Talk:Hafez al-Assad/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 18:43, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey TIAYN, I'll be glad to take this one. Comments to follow in the next 1-5 days. Thanks in advance for your work on this important figure. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

That's never happened before (the GA review starting the same day I nominated it) .. Anyhow, thanks. --TIAYN (talk) 19:35, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

A few quick comments on the early sections. This looks terrific so far, and seems ripe for promotion. Let me know your thoughts; I hope to have the rest of my review posted by the end of the afternoon, but have some laundry to move around for now... -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:09, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Done (replaced al Alawi with Alawite in all instances, with the exception when Alawi is used in quotes) "one of 80 Alawi notables " -- Are Alawite and Alwai interchangeable terms? If so, you might just stick with "Alawite" throughout for clarity; if not, you might add a link or a footnote indicating the distinction.
• Done "He spent ten months in the Soviet Union, during which he fathered a daughter" -- was his wife stationed there with him, or is this with another woman?
• Done "Zaki al-Arsuzi, who indirectly (through Wahib al-Ghanim) inspired him to join the Ba'ath Party" -- wasn't Assad long a member of the party at this point? Or had Arsuzi inspired him in the past to join? -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:09, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• Done "but Mustafa al-Haji may have telephoned the Ministry of Defense" -- is it possible to give a word or two of context on who this is?
• Done "in a comradely gesture" -- is this quotation Seale's words or Jundi's?
• Done "Asad said: "I've heard something disagreeeable about this officer.... " -- this needs a closing quotation mark. I assume it's at the end of the block quote? -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:04, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• Done "and Shakir al-Fahham" -- is it possible to add a word or two of context about why this name is specifically mentioned?
• Done "Islamic uprising" -- this pipes to "Islamist uprising" (rather than "Islamic")-- should we also say Islamist here? -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:43, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• Done"He also controlled the military through Alawites" -- is the "he" here Assad, I'm assuming, and not any of the men just mentioned? -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• Done I'm a bit confused by the terms in the discussion of Alawite vs. Sunni power, particularly "Assad's elite was non-sectarian ... However, none of these people held power." If they don't hold power, what makes them elite? -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, not going to make it through the whole article this afternoon after all; will finish tonight or tomorrow. Looks great so far, though. Well-sourced, and a very informative read. Thanks again for your work on it. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:53, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Done " with Attari's enforced exile" - should this be "Attar" rather than Attari?
• Done "and the responded with state terrorism later that year" -- missing word
• Done "he made "abominably lavish" " -- this judgement probably needs attribution in-text to Batatu ("what historian J Batatu called...")
• Done "Rifaat al-Assad's rashly replaced his successor with his son-in-law." -- missing word?
• Done "Basil al-Assad" - spelled "Bassel al-Assad" at his article--but this doesn't necessarily need to be consistent if you're confident this is a legitimate alternative
• Done "Basher al-Assad" -- the article uses both "Basher" and "Bashar"; should be made consistent. His article's at "Bashar", FWIW.
• Done "This was partly due to Assad's miscalculations, and partly to factors he could not control or change" -- since this is verging into analysis, probably better to attribute this to Reich in-text -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:57, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that's all for my first pass. Take a look at the above, let me know your thoughts. Tomorrow I'll do source and image checks, but this looks close to ready to pass; the above shouldn't take long to fix. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:57, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Source notes

• done Fn #1 is a link to a Wikipedia article--can a reliable source be found for the number instead? Either way, I think the footnote to the WP article should be removed.
• done Devlin 1975 doesn't appear to have a citation to point to.
• done Rabinovich 1972 and Rabinovich 1985 don't appear to have citations to point to.
• done Hinnebusch 2002 and Hinnebusch 1990 don't appear to have citations to point to.
• done Is Batatu 1987 the same as Batutu 1999?
• done Seale & Hinnebusch 2002 doesn't appear to have a citation to point to.
• done The Seale footnote to the sentence "By 13 October the war was lost, but (in contrast to the Six-Day War) the Syrians were not crushed; this earned Assad respect in Syria and abroad" has no year or page number
• done A lot of sources in the bibliography have no incoming citations. My preference would be to remove these, since most don't even have Assad as their main focus, but it's up to you: Barkey et al., Carter et al., Chailand et al., Harris, Kibaroğlu et al., Korany et al., Keddie, Metz, Milton-Edwards, Otman, Pelletiere, Phillips, Pollack, Post et al., Radu, Schenker, Schlumburger, Shore, Tanter, Wright. Not a GA issue either way, I wouldn't think. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:27, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I can't say I've done those mistakes before. --TIAYN (talk) 20:15, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• No worries; I have a script that points out ref harv errors, or I might not have caught them myself. Thanks for getting them. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:07, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Just a few more I missed on my first pass:

• (Removed and replaced with another ref) Jammal 2007" doesn't seem to have citation
• Done Seale 2002" and "Seale 1999" seem to have either wrong author or year
• Done Batatu 1994" -- 1999?
• Done Dawisha 2005" doesn't seem to have citation
• Done Seale 1990, p. 2005." -- is this a typo for "205"? There's also a "Seale 1999, p. 2005." -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

• There's three more Jammal 2007 refs to get. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:48, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Checklist

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.	Spotchecks on the whole show no evidence of copyright issues, but part of the lead matches Britannica verbatim; it was cut-pasted by user who wasn't the nominator (link below, template won't let me put it here). Prose is high-quality throughout.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	On a few significant points, the lead doesn't yet jibe with the article--detailed below.
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.
	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).	Needs full citations for three Jammal refs
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Foreign policy after the Lebanon conflict seems to be omitted; the 1990s peace talks in particular are a main aspect that should be included.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	The article at times pushes the upper limits of being too detailed, but still seems within the criteria.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
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.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	This is close in many respects, but seems to be missing two decades and some major events in the foreign policy section; detail below.

• 1a/1b/3a: There seem to be some issues with the article's discussion of Assad's foreign policy. The lead discusses his FP throughout his life, while the body only discusses his two wars, and almost nothing after the 1970s; this seems incomplete (and also a MOS:LEAD problem). Further complicating it is that a good deal of text in the lead (like the sentence "Assad sought to establish peaceful relations with Israel in the mid-1990s, but his repeated call for the return of the Golan Heights stalled the talks") seems to be verbatim from Britannica. (Though it's not impossible they took it from us; I'm having trouble verifying the origin of this text on their site, and it looks like they do allow some kind of user editing to that page.)

Anyway, just doing a quick web search, Britannica, this obit or this one indicate some things that ought to be included: the diplomatic fallout of the El Al airliner plot, peace negotiations with Israel, reaction to the Soviet collapse, joining the anti-Saddam coalition in the Gulf War, supporting Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, etc. The "women's rights" angle mentioned in the lead also doesn't seem followed up on in the article.

One last, side suggestion I'd make is that the article reads a little long, and adding content will exacerbate this problem. Assad admittedly is a huge figure with a lot of life to cover, but at points I think some of the detail about who's in and who's out in various power struggles (e.g., "Others removed from their positions were Ahmad al-Mir (a founder and former member of the Military Committee, and former commander of the Golan Front) and Izzat Jadid (a close supporter of Jadid and commander of the 70th Armoured Brigade).") could be condensed or cut. For the GA criteria, though, this level of detail is probably allowed.

Because the lead/comprehensiveness issues are going to take some significant rewriting to cover (and since this has only been nominated/open for a few days anyway), it seems best that the expansion take place outside of the GA review process, and be renominated when more complete. I'm therefore not listing the article for now, but I hope this'll be renominated soon. What you've already accomplished here is terrific--I'll look forward to seeing you take it the rest of the way! -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:00, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Just as a followup on the copyvio, it was added a year ago by a user who wasn't the nominator [1]. Web Archive shows EB's version precedes ours.[2] I've warned the user and will now tag the article. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:14, 23 October 2013 (UTC)