Talk:Currency war/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This article has potential to be a GA, it just needs tightening slightly. First and foremost, it needs a thorough copyedit, since it suffers from things like hyphens instead of dashes, hyphenated words with spaces, and other constructions. Some ref tags are spaced out, as well. If you're unsure how to do this, I suggest asking at the Guild of Copyeditor's requests pages (here). Referencing is good, and thorugh enough, with one or two small formatting issues. Books are cited a number of different ways (eg. "Ravenhill 2005, 9-12, 177–204" compared to "Ahamed 2009, chp1, chp 0-11, p.240, p319-321, passim"; the term passim should be avoided, and the use of "p" which I believe is encouraged used the same way in each). The second thing that is problematic is the use of images. I find the use "Image:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg" unneccesary in this article. Instead, I'd like to see what I imagine are extant graphs of currency valuations, predictions, foreign currency held, that sort of thing, in many of the sections. Thirdly, the chronological part (Up to 1930,... 2000 to 2008) should be put into one section I think, with an overall level 2 heading and these demoted to level 3 as historical parallels to the current sitution. Although the lead is satisfactory, I think it could be a little more systematic of the article content and somewhat more thorough, mentioning more views and events during the current "war".

For these reasons, I'm placing the article on hold for 7 days. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this, I've edited to try to address most of these points. Just out of interest do you have an alternative to reccomend instead of passim? I find it a useful way to flag to the reader that they can find further relevant background throughout the book - if they're unfamilliear with the word and have to google it, they're learning a word thats very helpful in general reading. For this article I guess it doesn't matter as it should be obvious given the book titles etc.


 * The one thing Im not totally happy about changing is the images. We already considered additional graphs and charts but decided against them for a number of reasons. The OECD Data visualization presents relevent geo-data far far better than we can with static images – we've tried to point the reader towards it at several points in the article. Also, it would be hard to avoid creating a misleading impression of a causal link between the metrics we present and the key events of the war, when realistically all sorts of economic, political and human factors are involved. Are you insisting that we need more graphs to meet critera 6b or was that more of a suggestion? FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought passim was covered under the same guideline as ibid and op cit, but it isn't. I think a wikilink would be sufficient just in case. I'm strongly in favour of including some graphs as illustrations. If another website does it well, that is not then a reason not to do something inferior but better than none here. So long as the presentation is accurate, there is no implication of anything else – for example, the article speaks (referenced) "China had to buy dollar assets at a faster rate than ever." and similar statements, which would be reinforced by a graph of dollars (or foreign currency) held over time by China. Oteher possible illustrations would be for "With global economy doing well, China was able to abandon her dollar peg in 2005, allowing a substantial appreciation of the Yuan up to 2007, while still increasing her exports. The dollar peg was re-established as the financial crises began to reduce China's export orders.", "By mid October 2010, the dollar had dropped 7% since an August 27 speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke" and "As a result, since early 2009 [Brazil's] currency has risen substantially against the dollar" [On another note "This follows an 11 percent gain for the baht" needs a timeframe.] As far as the criteria are concerned, well, it's probably a matter of opinion. The copyedit issue is the pressing one. (The structure issue has been resolved.) I notice you do not defend the Migrant mother image which I think is out of place. Using two more useful illustrations would certainly satisfy the requirement. If you don't believe this to be the case, I suggest a third opinion, but there's no rush on that. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:02, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought Id taken care of the copyedit issue! Not too good at that sort of thing I guess. When you said about ref tags being spaced out, did you mean you dont want to see line breaks between the reference parameters? I personally really like the Migrant mother pic as it indicates the human consequences that would result from allowing a currency war to get out of hand. Its always the common people who suffer the most from economic turmoil, whether its actual starvation in the LDCs or the psychological suffering of unemployment and financial stress in the advanced economies. But Im cool if others dont agree, the only pic Id say is 100% applicable would be the Mantega one.  Was just about to go offline and may not be back for a few days; hopefully editor Lihaas will complete the improvements you require. They did originally add two more quantitative pics which I replaced in an effort to humanise the article a bit - maybe that was a mistake. Thanks again for your time on this. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The ref tags were like so they appeared [1] [2]. The prose quality is still poor and is mired in typographical errors, missing punctuation and spaces, and poor phrasing (I strongly recommend the Guild). On looking into the article further, and double-checking against the WP:GACR, I feel the 2008 episode is overweighted. I suggest moving it to a new page (it's practically an article now) and summarising – 20% to 30% of the length here with a less complex structure. "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail" here, some of the details of the 2008 episode are unnecessary to the general description. If possible, wait for the copyedit as it will almost certainly remove unnecessary verbiage and make the task much simpler. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:52, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * A seperate article for the current outbreak seems like a better way to present the information for our readers so I've split about 80% off per your suggestion. Unless editor Lihass wants to do this part, I'll try to add two more pics along the lines you've asked for. Please dont expect perfection as the Chinease reserves are state secrets and the recent estimates for their size and composition are patchy.  Have also requested a copy edit from the guild. FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:35, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No suitable quantitative pics with seem readily available. I could create and upload them myself, but its unlikely Im going to have the time or motivation to do that in the foreseeable future. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:55, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Comments 1. I've gone through most of the article with some copyedits. Some sentences needed rephrasing (shorter ones help non specialists understand the topic). There were some minor typos, but it wasn't a big problem. Other changes included linking and delinking where appropriate and stylistic concerns, handling titles, dashes, etc.

2. I think the article overall rings true. I'm not an expert, but have some familiarity with the material.

3. Regarding images, I agree that some graphs would be nice to increase the didactic power of the article, however it is hard to create them or find freely licensed ones. I like the Migrant Mother photograph, its relevancy is well established in the caption. On the other hand, I'm not sure the portrait of Guido Mantega should be the lead image. I'm moving it further down because the article is not about him. I'd rather put the series box up top.

Congratulations to the nominators, lots of good research and work went into this article. Best, --Ktlynch (talk) 18:03, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I trust copyeditors, so I'm happy to pass. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:18, 16 August 2011 (UTC)