Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sarawak/archive2

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 archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 11:24, 29 January 2017 [1].

Sarawak edit

Nominator(s): Cerevisae (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Sarawak, a territory on the island of Borneo. It is a state inside a country named Malaysia. It has one of the regions with the highest biodiversity in the world with the rich cultural heritage. It also has a unique history where indigeneous people accepted white people as their king (or White Rajah. Gunung Mulu National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rainforest World Music Festival is listed as "Top 25 Best International Festivals" by the magazine Songlines. This article has undergone GA and FA reviews, and peer review. I hope that it can achieve FA article status in this FA review. Any comments are welcomed for this article. Thanks! Cerevisae (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Drive by comments As an Australian military history nerd, the following statements jumped out at me:

"Allied forces later carried out Operation Semut to sabotage Japanese operations in Southeast Asia" - Semut was a fairly limited scale operation aimed at scouting in Borneo and starting a guerrilla war there, and didn't extend to other areas of South East Asia. See [2] - Done Cerevisae (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Intelligence gathered from the operation helped Allied forces (headed by Australia) to reconquer Borneo in May 1945 through Operation Oboe Six" - the Australian forces only liberated the island of Tarakan off the east coast of Borneo, Labuan, some bits of British North Borneo and Balikpapan by the time of the Japanese surrender: the rest of the island was in Japanese hands. Operation Oboe Six was the campaign in north Borneo, with the landings elsewhere in Borneo having different code names. Please see the Borneo campaign (1945) article for background and references. - Done Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"This led to the surrender of the Japanese to the Australian forces on 10 September 1945 at Labuan" - The Japanese forces surrendered as part of the general surrender of Japan, not due to the campaign during mid 1945. The Australians actually planned to leave the remaining Japanese in Sarawak well alone from about June 1945 as they'd captured the territory they were after (the oilfields and Brunei Bay) and the Japanese posed little threat. - Done Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Sarawak security was also the responsibility of Australia and New Zealand", with an implication that this started sometime around 1888 - this simply isn't correct. The source appears to be referring to the Five Power Defence Arrangements which was a relatively loose arrangement which came into effect well after the Second World War and applied to all of Malaya and involved several countries with the UK being the most important. Australian forces only served in Sarawak for a short period during the confrontation with Indonesia, and the Australian Government was fairly reluctant to get involved there. - Done. Removed the sentence. Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm surprised that no mention is made in the history section of Japan's brutal occupation policies in this region during the Second World War Nick-D (talk) 10:08, 19 January 2017 (UTC) - Not Done. I cannot find any notable Japanese atrocities in Sarawak, unlike the Sandakan Death March in North Borneo and Pontianak incidents in neighbouring Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Would greatly appreciate it if you are able to find one.Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I included a little bit of information on this topic at Battle of Labuan#Background. From memory, the book Rising Sun Over Borneo : The Japanese Occupation of Sarawak, 1941–1945 provided much more detail on this topic, and the bibliographic details for it are in that article. Nick-D (talk) 09:51, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info, but I have included a more detailed explanation of the Japanese occupation in the article "History of Sarawak". Generally, it is the harsh labour and ill treatment of the Japanese towards captured Allied soldiers and civilians in the internment camp. Cerevisae (talk)

Comment - I found examples of close-paraphrasing. In the article we have:

"Strongly export-oriented, the Sarawakian economy is susceptible to global commodity prices."

- Done. Rephrased. Cerevisae (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is close to:

"Nor Zahidi said the Sarawak economy is strongly export-oriented and therefore susceptible to volatile global commodity prices."

This is from this source [3], which is not cited in the article.

And, in the article:

"The Kuching Water Board (KWB) and the Sibu Water Board (SWB) are responsible for management of the water supply in their respective areas. The state-owned LAKU Management Sdn Bhd manages the water supply for Miri, Bintulu, and Limbang" -

Done. Rephrased. Cerevisae (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

is close to:

"Kuching Water Board (KWB) and Sibu Water Board (SWB) are the two Statutory Authorities that responsible for the management and provision of water supply services to Kuching and Sibu respectively, while State-owned LAKU Management Sdn. Bhd. manage the water supplies water to Miri, Bintulu and Limbang."

Which is from here [4]. Graham Beards (talk) 14:55, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - for now. I think more thorough checks are needed before this article can be considered for promotion. Graham Beards (talk) Graham Beards (talk) 11:40, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Dudley Miles:, @Edwininlondon:, and @Chipmunkdavis:, @Nikkimaria:, and @Sainsf: any other corrections need to be done? Thanks very much. Cerevisae (talk) 09:57, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: I think before we ping other reviewers, those concerns over close paraphrasing need to be at least responded to. If nothing is being done, I would be inclined to archive this quite early. Sarastro1 (talk) 00:36, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Above two concerns have been addressed on 21 January 2017. Cerevisae (talk) 10:34, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My concerns remain. I was rather worried about finding close-paraphrasing in an article that was not even cited. I would like to see further checks. There is an elephant in the room.Graham Beards (talk) 20:40, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I intend to carry out some checks in the next few days, but am not able to do so immediately. If you have more details that may be useful, uncited close paraphrasing can happen incidentally when discussing simple statements. CMD (talk) 04:24, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: Given that there are concerns about close paraphrasing, I think these are best addressed outside of FAC so I am going to archive. Before bringing it back, the whole article needs to be checked very carefully by someone experienced with the possible pitfalls of close paraphrasing. Sarastro1 (talk) 11:22, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 11:24, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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