Talk:On Saudi Arabia

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: rejected by Yoninah (talk) 22:11, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
close paraphrasing and other issues

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• ... that it is authored in On Saudi Arabia that the poorest class of the Saudi Arabia's society are widowed or divorced women, who have to work hard to support their children? Source: washingtonpost.com
• ALTa ... that On Saudi Arabia states that the poorest class in Saudi Arabia's society are widowed or divorced women, who have to search hard to find work and support their children?
  • ALT1:... that Karen Elliott House in her book On Saudi Arabia repeatedly compares the Saudi regime with the Soviet Union in its final days? Source: nytimes.com
  • ALT2:... that Karen Elliott House in her book On Saudi Arabia says that "90 percent of private-sector workers in Saudi Arabia are foreigners"?‎Source: nytimes.com

Created by Mbazri (talk). Self-nominated at 12:08, 20 July 2019 (UTC).

• Created within 7 days, size fine, only 1 DYK credit so QPQ unnecessary. I verified all 3 hooks from the sources, and citations are given in the article. Two problems: First, both the hooks and the article itself need copy-editing. "it is authored in On Saudi Arabia" is incorrect and needs to be changed to something like "according to On Saudi Arabia,". "that Karen Elliott House in her book ... says that" could be replaced by "according to Karen Elliott House's book ...,". "the last days of the Soviet Union" is maybe a more natural phrase than "the Soviet Union in its final days".

• I have done a copy-editing pass. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 01:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Secondly, Earwig turns up several chunks of text that have been copy-pasted without quotation marks. These should either be specified as direct quotations or rewritten.

• I have done a round of cleanup work with Earwig; sections are now either properly quoted or rephrased. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 01:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the selection of hook, I think ALT1 is clearly better than the other two, which both look more like facts about Saudi Arabia rather than the book. The claim that Saudi Arabia is similar to the collapsing Soviet Union is striking and relates directly to House and the book. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 04:05, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

• I agree that ALT1 is the best of the hooks. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 01:09, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Cheers Mary Mark Ockerbloom. Just double-checked and that clears up my Earwig concern; I see you've also improved the article generally. Since the main hook was the only one that needed rewriting, I'm approving this with the caveat that the other two could still be tweaked for style. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 01:15, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@Mary Mark Ockerbloom: Thank you for reviewing the DYK and for your comment. Also thank you @Nizolan: for checking and improving the article. I Personally suggest the main hook by making some changes which Mary Mark Ockerbloom mentioned. The suggested sentence could be like this:

... that according to On Saudi Arabia the poorest class of the Saudi Arabia's society are widowed or divorced women, who have to work hard to support their children? --Mbazri (talk) 11:28, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Sorry, there's something POV-sounding about women having to "work hard". Let's go with ALT1, but move the target article closer to the front of the hook:
• ALT1a: ... that in her book On Saudi Arabia, Karen Elliott House repeatedly compares the Saudi regime with the Soviet Union in its final days? Yoninah (talk) 23:34, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@Yoninah: No Problem. We can remove the last sentence. I mean this: "who have to work hard to support their children?" Then we will have the following sentence as the hook:

...according to On Saudi Arabia the poorest class of the Saudi Arabia's society are widowed or divorced women?

I can also suggest the following ALTs:

• ALT3... that According to On Saudi Arabia, the education system of Saudi Arabia is incapable of preparing Saudis for professional works due to the rigid control of Wahhabi fundamentalists?Source: nytimes.com
• ALT4... that Karen Elliott House in her book On Saudi Arabia describes Saudi government efforts to rehabilitate former terrorists and reintegrate them into Saudi society?Source: washingtonpost.com

--Mbazri (talk) 06:49, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

• @Mbazri: what's wrong with ALT1a? It has a little more international appeal. Yoninah (talk) 13:28, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

• I'm concerned that some of the phrasing in this article is too close to that of its sources. Compare for example "under the rigid control of Wahhabi fundamentalists, the education system is incapable of preparing Saudis for professional work. Because they refuse to work in blue-collar and service areas, 90 percent of private-sector jobs are filled by foreign workers" with "the education system, in the firm grip of Wahhabi fundamentalists, is spectacularly unable to prepare Saudis for professional jobs. And since most refuse blue-collar and service work, 9 out of 10 private sector jobs are held by foreigners". Nikkimaria (talk) 17:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I tried to correct it. What do you think about it now?--Mbazri (talk) 13:21, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Still. Another example is "She has entered into poor slums, rich compounds, and the elegant tents of the royal family — and even, wearing a burqa, the most devout families" vs "managed to get into the poorest slums, the richest compounds, and the most elegant tents of the royal family — and, sometimes garbed in a burqa, into the most devout families". Nikkimaria (talk) 13:28, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria:  Done.--Mbazri (talk) 05:48, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I see that you've edited the two specific examples I've mentioned. These were examples only. Have you checked the rest of the article against its sources? Nikkimaria (talk) 10:36, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

• With regret, I'm marking this for closure; there has been no response to Nikkimaria's question, and there are indeed other places in the article that are too close to their sources, for example, the end of the Research section. Another problem is that some quotes are included that seem to be by House, or are specifically attributed to her, but actually come from the cited article or review and are the words of the article's author, not House's own words. For example, in the final paragraph, both quotes are from the Zoë Ferraris review in Sfgate, but attributed to House—they may be the reviewer's interpretation of House's book, but the presumption is that they're not House's words because they aren't in quotes in the article. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:00, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality

Upon reading the article, it seems to be written by a fan of the book, especially in the "Research" section. Eg;

1) ..."she has born witness to the country's evolution."

2)... "creates a tension within the book that is arresting."

And overall, the Content section sounds rather obsequious as well.

Might rework myself when I have the time, but wanted to know what everyone thinks. LesserKeyofReason (talk) 16:28, 8 July 2021 (UTC)