Talk:Koryo Ilbo/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 10:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are five fair-use images in the article, which is a lot. I don't think we need File:Koreilbo logo.png, which is already embedded in File:Koreilbofrontpage 31march2023.png. For the other three, all images of the front page, I don't think the reader's understanding is particularly enhanced by having three images -- the layout varies but they all look like newspaper front pages. However, I think it's likely they are out of copyright. I'm not expert on Soviet or Korean copyright; you might try asking at WP:CQ. If you can show any of them are public domain, there's no reason to remove them.
The licence for File:Deported-Koreans-Fall-193.png is clearly wrong -- the copyright was owned by the original creator or the Soviet government, and Jon Chang doesn't get the copyright just because he scanned it. I would suggest asking about this one at WP:CQ as well.
This seems to be an academic paper; can you add the English name of the journal to the source listing?
Done toobigtokale (talk) 00:55, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Same question for this source.
Done toobigtokale (talk) 00:55, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What makes the following reliable sources?
- ~~koreans.kz -- I tried using Google translate to figure out what the site is, but I can't tell if it's a professional news organization or a private group.~~
- haninnews.info -- again I can't tell what the organization is.
  It's a minor newspaper for Koreans in Kazakhstan; it's admittedly a lower quality source because of lack of reputation, although browsing through other articles their reporting generally seems fine and uncontroversial. The article I use from it is supposedly written by the chairman of KBS, although it's not republished anywhere else so impossible to verify the KBS chairman actually wrote it. Think I should remove? toobigtokale (talk) 00:42, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  I think it's OK for what you use it for. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:47, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~webzine.korean.net~~
  Overseas Koreans Foundation (English lang link describing the org, from the official Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs), although not sure how to even assess the reliability of it. The info it gives seems to line up with other sources and their other articles seem uncontroversial. toobigtokale (talk) 00:48, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  Difficult to assess, but the material you're sourcing with it seems uncontroversial, so I think this is OK. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:47, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~db.history.go.kr~~

I'll pause the review until these are addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:06, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for doing the review.

I agree on removing some of the images. But I'd argue that showing the current, first, and leninist have value. The first is more or less a traditional Korean newspaper with vertical right to left type, the second is clearly Soviet influenced and visually striking imo, the current just to understand what the paper looks like.
The current image is clearly justifiable, and I think you can make a good case for the Leninist one. For the first, not much of the layout is apparent from the small image, so it's not really clear to the reader that it's vertical right to left. If you think that's worth showing, perhaps a free image of a different publication in that format could be found? But it's also very likely that the earliest image is now out of copyright, so I'd ask about that first. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’ll ask about the copyright, although based on what I’ve read about Soviet copyright laws I may need to dig into research myself or email the Kore Ilbo staff to confirm. I’m still in favor of keeping the first edition. Reasoning is wiki articles with childhood pictures of significant people or early pics of construction sites of significant structures. In a sense you could argue most kids and construction sites look alike and certainly aren’t from iconic moments, but showing the origin humanizes and strips bare the idea, makes it seem more real imo. toobigtokale (talk) 00:25, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hunting down the copyright on the other newspaper images is tricky, just tried myself but lot of unknowns. I'll ask around.
Agreed on Jon Chang image, will remove
For reliable sources part:
- koreans.kz is the homepage of Association of Koreans in Kazakhstan, but they also kinda weirdly use it as the Kore Ilbo homepage. I know it's shaky to cite source about itself, but I have secondary academic source and also in the article I use from Kore Ilbo they cite their own sources, which I actually went and found for the specific facts and the info matched. Maybe I should cite what they cited instead of citing Kore Ilbo; does that seem better?
  I think it's fine for the uncontroversial information it's used for. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- db.history.go.kr is Korean government sponsored and also provide their own citations; should I track down what they're citing and use those instead? I know encyclopedias are seen as inferior sources, but aren't they still permissible for non-controversial facts in an article?
  I think that's fine -- again this is uncontroversial and yes encyclopedias are fine for something like this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gotta catch a flight, these are great comments thanks. toobigtokale (talk) 12:40, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, feel free to reply threaded in with my comments if you want -- that usually makes the conversation easier to follow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip, still fairly new to Wikipedia! I’ll respond more when I’m settled. toobigtokale (talk) 13:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I saw your edit summary about indenting/threading being confusing. I had been editing here for years before someone told me the easy way to remember how to indent -- just copy the previous line and add to the end of it, not the beginning. So if you're replying to a line starting with ":**:" just start your line with ":**:" and then add a "*" or ":" depending on whether you want a bullet or not.

Great tip, thanks :) toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll read through again now we've settled the sources. For the images, I'll wait to see if you can find evidence that one or more of the images is out of copyright. I think it's going to be hard to justify three separate fair use images on a single page -- there are certainly articles that have that many images, but it's usually because there is explicit discussion of the images themselves, or the artist's methods, or something like that. Here the images are usefully illustrative but it's not clear the reader can't understand the article without them. WP:NFCC requires minimal usage of copyrighted material. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:47, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense on images, I emailed Kore Ilbo and will update if they reply. Otherwise I'll do some research in next few days. toobigtokale (talk) 17:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fyi, I removed both the body images. Based on more research, I'm less certain it's in public domain (depends on when last author of anything on that first page died). Will reupload if/when Kore Ilbo replies. toobigtokale (talk) 06:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reading through, one thing I notice immediately is that the lead contains information that's not in the body of the article -- e.g. the two "oldest" claims. Per WP:LEAD, everything in the lead should also be in the body. (This is why it's not generally necessary to add citations to the lead, since the information should be cited in the body -- it's fine to cite the lead, but most editors don't bother.) Can you go through the lead and make sure everything in it is in the body too?

Everything in lead should be in body now. toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"a significant promoter of Koryo-saram literature": suggest glossing this inline; there's a link, but it's a term that's important for the understanding of the sentence, and is used many times in the article, so I think an inline explanation is worth it.

Done. toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"The predecessor and the eventual actual paper were published ...": should this be "The predecessor (if it existed) and the eventual actual paper were published ..." since we've just said the predecessor may not have existed?

Done. toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not a requirement for GA, but the parenthetical Korean/Russian transliterations might be better off as footnotes -- they break up the reading flow.

I may do this at a later date, busy with work lately. toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done. toobigtokale (talk) 07:00, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"On 1 March 1923 in Vladivostok, Soviet Union, the first edition of Sŏnbong (Korean: 선봉; Hanja: 先鋒; Russian: Сэнбон or Russian: Авангард; lit. "Vanguard"), initially called the March 1st Newspaper, was published on the fourth anniversary of the March 1st protests." I don't follow this. Was this first issue called Sŏnbong or March 1st Newspaper?

Reworded. Fyi I tried to find when exactly they switched, but the very old papers (while free) are behind a broken Kazakh government website that's hard for foreigners to access. No academic articles I've found mention the date unfortunately, only that it happened a few years after it started. toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~"Before the migration, there had been three Koryo-saram newspapers: Sŏnbong and two regional papers." Do we know the names of the regional papers?~~

No, a quick search didn't turn it up. Source I got that info from didn't mention them by name, but it's otherwise a good source. toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~"it did publish works from authors like later-North Korean poet Cho Ki-chon": what does "later" mean here?~~

Changed wording; he's an interesting person, I may expand his article at some point toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're inconsistent about using "it" or "they" for the paper; "it did publish" but "they appealed for more space". If this is written in American English the former would be correct; in British English it would be the latter.

Should be changed now to American standard. toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"They appealed for more space for articles, higher publishing frequency, and larger circulation for years, and eventually got larger pages and five issues on 21 March 1940." "For years" seems wrong -- this is less than two years after publication restarted.

Changed wording; they kept appealing for various things for decades toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~"publication frequency decreased to once per week, which it now maintains": needs an "as of" statement per WP:ASOF.~~

done toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~"It is now largely supported by support from": can we avoid the repetition?~~

done toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~We mention both the 100th and 50th anniversary; given that these are of different founding dates I think a word of explanation is needed each time.~~

done toobigtokale (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:06, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fixes look good. I'll read through again this evening, and do some spotchecks; I think we're close now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Second pass

~~The lead says it was first published as "Sŏnbong", but the body now says it started as "March 1st Newspaper" and changed to "Sŏnbong" some time later.~~

Done toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"It was also the only Korean-language newspaper published throughout the Soviet Union for decades": suggest "It was also for decades the only Korean-language newspaper published throughout the Soviet Union" to make it clear that we're not saying it's the only Korean-language newspaper in the USSR that ever managed to publish for as long as decades.

Done toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like this got missed? I went ahead and made the change. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:44, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"It also later became the only Korean-language newspaper available throughout the Soviet Union, although On the Path of Lenin was available locally in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk." Suggest moving this to the next paragraph where we mention when they go to national circulation.

Done toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I tweaked this a bit to avoid the repetition of "Around this time". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:44, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

~~I'm not the best at spotting British vs. American spellings, but I think "benefitted" is British; it would be "benefited" in American English.~~

Done toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"It changed its name to Kore Ilbo (lit. The Daily Goryeo) on 31 December 1990": I don't understand the parenthesis -- "lit" would usually introduce a literal translation, but Goryeo is not a translated word.

Done (?) toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The link does it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:44, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks -- I don't have access to the source, so can you quote an English translation of the supporting material in the text?

FN 21 cites "Before the migration, there had been three Koryo-saram newspapers: Sŏnbong and two regional papers. In March 1938, the local communist party decided to merge the papers into Sŏnbong."

Done toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FN 25 cites "During the 1950–1953 Korean War and between 1955 and 1957, many staff moved to North Korea and died there, although a number returned between 1957 and 1961 and wrote about their experiences."

Done, you helped me catch a translation mistake and a few historical things I had misinterpreted. I can understand the misinterpretations now after researching for another article on Soviet Koreans in North Korea. toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FN 31 cites "After regional languages were suppressed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and minorities were given more freedom of movement after Stalin's death in the 1950s, fewer and fewer Koryo-saram spoke Korean."

Done toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FN 48 cites "scholars like Kim Byeong-hag are doubtful of its long term prospects"

Done toobigtokale (talk) 17:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What's needed for a spotcheck is for the reviewer to see the text in the source that supports the sentences in the article. Can you type in the translation of whatever the quotes are that support these? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:44, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

? They’re currently in footnotes, do you want them to be in the actual article text? They’re all quite long, is it better to have them directly in the text? toobigtokale (talk) 21:54, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear I added quotes to the relevant footnotes as an additional param. Probably miscommunication somewhere; did you want me to put the quotes here on this talk page? toobigtokale (talk) 22:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I didn't see that! Sorry. Yes, I meant put them here on the talk page; I don't think there's any need to have them in footnotes. Leave them where they are for now and I'll check them later this evening. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:10, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just one last question. When you say "although a number returned between 1955 and 1957 and turned towards the Leninist Banner to publish writing about their experiences" the quote you give doesn't explicitly mention their writing. If the source does support this but you didn't translate that part of the quote, that's fine; if not, can we add another source to cover that point? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:49, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It does cover it; just didn't include translation toobigtokale (talk) 16:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On that page: "And of course most of them ended up working at the Leninist Banner in 1962." toobigtokale (talk) 16:42, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that was the last item, so passing. Congratulations on an interesting and unusual article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:47, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ay thank you for reviewing, it was thorough and I learned a lot from it! 🙌🏻 toobigtokale (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]