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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Presidents of Pakistan/archive1

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

The list was promoted by Hahc21 10:01, 30 March 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

List of Presidents of Pakistan

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List of Presidents of Pakistan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Zia Khan 19:06, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I worked on the list for a while and it also went through a PR. I don't know how it'll do at FLC but I feel that it meets the standards. as always, comments and suggestions from anyone are appreciated. Thanks, Zia Khan 19:06, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Chamal T•C 12:29, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
;Comments
  • I'm a bit concerned about the party colours used in the table - a colour blind user may find it hard to read the text on some of them. It would be a good idea to use more contrasting colours for the text according to the background colour. See WP:COLOUR for further details and also some tools that you might find useful.
  • Not exactly. Sorry if I wasn't clear, my concern is that some of the background colours are quite dark and the symbols on them are dark as well. Therefore a colour blind user may only see a dark block and no symbol. Contrast between the background and the foreground text is the important point here. For example, in Help:Using colours, white text is used on darker backgrounds like blue or black. The recommendation for Wikipedia articles is WCAG 2.0's AA level, which you can check with this tool. It shows that black text on blue background, for example, don't meet those standards. Chamal T•C 15:34, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it would have been easier to change the font to a more contrasting colour like white on some of the darker backgrounds, but it's better now than it was. Looking back at the article, the party names are mentioned next to the colours so the symbols are less of an issue for accessibility anyway (strictly speaking in that sense, the symbols wouldn't even be needed). I'll just take another look at the article and see if there's anything else before I add my !vote. Chamal T•C 07:33, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is purely aesthetic but I think it'd look better if you could crop the image for Zia-ul-Haq to show it as a portrait shot, so it looks consistent with the other images.

Chamal T•C 04:02, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More comments

After looking at the lead, the following issues need to be addressed:

  • The second sentence The president holds an important title de jure... is long and confusing. Are the "true executive powers" different from "the powers to make decisions and executive authorizations" or are you explaining the executive powers with that phrase?
  • It says the president has limited ruling powers, and performs ceremonial duties after the 18th amendment, but two lines before that it implies that the president can make decisions on key matters with consultation and final confirmation of the prime minister. If the latter powers existed only before the amendment and is not the current situation, please mention that.
  • Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee → Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee ?
  • Six presidents have been members of a political party before taking the position. – By "before taking the position", do you mean that they gave up membership of said political parties after assuming presidency? If they were still members, make that clear and drop the before part. If you're trying to say that some other joined parties after becoming president, make that clear too.
    Changes made according to the suggestion. Zia Khan 15:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Four presidents were active party members of the Pakistan People's Party... – Is the PPP not a political party? If it is, then why are these four not included in the previous line where you mention six presidents being members of a political party? The distinction between them is not very clear.
  • Three of them gained power through one of the successful military coups – All three of them gained power from the same coup? That's highly unlikely considering the gaps in their tenures, but that's the impression this line gives.

All in all, I think the prose could do with some improvement for better clarity. There's technically no limit to the length of the prose even though it's a list article, so make sure that the points you give in the lead are explained adequately. Perhaps you could ask another editor to copyedit it; as the author you would know what the article says so having somebody else do it would help spot any errors more easily. Chamal T•C 12:29, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the revisit. Zia Khan 15:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Sorry for taking so long, I was a bit busy the last few days. I think the lead looks much better than it was, but there's a new problem. The sentence Since the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was passed..., while mentioning the situation after the amendment, leaves the reader completely in the dark about the situation before it. Did the president have considerable powers? What was Pakistan before becoming a "parliamentary democratic republic"? The reader is left with questions like this and no answers. A featured class article shouldn't leave the reader wondering or guessing; it should cover the necessary information properly. Chamal T•C 06:08, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
More Comments
  • ... the President have → has
  • military coups followed by political governments – All governments are political. I think you mean civilian governments as opposed to military rule, but again, reword it to make that clear.
  • The sentence Changes in the Constitution by... is not very clear, so I'd suggest rewording to something like These powers were repeatedly modified through amendments to the constitution, which were introduced as the results of military coupes and changes in government.
  • Why is the publisher of the first ref given as "presidentofpakistan.gov.pk" and the rest of the refs from that site give the publisher as "Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan"?
  • I feel the article is overly reliant on presidentofpakistan.gov.pk as a source when it doesn't need to be. You should try to find better, secondary sources whenever possible. For example, there are plenty of detailed news sources on the 18th amendment like 1 and 2. Chamal T•C 04:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 10:55, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Suggest you link "British monarch" in the hat note.
  • What happened between "Zulfikar Ali Bhutto" resigning and "Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry" taking control? There appears to be a day (or part of it) with no-one in charge...!
  • "with the United States and the allied powers in" -> "allied powers" should just say NATO if NATO is what you mean.
  • "Retrieved 16 january 2013." capital J.
  • Where is Daily Times published?

The Rambling Man (talk) 21:35, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from —Vensatry (Ping me) 13:55, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Senate of Pakistan linked twice in the lead
  • WP:ALT suggests try avoiding having the same details in both caption and alt text
  • Link "National Assembly of Pakistan" in refs
  • "President of Pakistan" isn't the Publisher for ref #2. Also I could not find any date of publishing in the link
  • "worldstatesmen" is a Tertiary source. Not sure if it can be used in place of a secondary source
  • The tertiary source, such as an encyclopedia or dictionary, resembles a secondary source in that it contains analysis, but attempts to provide a broad introductory overview of a topic. Zia Khan 08:21, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is Time Warner a news agency?
  • ate inconsistency in ref #22
  • Ref #18 has authors info missing
  • Since you've used Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in references the same shouldn't be used in External links
  • Not sure if the images are acceptable in public domain in US; the source of some the images is unclear.

—Vensatry (Ping me) 07:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've been asked to comment on this. The picture probably is in the public domain, but the File: page does not provide evidence of that. Until the File: page is expanded to include such evidence, use of the picture should be considered an WP:IUP violation. Goodraise 18:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comments

  • Constitution of Pakistan linked twice in the lead
  • A caption for the table could be added
  • In the key you say symbols but I cannot find any such ones except plain colors

—Vensatry (Ping me) 19:32, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

  • You could use "the" before Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee in the first paragraph.
  • Same goes for the two Pakistan Muslim Leagues in the fourth paragraph.
  • In ref 17, the parenthetical "newspaper" should be piped so the readers don't see it. They only need to see the newspaper itself (Dawn). Giants2008 (Talk) 22:23, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from —indopug (talk) 11:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
;Oppose

While I appreciate the effort you've put into articles such as this and the PMs list, I feel this article currently falls short of meeting the featured list criteria, mainly for the quality of sourcing and the visual appeal of the table.

  • Table:
  • Portraits: I recommend enlarging the pics to 100px, and uploading more closely cropped photographs of the following Presidents especially—Bhutto, Zia, Ghulam, Leghari, Tarar—although all the pics could use a closer crop for easy visibility. (see how much more elegant List of current Canadian first ministers is in this aspect).
  • "Political party (Alliance)"
  • None of these seem to be alliances, so why mention it in the header?
  • Pakistan Armed Forces is a political party?
  • Does a President officially even belong to a party? Here in India, the President must resign from his party before contesting the elections.
  • What is the purpose of having (difficult to read) party abbreviations (and those strange symbols) inside the coloured band, when the full party names are just besides? I again recommend looking at List of current Canadian first ministers for a better (more aesthetic, less redundant) way of doing this. You can also get rid of the key.
  • I don't know if the Note(s) column is a good idea at all; I think this article should confine itself to being a simple list of presidents. Otherwise, the column creates several complications—a need for good prose, neutral POV, high-quality sourcing ("Tarar was merely a figurehead" - very biased + source makes no mention Tarar at all) and length of the note (why is figurehead Tarar's note longer than Ayub and Yahya Khan's?).
  • 1928–1979 → 1928–79 per WP:YEAR.

I'll comment on the lead and the sources after we resolve these.—indopug (talk) 10:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind review, I expect more from you. Zia Khan 14:51, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Revisit The table's appearance has significantly improved with inclusion of the bigger, better-cropped pictures (I've replied about the acronyms+symbols within the party colours above). However, I can't redact my oppose on account of the poor sourcing.

  • in the table, the notes have refs within the text, and there is a separate ref column as well. I'm really confused as to why this is so, and what references what.
  • Where are the references for the Took office and Left office dates?
  • Why is "Mirza served as the last Governor-General of Pakistan and became the first president of Pakistan after the 1956 Constitution was promulgated, which established a republic" sourced to the 1973 constitution which 1) is a complex legal document and primary source, and hence not really a good source anyway and 2) doesn't even mention any of the things it is supposed to be backing.
  • Another example: barely anything in Farooq Leghari's note is backed by the three references in his row. This is just one example I checked at random, please audit throughout.
  • Several iffy sources and citations: the constitution (for reasons above), PakistanHerald.com (which is not the Herald (Pakistan) monthly magazine), DailyPakistan.com (again, which is not what the Daily Pakistan article is about; that is the Urdu newspaper DailyPakistan.com.pk).
  • Elections and terms: wouldn't elections occur before the start of a term? What is the logic of Ayub's second term, 1962-69, having its election in 1965? Same goes for Musharraf's first term.
Added notes there. Zia Khan 15:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

These are just a sampling of the problems I've listed here. I feel the primary issue with this article—(often contentious and opinionated) information being inadequately backed by reliable sources—is quite serious and require some detailed study to fix.—indopug (talk) 07:43, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the revisit. Zia Khan 15:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take another thorough relook tomorrow, but in the meantime, I urge you to check the lead and all the notes to see if the text is backed by what's in the source. For eg: "President Zardari has been a consistently strong U.S. ally in the war in Afghanistan" isn't really backed by the source, which only mentions Afghanistan in relation to an earthquake. As I said, I've listed just a sampling of the problems.
Another option is to rewrite the notes more objectively like in List of Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka (which you linked to above): how the person got into office, and how he got out; no mention of what he did in office as that could be subject to bias and be better left for the president's individual articles.—indopug (talk) 15:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Removed a little text from Musharraf and Zardari's entries. Zia Khan 17:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Further

Good job, I've struck my oppose. A few more issues before I can give my support:

  • The note at the top is unnecessary. The clarification in the main President of Pakistan article.
  • Lead, first para: can be trimmed a little. Remember that this is only to give a brief idea of what the office is; President of Pakistan has the details anyway.
  • Lead, last para: not sure if going into detail about the incumbent president is needed. Treat him like you do all the others; "The current president of Pakistan is Asif Ali Zardari of the PPP. He was elected president on 6 September 2008" should suffice.
  • Not a fan of "Political party/Pakistan Armed Forces" either (looks strange). I think you should leave it at "Political party", and for the military rulers, have a "None" under that column instead of PAF. Instead maybe you should add a symbol and give a colour to the entire row to indicate that weren't democratically elected?
  • What was the election date for Presidents 5, 7, 8, 9?
  • "...merely a figurehead, while the real power was exercised..." (2 occasions) seems a little too colloquial. Try something like "was the constitutional/de jure head of state, while de facto executive authority rested with..."—indopug (talk) 17:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support pending the resolution of one last reply above. FINALLY, we're there, excellent work. I hope you'll incorporate the relevant points into the prime ministers article as well.—indopug (talk) 06:10, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the Support! Zia Khan 11:55, 25 March 2013 (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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