Talk:Spanish Civil War/GA2

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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GA Reassessment

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GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

• There's an unresolved neutrality tag due to systemic bias on the article for a while. As a result, the article no longer meets criterion 4 - "It follows the neutral point of view policy".

That appears to have been removed. Jezhotwells (talk) 12:47, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

1. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   It seems like newly attracted zealots just started to resort to edit wars to remove the tag they don't like. 84.52.101.196 (talk) 14:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

2. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

3. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I would like some proper comment on whether the section above is still actually biased, rather than merely asserting that it is based on the use of the neutrality tag. I believe that I have clarified and dealt with those concerns. If it were up to me I would simply remove it, but I am retiscent to do so myself where I have been part of the process. The criterion is that the article is actually not biased, and a tag itself can never be sufficient to show this. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I am new to the discussion, having only stumbled into it when I came to look something up. Having no particular axe to grind, let me make the following observations:

The tag has been up since December, and there is no justification for having a major article flagged like that for two months. Anyone thinking there's a problem should have addressed it by now. If the article suffers from anti-Soviet bias, it isn't obvious to me, and there should be plenty of pro-Soviet publications in the world to correct the balance. The fact that none has been introduced suggests to me that the claim of bias is rather exaggerated.

The basis for the allegation of bias is that the sources cited are unreliable, based in large part on a comparison to the Spanish version of the article. The Spanish Wikipedia isn't itself a citable source. An editor's critique of the reliable source cited in this article is also not a basis for flagging the article; that evaluation is definitionally original research. Consequently, I have removed the bias flag. DCB4W (talk) 05:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

"I stand by the factual claims"

"We're relying on the judgement of a reliable soure on that one."

I believe you were unable to find any factual claims in your heavily biased source, and just refuse to admit that no such claims exist there, only some vague words. I also believe the warning banner above is required, so people can go to talk page and see for themselves on what "reliable sources" this article is based on 84.52.101.196 (talk) 20:32, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

"heavily biased source" - do you mean Beevor and/or Payne and/or Howson? These books are by acclaimed academics. These are leading books on the Spanish Civil War and they're published on major publishers. The discussion above is about the "Soviet Union" section - do you refer to anything else? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:57, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." (c) guess who? It's not only the other people who are being brainwashed and live in a well orchestrated mythology, it might as well be you. Those "acclaimed academics" have absolutely no basis for their statements, as was shown above. And guess what? They are all British! Hence the systemic bias tag. 84.52.101.196 (talk) 02:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

So apart from the opinion of the one anonymous editor that the reliable sources relied upon are systematically biased (i.e. "So British"-- fortunately he's above bias), is there any reason to think the article is ACTUALLY biased? Bear in mind that allegations of bias have to themselves be based on a reliable source. No Wikipedia editor's personal opinion re: Beevor is relevant. DCB4W (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

"is there any reason to think the article is ACTUALLY biased?" Yes, there are actually 2 reasons sir:

First. The refs have absolutely nothing to back up their statements. Furthermore article uses their opinions and estimations, rather than facts. Hence the wording. E.g. instead of "X peaces of equipment was of model Y from year Z" it says "most of the equipment were relics"

Second and most important. The Spanish and Russian articles about the subject ( the actual involving parties ) have no such negative flavour about soviet involvement. Only the English has it. And as we figured out without any facts behind it. Only opinions of the British myth writers "acclaimed academics". 84.52.101.196 (talk) 02:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

You're rather missing the point here. Individual editors don't get to fact-check reliable sources. If an issue is controversial and you have questions about the veracity of a reliable source, then find another reliable source and use that as a basis for either removing the cited statement, or including another statement in the article to indicate the dispute. If you have a source that does so (not a foreign language Wikipedia article, although the sources cited in that article would be relevant), you've been curiously reluctant to mention it in this debate. You may consider the "acclaimed academics" to be myth-writers, but your opinion is irrelevant. (Unless, of course, you are yourself an acclaimed academic and you have a published work to back up your opinion. In which case, cite it.) DCB4W (talk) 05:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

"You're rather missing the point here." Or rather you do. It is not about lack of refs, or their reliability, it is about systemic bias. Please make an effort and familiarize yourself with the essence of it at the according page 84.52.101.196 (talk) 12:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Again, what's the basis for alleging the systemic bias? Your evaluation? That's insufficient. You need a reliable source to critique the sources cited in the article. I'll check back in 48 hours before I remove the tag again, to give you or anyone else a chance to actually provide a source. DCB4W (talk) 18:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Question about Beevor: About 41% of this article is based on one source - Beevor (99 cites out of 238). However Beevor's work is not found in the Bibliography section. Is it The Spanish Civil War published in 1984 by Orbis? Articleye (talk) 09:09, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

It's in the bibliography as "Beevor, Antony (1982, 2006). The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-84832-1. First published as The Spanish Civil War." Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have missed it earlier. Articleye (talk) 12:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• How goes the review? AIRcorn (talk) 11:33, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that this article should lose its Good Article status and should be simply translated from the Spanish article which is of much higher quality. This would at once deal with the issues of bias. Isthisuseful (talk) 23:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• I think this so-called re-assessment should be concluded immediately. It was initiated as an individual re-assessment by User:Articleye who has not edited since 7 March. I conclude that it has been abandoned. Jezhotwells (talk) 12:47, 9 May 2013 (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.