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Belgium

[edit]

The former featured Belgium article has been modified along the lines suggested in the preceeding review, reasons to remove the featured status, and first trial to get re-featured. In particular, history has been strongly reduced, almost all pictures have been replaced by better ones, the culture section has been re-structured and the reference style has been improved. I am expecting your comments and suggestions. Is this page now ready to be re-featured? Vb 10:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Review
  • There are too many maps. Please remove the ones in the =history= section and replace them with more apporpriate photographs
    • I removed one -- see comment below
  • reduce Demographics, language, literacy and religion to ==Demographics== done
  • ==Communities and Regions of Belgium== needs to be reduced to the subdivisions/regions of Belgium. Those extra details can be pushed into the subarticle.
    • This comment has been addressed by addition of a sentence specifying how important this topic is for Belgium and why this information should not be further summarized Vb 09:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The geography has too many images. remove 1 done
  • The page size is 37kb which means that long sections will have to be cut down to under 30 kb. It is imperative that the page size be pushed to less than 30kb for now, because when actual copyediting work starts, the size shoots up drastically.
  • Please use the countryinfobox template done
  • remove the bulleted text from geography. What is the highest point? Are there any regions below sea level? Use the non breaking space ( ) between a number and a unit. C, mm, etc. done
  • Trade is made together...? done hope it's clearer now
  • move the bascilica image up done
  • ==Politcs== and ==Culture== sections need to be cut down.

Ok, once these are taken care of, I'll move on to more stuff. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:33, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Nicholas,

Thank you very much for your review. Many of your comments are very useful. Others are less so. I hope your comments are first hints to a discussion and not definitive.

  1. Your comment about ==Communities and Regions of Belgium== is not correct. This administrative division of Belgium is very typical. Belgium is the only country in the world with such a division. It appears at first sight very complicated and strange to foreigners but it is like this. It is so important that this double division (Communities and Regions) is written explicitly at the start of the constitution. There are no hierarchy between the Regions and the Communities! Those legal bodies are overlapping but do not correspond to the same geographical regions. They both correspond to different conncepts which are not shared by all Belgians. The present description is the result of a very difficult compromise. What you describe as details are not details but constitutive elements of the country. If I would apply your suggestion, any Belgian passing by would directly edit the page to include what you are calling details.
  2. The sections ==Politcs== and ==Culture== are quite difficult to digest more. Could you give me some hints about what in your opinion should be cut down? Politics is now divided in four paragraphs: legislative. executive and justice, political parties and lobbies, current policies. I personally think all four parts are informative and difficult to digest further. For example cutting into the fourth paragraph will automatically lead to non NPOV. Cutting it utterly is a bit stupid. This paragraph was born because some editor wanted to add info about nuclear phase out. I thought this is an interesting info but is NPOV if and only if other current Belgian politics are discussed to a comparable extend. About culture, talking about Belgium culture requires to speak about its artistic production. This is not because the article about Nepal does not include it that every country article should mimic that! :-) The culture of Belgium is not only its food, folklore and sport! If you want to be a bit informative you need to say a bit more than Belgium is well-known for its pop music. If I would do as you suggest any Belgian passing by will edit the page and add the info I suppressed in a non NPOV style (depending whether she is Walloon or Flemish).
  3. About the size 36K is a usual size for featured articles. I think what you say about explosion of the size is correct but must be addressed as the copyedit find place not afterwards.
  4. The pictures of geography have been chosen to please as well the Flemish as the Walloons. NPOV is a very important point which has to be taken into account when writing this article -- at all levels! If you don't do that the page shall be very fast vandalised!
  5. The highest point of Belgium is the Signal de Botrange at 694m (as written in the article at its place, i.e. at the description of the Ardennes). Belgium has no notable region below the sea level but there are also many other things that Belgium don't have.
  6. Why don't you like the list in Geography? I didn't do it but I like: it it helps reading.
  7. The maps in history are important because the political meaning of Belgium has changes very much during history. The first map shows for example the roman province Belgium was located much more in France than in today's Belgium. The second map shows for example what was the location of the Bishopric of Liège which was distinct of the Burgundian Netherlands or that the Duchy of Brabant was split over the Belgian-Netherlandish border. People reading the article must realize Belgium was not clearly localized in history! And was also not really corresponding to a particular people or ethnic group. I think the maps are helping very much in attaining these aims.

So I thank you once again for your suggestion and I hope you understand why I shall not implement them in their entirety. I have not the time now to make all the changes you suggested with which I agree. I'll do that tomorrow or later.

Vb 17:41, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Review

I would ask you to have this article copyedited before I can review again. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Nicholas,

I think now all your remarks have been taken into account. Some editors have copyedited it and I believe one could remove the copyedit flag. Vb 13:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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