Talk:History of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1648–1764)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Grandiose (talk · contribs) 09:36, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll be conducting the review.

Initial comments

 * Lead has an informal tone, eg. "playground", "From there it all went downhill." Could you have a look and make it more encyclopedic?
 * Lots of images. My feeling is that this disrupts the prose content. I would say that some of the images don't really benefit the reader. An easy example would be the foreign kings mentioned, I would struggle to put into words what seeing Charles X Gustav of Sweden adds to the article, for example. Generally there are quite a few portraits that I think could be omitted.
 * Images and portraits I see as important because they help the reader to develop intuitive feeling for the subject. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is an alien territory to most, and the graphics facilitate grasping the essence of what's being discussed. Good illustrations add to the article's content, not distract from it, and make it more accessible. Which is why fancy books have always had many color plates, and electronic media can easily afford the same. Orczar (talk) 23:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I know you do a lot of articles, so being a little picky if you have p. 156-159 it ought to be pp. 156–159, with a double p and en-dash rather than hyphen.
 * There's a large part of "Culture of Mature Baroque" sourced only to #62. Not a major part of the article, so not a problem for GA, but really you ought to introduce other sources if you wanted to take the article further.
 * I checked my articles against a number of sources other than the main source (Gierowski in this case), but if the information was already referenced to Gierowski, I had usually not provided the additional (corroborating) reference. I used other references only when I found additional significant information. Now, after noticing how many multiple references Constitution of May 3, 1791 has, I realize I might have made a mistake in this respect. Orczar (talk) 14:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Some reviewers in fact complain that articles I write have too many references, particularly for one sentence, but in fact one of the reasons I do so is that I try to back as up as much information as possible with sources allowing verification online (usually Google Books). It's hard to make everyone happy... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:21, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. The article does seemingly go between sources at length; a big potential problem here is close paraphrasing because it can manifest not just in wording but also the ordering of ideas and the way they're put together. Unfortunately the vast majority of the article's sources are unavailable, which makes checking for this rather difficult. In any case unfortunately I don't have time to help you address the far more subtle problems with the article like that (and whether they transgress the criteria), so I'm putting the article up for a second opinion to see what someone else makes of it. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:46, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

The cramming of images makes the text often hard to read and displaces many section headings. This is most evident on a smaller monitor - what looks good on a wide one is awful on someothers. I strongly suggest halving at least the number of images and, if they are seen as needed, use an image gallery either at the end or after each major section. I don't think the article meets the intent behind Manual_of_Style_(layout).
 * Comments from Peripitus.

I can see quite a few grammer issues and some other textual issues. I could keep going as the issues are widespread. The poor layout of images, and the gramatical/textual issues are the only issues I see in this article meeting the GA criteria. Taking the reference accuracy and paraphrasing on faith (I lack the book and a working knowledge of Polish) all else looks good. The article does not meet all of the GA requirements at present - Peripitus (Talk) 12:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * John Casimir's bad relations -> poor relations
 * his initial general alienation from the Commonwealth's nobility and armed forces -> "General" seems unneeded
 * which included introduction of majority voting rules -> including introduction....
 * the nobles' democracy, subjected to devastating wars -> replace the comma with "was"
 * in process helping decisively in 1683 to deliver Vienna from a Turkish onslaught -> very convoluted, missing "the" before process and how do you help decisively ? WOrd order seems an issue.
 * resulted in time in deterioration - "in time" is implied in the context
 * The protracted battlefield role - not at all sure what precisely this is intended to mean
 * of which many had practically lost their urban character, industry and manufacturing, and the state treasury. - the cities and town's lost the state treasury ? how do you practically lose character....did they practically lose their industry as well..I am unsure
 * a great wave during 1659-1663 - does this just mean "especially during 1659-1663" ?
 * reduced the total population by 1/3, down to 6–7 million -> reduced the population by a third to 6-7 million. "total" is implied "down to" is covered by reduced and third looks better than 1/3
 * The war end economic pressures - does this mean the pressures after the war's end or the pressures caused towards the war's end or those caused by the war's end ?
 * Szlachta's folwark, the predominant in the 16th century agricultural production organization type -> The predominant 16th century agricultural production organisation, Szlachta's folwark ...perhaps ?
 * Latifundia were present in any part - does this mean present in most parts, in all parts, or in some parts ?
 * what is an antiking ?

So, on that note, I'm failing the article. As you know do renominate when the above issues have been addressed, but it's going to take a careful look at the article and would therefore be better done without the GAN hanging over it. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:00, 28 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Not that this causes me a big problem, but thank you for giving me a chance for working on the deficiencies listed before failing the article. This is how it has been done with all my previous GA articles, including the History of Poland during the Jagiellon dynasty that was reviewed by you. Orczar (talk) 15:19, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you being sarcastic, Orczar? I'm pretty certain I've reviewed your articles (certainly Piotr's) before, and I'm careful always to leave the article on hold for at least seven days. There are deficiencies that were noted in the original review that haven't been dealt with, and there's a prose issue which spans the whole article and which would therefore take some time to complete. Because GANs aren't prejudicial, you could have this sorted and renominated in however long it takes, no problem with that. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I just went through and tried to fix all the above. Volunteer Marek 17:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I sat down today to work on those issues after being busy yesterday but gave up...Orczar (talk) 02:56, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, as far as I can tell, the article was failed a day after the Peripitus posted his comments. That's not seven days for fixing things... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 18:48, 28 June 2012 (UTC)