Wikipedia:Peer review/Somalis in the United Kingdom/archive1

Somalis in the United Kingdom

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it has been the subject of significant debate in the past, and with only a few editors contributing there has been rather a lot of edit warring. Now that a stable version of the article appears to have been achieved, I'd like to get an outsider's view on how to improve it further and perhaps get it to good article status. Comments on the Money transfer operators section of the article would be particularly welcome, given the discussion here. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:55, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I was one of the "edit warriors" Cordless Larry is talking about. After my last edit I disengaged and only came back recently to see that the single-purpose account had also disappeared. Still, the article has been much expanded recently and looks in reasonably good shape. I think we should add some info on topics such as education, clan structure (touched upon in Community organisations), and expand Community organisations and some other sections. I still think the Social issues and solutions section is disproportionately small and unbalanced given the large amount of stuff written on this. I realise it's a sensitive topic and might offend people, though that's no reason to keep it out the article.

We also need to have page numbers for all the citations where it's needed; some have them but a few don't. For this, I prefer splitting the citations to each page rather than combining them and using the rather clumsy {{rp|3}} template to give the page number. There was also a problem with the single-purpose account erasing reliable sources that disagreed with his opinion, or of demanding very up-to-date sources where this may not be available.

The music section seems to be a discussion of Somali music in general rather than in the UK. Some sources that link the two would be good. There may also be too much detail on Mo Farah. The Money transfer operators section was an insertion by the single-purpose account and goes into excruciating detail ("including one [branch] in Dubai") and reads like advertising: "In 2008, Dahabshiil's CEO, Abdirashid Duale, was awarded Top Manager of the Year by the International Association of Money Transfer Networks in recognition of the outstanding services that the firm offers its clients." "Outstanding services"? Somewhat surprised that Cordless Larry has been reluctant to touch this section.

Also the 250,000 estimate has been reported by many media organisations not just the BBC e.g. [1]. I suppose the main issue is the general sweeping-under-the-carpet of the problematic issues like crime, terrorism (which has no mention at all), poverty etc. It may also be worth notifying the main editors of the article of this peer review, including the single-purpose account. Christopher Connor (talk) 06:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've now informed other recent editors. Thanks for the tip. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:29, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Just to note that the money transfer operators section has been trimmed since I posted the review request. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for all of your work on this, here are some suggestions for improvement.

• There is a major cleanup banner at the top of the article "This article cites its sources but does not provide page references. You can help to improve it by introducing citations that are more precise." This would actually disqualify the article for PR normally
• I think that the lead does not meet WP:LEAD. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way but most of the headers in the article do not seem to be mentioned in the lead.
• Is there any chance for more images? Perhaps a map or two? Or are there more prominent Somalis in the UK who there are free iamges of?
• I would try to make it clearer what sentences like this refer to - just the UK or all of Europe? Between 1985 and 2006, Somalis figured among the top ten largest groups of asylum seekers.[14]
• Try to avoid vague time expressions - use things like the current year or as of YEAR instead. Over time these can quickly become outdated. Just in the lead there is Recent unofficial estimates reported by media organisations suggest that up to 250,000 Somalis may now live in the UK. What is recent here? When does now refer to? Or this During the 1980s and 1990s, the civil war in Somalia lead to a large number of Somali immigrants, comprising the majority of the current Somali population in the UK. might be better if ended with ... comprising the majority of the Somali population in the UK as of 2010.
• Provide context to the reader - for example in The UK has historically been close to Somalia, through its involvement in the British Somaliland protectorate. it would help to give the year this was established.
• Is any sort of number known for Refugees and asylum seekers? How many refugees fled Somalia and how many of these came to the UK originally?
• Secondary migration - can anything more be said about Somalis coming to the UK from Sweden and Denmark? Currently this section is almost all Netherlands.
• First sentence of Population and distribution is pretty long and complex - could it be broken into two sentences for clarity?
• Since we later learn Arabic is also an official language of Somalia, change this from "the official language" (implies one and only) to "an official language" The Somali language is the mother tongue of the Somali people, and the official language of Somalia.
• There are some short (one or two sentence) paragraphs and sections that impede the flow of the article. These should be combined with others where possible, or perhaps expanded. For example, Education and Community organisations are each only two sentences long.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ruhrfisch. These comments are very helpful and I'll try to act on them when I get the time. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)