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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 01:32, 14 October 2007.

Bratislava

[edit]

previous FAC

After unsuccessful previous nomination, I'm nominating this article again for your feedback. Most of the issues have been dealt with, though, there may be some holes which I have missed. The article got copy-edited just after the first nom was over. As I'm still fairly a novice to this process, please don't go too harshly for errors. Thank you. MarkBA t/c/@ 17:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments. This is very good indeed and well on its way to fame and immortality. But four points: (1) "Geography" now follows "History". This is unconventional. Its unconventionality doesn't worry me, but it really does seem odd, in that (despite the worst efforts at pollution, etc.) geography seems to determine history more than vice versa. So I'd switch the two around unless you have some good reason (which you might explain here). ¶ (2) "Facts" such as that the religious make-up was, according to some census in 2005, "243,048 Roman Catholics (56.7%), 125,729 Atheists (29.3%) [...]" strike me as blackly humorous. Does anyone really believe that censuses are correct to 0.00001%? Yet this is what these numbers imply. And even if they were this accurate, the precision would be meaningless, for two reasons. First, even though one-year-olds may arguably be RC merely on the say-so of their parents, one-year-old atheists (and comatose atheists, etc.) are hard to imagine. Secondly, they're dying (and being born, or otherwise becoming) all the time, with no guarantee of equal rates, so the figures correct at 10:06 one day are unlikely to be correct at 11:06 the same day, let alone the next day. Would "243 thousand Roman Catholics (56.7%), 126 thousand atheists (29.3%)" be "Original Research" or something similarly unwikipedian? ¶ (3) The article doggedly supplies an equivalent in miles, etc., for every damned measurement, of which there are dozens. I congratulate you on your stamina. And how this messes up an article that without them would be much more enjoyable to read. But the Youessians, Burmese and Liberians must be appeased, I suppose. ¶ (4) I sense lingering repetition within the article. As I quickly went through it last night, I noticed that it twice said that Bratislava is the only national capital at the point where three nations meet, and I don't think this repetition was unique. If, like me, you're a bit numbed by a computer screen, try printing it out and going through it with a red pen. ¶ I'll be watching this candidacy, and probably supporting it later. -- Hoary 01:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Done. (2) Hopefully done. I have reworded the sentence to clarify that the precise numbers were recorded by the 2001 census. The article no longer suggests there are 243,048 Roman Catholics in Bratislava. (3) Although I completely agree with your opinion, many people insist on having imperial units in articles. (4) This interesting piece of information is mentioned in the Geography section and in the lead. I would like to leave it there because the lead just summarizes the article (including its geography section) and this is perhaps the most interesting geographical datum in the whole article. But if this issue prevents you from supporting the candidature, I will be happy to remove a sentence from the lead. Tankred 17:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Geography and history are now the right way around. Good. ¶ (2) We read that for example according to the 2001 census there were 391,767 ethnic Slovaks. Again, this implies that the census is precise to 0.001%. I don't believe that any census is that precise (with the possible exception of one in a totalitarian state such as North Korea). Moreover, the table of ethnic groups says nothing about hybrids. Is, say, a child of a Slovak and a Hungarian parent both Slovak and Hungarian, is the child forced to choose one or the other, or is the child forced to be one or the other? Or should one infer from the table that "mixed" or "other" account for fewer than the number of Croats? (Additional questions: Do Wikipedia editors have an obligation to turn off their brains and unthinkingly recycle such statistics? Does questioning what they might actually mean constitute "Original Research"?) ¶ (3) Yes, you're right. Removing any of these sops to US/Burmese/Liberian parochialism risks incurring the wrath of dozens of right-thinking editors. ¶ (4) Fixed: well done. -- Hoary 04:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please comment if you think this article deserves promotion or not. MarkBA t/c/@ 12:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Objectstruck... see below --Dweller 18:43, 18 September 2007 (UTC) Beautiful article, but one of my first instincts at FAC (having fallen foul of it with articles I've nominated!) is always to check for imbalanced history sections. Approximately half the history of this ancient city appears to have happened since 1900. I also wonder if the article could be shorter - can more information be hived off to daughter articles? NB If this objection is addressed, I'll be happy to review. --Dweller 15:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC[reply]
    • Hello. Thank you for your comment. I understand objection for long recent history, and I personally do not like that as well, however, reviewer at the first nom insisted that recent History should take up around half of the section. To the spinning off information to daughter articles, which parts do you think need reduction? MarkBA t/c/@ 15:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Gosh. You were put through hoops. However, I think he has POV on this... and my POV is he's wrong. "the public is generally more interested in recent than in long-ago history" Nonsense. One of the main reasons people visit Bratislava, rather than say Milton Keynes is because of its history. "Encyclopedic" means covering the topic. Recentism is a real problem. Since this is now my take against his, I invite other editors to weigh in on whether a history section should be so weighted. In the meantime, I strike my objection and wait. --Dweller 18:43, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree, there's too much emphasis on the 20th century. This seems like undue weight to me. --Victor12 02:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see that you don't like too much emphasis on the 20th century. Well, I could do this a bit shorter if I could remove various demographic details from history or shortening/combining some sentences. I'll look after that later. MarkBA t/c/@ 05:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • If anybody's reading this yet, I found it quite troublesome to remove bigger chunk of History and so I only moved some "demographic" data down where they belong. MarkBA t/c/@ 19:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've read through the History section, and it looks fine, generally speaking, though you should bear in mind that I know nothing of the facts. I saw quite a few problems with the prose that I didn't correct when I copyedited last time because I wasn't bold enough, and I'll fix those later after the dust has settled. One thing, though—that's the picture you're going to use for the twentieth century? With all that happened, it seems like you're making a statement by showing only a picture of the destruction wrought by Allied bombing (Does "Allied" refer to the Western allies as opposed to the Soviets?). Also, no mention is made of what side Bratislava, and Slovakia for that matter, was on in WWII, that is, did it consider itself a conquered land like Poland or a satellite like Romania or something in between? And I'm surprised to learn that the the Red Army actually "liberated" any part of Eastern Europe, and I think many people, Americans at least, will be surprised, too. Despite any complaints you've received here about imbalance toward modern history, the readers will know at least something about it and will want a complete picture. --Milkbreath 15:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • To the 20th century picture, what do you suggest? My tip would be to have picture of Nový Most bridge (either under construction or in operation). For some reason anything conquered from Nazi Germany is viewed as "liberation", but other wording seems to be only "conquered", which sounds bit hostile. On what side? Slovak state was always on German side, not counting Slovak national uprising or conquered territories in 1945. MarkBA t/c/@ 16:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • (I thought about this after I posted, and if Bratislava got really clobbered by bombing {not bombarding, right?} you should say more about that in the text; that would be an important event.) Maybe make the picture the same size as the others in the History section, and add a few more to balance it out. The way it is now, the pictures go from quaint to none to horrific. Maybe the Soviets "overran" or "took" or "advanced through" it. Was there a battle for the city? By "Slovak national uprising" do you mean there was a resistance movement? I don't know what you mean by "conquered territories in 1945". --Milkbreath 16:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Reduced size of the picture, but quick look shows that word liberated is more used. Yes, there was a battle of the city, from 2 April to 4 April but I don't think this is important in the main article. I'd like to add one picture, but I don't want to have 1919 and World War II (picture) next to each other. MarkBA t/c/@ 16:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - ok, I took the liberty of some copyediting to smoothe flow and remove commas and combine some clauses, as well as some word replacement. Prose was a little choppy but generally fine. I don't know much about Bratislave so not too sure on the emphasis in verious sections, though I think a few more sentences on city morale and development since it was made capital of Slovakia in the History section would be good if possible.
  • Development is mentioned and more is covered in Cityscape and Economy, but "city morale"? I dunno what do you mean. MarkBA t/c/@ 14:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are some stubby paragraphs that could be combined, like I did in the Parks and Demographic sections - there are others elsewhere. If there is no clear cutoff in subject matter consider combining a few.
  • Combined few paras in Government and one in Cityscape. Which sections do you think could use some merging? MarkBA t/c/@ 14:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead needs to be a summary of salient points; a sentence or two mentioning its status as a capital city both now and in the past should be there.

All that and I think it'll be over the line. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hello and thank you for commenting. For the 2nd point, I guess you mean rewriting to include that Bratislava was a capital from 1536–1783 (at least I guess so). I'll look after these points later. MarkBA t/c/@ 05:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, that's what I meant. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - ok I took out the sentence Even though Bratislava is one of Europe's newest capital cities (since 1993), the city has a long and rich history influenced by many tribes and nations. - which sorta sticks out and doesn't really add anything (it already was a capital once before so is sorta wrong too). cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the Demographics section repetitive census data like "Bratislava II with 108,139, Bratislava IV with 93,058, Bratislava III with 61,418...", "...737 Methodist Protestants, 748 Jews, and 613 Baptists" and "...Ukrainians (452, 0.11%), Roma (417, 0.08%), and Poles (339, 0.08%)" are better presented as tables. What do references [1] and [83] have to do with the ethnic group listings, why not just create a new one to [1]? The first sentence is referenced to [2] but that only lists the 2005 number while [3] would be better because it lists both 2001 and 2005 (I hesitate to do this because I see that the reference is used 3 places in the article). Also, Demographic sections can be useful for drawing comparisons of the city with regional or national stats (older/younger population, more/less minorities, etc.) --maclean 18:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well... to the ref 83, I've missed that as I was replacing dead link, however, I haven't found equal replacement so far (I dunno if some old state can be linked). Or, better idea might be to leave important or major data in the article and the rest should go to a new article named "Demographics of Bratislava" or similar. How about that? MarkBA t/c/@ 19:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've marked original dead links and linked to the archive. Replaced the link in "Urban Bratislava" citation.MarkBA t/c/@ 20:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've spun off some data into a separate article. Although I don't know, as I've never experienced this, are dead links with archive links tolerated in FAs, until a replacement is found? MarkBA t/c/@ 20:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see a problem with the archive links. Do you have access to the Slovak national census (for comparison with the city)? I cannot find it online. Do you have access to historical population levels in the city (enough to chart its development)? I can help develop this section if the sources are available. --maclean 01:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can you clarify the second sentence? I'm not very sure by the meaning, but it looks like you were referring to what is now that dead link. For historical population, I have found online up to 1786 here (but only one so far) and in my book a comparison between 1720 and 1780. MarkBA t/c/@ 12:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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