Talk:2021–2022 Serbian environmental protests/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Argenti Aertheri (talk · contribs) 02:35, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Current review status
I’ll update this as I work on the review ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) Last edited: 23:48, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for picking up this for a review. I'll look for some better images if there are any. Voice of America has high-quality ones but I don't know whether they covered these protests. --Vacant0 (talk) 12:26, 3 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Ok, there are. I'll upload and add them now. Vacant0 (talk) 12:33, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Vacant0 (talk) 13:02, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Issues
This still has a lot of copy editing issues. You should probably submit it to the guild of copy editors for someone to clean it up. The timeline in the lead is quite confusing, for example: "Between September 2021 and February 2022, environmental organisations organised protests ... Protests resumed in November 2021". November 2021 is between September 2021 and February 2022, so presumably the protests stopped at some point? I’d check the sources myself, but that leads to my next point.

You've got a serious case of overlinking. The article has 3,719 words, and 271 citations. That’s a different citation for every 14ish words, or one per sentence. Do none of the news articles mention multiple protests? Some of these can definitely be cut, as I skimmed the English ones and some definitely did mention past protests. Also, not everything needs multiple citations.

"Protesters gathered at Pioneers Park, Belgrade at around 14:00 (UTC+01:00), and they demanded Rio Tinto leave Serbia. Several thousand demonstrators attended the protest." has 4 citations, citations not used to support anything else in the article. It needs only one that says thousands of demonstrators gathered a pioneers park to demand Rio Tinto leave Serbia. I can't tell if this is improper synthesis as I can’t read Serbian, but it’s an issue for basically every sentence.

Oddly, while that fairly uncontroversial statement has 4 citations, this has 0: "The demonstrators were attacked by armed hooligans and pro-government activists". First, armed hooligans should absolutely not be Wikipedia’s voice, second, the wording links the two, implying that the pro-government activists were like the "armed hooligans". I don't know if this is a NPOV issue, or just words to watch. The good news is there aren't many of this sort of thing, and they’re easy to fix (cite, or reword).

I'm also on the fence whether it covers all points of view without going on any tangents. It could probably do with more background as to why the government did what it did, but wikilinking a well written article might be enough.

I'm not going to outright fail it (yet), because while I doubt this can be cleaned up quickly, it's Thursday and maybe you can spend the weekend on it? Review the articles linked in the table, and give a one over to the ones I've linked, see what sources can be eliminated by using ones that cover a broader range, and then submit a request for a copy editor to take a look. They've got an almost 3 month long backlog, but maybe it'll catch someone's interest.

I'll check back Monday and see how you're doing on it, if you’re making real progress it'll stay on hold, if not it's a failure for now. ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 22:59, 3 August 2023 (UTC)


 * The problem is that this article used to be even worse, there were 400+ refs. Thank you for at least putting the article on hold, I'll start working on this today. Vacant0 (talk) 09:17, 4 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I re-wrote the Background section and moved content that was not related to that section. I've also removed a bunch of citations that are not needed because there are already citations that cover the same content. --Vacant0 (talk) 12:03, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Finished the Timeline section. I will now work on the bottom two sections. It seems like factual errors which were not present before the copy-editing from last year were introduced in the article by the copyeditor. I've fixed that now. --Vacant0 (talk) 21:56, 4 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I rewrote the whole article, removed many unnecessary content, and there are now 152 refs in the article. could you now take a look at it? Vacant0 (talk) 12:21, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Looking much better! Not quite there yet, but now I actually think it’s possible. If you move the Serbian into notes with Template:Efn or a similar template, I’ll go line by line and tag the remaining issues. ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 13:23, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I can do that or either use the quote parameter in refs. What do you think? Vacant0 (talk) 13:29, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * With as many citations as there are, I think giving them there own section would have be less confusing ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 13:43, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Done. Vacant0 (talk) 14:04, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

line by line
Please give the whole thing a careful review, I changed a bunch of stuff that makes it read better. I don’t think I changed the meaning of anything, but I can’t check the sources to be sure.
 * ”Law on Expropriation and Law on Referendum and People's Initiative”, ”The changes to the Law on Referendum were”, etc. “Law on Referendum and People's Initiative on 25 November and the Expropriation Law on 26 November” — consider changing more of these to the shorter versions. Especially “Law on Referendum and People's Initiative” which sounds like it should be 2 things but isn’t.
 * ✅ Shortened Law on Referendum and People's Initiative to just Law on Referendum. I've however kept the full name in the November 2021 laws section.
 * ”until the dissolution of the National Assembly on 15 February” - was this a scheduled occurrence? Like an annual/biannual/whatever election?
 * ✅ The 2022 election was a snap election. I've added a note so that the lede would not get bloated with more text.
 * ”Ana Brnabić, the prime minister of Serbia, has described the project as of exceptional importance in late 2020” - quote or reword “exceptional importance”
 * ✅ Quoted.
 * ”COVID-19 anti-epidemiological measures” - I’m not sure quite how to phrase it in English, but that’s not it.
 * ✅ Reworded.
 * ”in front of the building of the presidency of Serbia” & “in front of the National Assembly” & “gathered in front of the presidency of Serbia, walked towards the Republic Square and then to the building of the government of Serbia” - how many locations is this and do they have clearer names? Serbian names are probably fine.
 * ✅ Novi dvor, National Assembly, Republic Square, and the building of the government of Serbia are all separate locations. I've changed some of this.
 * ”the Pioneers Park” — is “the” part of the official name? If so, capitalize it, if not, drop it.
 * ✅ Removed the.
 * ”SSS, DS, Narodna, and NDB demanded the release of those who were detained during the protests.” - all the acronyms are difficult to follow, but I’m not sure the solution. Maybe Naming conventions (political parties) or Naming conventions capitalization section will help you come up with something?
 * ✅ Those are the abbreviations of the parties and until now no one has complained about this during my GANs. I'll remove them and instead use full names even though I dislike this change.
 * ”claiming that ‘the story would be then diluted’” — what’s the literal translation on this? It makes more sense in English as “the story would then be diluted”, or without the “then”.
 * ✅ Changed it. The literal translation is "the story would be diluted".
 * ”In Preljina, an attendee was hit by a car.” — “and (not) injured”, or “and killed”?
 * ✅ Injured.
 * you mention roadblocks a few times, and I’m rarely sure if they were erected by the protesters, or to stop the protestors
 * ✅ Demonstrators were the ones who roadblocked.
 * ”Serbian citizens in Brussels” - does changing this to “Serbians in Brussels” change the meaning?
 * ✅ No.
 * ”Manojlović later added that they would camp until the dissolution of the National Assembly, which took place on 15 February and was necessary to occur due to the incoming 2022 parliamentary election.” — they would camp until 15 Feb, when the National Assembly was dissolved before the upcoming parliamentary election?
 * ✅ Yes.
 * ”Another protest was organised on 13 February, the next day before the dissolution of the National Assembly, Manojlović announced that the last protest would be held” — so on the 13th a protest occurred, and on the 14th? He announced the last protest, which would occur before the dissolution on the 15th?
 * ✅ Last protest was on 15 Feb. Added the date.
 * ”Following the Ecological Uprising protest in April 2021, geologist Branislav Božović has said that "the cooperation with Rio Tinto and similar projects are highly risky for Serbia". "The Project Jadar and the extraction of lithium near Loznica can pollute agricultural lands and the fertile Mačva plain, and Belgrade is also at risk", Božović added” — can these be combined? Or the second one paraphrased? I’d probably just paraphrase the second quote.
 * ✅ Combined.
 * ”Ratko Ristić, the dean of the Faculty of Forestry” — English is a stupid language, and I can’t tell if he’s the dean of faculty for the academic/governmental department of forestry, or whether he’s the Faculty of Forestry’s dean.
 * ✅ Latter.
 * ”Response and reactions” - retitle the subheadings
 * ”that the government committed three offences related to the environmental protests, this being related to the proposed changes to the laws and the violence that occurred at the protests” — that’s 2, what’s the third? Or is it 2 offenses regarding the law/protests and one offense involving the other?
 * ✅ Latter.
 * ”has threatened members of Kreni-Promeni to "jump off a bridge".” — this doesn’t make sense. Did he threaten that he would jump off a bridge? Did he threaten to push/throw them off a bridge? Did he tell them they should go jump off a bridge? (Also, “threatened” probably shouldn’t be in Wikipedia’s voice)
 * ✅ Changed this.
 * ”Ćuta and Manojlović have however alleged said that the abolition of the spatial plan was done in an incorrectly manner and that Rio Tinto would come back return to Serbia after the 2022 parliamentary election.” - does that work?
 * ✅ Yup.
 * ✅ Yup.
 * FYI I've also addressed the issues that you left in the article but did not mention here. --Vacant0 (talk) 11:03, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Just a few more things, first being that if no one else minds then I don’t either, go ahead and use the abbreviations if you want. Consensus overrides preference, especially for a GAN.
 * ”while film director Emir Kusturica said "the idea to stop the mine project and Rio Tinto is a definitely good one"” - “definitely a good one” makes more sense, but it’s a quote so if that’s what he then that’s what he said.
 * ”Zoran Tomić, a professor at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade” - perfect, thank you!
 * I made a couple minor changes, and if it’s ok by you I’ll tag the GAN for a second opinion tomorrow, I don’t think I count as an uninvolved party any more 😅 ~ Argenti Aertheri (Chat?) 15:35, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's alright. Thank you for your work! Vacant0 (talk) 15:50, 6 August 2023 (UTC)