Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of countries by GDP (nominal)/archive1

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

The list was archived by SchroCat 08:05, 31 July 2014 [1].

List of countries by GDP (nominal)

Nominator(s): Zach Vega (talk to me) 23:40, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because the list previously had outdated GDP information, poor referencing, and underdeveloped prose. Those issues have been resolved and it is believed that the list meets all criteria. Zach Vega (talk to me) 23:40, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article includes a list of countries in the world sorted by their gross domestic product (GDP), the market value of all final goods and services from a nation in a given year. The opening sentence isn't appropriate, for an article, it's improper to say "This article describes...", see WP:LEADSENTENCE. The lead should not speak about the article itself but should instead introduce the topic. The lead needs a complete rewrite from where it stands now; include a comparison of the various GDPs per country (highest, lowest, etc). Explain the italics used on various countries above the list. Provide a sentence on what exactly is photographed. As it stands, I'm leaning oppose. Seattle (talk) 20:00, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I have fixed the lead sentence, added to the caption, and clarified about italics, however I'm not sure what you mean by suggesting to "include a comparison of the various GDPs per country (highest, lowest, etc)". That's what the list does. Zach Vega (talk to me) 21:46, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Summarize the list in the lead. Say "The country with the highest GDP is x, while the lowest is y", or something similar. Search for sources that say why the country with the highest GDP has the highest; and likewise for the lowest. The lead is designed to summarize the article, or, in this case, the list. Seattle (talk) 22:17, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - I have added the information for the countries with the highest and lowest GDP (United States and Tuvalu, respectively). Zach Vega (talk to me) 23:42, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - Should information about other major economies be appended to the lead? Zach Vega (talk to me) 21:36, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        Seven disjointed paragraphs won't work for a featured list. My suggestion would be to cut the lead to three solid paragraphs. I would cut the second paragraph entirely. The figures presented here do not take into account differences in the cost of living in different countries... Don't write using "here", don't refer to the article itself when writing the lead, just the material contained. If GDP does not take into account differences in the cost of living, say that, instead of the "figures here". I'd keep the start of the first paragraph and expand more on GDP, you can combine the third and first together to serve as the first paragraph. Cut the entire fourth paragraph, excluding the GDP calculation, which you can move to the first paragraph. Keep the fifth paragraph for now and make it the third. Combine the sixth and seventh paragraph to make the second paragraph. I can fine tune points of the lead after it has a solid structure. Seattle (talk) 22:31, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        I have made those changes except the last one. Combining the (now third and forth) paragraphs wouldn't make much sense, as they are completely unrelated. Zach Vega (talk to me) 00:46, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment: Italy GDP has one too many digits in the UN list... Mattximus (talk) 17:48, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"New York (pictured) serves as the nation's largest financial centre." – unsourced
The image is very dodgy. The uploader has not made any other edits on Commons or en-Wikipedia, and can be found on various websites. I will be nominating it for deletion.
"...calculated as the population times market value of the goods and services produced per person in the country." This overcomplicates things. How about 'calculated as the total market value of the goods and services produced by the country", or something to that effect?
What are "demographic problems"?

Adabow (talk) 01:42, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great list! One thing that I find lacking is that the intro does very little to discuss the tables - other mentioning #1 and #last; for example the top 25 is surprisingly consistent among the 4 sources so you might want to mention where are the top countries located geographically. And there are some non-italicized entries that are not ranked such as San Marino and Somalia; why? Asides from that, would you think that merging the 4 tables would be feasible? And in that case would you think that the median values could be used to sort the countries? Nergaal (talk) 09:58, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

This is a very good and valuable list. A few minor points.
"calculated at market or government official exchange rates." Worth a comment that official rates can be distorting?
"Tuvalu is the world's smallest national economy with a GDP of about $40 million because of a lack of natural resources, reliance on foreign aid, negligible capital investment, demographic problems, and low average incomes." This is misleading. Tuvalu is poor, but not one of the poorest countries in the world. It is bottom because it has the third smallest population of any country and the two below it are wealthier. Does "demographic problems" mean a small population? (It is interesting that the smallest by population, Vatican City, is not in any list in this article and the second smallest, Nauru, only in one list, although I think they are both richer.)
No change needed but some of the exclusions from the lists are fascinating. The UN and World Bank exclude Taiwan - the UN presumably because of pressure from China but does the same apply to the World Bank? Why does the World Bank exclude Zanzibar?
Notes. EU etc - I think it is enough to say that groups of countries are excluded from the rankings - superfluous to say which country is ranked instead.
Note 6. I am not quite sure, but I think the MOS would have the external links as references, not direct in the text.
I would suggest adding list of countries by GDP per capita to 'See also'. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:31, 28 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

I have been fairly inactive recently but this is a fairly important list so I thought I'd take a quick look. I'm opposing over WP:V/WP:OR concerns - I quickly checked a few numbers from the third column (random choice). Looking at the WorldBank source:

(61) Slovakia has no 2013 value. Comparing its 2012 value with 2013 values doesn't seem correct, especially without explanation. Cuba, 2011. Slovenia is not in WB 2013 list etc. Others...!?
(65) Syria is not anywhere in that source.
The WB13 source goes Namibia then Mauritius. The list has "Guernsey + Jersey; Chad; Zimbabwe; Nicaragua" inbetween
- The Chad figure contradicts the 13,414 value given
- Zimbabwe given as 12,801 etc.
- Different value for Nicaragua in source too
- No value for Jersey + Guernsey that I can see (nor Channel Is., although they are more than J+G anyway)

With so many discrepancies from the only source I checked I cannot support this list. Regards, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 19:51, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. – SchroCat (talk) 08:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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