Talk:Disinformation/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: DarjeelingTea (talk · contribs) 23:43, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Some issues, described below, need to be addressed prior to a GA promotion. DarjeelingTea (talk) 23:43, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Stability

There's no evidence of edit-warring and no active content disputes currently expressed on the Talk page.
update March 3 - a content dispute has materialized since the original review

Well-written

Generally well-written with a few minor points that need correction or explanation.

• singular worst thing the news media could do was spreading disinformation - I believe this should be "single" and "spread"
• here your role as a part of a network of pawns or patrons will be utilised and you will be groomed into accepting the psychopath's agenda - this phrase suddenly transitions into the second person
• different from the practice: "The interpretation - I believe "the" should not be capitalized here.
• There's somewhat liberal use of hyphens in places commas should be used instead.

There appears no need for DAB'ing any part of the article. I think the lede is overly detailed, but will leave that to editorial judgment. Earwig indicates Violation Unlikely.

Breadth

There are some issues here which probably need explanation or edit.

• One section is devoted to disinformation by the USSR/Russia and one section is devoted to disinformation by the USA. No sections are devoted to disinformation by World War II-era Germany, Italy, or Japan, by Pinochet-era Chile, or by other major world powers like the United Kingdom and France, though a cursory search online indicates there may be ample examples of this and a quick search of JSTOR finds several academic papers devoted to these topics. I think we either need to explore examples from more than two states or cut down the article a bit to make it more generic.
• The section on disinformation by the USA seems to stop in 1988, 25 years ago, though - again - a cursory search finds a number of RS explore post-1988 disinformation by the U.S. rather extensively.
• ErrantX made a drive-by comment on scope of article here, and I also note I have observed the same thing he describes. This comment doesn't seem to have been addressed in subsequent edits but probably needs to be.
• A search on Wikipedia itself reveals the article Media coverage of North Korea which seems devoted to the case of disinformation about North Korea. I would think we would, at minimum, want to include this in "see also"?

Neutral

Some of the issues with breadth of coverage touch on neutrality. To avoid overlap, I'll give this an okay.

Images

Good, however:

• Some of the images would benefit from ALT tags (optional).

Verifiable

Each fact-statement is backed a WP:RS. There are no dead external links.

@DarjeelingTea: It is your responsibility to check each source to see if it supports the content in the article, not merely to see if a source exists. I see no evidence you've done that. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:59, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

My apologies if my description wasn't clear. By "backed [by] a RS" I mean the content of the RS backs the statement, not merely that it exists. Three of the six offline sources (The Deception Game: Czechoslovak Intelligence in Soviet Political Warfare, Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media, and Developing Media Skills) I could not check and planned to address options for alternatives with the nominator in the second round of review. DarjeelingTea (talk) 00:09, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

So you started this review less than an hour ago and you were able to check every citation except a couple. And you were able to get a copy of Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism but you couldn't get a copy of The deception game : Czechoslovak intelligence in Soviet political warfare? Had you even considered if something from WND Books is reliable? I have experience with GA reviews and I'm having a hard time understanding how you're doing this review. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:21, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Chris troutman to answer your questions:

• I started the review two days ago and wrote most of it offline (there are too many sources to check to make it practical to review them all in one swoop). When I clicked "Review" it was primarily just a matter of copy/pasting it in.
• My opinion on Disinformation: Former Spy Chief was that (a) the content it's sourcing is primarily of a basic, functional - as opposed to analytical or historical - nature (e.g. The English word, which did not appear in dictionaries until the late-1980s, is a translation of the Russian дезинформация, transliterated as dezinformatsiya.); in four cases where it is backing-up an analytical or historical statement it is one of several sources, the others of which are unambiguously RS, (b) the authors are RS even if the publisher is suspect. These points in combination I believe permit the limited way it's used in the article. If you disagree, please let me know and I'll be more than happy to amend the review to request a replacement source.
• That's correct. Unfortunately, my university library does not have an e-book version of The deception game : Czechoslovak intelligence in Soviet political warfare in its database.

Please let me know if you have any other questions. DarjeelingTea (talk) 00:38, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

This article was one I was eyeing to review which is why I always claim the review first and then perform research. I couldn't bear to look up every source only to find (as in this case) someone took the review ahead of me. I was trained to perform more extensive reviews, as my list illustrates. Some are easy and others are a mess. Fact checking is actually required although I've heard from some long-time editors that they don't think it is. This discrepancy in perceived standards has set me on edge. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:34, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that, Chris troutman. And, I congratulate you on your list of reviews. Feel free to take over the review if you'd like. Please let me know how you'd like to proceed. DarjeelingTea (talk) 01:39, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

DarjeelingTea and Chris troutman, IMO the breadth of this article is poor as it gives the mistaken impression that disinformation can only be at the country level and has to involve state level secret services. The word "disinformation" is often used in wider contexts and can be applied in any organisation (such as in the workplace or political organisations) where a body of intentionally false information is presented. I see this scope issue was previously raised by ErrantX at Talk:Disinformation#Drive-by comment on scope. I have made a small effort to diversify the article here - Disinformation#Psychopathy in the workplace. I agree that splitting the article may be a credible idea. I will ask another editor who may be willing to help create a new separate disinformation article - he is currently on a Wikibreak tho. --Penbat (talk) 10:05, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Failure of nomination

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The article is failed due to non-resolution of problem areas. However, the nominator may simply not be available at this time (see below) to make the necessary corrections, so it could easily be re-nominated at a more convenient, future time.
Details of review: (1) Review was completed on Feb 15 and nominator notified [1], (2) on Feb 22, with no edits made to article, I contacted nom via Talk and asked if they needed more time [2] to which they responded affirmatively, (3) on March 3, having seen no edits made to the article in the preceding week, I contacted nominator again to ask if they needed a further extension [3], (4) on March 4 I followed-up to the Talk page post with an email, (5) on March 6, having received no response and seen no edits done on article, I failed the GA nomination. DarjeelingTea (talk) 20:00, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.