Talk:History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a good shout for GA. Will have a closer look soon. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Initially:

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Generally good, will have a look at one or two small things soon. Layout needs some improvement, particularly the the "Culture of Polish Renaissance" section. At the moment it reads like a list of famous people from the period; ideally it needs some sort of narrative to tie it together. Perhaps sections on each discipline, with statements generally (eg. the rural/urban one) grouped into another? As a result of this, paragraphs in this section are too short. Overall, within each of the two major sections, there seems to be a mix of temporally grouped subsections and issue-gruped subsjections; I think it might be best to deal with military achievements in a section (on the same level as "cultural", for example) and then individual campaigns with it,
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
I'm going to go ahead an alter the citation style slightly, since the constant repetition of the names in both English and Polish of just a couple of works are not only unnecessary, but also detract from the usability of the section, with other references being overshadowed.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
Coverage is good. I'm no expert on this period of Polish history specifically, but the list of military campaigns seems to be sufficient for this time period. If you think yourself that campaigns/wars have been overlooked, I suggest you bring them into the article now, I shall AGF.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
I'm going to check soon. No obvious areas, but it's quite easy to copy the history-is-written-by-the-victors mantle, and with two Polish sources making up the mainstay of the article, it's only right I should check this one out thoroughly.
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
Absolutely not.
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):
I'll check the statuses of the images shortly. Caption-wise, mostly fine, but one or two ("Rzeczpospolita in 1569; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, having lost lands to the Russian state and to Lithuania's partner Poland, is much smaller than a hundred years earlier") verge on text that should be in the article and not the caption, for example. "Stanisław Orzechowski, a szlachta ideologist, wrote in 1564 Quincunx, the Conception of the Polish Crown, in which he expounded principles of a state identified with its nobility" could be phrased better to relate more directly to the image. I'm also not sure that absolutely all the images add sufficiently to the article (I will think about this further) and/or are in the right place. At the moment we've got images left, right and center (well, not center!) which isn't preferable per se - the question of whether it's justified (as well it might) is always worth asking.
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Thus on hold, partly on my count, partly on the article's. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

OK, Ive addressed most areas now. The article could do with a copyedit generally - but the overall level is sufficient for a GA as it stands. I'm going to be bold and play around with the images myself; that leaves the structuring issues to sort out. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In addition the one citation needed tag and the captions on one or two to sort out. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, in summary I have a couple of "blocking" issues:

The "Culture of Polish Renaissance" section is too broken up, with its short paragraphs, and lack of text that describes multiple people, or provides a narrative (the spirit of WP:LAYOUT: "The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized, since they can inhibit the flow of the text");
Excessive use of images. As with MOS:Images's "Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other.", the large number of images in this article distracts the reader from the text too much. As that MOS page notes, images should be left-aligned where possible, with the indication that it should be possible in most instances. There are, for example, a few shots of places (e.g. File:Gdańsk - Ratusz Głównego Miasta (by Sfu).jpg) which aren't referenced within the main text, and whose purpose is unclear. Are they demonstrating an architectural style? Are these buildings special in themselves (judging by the linked articles, likely the latter) but this isn't made clear. Might it be worth addressing a few key buildings in the text? Since they have articles (with pictures) the link should be sufficient to allow people to get more detail.
I also believe that File:Odprawa.jpg is directly superfluous. Jan Kochanowski is linked in the text, and I don't really think the reader gains by being able to see the title page of his play;
The locations of one or two images need improving. People with screen readers, as well as most people, get confused if images relating to one paragraph are placed next to another, or if images seem to bear little relation to neighbouring text. This needs to be addressed after the above points. It's not that bad at the moment, falling within MOS guidelines ("Images should be inside the major section containing the content to which they relate (within the section defined by the most recent level 2 heading") but still poses a problem because of factors specific to this article, the large number of images, and the majority use of section 3 headers and not section 2 (not a problem in itself, I should point out).

I hope that clears up what needs doing. (Everything else above is merely a suggestion). I can't make too many of these edits myself, lest I lose my neutrality and you have to get a third opinion.Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:27, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]