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

The article was removed by Nikkimaria 16:44, 2 August 2011 [1].

Belgium

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Review commentary

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Belgium (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Toolbox
Note on closing: already listed at WP:FFA as re-promoted.
Notified: Vb, Le Fou, JoJan, SomeHuman, Edcolins, Oreo Priest, Fram, WikiProject Countries

I am nominating this featured article for review because of concerns regarding sourcing and coverage. There are a number of issues that should probably be discussed in this article that aren't. The article lacks the headings on, for example, transportation and military, suggested at Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. The sourcing problem speaks for itself, with large chunks of the article lacking in references. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Questionable sources: http://www.eubusiness.com/europe/belgium/belgium-country-profile/
  • Footnotes feel overly extensive and bloated. Trim them down to remove all the quotes.
  • Also, some should be split into a separate section — things like "Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many international organizations, including ACCT, AfDB etc. etc." shouldn't be in the references, but rather in a separate "footnotes" section. Some should also be checked for tl;dr — these "footnote" thingies seem the most bloated.
  • "Whilst taste is highly subjective and individual, some international beer drinkers consider the Westvleteren 12 to be among their favourite beers. The majority of members of BeerAdvocate.com and RateBeer.com, two beer rating websites, consistently rate the Westvleteren 12 as their most enjoyable beer; the 8 and the Blonde also rank highly on both sites." (footnote 130) — I just removed this, as it's weaselworded and based entirely on user submitted data.

Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 20:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria of concern discussed in the review section include referencing and coverage. Dana boomer (talk) 14:11, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am one of the main authors of this article. I however do not believe the reasons provided are sufficient for removing the featured status of this article.
For example, military and transport sections are not required by the guidelines (Wikipedia:Countries#Sections).
Though a military section might be necessary to countries like France or the USA, they are not relevant to countries like Belgium which military history is quite irrelevant to such a general article.
The article mentions a link to the article Transport in Belgium.
I have added some references to the history and technology sections. Please tell us whether this is enough.
The source http://www.eubusiness.com/europe/belgium/belgium-country-profile/ is questionable but easy to access and supported by the reference to Fitzmaurice which is reliable but not that easy to read.
The presence of quotes is due to the fact that many parts of this article are controversial (mainly because squabbles between Flemings and Walloons) though these parts might appear harmless to foreigners.
Hence I would like the contributors to this FARC to help the editors and provide very precise critics which really endanger the featured status of this article. I think it would be very sad if this article would lose its featured status for such small critics. Thank you. Vb (talk) 16:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My main problem is with the lack of references in the Hvistory and Government and politics sections. The majority of these sections are unsourced, which I don't think is appropriate for a featured article. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:55, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have a look. Could you please add [citation needed] tags where you're missing some source. 10:26, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
I've added them where I think citations are needed throughout the article. I haven't added any to the history section, because I didn't want to fill it with them. It should be fairly obvious where citations are needed here - each major point should really have one.
In adding these, I also noticed the large number of short (sometimes one-sentence) paragraphs in the article. This also needs to be dealt with. Also, the introduction should summarise the article rather than have its own content, so perhaps material such as that about the name of the country could be added to the main text? Cordless Larry (talk) 12:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - How is work on this going? An update would be much appreciated. Thanks! Dana boomer (talk) 18:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Much has been done. It would be great if the reviewers could comment these changes. Vb (talk) 20:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Additional citations have been provided and are welcome. There is still a need for more thorough sourcing though, particularly of the history section. The problem with short paragraphs still exists, such as in the Science and technology section. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Another update, please? It would be helpful for the main editors of the article to provide occasional updates (every week or two), as well as pinging the editors who have commented when their comments have been addressed. Dana boomer (talk) 17:17, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Citations have been added where required. There is no need for additional sources to the history section. This section's statements aren't controversial at all and can be found in any book or website on Belgium that are provided at the end of the article. It is however difficult to provide inline citations because the editors have opted for a presentation which is not always supported by one source only but by a mixed bag of sources. We have also merged several paragraphs, in partical in the section over science and technology. Vb (talk) 09:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Things are certainly looking better on the citations front, although there are still some unsourced claims that could do with references, such as "Belgium also has a strong reputation in motocross". I think the main issue now is style. The citations are inconsistently formatted. Some lack detail (e.g. "See for example Belgium entry of the Catholic Encyclopedia"), whereas others include long quotes, as raised above. I also still think that the text needs working on to reduce the number of short paragraphs and to consolidate sections of text. The Religion section is a good example of this. Cordless Larry (talk) 00:29, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question - This is an archived FAR page (Archive3) and near the top I read 'Note on closing: already listed at WP:FFA as re-promoted' in red. I do not find a more recent FAR page, thus this review appears to be closed. Then why does the article's talk page still show a box stating that this article 'is undergoing' a FAR? - Btw, most of the "long" quotes had and remain to have good reason, as Vb mentioned. Furthermore, in this article the quotes from French and Dutch texts also provide translations; one must not expect readers of the English language WP to be able to read through entire pages so as to find the one or two relevant sentences, and then to be able to properly understand those.▲ SomeHuman 2011-01-25 03:41 (UTC)
  • It's not closed - all FAR pages are created as archive# by default. You're welcome to help out with the issues pointed out above so that it may be closed. As for your point about long quotes, I'm not going to revert you, but having multiple quotes that say the same thing is unnecessary and bloats the page. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The added complication is that this article was promoted in May 2004, Demoted in June 2005 (here), Promoted again in November 2005, and then run through FAR in June and August of 2007 (Kept both times). This is Archive 3 because it is the third such review through the current FAR process; it's already listed as a former featured article because, at one point, it was. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 19:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, I see. Nikkimaria's remark about multiple quotes sounds so obviously correct, but:
  1. All quotations from a non-English source need to be in the original language, followed by a translation as well as we can get; that inevitably makes each quote appear twice as long. That leaves us with (hopefully only) 2 issues that take multiple references showing a quote saying the same thing:
  2. About 4 linguistic regions, the official reference is in French; not the wiki-editors but another reference gives the necessary translation (and offers context) in English. That second reference however, states that it is an unofficial translation. Therefore, simply eliminating the French language reference would leave us with a then questionable source - not wise for an article that causes controversies all over.
  3. About Brussels being an enclave in Flanders, the term 'enclave' has caused great consternation (and had been strongly contested by Vb) because that is precisely one of the aspects that the politically involved French-speakers on and out of Wikipedia would like to change: Giving one or two still officially Flemish municipalities a bilingual status to 'fairly' reflect their present-day speech, and thus making these part of the Brussels Region, would form a 'corridor' linking Brussels directly to Wallonia - The Flemish can never give in because the language border was intendedly fixed 'once-and-for-all' precisely to stop Dutch-speaking areas to be silently crept in and in time changed to French-speaking while Flemish people that went/go to live in French-speaking areas immediately needed/need to learn and speak the there native language; that one-way-street is how once simply Dutch-speaking areas had become Wallonia tout court (a large part of now Walloon Brabant, e.g. Waterloo) or 'bilingually' for possibly 95% French-speaking (Brussels Region). The annexation by France had initially caused the effect and allowed immigrating French-speakers to resist learning the local language, and this effect still goes on. In other words, if it were not so heavy, the Flemish might have turned the lion at Waterloo facing South instead of westwardly scaring off France. Thus the 'enclave' bit apparently needed and presumably continues to need more than one quote to convince Belgian French-speakers that this term for Brussels is not tendentious but a widely recognized simple factual presentation of the present situation.
Anyway, the references section should not be considered "bloating the page" ("page" being the correct word) because it is a matter of current Wikipedia layout/concept/software to present all references visible within the article page. To overcome the problem of bloated pages for well referenced articles, one might put references on a separate (pop-up) page, or show context-sensitive pop-up of only the relevant reference, or only open the initially closed 'references' section when an index number is clicked and closing it again when the index in front of the reference is clicked by which we go back to the proper place in the article. That suggestion exceeds 'Belgium' FAR and I'm not immediately jumping to try and work it out, but it strongly indicates that a FAR should not be concerned with the length of references or their section, just with their quality and relevance.
I would suggest that consecutive FARs avoid becoming farces, by excepting the evaluation of characteristics that were present at FA or survived a previous FAR: remarks are bound to be largely the same and their acceptance should not reflect who happens to be participating.▲ SomeHuman 2011-01-26 10:50 (UTC)
  • Comment. I see some good work, but the style issues noted above require additional TLC. Looks good overall, though. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 19:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. At first sight, the very last part of the section 'Religion' appears to belong rather in the section 'Demographics'. Within the 'Religion' section, in case the more recent percentage for Islam near the end is correct and equally well sourced as its somewhat higher-up 2001 figure of 3.5%, it should be moved so as to replace that older one. As it stands now, this appears a bit too sloppy for a FA.
    It might not hurt to look at a side-to-side comparison between the version at the end of the latest successful FAR review, and the current version [perhaps also needed per section if things may have been moved around] - checking whether each change is well enough sourced and of at least as good a quality. I may not have the time to do these things myself.
    Nevertheless, this article does still have far too much merit to allow its demotion.▲ SomeHuman 2011-01-31 03:20 (UTC)
-- Jappalang (talk) 12:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Can we please get an update on how work is going here? Dana boomer (talk) 20:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd seen that comment had stalled here for a while, but haven't commented myself because I've been far too busy to read the article properly. Can anyone else give an update on its progress? Cordless Larry (talk) 21:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • There has been essentially no work on the article over the past three months. There are still many outstanding image concerns, multiple dead links, a mix of British and American spellings and other miscellaneous outstanding comments. Unless an editors steps forth to work on this article in the next week, it will be delisted from FA status. Dana boomer (talk) 15:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Dear Dana, as far as I can see nobody has ever asked this article to get delisted. Some made comments but nothing more. I don't see any arguments which could lead to a delisting. Since the FAR procedure started, editors have provided references where required. The image concerns are in my opinion harmless. If Jappalang really believes there is any doubt about the copyright status of some images, he is free to remove them. I however believe the suppression of those images shall not lead to any dramatic decrease of the value of the article. Vb (talk) 19:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Vb, it is not Jappalang's responsibility to remove or fix bad images. It is, however, the responsibility of those who want the article kept to make sure that the article complies with the featured article criteria, which include image copyright. Also, please see the comments above by SomeHuman, which the last time I checked hadn't been addressed. Once you have addressed everyone's comments, please ping them to return to this review and note if they feel the article should be kept. Although no one has specifically asked for a delisted, no one has specified keep either, and several editors have identified deficiencies in the article which lead to it not meeting the featured article criteria. Dana boomer (talk) 14:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delist (allow me to be the first) The article has been listed here for five months and still has outstanding issues. Photo copyright is an important issue not to be ignored. Practically all I see in the article history page the last few weeks is vandalism reverting. Brad (talk) 07:21, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vb asked me to update and I find six dead links and some missing retrieved on dates. Photos need alt text. See WP:ALT. Brad (talk) 20:37, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Mogoyo and Denis Jacquerye do really seem to be a single person: [2] Vb (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Please have a look at [3] to see what has been done since the nommination of this article as FARC. Vb (talk) 12:31, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • It says "30,528 [[km2]] (139th) 11,787 sq mi". Links to common units of measurement are excessive, even more so when a conversion is provided. I recommend that the article is reviewed for such links.
  • It says "3 °C (37.4 °F)". Precision is part art, part science. In this case, integer Celsius should be matched with integer Fahrenheight i.e. '3 °C (37 °F)'.
  • It says "latitudes [49th parallel north|49°] and [53rd parallel north|53° N]". I think links to latitudes could also be removed to increase the average value of links.

Hope that helps Lightmouse (talk) 10:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update? Have the issues raised by above reviewers been addressed? Do other editors have an opinion on whether this article should be kept or delisted? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:19, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep listed On Dana boomer's request on my talk page, my further tuppence: There's nothing in this FAR that allows demotion. Any article, regardless how outstanding, can still be improved. And when it would meet even the most arbitrary standards for trivialities of whomever might be participating at the latest FAR, the next edit could again cause someone disputing its status.

  • Just a moment ago, I spotted the recently changed population figure, that of 2011. Someone updated the figure, and the date that corresponds to it is set to January 2011. And indeed, on the TV news I too had heard we have over 11 million inhabitants now. But the (CIA stats) reference's last access date was still 2010... So I checked the reference, expecting to find its figures updated. Surprise: The CIA mentions only 10.4 million inhabitants for a "July 2011" estimate. Thus theoretically, the update in our article is no longer supported by a reference. I'm not going to find another reference: Surely, the CIA figures will be corrected soon enough, and that reference will then continue to reflect proper data also for the coming years - which would not be guaranteed by some new reference. Meanwhile, there is nothing better than to leave our update as it is, as long as no-one disputes the facts.

And I suggest to keep this kind of attitude with respect to FARs: If the facts and their balance are undisputed or a dispute does not clearly suggest a change, and if style or copyright issues are perceived less than perfect by only a few editors, than that is about the best one can expect for any real article. For a community the size of Belgium, the number of capable editors on the English language WP ensures sufficient input to avoid long-standing serious shortcomings. But their number will never match the input and effort available for the US or Britain, and results will hardly ever fully match. Repeated FARs continually demanding editors to respond to smaller issues, will make all editors for smaller communities turn their backs on WP (or to stay on the Dutch and French language WPs only). The FARs will then finally result in substandard English language articles - and that is not the purpose of creating a status like 'FA'. 'FA' status should be given to the best of articles that can be compared, by topic as well as by expectedly available editors - and by available sources (or would the CIA be as easily mistaken about the number of US inhabitants?). And that status must then not become revoked lightly.​▲ SomeHuman 2011-05-15 13:35 (UTC)

The standards for country entries have risen. The article lacks a comprehensive presentation of the subject. Main sections such as Foreign relations, Military, Transport/Infrastructure and Health are missing. Italiano111 (talk) 20:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Italiano, you are the first to raise these concerns after 8 months of FARC. I really don't think a military section is required for Belgium. I wrote once such a section and removed it a short while later. There is almost nothing to say about the military of Belgium without giving this section an ovedued weight. With respect to transport I believe this is the same. We say already a bit about this in the section Econony. I have never thought about writing something about health in Belgium. Do you think there is something interresting to say about this? You are the first editor requiring this. I just remark that India has nothing on the topiv but Germany does. 89.0.131.100 (User:Vb talk) 12:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Italiano is not the first to raise them. Please see my original nomination. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the mentioned sections are key subjects to provide a complete picture of a country. The article is just not comprehensive enough. Italiano111 (talk) 21:47, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not according to Wikipedia:Countries#Sections. Vb (talk) 05:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Valuable efforts have been undertaken to increase comprehensiveness. Well done. I´d like to see a single section Foreign Relations, but for now my former delist assessment is obsolete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Italiano111 (talk • contribs) 28 June 2011
  • The article is now looking in much better shape content and sourcing-wise. A remaining concern is the consistency of the citations, however. A look at the list of references reveals a mixture of styles and of date formats, and there are also a number of dead links that need to be fixed. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Delist sourcing is much better but far too many sections are still unsourced. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 21:42, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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