Talk:Vakhtang I of Iberia/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Neil916 (talk · contribs) 16:44, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

My name is Neil916 and I will be performing the GA review of this article.

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	No copyright violations found from online sources. However, the prose needs a significant copyedit in order to be easier to understand. An example of this is taken from the lead, "Tradition also ascribes him reorganization of the Georgian Orthodox Church and foundation of Tbilisi, Georgia’s modern capital". Many of the sentences are run-on sentences that need to be broken down into simpler descriptions. Similarly, some of the words need to be simplified. Write to EXpress, not to IMpress. In the example I gave above, simplify that long, convoluted sentence into something like "he reorganized the Georgian Orthodox Church and founded the city of Tbilisi, Georgia's modern capital". Then cite it to a reference so the reader can find out who said he reorganized the church. Simplify the text, and it will become much easier to read.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Does not follow guidelines found at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. The lead section contains information that is not mentioned again the rest of the article (dating the reign, vita, canonized). It is not written in a clear, accessible style. It is a loose list of facts. 9 sentences in 5 paragraphs. Beware of "weasel words" like "At the age of 16, Vakhtang is said to have led a victorious retaliatory war against the Ossetians". If there is controversy about whether he did it, identify the controversy. If it's not certain, say that historians don't know the specifics. As it is written, the article hints that the information might not be correct without coming out and saying it.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	The article currently contains a citation error due to a named reference being named twice with different information. There are two different references that are cited as "Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali", one in Russian and one in English. The English one is not clear what the "page of edition 203, line of edition 9-10-11-12-13" [etc.] means. Are these the same reference? There is not enough information for a reader to refer to the same source that the article used. This should be a minor issue that could be easily corrected. Some of the text includes unnecessarily distracting source information that seems more appropriate to cite a reference in a footnote rather than clutter the body of the text with it. As an example, the first sentence of the "Name" section starts with "According to the Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali". Is there academic controversy about what his birth name was? If so, then this mention of who said what in the body is appropriate, but the article should mention who said the other thing. The article does this well when it mentions the difficulty of identifying what years he reigned. The article identifies the name of each scholar and what he thinks. The text of the article would flow better to say "At birth, the king was given the Iranian name of x...etc." and cite a reference in the footnotes so readers can see where that information came from.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Soures are reliable and appropriately cited for easy cross-checking by someone wishing to challenge the information they cite.
	2c. it contains no original research.	The "Legacy" section has some problematic statements that are not cited to reliable sources, including one that someone has tagged with a citation needed template and a clarification needed template. It appears to have been tagged that way since 2013. The rest of the article contains a simple statement of facts without interpretation, and references are provided.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Before I read the article for the first time, made a mental note to myself with a list of the major facts that I would expect to find in an encyclopedia article about a historical monarch. The article contains all of these major facts, although they were a bit difficult to find in some cases. As minor issues, some additional contextual help would be helpful to the reader. I was left wondering, for example, what Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali was, for instance, and why it was mentioned so prominently in the article.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	The information contained within the article stays relevant to the subject matter. There aren't extra "trivia" sections that describe that some random TV show that had a character named Vakhtang, for example. Except where noted below, there aren't any sections where a reader would think that the section should be cut out or merged with a different article. I don't feel that the "further reading" section with an unlinked list of Georgian texts helps the reader on the English Wikipedia, and should probably be removed.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	Content is uncontroversial and is not expected to have neutrality issues. Where conflicting information exists, such as where different scholars have provided different estimates of Vakhtang's reign, both estimates are provided without the article taking a position of who is right or wrong.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Article is stable with no signs of recent content disputes.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All images are credibly tagged with with their copyright status. No fair-use content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Images are relevant to the article. The labels on the map are in French; it would be nice to have English labels. It would also be nice to have a map of a larger area showing the reader where Iberia is located within Asia (I initially got it confused with the Iberian Pennisula). Those items are "nice to have" items and do not prevent GA approval.
	7. Overall assessment.	The article is interesting to read, but in its current form does not meet the Good Article Criteria. I am not passing the article, but if someone is feeling energetic and wants me to take another look at it in a week or two, just ping me with a comment on this page to give me a heads up and I'm happy to give it a second look. Neil916 (Talk) 08:39, 31 October 2015 (UTC)