Wikipedia:Peer review/Slovenian presidential election, 2007/archive1

Slovenian presidential election, 2007

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for September 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because my plan is to get it to FA some day. After I've addressed most of the issues raised at an unsuccessful GA nomination, I think the article is much better now. I would like some hints what else can be improved. Regarding many redlinks in the article, it is my opinion that those topics are of proper importance for Wikipedia and that the articles will be created sooner or later. Thanks, Tone 02:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Scolaire (talk · contribs)

The article is well-written, readable and interesting. I have a few comments regarding grammar, clarity etc. that I'd like to address. Regarding grammar:

• "Other candidates opposed because of the lack of reliable records ...": suggest "Other candidates opposed the change" or "Other candidates were opposed to the change". Also, candidates other than whom?
• "Opposition particularly reacted to the change since the voters from abroad seem to favorize right parties so they could change the result in favour of Peterle in case of close election result": "The opposition", "Opposition parties" or "Opposition candidates". "To favor", not "favorize". "Parties of the right" or "right-wing parties", not "right parties". "If the result was close", not "in case of close election result".
• "Liberal Democracy of Slovenia that supported Gaspari in the first round announced it would support Türk in the second.": "Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, which supported Gaspari...", if not "Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, which supported Gaspari...", or "The Liberal Democracy party".
• "Exit poll results published at the closing of the vote predicted a victory of 69% for Türk": "A victory for Türk, with 69% of the vote", or "a victory of 69% to 31% for Türk".
• "The opposition parties declared talk of resignation just weeks before Slovenia took over European Union presidency presidency as irresponsible and unwise..." Not strictly speaking bad grammar, but "said that talk of...was irresponsible and unwise" reads a lot better.

Regarding clarity:

• "For the first year, the President, who at the time was battling cancer, mostly stayed out of public sight. On reappearing he had changed his lifestyle; he became a vegan, moved out of the capital into the countryside and withdrew from party politics completely." Fascinating! But he didn't withdraw from politics altogether. What did he do? How did he come to clash with the government? Did the electorate know he had cancer when they voted him in? How did he retain his popularity?
• "Topics discussed at televised debates included the rules governing the voting of non-resident nationals. These were changed by the National Electoral Commission during the campaign which sent voting materials to all non-residents entered in the electoral register and not merely to those who requested them, as had been the previous practice." This was addressed in the GA. Was it the action of the NEC that was discussed in the debates? Which candidate or candidates gained or lost by this debate? Did anything happen as a result of the debate?
• "A petition alleging government meddling in journalism..." A petition is a request to an authority, not an allegation. So was this a petition to end alleged meddling in journalism? And what does "meddling in journalism" mean, exactly - interference in media coverage of government? Or of current affairs in general? Is it known who wrote the petition? Was there an immediate cause?

References: There is a disappointingly high number of references not in English (presumably in Slovene). I accept that this is better than no inline citations at all, but are some of these stories not available online at Google News, BBC News or CNN?

Redlinks: I would tend to agree with you as far as redlinks near the top of the article are concerned, but you might consider de-linking some of the ones further down, and possibly creating stubs for the ones you leave.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one that is highlighted as not having received feedback, which is how I found this article. Scolaire (talk) 20:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! I have implemented some suggestions already, I'd like to discuss some things:

• this Other candidates opposed must have stayed since there was first a sentence that Peterle supported this but I couldn't find a source for that. Opposition parties then.
• the story about Drnovšek is long. I somehow feel that discussing all this in details would be out of focus of the article. However, there are two good references from NYT and Times that should answer the questions.
• I wrote some more on the petition. Is it clearer now? Maybe too deatiled since it was about the government and just brought up during the elections...
• I think it should be clearer now that indeed the thing that stirred the debate about non-residents was the move by NEC. I am unaware of any sources that would report any of the candidates profiting from this specfic topic and unaware of this new regulation being changed afterwards so it must have stayed like this for future elections as well. The two things that had clear consequences - the Rožman case and the diplomatic stance during the independence war - are explained as such.

Should I fix it further? I'll do my best to find some more English sources though it may be difficult for some topics. --Tone 21:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• I do still think that the non-resident issue could be clearer. Perhaps if it said "...included the rules governing the voting of non-resident nationals, which had been changed by the National Electoral Commission during the campaign, with the result that voting materials had been sent to all non-residents entered in the electoral register..." That would give a definite timeline: change of rules → voting materials sent → debate.
• The rest of that paragraph is now clearer, but there are now two consecutive sentences beginning with "Opposition parties". "They" would be sufficient in the second sentence. I'm also not sure about the word "reacted" there. "Reacted" usually means they did something. Perhaps "In particular, they objected to the change because..."
• The petition paragraph is much clearer, and not too detailed. Just one small thing: you have introduced an acronym, IPI, which needs to be expanded the first time it's used.
• On President Drnovšek, it's not so much a question of expanding the paragraph as making better use of the same number of words. To my mind his lifestyle changes - his vegetarianism and moving to the country - are the least relevant details. What's more of interest to this article is that he quit Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, that he embraced a more mystical (to quote the Times headline) kind of politics, trying to solve the problems of the world, and that his new style endeared him to, rather than alienated him from, his people. Another thing I've noticed: this article says he was out of the public eye for one year; the Janez Drnovšek article says three years. I'd like to see those figures reconciled.

Otherwise, I think it's looking good. Scolaire (talk) 07:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Further improvements were made. Indeed, the paragraph about Drnovšek was somehow unclear, I reworded it. --Tone 10:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The article reads very well now. Good luck with your next GA! Scolaire (talk) 14:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC)