Talk:K money trail/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Daniel Case (talk · contribs) 05:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, since this was nominated in June and the only two attempts at reviews were politically motivated vandalism (basically), I will take care of it before the New Year. As I usually do, I will print it out and review the hard copy, so it may be a while before I can comment. But I am reviewing it. Daniel Case (talk) 05:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Happy New Year, Feliz Aňo Nuevo. I have made some minor copy edits and now I have reached my decision.

When I looked this over and printed it out, I didn't think I was going to pass this right away. It was going to be either "on hold" or fail. I had to read it closely to decide.

And, alas, while it has in many ways succeeded, it is not enough. The makings of a GA are there, but there are enough issues that I don't think giving the editors an additional week or so will be enough to fix. So another nomination will be in order.

First, the things that were done right:

It is meticulously sourced. Essential given the subject matter, a news story that made a complicated allegation of corruption and unjust enrichment against the sitting head of a large and regionally important country.

It is reasonably balanced, with enough representation of the response, such as it is, from Kirchner's supporters. Obviously, they're upset that this story even exists, judging by the vandalistic "reviews" this article got. So we're going to need to make sure that it stays that way.

It is well-enough written, no small accomplishment given the Scylla and Charybdis of a complicated alleged financial scandal and the writer (I think) not being a native English speaker. I made whatever changes I could to bring it closer to standard English that didn't touch on the facts, but I didn't need to make too many (although it still has a rather formal tone overall). I was able to understand how the alleged diversions of funds worked, which I was afraid I wouldn't.

Given all these positives, I am amazed that the Spanish article is so short (And also, it seems to have been titled after the case against Báez, not Lanata's story. Is there any reason for that?)

But now for the negatives:

I have already tagged the intro as being too short. It looks like whatever was written as a stub was not expanded as the article grew. Given the complexity of the scandalous allegations described in the article, that cannot stay.

The article really doesn't provide enough context for those readers not Argentinian or familiar with Argentinian media and politics. It might be useful (as well as standard editorial practice) to spell out the name of the AFIP in addition to describing it as the country's tax agency. It might be helpful also to explain, the first time the term is used, that "deputy" in Argentina refers to a member of the lower house of the Argentine National Congress (And also, is "judge" capitalized in Spanish, or in Argentina, if it's a person's title? In English that's fairly common, so it's jarring to see it always used in lower case).
And we can't depend on links to help us understand that La Nación is a major daily newspaper—I was reading it in hard copy so I had no clue and no way to get myself one. It might also have been helpful to give us some background on Lanata, as the article about him explains that he's often been critical of Kirchner. Ditto with Grupo Clarín.
Amd we might want to know what political party or faction Elisa Carrió belongs to before it becomes an issue with the case she filed.

And sometimes context is misplaced. The names of Oscar Parilli and Alejandra Gils Carbó are introduced, in full, into the narrative with no explanation as to who they are or why they're being mentioned. Only the second time is it explained who they are.

In one case there's more context than necessary. Summary style doesn't require listing all those soccer players, many of whom (I'd bet) aren't widely known outside of Argentina.

It's also in need of updating. The investigation into the Uruguayan angle has stalled since January 2014? It's now a year later. Have there been any new developments? Báez had showed no signs of preparing for a gubernatorial run during 2013? What about since then? And what of all the investigations launched? I think, in fact, it deserves another tag on top.

And its strict neutrality aside, there are places where it could be better. The Argentine public is usually apolitical? Says who? It can't be us.

Given all the dramatis personae in this article, I wonder if a more timeline-style format might be the better way to present the first part—what happened before, what happened on the three nights it aired, and so forth.

But that will have to wait for the next nomination. It's fixable, but it needs to be fixed.

✗ Fail Daniel Case (talk) 07:52, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]