Talk:Eva Forest/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: JPxG (talk · contribs) 02:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll do my best! jp×g 02:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, for this one I will use the same scale as I do for all my reviews.
 * ✅ This thing is good, no issue.
 * ❌ This thing needs to be fixed or clarified.
 * This thing should be fixed, but I won't hold up a "pass" for it.

Preliminary notes
Most of the GAs I've reviewed have been about things like industrial chemicals or baseball players from the 1880s. This one, on the other hand, seems to have been a quite controversial figure who was the subject of politically motivated accusations of a serious act of terrorism. Also, most of the sources are in another language. Fun! At least it isn't a BLP.

Copyvio

 * ✅ Earwig's copyvio detector does not pick anything up on the Internet. Does not seem like a copyvio is likely here.

Stability

 * ✅ The article has not been the subject of any contention whatsoever, and this GA review appears to be the only thing on the entire talk page.

Media

 * ✅ The image of the building is under a free license.
 * The infobox image is fair use. I'm not very skilled at determining the validity of fair use rationales (although it seems fine to me) so I may have to defer to someone else on this.

Focus / scope / coverage / completeness

 * ✅ Covers her life in a fair amount of detail.
 * The heading "Activism" seems to cover a lot of stuff. What was the deal with the assassination of Blanco? Who was he? What were some consequences of him being assassinated? Why did he get assassinated? Why did people say she did it? Since this is one of the things she was imprisoned for being "complicit" in, what does "complicity" mean?
 * Her imprisonment seems like a large part of her notability, and it doesn't even have its own section. It says that it's controversial, but it doesn't go very deep into what happened, and cites two sources that seem questionable (her defense attorney, and a TV documentary).

Article overview / ref check

 * The bibliography looks a little sparse, with only two books and a television documentary. I will have to go through these with a fine-toothed comb.
 * The first source for this is the Guardian. Our article on them says:
 * Then Guardian features editor Ian Katz asserted in 2004 that "it is no secret we are a centre-left newspaper".[174] In 2008, Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley said that editorial contributors were a mix of "right-of-centre libertarians, greens, Blairites, Brownites, Labourite but less enthusiastic Brownites, etc," and that the newspaper was "clearly left of centre and vaguely progressive".
 * They are listed as generally reliable in WP:RSP, so there is not a WP:RS issue here, but since they're being referred to on a left-wing political figure, it might be prudent to give in-line citation for this.


 * The second source, the Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature, says that "at first suspected of hiding the perpetrators of the bombing, she was subsequently accused of complicity in ETA's December 20, 1973, terrorist assassination of Spain's then prime minister and Franco supporter Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco". The article, meanwhile, seems murky in comparison: "Sympathetic to the Basque cause, the book was one of the reasons which led to Forest being imprisoned in the same year for alleged complicity in the Cafetería Rolando bombing in Madrid". I don't know what "complicity" means in the Encyclopedia; however, writing a book and assassinating a guy seem like quite different things to be accused of.
 * In her Encyclopedia entry, we also see this sentence: "Such practices have helped her family to eliminate to a high degree the authority principle that has ruled the bourgeois family". This isn't attributed, it's just said in the encyclopedia's voice; I am not sure that the neutrality of this source can be assumed.
 * Later in the entry: "Her complicity was finally made explicit with publication of Operacion Ogro [...] this edition recreates the episode carried out by the Basque commandos". Still not sure what "complicity" means. Was she one of the commandos, or what?


 * Okay, let's look at Ref 3, Casanova & Asensio 1999. This one says that ETA veía cómo aquel impactante suceso podía aún rentabilizarse y dar a conocer más ampliamente la lucha del pueblo vasco. No era mala la idea de relatar en forma de libro los pormenores de la operación, por lo que la organizacion pidio a Eva Forest, colaboradora activa de la resistencia vasca, que describeria en forma escrita aquel suceso. So, okay, according to this book she was a colaboradora activa de la resistencia vasca, asked to write this book after the fact, and not involved in it. It seems that we should say that it says this. However, one concern with this source is that I looked up the author (Iker Casanova) and it seems that he was in prison from 2000 to 2011 for being a member of an armed gang related to ETA: "fue condenado a 11 años de prisión por pertenencia a banda armada dentro del sumario 18/98 seguido contra varias organizaciones del entorno de ETA". This might not be a terribly reliable source for anything other than her having been approached by ETA to write a book, and maybe not even then.
 * The El País source says: "En los años cincuenta, Eva Forest fue una activa militante antifranquista" which I guess depends on what we take militante to mean in English, but seems to suggest she took an active role in the goings-on of ETA.
 * A defense attorney's opinion of whether his client did the crime doesn't seem terribly interesting, and he couches his opinion rather heavily in the source, where he says Voy a atenderla y yo creo que Eva Forest no tuvo intervención directa, consciente y lo que en Derecho Penal se llama punible, es decir, con las condiciones esenciales para que haya lo que se llama el dolo, un conocimiento perfecto de la acción, una voluntad de ejecutar y una acumulación de actos necesarios y suficientes.
 * A television docuseries seems like a fairly low-quality source. Is there nothing more authoritative?

Conclusion

 * ❌ The issues here would not be so bad on their own, but when combined, I am afraid that the article overall lacks reliable, impartial sourcing, and what sources it has, it doesn't use effectively to explain what the state of knowledge is regarding this person's activities and career. I am probably going to end up having to ask for a second opinion, but what are your thoughts? jp×g 19:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, first of all, for a thorough review. Given that it's unclear to what extent she was involved in ETA's activities, it's all the more important to have solid sources. I accept that the article currently relies too heavily upon items written by those with a conflict of interest in the matter. I'm not sure where to get these since my library access is much curtailed by the pandemic. I would not feel slighted if you were to reject this nomination - I could give it a go on a different occasion when I have more comprehensive sources. In an related but hopefully different matter: I wrote another article on the Burgos trials which has obvious ties with Forest. I managed to find English newspaper sources and books; so, while similar issues might arise, I think I might have managed to craft a more neutral/reliable article there. If you found the content of Forest's article interesting, you might consider giving this one a fail and reviewing Burgos trials instead. This is merely a suggestion and a not entirely unselfish one at that. I would appreciate having you as the reviewer of that nomination but the choice is yours, of course. Let me know what you think. Thanks again, Modussiccandi (talk) 20:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, I wouldn't mind reviewing this article again after some expansion and editing. I'll fail this one (without prejudice) for now and start a review for the Burgos trials. jp×g 23:01, 30 March 2021 (UTC)