Wikipedia:Peer review/Mecca/archive1

Mecca

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I've listed this article for peer review because I want to nominate it for GA status. I know that this article has problems, but intend to generate ideas through community participation on how to best improve this article.

Thanks, Bless sins (talk) 02:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Majoreditor's comments. Too many of the sections are stubby. They need to be better developed, particularly sections such as "Government". The article also needs copyediting. Majoreditor (talk) 04:12, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style. If you would find such a review helpful, please click here. Thanks, APR _t 01:33, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: This is an interesting article - while it is clear that a lot of work has been put into it, some more is needed to improve it further. Here are some suggestions for improvement:

I agree with Majoreditor's comments that it many of the sections are stubby (expand them or combine them with others) and that the article needs a copyedit.
A model article is often useful for ideas on style, structure, refs, etc. I note that Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Geography_and_places has many city articles that are FA, including Jerusalem, which is another capital and holy city, and may be a useful model.
The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. This means that nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself (the alternate name Becca is only in the lead, for example).
My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, so Demographics, Media, Cuisine and Sport do not seem to be in the lead (may be others). Please see WP:LEAD
In addition to the short sections, there are many short paragraphs - the "Etymology and spelling" section has three one sentnece paragraphs - these should be combined or perhaps expanded to improve the flow of the article.
The "Etymology and spelling" really does not tell us the etymology of Mecca - what does the word mean in Arabic? What does the full name Makkah al-Mukarramah mean (All I know is that al usually means "the")? Since the city seems to have given its name to the province it is in, should that be mentioned here too?
Although much of the article has good references, it needs more references, for example Mecca is governed by the Municipality of Mecca, headed by a mayor (Also known as Amin) appointed by the Saudi Government. The current mayor of the city is Osama Al-Bar. A municipal council of fourteen locally elected members is responsible for the functioning of the municipality. and On July 31, 1987, during an anti-US demonstration by pilgrims, 402 people were killed (275 Iranian pilgrims, 85 Saudis [including policemen], and 45 pilgrims from other countries) and 649 wounded (303 Iranian pilgrims, 145 Saudis [including policemen] and 201 pilgrims from other countries) after the Saudi police opened fire against the unarmed demonstrators. See WP:CITE and WP:V
I would rewrite the last example as something like: On July 31, 1987, Saudi police opened fire on unarmed pilgrims during an anti-US demonstration, killing 402 and wounding 649, specifically: 275 Iranian pilgrims killed (303 wounded); 85 Saudis, including policemen killed (145 wounded), and 45 pilgrims from other countries killed (201 wounded).
My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
The information given in the current references needs to be more complete. For example, internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful.
I would not use other encylcopedias as references
The current References need to be made into inline citations (not just listed after Notes). The Further reading sources ook like they would make good references.
I think See also is for links that are not already in the article - most if not all of the current See also links seem to be in the article already
Per WP:MOS#Images image widths should be set to thumb to allow reader preferences to take over - can make maps or panoramas wider. The images in the article are quite nice.
Please use my examples as just that - these are not an exhaustive list and if one example is given, please check to make sure there are not other occurrences of the same problem.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]