Talk:Ion Antonescu/GA1

GA Review

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Good article, however there are two minor issues in my eyes: A bit more illustration for the early parts of the biography would be nice. Furthermore, too many sentences, especially in the introduction, are phrased like the following: "The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships. A Romanian Army career officer who made his name during the 1907 peasants' revolt and the World War I Romanian Campaign, the antisemitic Antonescu sympathized with the far right and fascist National Christian and Iron Guard groups for much of the interwar period. A military attaché to France and later Chief of the General Staff, he briefly served as Defense Minister in the National Christian cabinet of Octavian Goga." Reviewer: Gliese876 (talk) 20:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot find any more images than what are there now; I've also tidied up the language in the intro. Nergaal (talk) 21:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That red link right in the first sentence should be dealt with. Aside from that I have no objections concerning the nomination.--Gliese876 (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing that out; it was a mistake I did, but fixed it. Nergaal (talk) 22:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, I think the article breaks the comprehensiveness guideline in that the article is way overdetailed. With over 100kb of prose, There should at least be something that can be divided. I don't know if anyone will have the patience to give a true review at this size. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 00:01, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After reading though some of this article at least, I've decided to fail the article under the broadness guideline. At 117kb of prose, the article is just far too long for comfort, and it would be a pain to read through all of it. Personally, I would say that the article needs to be trimmed and the content forked into article subsections, like is done with Samuel Johnson (as long as his article is, it's only half the length of this). If you disagree with it being too long, then trying for MILHIST A-class is probably a better option than GA, since you'll get more constructive and frequent comments, though I imagine they would say the same thing. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 05:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And I respectfully disagree. For one, Samuel Johnson and other such examples, where the narrative was cut into random bits, are in my view examples of a failure: the imposition of (exaggerated) technical requirements on what should be a unitary text. Simply splitting this article into such random bits is especially problematic. For one, an actual comparison with Samuel Johnson will reveal that the level of detail is similar, but the scope of the information, for practical reasons, is not: nothing of what Johnson did impacted as much on the history of entire nations, nor did his choices cover one of the most unusual and ambivalent positions in a world phenomenon such as the Holocaust. This article here says the essential minimum when compared to what the sources themselves cover - it just says the minimum about many things, all of those things being relevant to the subject.

There is also a destructive potential to splitting this article into bits: not only do I believe (immodestly) that the article as is is a very good example of what wikipedia articles are supposed to be, and therefore very close to quality standards (if not necessarily to some technical restrictions), but splitting it would produce tiny articles which would not be such good examples, in part or as a whole. And even if such forks would be conceivable in this case, I don't picture how the article we now have could be reduced to more of a summary - other than simply cutting the bits and moving them elsewhere; this text is a summary, so those details could only be removed from the text entirely - meaning the\at we will have smaller incoherent articles saying different things, when this article offers a narrative connection between all the things that would otherwise come out of nowhere.

And the comment also ignores another essential element, one that can't even begin to apply in Johnson's case: the article is as detailed because it details a controversy, not just the many facts, but also the many prominent opinions issued on the subject. The potential of removing or reallocating these? And just how much shorter would the article be once we acknowledge the need for summarizing the debate? These are questions that, I believe, will be evident if one actually reads the article - in fact, I find it very questionable that a reviewer can reject the article while noting that s/he has not actually read it.

And finally: other than people reviewing the entire content for a reason that is out of the ordinary (those interested in the text itself, for example the reviewers), the regular reader would not actually need to read a structured text to browse for a specific info. Sure, someone can read the entire article if s/he so chooses, but the very reason why we present info in a structured way, with sections and footnotes, with some internal links repeated periodically, and following content guidelines on how the info itself should be presented, is so that the reader can navigate the text without losing context. This, I believe, is fully achieved here. So I don't believe it constitutes a real objection to imply that the article can't be promoted because of a regular reader's comfort: the text is clearly structured into topical parts that elaborate on the generic context; a literate person who is also familiar with wikipedia formats can be expected to find his place in the text without having to read it word by word, top to bottom. Someone doesn't get a clearer view of King David by removing Adam from the Bible: all that person has to do, if s/he is looking for coverage of David's reign, is not to read through Genesis; the Bible will continue to feature both accounts, because they are both relevant to the subject.

Before the GA review (which, incidentally, I did not ask for nor followed beyond two comments I made), I've personally made sure that this article was reviewed by an established editor, who, unlike me, is also a highly competent English speaker. The result of this review, which can be read in the archived discussion, was not just a set of badly needed copyedits (for which I am very, very thankful), but also the following verdict, which is still on the article's talk page: "The article might be a bit overlong by Wikipedia standards, but it is hard to see anything that is really off-topic or redundant. I think it justifies its length. The degree of citation is impressive." Independently of this comment, another user asserted: "I found this article (in particular the 'Antonescu and the Holocaust' section) to be the most detailed and best researched overview of Holocaust in Romania." I was told that other users too have read the entire article and found it a good introduction to the topic.

This is the feedback of users who have read the entire article, or at least parts of it they have found relevant (in the manner described above). So, yes, it can be done, it has been done, and it should be expected that someone assess the merits of the entire text, and I must reject the assumption that something justifiably long is bad on principle. Quite the opposite: an article is always more than the sum of its conceivable parts. Dahn (talk) 10:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]