disappeared: It has happened to Anas al-Mazrou; the source looks good. ¶ Being honoured: This is sourced too, but the word seems out of place. (How about, say, "honoured but also shouted down and disappeared", or vice versa?) ¶ This is a little similar to ALT2, but it's a lot more “hooky”, thanks to the implication that women's rights activists are present.
• ALT4 Needs a tweak. “[P]ublishers sometimes have their preapproved books confiscated, or their book stall secretly dismantled overnight, during the Riyadh International Book Fair”: It's clear that the books must be pre-approved. It's clear (for example from this article) that even pre-approved books are often confiscated. It's also clear from this that a stall can be demolished overnight. But the "sometimes" of the hook implies that has happened more than once. Replace "sometimes" with "may"? Wording aside, yes it's “hooky”.
• ALT5 Sourcing is dubious. “[T]he US government has distanced itself from the Riyadh International Book Fair, after enjoying unexpected popularity there”: The distancing is sourced to this, which looks good. However, the unexpected popularity is sourced to this in Wikileaks. This seems to me to be a primary source. I'll assume for a moment that no fakery is involved: that this is a straightforward copy of an actual document. Its author could well have wanted to claim unexpected popularity; the primary/secondary distinction aside, this is hardly a neutral source. And sorry but I don't find this hook “hooky”.
• ALT6 Sourcing is fine. “[A] discussion on censorship at the Riyadh International Book Fair ended in shouting, intimidation, and physical assault”: yes, it's in this, published by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Note though that this is about the 2006 fair, and conditions may have changed since. (Indeed, the article suggests that they have changed to some degree.) It might be fairer if this said “the 2006 Riyadh International Book Fair”. Yes, it's “hooky”.
• ALTs7+? The opening comment above: “Video presentations on how to reverse magic spells? Censorship of a discussion on censorship? Segregated discussion panels? Shouting matches, with accusations of blasphemy and idolatry? A war-themed book fair? Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion (permitted)? Dimples (forbidden)? Dramatic reversals on attitudes to women's driving activists? Women Who Deserve to go to Hell?” Yes, they all sound promising. If turning any of them into an eligible, polished hook looks as if it would be less arduous than working further on any of ALTs0–5, do please go ahead. (However [cough], there are eight of them, and there are only so many hours in my day. So please, no more than three among them for starters.)

-- Hoary (talk) 12:03, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

This is now the second oldest DYK candidate. Let's get it moving! However, I have a couple of requests of the nominator (HLHJ) or anyone else who'd like to work on this. When working on any prospective hook, please make sure that for any reference for the hook –

• – that could be described as a blog post, the reliability/authoritativeness of that blog or author is demonstrated in some Wikipedia article (perhaps Riyadh International Book Fair itself, but more likely elsewhere). (An argument for reliability either here or in Talk:Riyadh International Book Fair isn't enough.)

• – the source is described accurately and fully. A lot of the article's references are to online sources that themselves are dated but the references don't specify the dates. In this edit of mine, you see me adding dates to two (or more?) references, and correcting one title from "February 2011" to "Are we or aren't we?". There's more to be done: not necessarily for the article as a whole, but necessarily for anything that's directly related to a hook.

Thoroughness and scrupulosity are the watchwords, peeps. -- Hoary (talk) 23:52, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

On Earwig, it looks for phrases that are the same, though I'm not sure how it makes its metric. Sadly, it's just a bot. So, for instance, both the article and some sources use the phrase "Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman"; this is not plagiarism, but another match of similar length might be. It also catches all direct quotes, even when clearly designated as such, though that isn't a copyvio, either. I checked the top three, and they are mostly standard phrases or direct and indirect quotes; the worst I saw is "surrounded by five security men, six policemen and two [religious policemen]", which is neither. I'm not sure such a list is originality-threshold; there are a limited number of ways to describe this portion of the event. I could change the order, though! I've changed ALT0 in the article, I withdraw ALT1 per above, I've clarified a misunderstanding on ALT2 in the article but agree it might need overqualification and be boring anyway. The Saudi Jeans blog is by an independently-published journalist; as I recall, he has written for and been interviewed by RS; he has gone quiet recently, probably because others are landing in jail for such things. I could make an article on him, but not instantly. My "shouted down, honoured, disappeared" order was chronological and not necessary for factual accuracy. ALT4: agree "may" is better. ALT5:this write-up is technically secondary, but just based on the cable.[3] Self-source on whether they were surprised... Let's drop this one from consideration. Thank you very much for the extremely through review, Hoary; it really isn't necessary to review each of the hooks . Only the one used on the front page needs to have been reviewed. You can cherry-pick your favourite(s), or dismiss them all as boring and write a new one. I'm abandoning all the ones I think fatally flawed and suggesting these:

• ALT3a:... women's rights activists at the Riyadh International Book Fair have been both disappeared and honoured?
• ALT4a:...publishers may have their preapproved books confiscated, or their book stall secretly dismantled overnight, during the Riyadh International Book Fair?

Not sure if "disappeared" really makes it clear, in context, that we are talking about a zero-info arrest. Suggestions for better hooks than these are welcome. I've also added some new material to the article while fixing some things you prompted me to fix. I was a bit desperate for images and I am happy to remove the inconspicuous woman in Cairo; I included it mainly because it gives a general impression of what such a fair looks like (it looks quite like Riyadh's). I will look into the 2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests; have not gotten a round tuitt yet, nor even a square one. Apologies for my lousy ref formatting. HLHJ (talk) 03:03, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Review:

• Article newness: Five times expansion (by HLHJ) within seven days of its (long-ago) nomination here.
• Previous appearance: Impossible, as before its 5× expansion it had been a mere draft.
• Article content: Substantial (more than merely adequate).
• Article sourcing: Adequately sourced. A minority of the references are to sources that will not be disinterested; these are clearly flagged as such. I'm satisfied by the way in which this has been done.
• Disputes: None.
• Plagiarism, etc: Two attempts to run Earwig's copyvio detector on the version of the page current at 21 March failed. The third time, Earwig was limited to “Use links in page”, and the result was “Violation Unlikely / 29.6% confidence”. The score of 29.6% was held by this page; no other link scored higher than 18.7%. The overlaps between the Wikipedia article and the thenational.ae article were trivial. I have no reason to suspect any plagiarism from sources other than links provided in the page.
• Article neutrality: Deals with contentious issues, but does so in a dispassionate and I believe neutral way.
• Other article issues: One oddity is so glaring (for me, anyway) that I think it should be addressed: “The 2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests saw calls and petitions for a constitutional monarchy and more electoral power.” These protests sound – from this sentence, which is all I know about them – as if they'd merit at least a section within some larger article. Where? Better make “2003–2005 Saudi Arabian protests” bluelink somewhere. (Or, if it's misworded, fix it.) None. (Everything needing to be fixed has been fixed.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:46, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
• QPQ: Done.
• Hook formatting: Each complies with the rules.
• Hook length: Each is easily within the limit.
• ALT3a C Almost there. “[W]omen's rights activists at the Riyadh International Book Fair have been both disappeared and honoured”: Well sourced, and also hooky. But “be disappeared” sounds to me a bit too much like a euphemism for a process including capital punishment. And I don't know why it is, but “honoured” doesn't sound quite right to me. I can't think of any single word expressing what “disappeared” is made to express here; and if we elaborate on it, the result becomes a bit hard to parse (“detained and not heard from since, and celebrated”, or similar) So how about removing the “not heard of since” component, for “detained/apprehended and celebrated/acclaimed”? (Pick any one of the four possibilities, or of course try an alternative.)
• ALT4a Good. “[P]ublishers may have their preapproved books confiscated, or their book stall secretly dismantled overnight, during the Riyadh International Book Fair”: Well sourced, and also hooky.
• ALT6a Good (assuming that it's eligible). “[A] discussion on censorship at the 2006 Riyadh International Book Fair ended in shouting, intimidation, and physical assault”: Well sourced, and also hooky. (Eligibility? The “2006” is my own addition, if this matters.)

-- Hoary (talk) 06:47, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much for another very through review. All of those, including your 'add "2006"' suggestion, which I omitted to do myself for some reason, look good to me. I'm happy to leave the choice to the promoting reviewer; ALT3 (revised due to your comments) captures the deep uncertainty of the political reversals; ALT4a encapsulates the surrealness of this event; ALT6a is plain ironic.

• ALT3b:... that women's rights activists at the Riyadh International Book Fair have been both officially celebrated and unofficially arrested?
• ALT3c:... that women's rights activists at the Riyadh International Book Fair have been both forcibly disappeared and officially honoured?
• ALT4a:... that publishers may have their pre-approved books confiscated, or their book stall secretly dismantled overnight, during the Riyadh International Book Fair?
• ALT6a:... that a discussion on censorship at the 2006 Riyadh International Book Fair ended in shouting, intimidation, and physical assault?

On ALT3b I don't think that capital punishment is involved here, though some of the activists who were active at the fair seem to have been tortured; I used "disappeared" in a technical sense, wikilinked in a revised version above (one could think of a better term; "covert detention"? ...but it's not standard. "black site detention"? ...too much focus on the unknown location; "ghost detainee" is vivid and has been used). Other activists who had sold their feminist books at the fair were also arrested, but in connection to their broader activities. They have had some contact with the outside world since and are publicly acknowledged to be imprisoned[4] (the Human Rights Commission (Saudi Arabia) even interviewed them and denied reports that they were tortured, although a contradictory story of the interviews was leaked to the WSJ), so I think only Anas al-Mazrou can be said to have been disappeared.[5]

As it's nearly April 2nd, the old scheduled opening day of the book fair (which obviously has been postponed), might it be appropriate to put this article on the front page on that day? HLHJ (talk) 02:31, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

I shan't summarize, let alone repeat, the review that I made on 24 March -- it's long, and appears a screenful or two above. It found two minor problems; both have since been fixed. Any one of ALT3b, ALT3c, ALT4a, ALT6a above passes all the relevant standards, as does the article itself; whoever selects which DYK appears on which day (and in which order) is welcome to choose the most suitable hook among the four, or perhaps the one that goes most felicitously with the other DYKs of the day.

This year's fair was to have opened on 2 April (source); and, while I realize that this is unusually soon, I second HLHJ's suggestion (immediately above) that 2 April would be a particularly fitting day for this DYK to appear on the top page. -- Hoary (talk) 03:43, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Miscellany

• "2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests" (so redlinked): What were these? I don't notice any mention of them within any article.
• "It was criticized for lacking technical computer science books": Wondering whether this meant (A) "computer science books aside from the very elementary" or (B) "either technical or computer science books", I looked in the (ho-hum) source. This supports neither; I therefore removed this particular criticism.
• "Some were arrested (3, according to Sabq.org,...)". This appeared twice; I removed one.
• "three, according to Sabq.org": Two sources are provided: one at zeenews.india.com and another at al-bab.com; neither at sabq.org. Ummm?
• "he has had no contact with his family" → "as of [WHEN?], his family had not heard from him"?

-- Hoary (talk) 13:32, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Revisiting the five above, ten days later:

• The first: Still a mystery.
• The second and third: I fixed both (as explained above).
• The fourth and fifth: I should have looked into the linked sources. I've now done so, and edited accordingly. Neither is any longer an issue.

The first remains an issue. Just what were the "2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests"? (HLHJ, do you know?) -- Hoary (talk) 04:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Fixed. (See the subsection immediately below.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:42, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

"2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests"

I asked about the redlink "2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests" back on 21 March. Even now, the article says: "The 2003-2005 Saudi Arabian protests saw calls and petitions for a constitutional monarchy and more electoral power." The source provided for this just talks of "a wave of human rights petitions in 2003-05". I can't criticize this article for en:Wikipedia's deficiencies elsewhere; but anyway all I see elsewhere in en:WP about these protests is:

Signs of discontent continued. [...] More than 300 Saudi intellectuals – women as well as men – signed a petition in September 2003, calling for far-reaching political reforms. A month later, police had to break up an unprecedented rally in the centre of Riyadh calling for political reform. More than 270 people were arrested. (Modern history of Saudi Arabia)

(There's no mention of this petition in Histoire de l'Arabie saoudite or even 2003_في_السعودية.) So, HLHJ (or anyone else), how about "From 2003 to 2005 there were petitions for human rights and a constitutional monarchy"? (I hesitate to make the edit myself, because I know very little about the subject area.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:13, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

To editor HLHJ: What say? (I'd like to wrap up this DYK nomination this weekend; indeed, today if possible.) -- Hoary (talk) 21:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, that would be OK; I trust you have no objection to my restoring a link later if I can find/write up something suitable to link it to. I have seen a few references to this period in different sources, so I think it's likely doable. HLHJ (talk) 01:23, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Good: I changed the text in the article accordingly. Putting aside for a moment the question of more general protests over the two year period, it seems to me that a petition signed by "[m]ore than 300 Saudi intellectuals" would definitely merit a paragraph somewhere, and very likely a section of an article, or indeed an entire article. So yes, as a user of en:WP, I'd very much welcome one or more more bluelinks in this part of this article. -- Hoary (talk) 01:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Consistency of dates and spelling

What a mess. Apart from "aluminum", which ought to rhyme with the other recently-discovered metals, and was a plain printer's error, these differences aren't even very pronunciation-linked. HLHJ (talk) 04:05, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Noticing that the great majority of dates were in DMY format but that a minority were in MDY format, I switched examples of the latter to the former and added a template to the top of the article announcing that DMY applied. I hope that nobody minded/minds.

The article now is a bit of a mishmash of spellings considered American and spellings considered British. Eventually, somebody's going to complain, and somebody's going to have to spend quite some time Briticizing the American or Americanizing the British. (Yes, yes, somebody might want it to be Canadian or whatever. But I'm trying to keep this simple.) The later this happens, the more work it's going to be. So HLHJ, as you're the de facto creator of the article, I recommend that you choose, quickly. If you're as little interested as I am in such matters, I gently recommend "Oxford spelling" (sufficiently neutral to be used by the UN): start by simply plonking {{British English Oxford spelling|small=yes}} at the top of this talk page, and work from there. -- Hoary (talk) 13:14, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

NB I'm not saying that regularization of spelling is a requirement for DYK. It certainly is not. But the earlier it's started (in one direction or another), the less work will be required to complete it. -- Hoary (talk) 01:28, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Um. I'm afraid you're right, I don't use any of those spellings. I don't know if there are automated tools for this... I think I may be even less interested in such matters , and I'm inclined to feel that if anyone were to complain about my spelling inconsistency, they are welcome to standardize it (I think this is the first time I've had my inconsistency mentioned on Wikipedia). The MOS guideline does request a consistent style, but the idea of consciously learning and remembering to use a standard national spelling, which must be more complex than the illustrating table, fills me with despair. It seems there's no requirement to have a tag, though I suppose it might be advisable if a lack of tag would cause conflict. Thank you for the recommendation; Oxford Spelling's "-ize" makes sense, as even Britons and Australians do in fact voice that consonant (but then, "analyce, paralyce, catalyce" as pronunciations? while I'm glad that Oxford spelling opposes spellings "in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic", I'd feel that phonetics should trump etymology). I do have strong opinions on date order; I like YYYY-MM-DD, which makes alphabetical order chronological and is very handy for data processing (plus it's ISO 8601), and I'll accept naming the month rather than numbering it, because while language-specific it's unambiguous and regexes are my friends, mostly. As that's not an option, DMY is fine; I think I just took the default from the sources. Thank you for having done some of this tedious formatting. I'm strongly inclined to leave the rest of the task to someone who enjoys it, as I know some editors do... HLHJ (talk) 04:05, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Really, it's no biggie. Toward the end of my first comment, "and work from there" was carelessly phrased; I should instead have written "and interested editors can work from there". (Oh, and I like YYYY-MM-DD too, for those very same reasons.) -- Hoary (talk) 05:52, 24 March 2020 (UTC)