Wikipedia:Peer review/Bahrain/archive1

Bahrain

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like a clear and concise review of this page. From the feedback, I hope to improve this article so that it would get an FA rating. I believe the current page is worth more than a C rating, potentially it could be an A class article. I look forward to helpful feedback.

Thanks, Droodkin (talk) 07:46, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Dana Boomer

OK, sorry it has taken me a couple of days to get to this review. At this point, I think the article is a strong C-class or weak B-class article. It still needs quite a bit of work, however, to get it to even GA-class, much less A- or FA-class. Initial thoughts:

• The lead is short for an article of this length. The number of paragraphs is right, but their size is small.
• Update banner in the Drop of Iranian claim section, which should have been addressed before this PR was initiated.
• There shouldn't be external links in the article text, as there is in the Governorates section.
• There is a lack of referencing in some sections, such as Al Khalifa ascendancy to Bahrain and their treaties with the British, Education and Tourism, that would be a significant issue in a FAC nomination. There are also other bits and pieces (sentences here and there) that are unreferenced.

• This lack of referencing is still prevalent in several areas. For example (not a complete listing) see last two paragraphs of Rise of the Bani Utbah, most of Al Khalifa ascendancy, first paragraph of Early 20th Century reforms, first paragraph of Geography, all of Languages, first two paragraphs of Education,

• Reference formatting needs some work. Web references should have a title, publisher and access date at the very least, and author, publications date, etc. when applicable. All books should have page numbers. Formatting should be identical over all references for FA status.
• Pick a variety of English and standardize the article to that. For instance, I see both neighbor and neighbour.

• Still needs work. -ize vs. -ise, for example.

• Lots of short, choppy paragraphs, especially in the History section. Although the occasionally short paragraph is fine, lots of them make the article read poorly.
• References should come either before or after punctuation. After is the most common, but either is fine, as long as they're consistent.
• 10 dead links, see here. A few of them are already marked, and these should have been dealt with before the PR was opened.

• Better, but still two dead.

• The weighting of the History section could probably use a check. The article spends three paragraphs on the thousands of years covered by the Pre-Islamic period, but then spends 17 paragraphs and a lengthy quote on the less than 200 years covered by the Al Khalifa ascendancy to Bahrain and their treaties with the British section. The latter should probably be better summarized, with any necessary info moved to sub-articles that most likely already exist.

• Better, but still a bit unwieldy. Consolidating paragraphs would probably help in several of the sections, as suggested above.

• A few things that I didn't see mentioned in the article: Healthcare, infrastructure, telecommunications, sports other than auto racing.

• If football is the most popular sport (and this needs a reference, by the way), then why is two-thirds of this section about auto racing?

• In the economy section, "In Bahrain, petroleum production and processing account for about 60% of export receipts," - What accounts for the rest?
• Outdated information (2006 or before) in some sections - this is now six or more years old, a lifetime in financial, economic, etc. areas.
• Governorates section could use additional prose context on the governorates and municipalities. Also, if the municipalities are subdivisions of the governorates (and this should be made explicit), the municipalities should probably come second, not first.
• Military section is generally located near politics/government section, and sometimes even a subsection of this.

At this point, referencing, completeness and weighting are probably the biggest issues to be addressed before this article can progress beyond its current rating. It's quite a good start, though, and I applaud your initiative in jumping into this topic. I would suggest perhaps looking at some of the current GA- and FA-level articles on countries to get an idea for what goes into a topic of this size, what the general layout is, etc. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions. Dana boomer (talk) 00:11, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

The lead looks much better now. However, I personally would have waited until I was finished with the other issues before working on the lead. This is because there's a good chance that the makeup of the lead is going to change based on the additions/removals I recommended above, if they are completed. However, to each his own. As I said above, I think that the referencing, completeness and weighting issues are the largest problems facing the article right now; the other stuff is more minor, although it does still need to be fixed at some point. If you have questions, you can ask them here, if you wish - I have this page watchlisted. Dana boomer (talk) 11:22, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I've spent the past three days doing some major remodeling of the page and now I'm confident that it's worth more than a C rating. I'd very much appreciate the new feedback (and thank you very much for the previous pointers!) --Droodkin (talk) 21:13, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

It's looking quite a bit better, so I have upped the rating to a B. GA-class is gained by nominating at WP:GAN. A-class is given through group review by individual wikiprojects, but none of the projects listed on the talk page appear to use this assessment level. That means that your best bet is GAN, then WP:FAC. However, there's a good bit more work to do before those steps. More detailed comments above, interspersed with my original ones. Dana boomer (talk) 01:57, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Well that is certainly good news, I'll hopefully edit some more and go for the GA rating. Thank you for all the pointers, once again. --Droodkin (talk) 07:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Alright, did some more edits. I think it's now worth a nomination for Wikipedia:Good articles now ? --Droodkin (talk) 16:14, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

You've done some great work on this article and I think it should do OK at GAN, although there are definitely still areas for improvement, and it would have a hard time at FAC. References need a going-through for formatting (several different formatting methods are currently used), and completeness (I see web refs missing publishers and access dates, books missing page numbers, which is a big no-no at FAC). Overall, though, looking much better! Dana boomer (talk) 23:23, 29 June 2012 (UTC)