Talk:Economic history of Argentina/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk · contribs) 14:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will review. Pyrotec (talk) 14:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Initial comments

This article has been sitting around for a long time at WP:GAN (in round figures, five months), and its also quite a long article, so for these two reasons I decided to review it.

I think that this article could make GA-status this time time. On the plus side, it appears to be comprehensive (its long); it's well illustrated and well referenced. On the minus side, I don't believe that the WP:Lead is compliant (in addition, its not easy to read); and I don't like the Colonial economy section, most of that was stating what Argentina was not. I would have expected an encyclopaedia, and that is what wikipedia is, to state what a "thing" is, not what a "thing" is not. On that basis, not not going to "quick fail" this article: I will review it.

I'm now start a full review of this article, section by section. I normally leave the WP:Lead until last and I will do the same here. However, in this review I'm going to start at the Post-independence transition section, work my way to the end, then do Colonial economy and then the Lead.

As this is a long article, this part of the review is likely to take me several days.

I'm quite happy for the nominator and/or other editors to post comments, questions, etc. If they relate to a particular section of the review, I'm happy for them to immediately follow my comments. Pyrotec (talk) 16:12, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Post-independence transition -
- 1810–1829 -

Y Pyrotec (talk) - Time is rather "difficultly" addressed, if at all. The subsection title is "1810–1829", but the first paragraph has no dates; the second paragraph starts "During this period, ..", but there are discussions covering 1810-1850 and 1850-1870, and the third paragraph goes back to start at "between 1812 and 1816".
Y Pyrotec (talk) - I think that "time" needs to be added to the first paragraph. This could be done with minimal effort in the first sentence of the first paragraph by, adding for example, "With independence, in 1818, an era in which commerce was controlled by a small group of peninsular merchants came to an end.". The same could be done for "The first government" and the first and second Triumvirates.

I have added a few dates to this section. There is a bit of overlap between the rule of Artigas and the Supreme Director so it's hard to tell when one began and the other ended without access to the source.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Y Pyrotec (talk) - Sorry to come back to this again. The second paragraph states off: "During this period", but it is unclear as to what that means. The subsection title is "1810–1829", but most of this paragraph is covering six decades of growth (in cattle exports) from 1810 to 1870, but it ends on Terms of Trade from 1810 and 1825.

The period under analysis in that paragraph is "between independence and the golden age", so it covers the wider 1810-70 period. I moved it out of the subsection accordingly.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Y Pyrotec (talk) - In the third paragraph Battle of Cepeda needs a date.

Done.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- Placemarker - provinces to be added later, or removed).

Y Pyrotec (talk) - I think the fifth paragraph should say "lack of an Argentine merchant fleet ....".

Done.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Y Pyrotec (talk) - The seventh paragraph has a {{says who}} flag and the last paragraph has {{citation needed}} flag.

I deleted the unsourced claims, and removed the 'says who' tag as the word 'notorious' appears in the original source.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- 1829–1870 -

....stopping for now. To be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 17:02, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks OK.

Export-led boom -

....stopping for now. To be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 18:15, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks OK.

- 1870–1890, Baring crisis to World War I -

Looks OK.

Interwar period -

Hi Pyrotec, and thank you for taking the time to review this article. I agree with most of your comments so far, and in particular with your criticism of the lead. Large swathes of this section, namely the parts outlining the opinions of different scholars on the causes of Argentina's troubles, were added just days ago; perhaps they should be moved to a separate section. Adding dates to the 1810–1829 should prove easy (Cambalachero might be able to help with the phrases quoting Norberto Galasso's books), but solving the issues with the "Colonial economy" section might be harder, because relatively little has been written about Argentina's economy during that period, and much of it is not freely available on the internet.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 13:12, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi eh bien mon prince, thanks for your comments. My plan is to complete this stage of the review and I'll probably then put the review "On Hold" whilst the problems are fixed. If I ask for something to be fixed that can't be fixed due to (say) lack of references. Put a comment directly under mine stating the problems. We can discuss it and possibly come to some agreement. In the worst case, if there is no reference for something that needs a reference (see WP:WIAGA cluase 2(b)) it might be necessary to remove the statement (or reword it). Pyrotec (talk) 13:22, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interwar period (continued) -

Looks OK.

Relative lag -

Looks OK.

Stagnation

Y Pyrotec (talk) - The third paragraph has the term "tablita": I don't know what this is and I can't find it in wikipedia. It needs clarification.
Y Pyrotec (talk) - In the final paragraph the term "heterodox package" needs a link or clarification.

The definition of 'tablita' and a link to the appropriate article for 'heterodox package' have been added.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Free-market reforms -

Y Pyrotec (talk) - The last but one paragraph of the previous section states: "the Austral substituting the discredited peso.", but in the third paragraph of this section it states: "The cornerstone of the reform process was a currency board, under which the peso was fixed by law at par to the dollar ....". A step seems to be missing (or perhaps this is a grammar problem - it does not say that the peso has come back.

Something was indeed missing: the peso replaced the austral in 1992. This has been corrected.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Economic crisis & Return to growth -

These two sections look OK.

Colonial economy -

Y Pyrotec (talk) - The first three paragraphs aught to be re-written. I see this as a problem of poor grammar: they mostly state what Argentina "was not". Part of the first paragraph could be rewritten (for example) as:

Present-day Argentina, unlike Mexico or Peru, did not become an important centre of the Spanish colonial economy because it had fewer economic advantages.[8] There were no deposits of gold or other precious metals (even though the name Argentina means 'land of silver')[9] nor established native civilizations to subject to the encomienda. Only two-thirds of present Argentina was occupied: almost one third of the consisted of the Patagonian Plateau, which was unoccupied during ......

I'm not insisting that it is done this way. I don't regard the current text as "well written" as per WP:WIAGA and this is one way of reusing the existing text and citations to improved readability.
The final three paragraphs are OK.

I have made a few changes to the wording in this section.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Lead -

Y Pyrotec (talk) - This should comply with WP:Lead, that is provide both an introduction to the topic and summarise the main points (in a way that reflects their importance). There is quite a lot of material in the Lead that does not appear anywhere else in the article. This is regarded as "teasing"
The first paragraph is a single-sentence paragraph, but it reads like an lecture, as do the third, fourth and fifth paragraphs.
The term/phrase "Argentine paradox" used in the first paragraph appears nowhere else in the article.
Di Tella used in the third and fourth paragraph appears nowhere else.
Duncan and Fogarty appears nowhere else.
Díaz Alejandro appears nowhere else.
Note: if these sources are important (not my decision to make), they should appear in the body of the article and depending on their relative importance, appear in the Lead in summarised form. Pyrotec (talk) 19:28, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I moved most of the 'teasing' material to a new section (causes of progressive decline), and restored an earlier version of the lead.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At this stage I'm putting the review On Hold. I'm willing to respond to any or all of these points (it helps if specific comments are place below the point in the review where I have made them). Pyrotec (talk) 16:40, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

An interesting and informative article on the Economic history of Argentina

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:
Well referenced.

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
Well referenced.

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
Well illustrated.

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Well illustrated.
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
This article has been much improved, so I'm pleased to be able to award it GA status.

Congratulations on a fine article. I suspect that with a bit more work this article could possibly make WP:FAC, but I would recommend submitting it to WP:PR first. The WP:Lead, I suspect, would need some more work to take it beyond GA. However, this is a good article and quite a strong Good Article. Pyrotec (talk) 20:01, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]