Talk:Abrahams Commission

Status

...I'd recommend it for GA, meself Basket _Feudalist 17:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Improvements needed

See WP:BODY: Sections and subsections are introduced by headings. These headings clarify articles by breaking up text, organizing content, and populating the table of contents. Very short or very long sections and subsections in an article look cluttered and inhibit the flow of the prose.

Personal opinions without a direct citation or quote, for example "even though it had been badly managed and deforested" and "Many Africans living on Native Trust Land felt strong resentment at the large areas of under-used estate land."

See WP:OR: "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source."

The verifiability policy requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation. The first paragraph of the section "Abrahams Commission" has no inline citations.

If you believe that the article is appropriate for the summary style, then the lead section may need to be extended to cover the main points of the article.

Inline citations belong directly after the punctuation. Please use appropriate citation templates such as {{cite journal}}. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 09:50, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Tag-bombing is unhelpful. In comparison with many Wikipedia articles, this seems to be well written using a wide variety of published sources. You seem to be displaying an WP:IDONTLIKEIT approach. African usbjects are underrepresented on Wikipedia and this author here seems to be making a genuine effort to fill some missing gaps from Wikipedia:WikiProject Malawi/Index of Malawi-related articles. Do you genuinely want to discourage that sort of thing? Sionk (talk) 14:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree that the tag-bombing here was unhelpful. Adding five tags to any article is indiscriminate and needlessly discouraging, and this one is not at all so far gone to require drastic measures. Consider focusing on the areas you feel most need to be improved, and consider acknowledging the positive and the hard work here along with your long list of concerns. We're all volunteers here, after all! In any case, though, thanks for your work reviewing articles. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the two remaining tags on the article. Neither of this concerns listed under clean-up seem serious enough to merit an orange-level full article tag, and inline citations appear to cover the given claims. (If there are individual claims of concern, perhaps they could be flagged individually?) There seems to be a general consensus so far that these tags are unmerited (Sionk, Schscouldon, You Can Act Like a Man, and myself). Glad to discuss further if needed, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Abrahams Commission/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 01:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review. Initial comments to follow in the next 1-3 days. Thanks in advance for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Review

I've taken a first pass of the article. I think it's off to a good start, and I particularly thank you for working in a neglected area of Wikipedia--our coverage of African history is simply shameful. Unfortunately, though, I think this still has some work to do before it meets the Good Article criteria. My biggest concern is that the article needs copyediting to catch the numerous small errors. (If you're not comfortable doing this yourself, you might put in a request at WP:GOCE.) Speaking more broadly, the prose clarity would also be improved with less complicated sentence structures and shorter paragraphs. Specific points are below, but please note that this list isn't complete, only what I noted on a quick first read.

So I don't feel that this one is ready for GA at this time, but I hope it will be soon, and that you'll consider renominating it at that point. Your work is very much appreciated! -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Specific action points

• The many long paragraphs make this article a bit of a slog at times to read. Consider breaking them in a shorter (4-6 sentence) chunks.
• "Attorney general" --should either have both words capitalized or neither
• "the The African Lakes Company" -- appears to be word repetition
• "Eugene Sharrer Alexander Low Bruce" -- is there a comma missing here?
• " Eugene Sharrer Alexander Low Bruce, the son-in-law of David Livingstone and John Buchanan and his brothers" -- this list could use clearer punctuation
• "Similar claims were not upheld in northern Nyasaland, claims and were not recognised by government of Northern Rhodesia" -- not clear what the phrase "claims and were not" means here.
• "When the legality of the Certificates of Claim system was challenged in 1903 on the basis that the agreements made by the chiefs breached the rights of their community members, the Appeals Court upheld their validity, however it did rule that many aspects of the agreements made by the chiefs were unfair and one-sided" -- comma splice
• book titles under "sources" should be italicized. "Land and Politics in Malawi 1875-1975"" has a floating quotation mark.
• This isn't necessary for the GA criteria, but it would improve the article's readability to remove some repeat links--the crown, sovereignty, chiefs, etc.
• " the policy of Indirect rule" -- probably not necessary to capitalize "indirect rule" here--unless this policy is usually capitalized, in which case both words should be.
• "For many years after the initial shock of the John Chilembwe uprising " -- consider explaining briefly what this was.
• "where this with competed Europeans" -- is the word order switched here?
• "by reserving for the African living outside the estates" -- "African" should probably be plural here
• " reported in Nyasaland was unsuitable for settlement by large numbers of Europeans" -- should this be "reported that"?
• Consider alphabetizing the sources list for ease of reference.

Firstly, I'm grateful for your constructive comments; this was very helpful as the opinion of someone not directly involved in the subject puts it into context. Secondly, I feel rather embarrassed about the numerous small errors that crept in. I will deal with those you note and any others I can find, and have resolved to be more careful next time. I think the only one of your suggestions I have any doubts about is alphabetizing the sources list; it is currently in the order in which the sources first appear, which I find can be more helpful.

Regards, Shscoulsdon (talk) 08:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

No need to be embarrassed; it happens to me all the time, unfortunately, even with stuff I've re-read and re-edited; sometimes you just need a second pair of eyes. As for the source list order, there's no policy on it, so that's your call. Thanks again for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:33, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

After the Review

I've returned to this page after four-and-a-half years and a break from Wikipedia for personal reasons. First of all, thanks again to users You Can Act Like A Man, Sionk and especially Khazar2 for their helpful comments. I've re-read Khazar2's GA review and, to the extent the suggestions made have not been already put in place, I've made some edits to remove ambiguities and make it more readable, sometimes by splitting longer sentences.

I take on board Khazar2's point that it can be a bit of a slog, but can't agree with his solution of splitting paragraphs. First of all, this is a fairly technical subject concerning different concepts of land tenure and specific grievances only likely to be of interest to someone already knowledgeable in the topic, who could probably deal with the complexity. Secondly, it is my understanding that a paragraph is a collection of sentences in which a single topic is described and discussed. The paragraphs of the article run from three to ten sentences, and even the longer ones are single topic. Reducing the content of a paragraph to achieve some "magic number" of sentences amounts to dumbing-down, and splitting the existing paragraphs would be artificial. There is the added complication that, where one or more of the references for a longer paragraph cite a number of consecutive or particularly non-consecutive pages, it would require considerable work to reallocate these to the split paragraphs.

Finally, it is even more striking how negative were the comments of user Puffin. His/her tags were untrue or irrelevant and his/her comments can be divided into irrelevant trivia which, if he/she really thought were important he/she could have dealt with, and claims that the article contained original research or personal opinions merely show he/she could either not have read it properly or not with any understanding. I notice this user has since retired: perhaps no great loss.

Sscoulsdon (talk) 07:14, 16 November 2017 (UTC)