Talk:Mongolian language/GA1

GA Review

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Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of December 24, 2008, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: pass

2. Factually accurate?: fail - not all facts sourced

3. Broad in coverage?: pass

4. Neutral point of view?: pass

5. Article stability? pass

6. Images?: Pass

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it have it reassessed. Thank you for your work so far.— Leujohn ^(talk) 13:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I originally fancied that the article on Mongolian language is rather thoroughly sourced, so I am surprised that it should not pass on exactly this criterion. Well, I'm not totally surprised as most of the content predated the reference and I was very busy adding a great lot of references for previously unsourced material. Now there should be little if any problems to supply missing citations - in principle. But in practice, I did check this article for missing quotations quite a few times and I think it is unlikely that I find exactly the information that you still considered unreferenced. Thus, it would be of extraordinary importance that you point out just where you think citations are missing. The ^{[citation needed]}-template would do the job. If you do so, I shall be able to supply all missing citations or delete the unsourced content until 2009-1-10, probably earlier. But as vague as it is now, I'm unable to make use of your critique and improve the article. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:32, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So I see that you've been working on the citations. The things I see have been improved, but there is something about this article that is blocking me from letting it pass, but I'm not quite sure what, so I'll ask for a second opinion. Leujohn ^(talk) 02:39, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, can you help me update the template on the top of this page to "second opinion" status, and the nomination status to "second opinion" status too? I'm not sure what the nomination template is, and your sig is needed on the nomination page. Thx. Leujohn ^(talk) 02:43, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm not sure whether my signature was indeed needed, I've changed the article to Second opinion status. If a second reviewer is in agreement with Leujohn's opinion, it would probably be easiest to put the article "on hold" and point out every necessary additional citation in the way that I suggested above. G Purevdorj (talk) 10:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2nd opinion

I added a fact tag to this para; For example, the influential classification of Sanžeev (1953) proposed that Buryat and Oirat be independent Mongolic languages, but that such dialects as Chakhar and Ordos belong to a “Mongolian language”.[citation needed] On the other hand, Luvsanvandan (1959)[10] proposed..

The example its self isnt cited but an alternative view immediately following is, there are a number of occasions in the Geographic distribution and dialects section where the alternate view is source but not the original view point. The cause may be in the placing of the citations tag or the prose but it does make it difficult to establish which is what. There is also vague language used in this section, that's inherent with the differences. Is it possible to split the section in some way to address the commonly accepted, the dispute and the unknown? Gnan garra 12:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hope the dialect section is fixed now. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC) As far as I perceive the state of the discussion, there is little that is commonly accepted and very much that is unknown. If this section was to be upgraded to a discussion of eg 30 features in various varieties ... - but even chosing those features would be partisan. And what material to choose? Monolingual old people? Or highly educated dialect-speaking students? Both kinds of material are available on some varieties and will yield different results. G Purevdorj (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further to the problem on a number of occasions the citation occurs before the end of the paragraph leaving pieces of information apparently unrelated to sources hanging --

examples;

And while phonological and lexical studies are comparatively well developed,[7] the basis for a comparative morpho-syntactic study, eg between such highly diverse varieties as Khalkh and Khorchin,[8] is not yet given hanging on which source, presume that cite [8] is for these two varieties is the not yet given redundant prose? --- fixed. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
several dialectal varieties as one coherent grammatical system[13] is more often only seen as a stochastic is this an editor observation? --- fixed G Purevdorj (talk) 14:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
resistance from the general public.[46] In informal contexts of electronic text production, the use of Latin is common as well. -- original research? --- probably yes. Must see if I can find a source anyway G Purevdorj (talk) 14:18, 3 January 2009 (UTC) --- Fixed. G Purevdorj (talk) 15:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
a span of time,[65] the second account seems to be more likely. Of these, <-da> got lost, <-dur> was first reduced to <-du> and then to /d/ and <-a> only survived in a few frozen environments. Finally, the directive of modern Mongolian <-ruu> has been innovated from <uruγu> 'downwards'. Gender agreement was abandoned. section ending paragraph, with three points raise after the last citation, Gnan garra 13:16, 3 January 2009 (UTC) ---fixed. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Restarting Review

Hello! Since the original reviewer seems to have abandoned the review (and is not responding to talk page queries), and the second opinion reviewer appears to be gone as well, I am going to take over this review. Dana boomer (talk) 03:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
An article of 56 kb needs a lead greater than one paragraph. Three paragraphs would suffice, four would not be overdoing it. The lead should summarize the entire article, without introducing new information.

This is probably fine, although still a bit short. If you are able to expand it more, it would be fantastic, but if not, I'm not going to push it.

~~The first sentence of the article is a serious run-on. It needs to be chopped into at least two and probably three sentences.~~

In the lead, please spell out acronyms - (C)V(VCCC) and SOV, since this is the first time they are used and most readers won't be familiar with what they mean. Also, the wikilink SOV goes to a dab page.

Geographic distribution and dialects section

Second paragraph, the first sentence is a run on that is hard to follow and understand.

Third paragraph, last sentence - again, run on and hard to understand.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
~~References need to have their language listed if they are not in English. I would assume all or most of the non-English references are in Mongolian, but this needs to be made explicit.~~

~~References need to go after punctuation, not before, and in some places there is punctuation both before and after the ref.~~

~~References with web links should have the title be the link, not a title followed by a bare link.~~

~~Ref #2 needs publishers and access dates for the two links.~~
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
I've completed my review of sources, images, and stability. It's getting late in my part of the world, so I am going to leave my complete prose review, along with NPOV and coverage, until tomorrow. I should have the rest of the review up by tomorrow afternoon. Let me know if you have any questions. Dana boomer (talk) 03:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed 2. G Purevdorj (talk) 13:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrote the lead section. It now has three paragraphs that are broader in coverage, but probably a bit short. I relocated some of the content of the former lead section to the end of "Geographic distribution and dialects". Too special for the lead section. G Purevdorj (talk) 14:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Things are looking good so far, and thanks for your prompt response. I've finished the prose review, and only found a few things that I would like to be tweaked. I've listed those above, so once those are finished I'll take a final run through the article. Dana boomer (talk) 20:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed the lead and (with considerable effort :-)) broken down the two big sentences in the dialect part into smaller ones. Cannot think of a useful way of elaborating the lead section right now, maybe sometime later. G Purevdorj (talk) 21:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for the quick response! The sentences are much easier to read and understand now. Everything else looks great, so I am passing the article to GA status. Very nice work on an important article! Dana boomer (talk) 21:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]