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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Akhtar Hameed Khan

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 15:17, 8 May 2008.

Akhtar Hameed Khan

edit

Self-nomination I believe it is time the article moves from GA to FA because it meets the criteria. IslesCapeTalk 19:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I don't believe that the section "Early life" reads particular well. It is rather disjointed. Bluap (talk) 21:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To me the philosophy bit needed elaboration. Hope it's better now. --IslesCapeTalk 14:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually referring to the bit before he joined the civil service. It's all "he did this", "he did that". The reference to his mother dying could be written in more elegant English. Bluap (talk) 16:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Improved. Added subjects studied earlier, also key influences.--IslesCapeTalk 18:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Issues resolved, Ealdgyth - Talk 14:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response
  • 'Hands On' is part of TVE, an international NGO supported by UN and other independent institutions.
  • Naseem Yousaf wrote a book on A H Khan. The cited text also indicates author's copyright notice. Website is dedictaed to the subject.
  • Banglapedia is a reliable academic source on Bangladesh.
  • Added. --IslesCapeTalk 13:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
* Works for me. All done! Ealdgyth - Talk 14:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All other links checked out okay. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional support Comments I did not know who Khan was before I read this article, so it was interesting for me to review. Thanks for bringing it to FAC! A few suggestions for improvement:
  • Try to find secondary sources to support the statements currently sourced to Khan's own writings about himself. People have a tendency to represent themselves in a positive light, so it is best to verify any statements someone makes about themselves with a secondary source. Autobiographical sources, in other words, are highly unreliable.
  • Could you add a bit of detail to the "Comilla project" section? It is a little vague at the moment - I had to click to really understand what the project was.
  • The "Death and legacy" section should be written in paragraphs, rather than in bullet points.
  • The article needs some general MOS fixes. The notes, for example, do not follow a standard pattern, nor does the "Reference" list. For the "References", try following MLA or Chicago style.
  • The "External links" should ideally list where the link is going. It is a courtesy to the reader. Ex: "Talk given by Khan at Youtube".
  • I am not sure that the image of Khan is actually in the public domain, despite the disclaimer on the website. I don't think it is because the person on the website is not explicitly the owner of the image. You might want to have someone else check into this - I am no expert on these matters.

I hope these comments help. Awadewit (talk) 04:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response Thanks for the remarks. In fact working on the article has been an ongoing learning experience. Especially, reviewers comments help discover more and more about the subject.
  • Replaced autobiographical sources
  • Elaborated on the structure of Comilla Model
  • Improved Death and legacy section
  • Citations have been streamlined.
  • External links improved
Resolved issues from Maralia (talk) 05:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments I've done a very rough copyedit on this. Some remaining issues:

  • Some prose work is needed. Examples:
  • "Khan was fluent in five international languages" - 'international language' doesn't convey a clear meaning to me. The elaboration on this later in the article ("Khan was fluent in Arabic, Bengali, English, Hindi, Pali, Persian, and Urdu") still leaves me confused; is the intent to distinguish languages from dialects?
  • "On his two years ICS probation, he read literature and history" - what does probation mean here?
  • "During this time, he also remained President of the East Pakistan Non-Government Teachers' Association." - during what time? 'remain' implies that you have laid out when he got this position, but I don't see any mention other than this sentence.
  • "on the principle of grassroots level cooperative participation by the people" - almost all of these words mean the same thing.
  • "This strategy successfully prevented the types of 'elite capture' of local cooperatives, leading to widespread delinquencies, that had plagued the Comilla Model." - I can't understand this sentence.
  • This article suffers from overlinking. Many very common words are linked that do not need to be (examples: history, village, education), and many words are repetitively linked (examples: Sufi, rural/rural development).
  • Most, if not all, of the 'See also' links are redundant to links already in the article text.
  • The 'Death and legacy' section needs to be rewritten to remove proseline.
  • The citations in the 'Advisory roles' section need to be tightened up; for example, there should not be a credentials-related statement such as "He also briefly worked as a visiting professor at Lund University, Harvard University, and Oxford University" without a citation.
  • Only one of the items in 'Honours and awards' is cited. Strangely, the award citation for one of these is listed later under External links.
  • Some of the book citations are missing page numbers; some of the online citations need access dates; a few citations need formatting work (examples: italicize the journal Dawn Magazine; add a period at the end of "Khan (1996), pp. xii").
  • Where linked references are in a non-html format like PDF, please indicate as such in the reference listing with (PDF) after the title.
  • "Practical help was sought from international experts in farming apart from training foreign participants on rural development." - this appears to be two unrelated phrases tacked together.
  • This is now "Practical help was sought from international experts apart from training foreign participants on rural development, at Comilla Academy." which still leaves me confused.
  • Alternatively, some less common words would benefit from interwiki linking. Examples: grassroots seems a concept inherently important to this article, but it is not linked ever; common good would be a better link than 'common well-being'.
  • Did you object to adding a link to grassroots, or did it get removed during cleanup of overlinks? I still feel it would be a useful link. Additionally, please fix the two differing uses: you have 'grassroots level initiatives' and 'grassroots-level participation'.
  • Please add the citation for the visiting professor sentence (I know you meant to, but it isn't there).
  • Please add the publishers for:
  • Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan - The Pioneer of Microcredit
  • "Orangi Pilot Project"
  • Agriculture and Human Values
  • A posthumous tribute to the man who silently brought about a social revolution in Pakistan
  • 7th Death Anniversary — A Tribute to Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan
  • I'm concerned about the provenance of the image; at the linked site, I don't see an explicit claim of ownership nor an explicit release of rights.
  • Any progress on this?

Thanks for a good read. I had not heard of Mr. Khan before, but found this particularly interesting as I've just read a book on Paul Farmer's grassroots approach toward providing healthcare to the poor in Haiti. Maralia (talk) 04:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response
  • Improved all prose work
  • Repetitive links removed
  • Common good apparently relates to the access of specific resources to specific communities. Well-being, on the other hand, has wider implications (e.g. from sanitation to microfinance, and from welfare to health provision)
  • See also links updated
  • The citation actually covers the visits, so moved to the end of para.
  • All honours and awards are now cited.
  • Added access dates to all online citations. (reworking some book citations)--IslesCapeTalk 14:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • done.

Cheers.--IslesCapeTalk 12:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've struck/hidden resolved issues, and added a few hopefully minor ones above. I took a stab at rewriting the 'Death and legacy' section to clean up some unwieldy prose; please review it carefully to make sure I've not misstated anything. I also fixed some footnote formatting: note for the future that 'p' is for single page citations and 'pp' is for page ranges/multiple pages. Maralia (talk) 05:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. As for the second phase of your comments:
  • I've removed second part of 'practical help...' as it recurs in subsequent para added recently.
  • grassroots is linked now.
  • visiting professor is cited in the same page range, so i've moved citation
  • For publishers, I've replaced those that I couldn't find info of. For 'Orangi Pilot Project', you'll have to be precise as to which ref is missing because there are 2 and to me both are comprehensive. Agriculture and Human Values is a reputed journal, and per author-date style, I don't have to provide publisher info. Direct access isn't possible due to subscription restrictions, so I've linked with contents page.
  • dealing with image issues. Cheers.--IslesCapeTalk 17:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Argh! Days ago I went through all your citations and cleaned up pp./p., fixed dashes->hyphens in page ranges, added missing full stops, etc - but you keep adding new cites/changing existing ones, resulting in more that need fixing! Should I have made you fix them all yourself so you'd learn? :) Really, though, all my concerns have now been addressed except the issue of the image release. I'm ready to support once that's cleared up. Maralia (talk) 04:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, some people never change;) but I'm learning! Actually I've been through this article so many times that I need another pair of eyes :( --IslesCapeTalk 18:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support All issues addressed. Well done! Maralia (talk) 14:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Conditional) Support. I've made some minor edits to this interesting and generally well-written article.[1] The last sentence of the Lead section is still a little untidy, but I can't find the solution, perhaps it needs splitting into two? *Special orientation seems a strange expression, what exactly does this mean?

Response
  • Split the sentence. Pls see if it works.
  • Have simplified to as written in citation!
Issues resolved. Karanacs (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • I believe there should be a citation for "Khan's upbringing influenced his interest in historical as well as contemporary social, economic, and political affairs."
  • This may need a citation "During the stay, he developed close friendship with Choudhary Rahmat Ali."
  • I don't like the fact that info about his children and second marriage were hidden in the footnotes. That is information important enough to be included in the text.

Karanacs (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Well-written, well-cited, and appears to be comphrensive. Karanacs (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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