Talk:Hua Guofeng's cult of personality

Hua Guofeng's cult of personality was nominated as a History good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (August 25, 2024, reviewed version). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

China: History / Politics Low‑importance

	China portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject China, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of China related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChinaWikipedia:WikiProject ChinaTemplate:WikiProject ChinaChina-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Chinese history (assessed as Low-importance).
	This article is supported by WikiProject Chinese politics (assessed as Low-importance).

GA Review

Unsuccessful. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:06, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is transcluded from Talk:Hua Guofeng's cult of personality/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Karkafs Desiderium (talk · contribs) 10:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk · contribs) This looks interesting. 05:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	"was the attempted cult of personality of Hua Guofeng, who became the second Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1976 until 1981, after the death of former Chairman Mao Zedong." This setence is a bit long and I feel like it could be split up for better readibility. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] "When the founder of the People's Republic of China and first Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, died in 1976 his newly appointed successor, Hua Guofeng, was relatively unknown to the public at the start of his rule." This sentence is again a bit too long and could be reworded. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Usually in the lede of an article you should try to summerize the content in the body of the article. For this reason ledes don't generally contain citations. I think the lede for this article needs to be rewritten to include less citations and more information from the body. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:05, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2. Verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I was not able to access "Nakajima, Mineo (2002). 北京烈烈: 文化大革命とは何であったか [Beijing Fierce: What was the Cultural Revolution?] (in Japanese). Kodansha. ISBN 978-4061595477." which is used throughout the article so I cannot verify those parts. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] "but with the rise of Deng Xiaoping he became more and more unpopular, inside and outside the party. At the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee Deng took control of China and Hua's cult was thus stopped." The source you provided does not back up this claim. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] "Over the next four years Hua lost most of his power, by 1982 he was reduced to an ordinary member of the Central Committee. He left the committee in November 2002 and died in August 2008." The source you provided for this is a dead link and the archived version you included doesn't seem to work. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] "When the founder of the People's Republic of China and first Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, died in 1976 his newly appointed successor, Hua Guofeng, was relatively unknown to the public at the start of his rule." The source you provided for this doesn't list a page number. This book is over 400 pages so a page number is needed here. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] "In late 1976 Hua Guofeng launched a nationwide campaign to criticize the Maoist political faction "The Gang of Four" and rehabilitate some of those punished during the Cultural Revolution" Your first source (ref 9) doesn't back any of this up and I think could be removed. Your second source (ref 10) only backs up parts of this statement. I might be missing something here tho. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] I was unable to find the source "MacFarquhar, Roderick; Schoenhals, Michael (2008-03-15). Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674027480." however I didn't look very hard so I will come back to this. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] Also not able to access "Gewirtz, Julian (2022). Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674241848." will come back to this. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] I don't think Listverse is considered a reliable source. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 02:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] Due to the number of source checks that failed I am going to stop my source check at the second section. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:05, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	2c. it contains no original research.	Per above. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:05, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	The lede and first section don't have any plagerism issues however I did not source check the rest and therefore cannot verify that the rest of the article is original, however it did pass the copyvio test. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:05, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	You used the term "cult of personality" several times throughout the article. I feel like it would make sense for you to define this term since most people don't know what it means. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 21:09, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] I'm also not really understanding how this was a cult. Usually, with cults, there are specific behaviours seen in the leaders that distinguish it as a cult vs. just a political party. I do not see this in the article. Is there any way you could go more into depth about what made this a cult and how Hua Guofeng's behaviour reflected that of a cult? For example in the page Mao Zedong's cult of personality it specifically goes over the characteristics of the cult and talks about propaganda and such. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 21:09, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply] You talked quite a bit about how Hua Guofeng associated himself with Mao Zedong. I feel like it would make sense to say why this is significant and those not familiar with China's politics might not understand the significance of Mao Zedong. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 21:09, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	I had to look at some other pages to make sure that this one passed just because I wasn't familiar with the format for this type of article. The article does a good job of including some background info on Hua Guofeng without going into unnecessary detail. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 21:09, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Great use of images in the article! CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
	7. Overall assessment.	I don't feel that this article is currently at GA status. The main issue here is the referances. Listverse isn't a very strong source and it would be great if you could find a better source for this article. One of the sources is a dead link with a broken archive link. Another source doesn't include the page number. It would be great if you could see what other sources are out there for this topic. I also think this article needs more context. A lot of this article relies on the reader understanding the political climate in China at the time. I'm not very familiar with this type of article but more context could be given around some of the names used in the article and political climate at the time. Additionally I feel like the article didn't fully explain how this was a cult. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:05, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Upon looking into things further I have now realized that some of my statements regarding 3a came from my lack of knowledge on the topic. However I do feel that it is important that you do clarify what a cult of personality is and how Hua Guofeng's fit that in order to make it easily understood to a broad audience. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:20, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]