Talk:Lech Wałęsa/GA1

GA Review
User:Piotrus submitted this to me by email. The fixes he made can be seen at the edit history of this page.

This article is verifiable, well written, neutral, etc. I'm passing it as a GA. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Here are the comments from the email. I don't know if you kneed OTRS or something from the Piotrus or not.  Piotrus said it was OK.  He and Durova also added a couple more giving a heads up about the thread at Wikipedia_talk:Good_articles, and I'm not including Durova's because she didn't say either way.

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Piotrus to me show details Jan 23 Hi,

First, I want to thank you once again for your help with the teaching GA. This term, due to reasons below, I am doing my wiki teaching on Wikibooks, but I expect to return with the activity to Wikipedia in a few months :)

However, I would like to make another irregular request of you :)

As you may know, I am currently blocked - but some recommended I appeal my remedies soon, and that I also work on content to show I can be a constructive editor (as I guess my past 20+ FAs and such are not convincing enough :>). Anyway, at this point I have three draft articles that I think are close to a GA status, and if I could, I would nominate them on en wiki as many others in the past. Of course, I cannot do this. Nonetheless, I've posted them publicly here:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Piotrus/brudnopis/en/Lech_Wa%C5%82%C4%99sa http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Piotrus/brudnopis/en/Stanis%C5%82aw_Koniecpolski http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Piotrus/brudnopis/en/sociology_of_leisure

The first two are major improvements of existing articles; the last one is a new article.

I was wondering if you could consider reviewing them - you can post comments about them to my pl wiki talk page, on their talk or email them to me. I would of course do my best to address them. Your help would allow me to do two things:
 * in my appeal to ArbCom that I plan to file within the next 2-3 weeks, show I can still create GA-level content
 * I have also entered the WikiCup, and if my appeal is granted, I will be able to participate in it. However, the first round ends scoring on Feb 26, and it is likely my appeal will not be granted till a few days before that. If I waited with asking for a GA review till then, I am afraid that due to our usual delays the GA status might not be granted for the first scoring round. While I am quite confident I can handle the Cup well into its last rounds, the current situation makes it possible for me to be eliminated early because I will not have enough things "scored" before round 1 end. As such, if we had the GA reviewed before then and ready to be posted once my remedies are appealed, it would be a good insurance against me being taken out of the Cup on those technical grounds.

All I am asking you here is of course 100% wiki-legal, just in case you are wondering.

Anyway, I want to thank you again for your help in the past, and I hope we can work together again!

Piotr

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Peregrine Fisher to Piotrus show details Jan 24 I can reveiew Lech Wałęsa. Let's do it by email. We can copy the comments over to wiki at some point.

To get it ready for a thorough review: expand lead, merge/remove single sentence paras, add and format all refs, explain why thecityreview.com and other odd refs are reliable, think of a better format (prose) for "List of honours and awards" and "Honorary doctorates" (may not need to list every one. Try to make a story out of them). - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Piotr to me show details Jan 24 Peregrine Fisher wrote: I can reveiew Lech Wałęsa. Let's do it by email. We can copy the comments over to wiki at some point.

To get it ready for a thorough review: expand lead, merge/remove single sentence paras, add and format all refs, explain why thecityreview.com and other odd refs are reliable, think of a better format (prose) for "List of honours and awards" and "Honorary doctorates" (may not need to list every one. Try to make a story out of them).

Thanks. I'll work on lead and single sentences (already done some work, but want to expand the lead a little further). All refs should be formatted, although some templates are not supported on pl wiki and break the references (like all cite templates).

By all means, please list the potentially unreliable references here. Regarding http://www.thecityreview.com/olympics.html - yeah, I had a feeling it will not last long. But I found a better one:

http://tars.rollins.edu/wpi/cousteau.shtml -> Jean-Michel Cousteau (biography), Winter Park Institute, Rollins College

This should make it relatively reliable.

PS. Nihil novi will over the next few days work on improving the prose.

-- Piotr

"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Piłsudski Reply Forward Reply

Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Jan 24 Sounds good. Just email me when you're ready for a more thorough review. If the cite template doesn't work, maybe you can copy/paste the result into the ref tags for now. - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Piotr to me show details Jan 25 Peregrine Fisher wrote: Sounds good. Just email me when you're ready for a more thorough review. If the cite template doesn't work, maybe you can copy/paste the result into the ref tags for now.

They will work when the article is moved to en wiki; I am not sure how to nicely deal with it now. I think cite books and news will not be problematic, so I looked at cite webs:

http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/pl/229/7615/SB_a_Lech_Walesa_Przyczynek_do_biografii.html -> reliable Polish historical institute

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1983/press.html -> self-explanatory, I hope

http://www.constitutioncenter.org/libertymedal/recipient_1989.html -> website of another award he got, used as a source that he got it...

http://www.mofa.gov.tw/webapp/content.asp?cuItem=25174&mp=6 -> Taiwanese gov' press release, used to source his visit there

Those are all cite webs hidden by the template malfunction.

I looked over all the other refs, and I think they are reliable (many news sources, but uncontroversial).

The one controversy related to accusations of being an agent, I tried to source reliably, and tone down to NPOV (the current article, btw, due to very bad treatment of this issue (and also rants against his presidency) should be tagged as a BLP violation - could you do this?).

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Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Jan 26 Looks good.

"Coincidentally (perhaps), Polish authorities lifted martial law on 1 January 1983, when this single came out." is a bit informal.

"Patrick Dailly's "Solidarity", starring Kristen Brown as Lech Walesa, was premiered by San Francisco Cabaret Opera in Berkeley and Oakland in September and October 2009." needs to be integrated.

"Wałęsa was the subject of several books and articles" should say a little more about this.

What ref supports "A charismatic leader"?

"Arrested again after martial law was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, upon release..." sounds a little funny, or maybe it's OK. Not sure.

"he speaks and lectures" - Maybe just one?

This thing is really close, but explain why you feel the lists of awards and doctorates is the best way to include that info, if that's how you feel. - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Piotr to me show details Jan 26 Peregrine Fisher wrote: Looks good.

"Coincidentally (perhaps), Polish authorities lifted martial law on 1 January 1983, when this single came out." is a bit informal.

I removed "(perhaps)". I am not the best to address style/tone issues, but Nihil novi has yet to get to that part of the article.

"Patrick Dailly's "Solidarity", starring Kristen Brown as Lech Walesa, was premiered by San Francisco Cabaret Opera in Berkeley and Oakland in September and October 2009." needs to be integrated.

Done; must have missed it when I was converting this section into prose from original bullet points.

"Wałęsa was the subject of several books and articles" should say a little more about this.

Well, I am unable to find any work that discusses books and articles on Wałęsa, or even lists them (LIW lists articles, but not books). I added some refs, but I don't really see how this can be expanded.

What ref supports "A charismatic leader"?

Good catch. It's Britannica; I added that as a referenced claim to the body.

"Arrested again after martial law was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, upon release..." sounds a little funny, or maybe it's OK. Not sure.

Uh-oh, sounds like any English sentence to me :) Don't you just love working with non-native English speakers? :D

"he speaks and lectures" - Maybe just one?

Well, they are somewhat different. Lectures gives it the air of authority (anybody can speak), but he does deliver a lot of non-lecture speeches (in media, for example).

This thing is really close, but explain why you feel the lists of awards and doctorates is the best way to include that info, if that's how you feel.

Well, I don't see how they can be converted into any kind of a story. We could have a long list-like paragraph - he was awarded doctorates by (long list). Frankly, I find lists more readable in such situations - prose is good, but lists, well, sometimes should be just lists.

Btw, the org article still needs the BLP issues template. Sigh: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lech_Wa%C5%82%C4%99sa&action=historysubmit&diff=340144613&oldid=339342839

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Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Jan 26 Which template is it? I can't find it.

2010/1/26 Piotr - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Piotr to me show details Jan 26 Peregrine Fisher wrote: Which template is it? I can't find it.

I was thinking about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:BLP_dispute

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Piotr to me show details Jan 27 Btw, the ArbCom amendment that clearly states others are allowed to proxy for me on LW is about to pass.

If it's ok with you I'd like to cc you in discussion I am having with the three editors whom ArbCom authorized to be my proxies.

I'd suggest that they wait till we are done with addressing the article issues you may yet raise; then they would transwiki it to en wiki. I am not sure who should nominate the article; but once it is done I presume you'll be able to insta-pass it (perhaps you could nominate it yourself?).

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Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Jan 27 You can cc this if you want. I'll try and give you detailed comments tomorrow morning.

2010/1/27 Piotr - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Jan 28 (13 days ago) "his role in Polish politics diminished." - was diminished

There is some overreffing. " His father Bolesław was a carpenter who died shortly after World War II.[1][2][3]" probably doesn't need three refs, for example. There's lots of places that one ref is probably enough.

"On 8 December 1969 he married Danuta Gołoś. The couple have eight children: Bogdan, Sławomir, Przemysław, Jarosław, Magdalena, Anna, Maria-Wiktoria, Brygida.[3][2]" - Single sentence para.

"he was even considered for chairman of the strike committee." - "even" is informal.

"After that he worked as an electrician" - "after that" is too informal.

"Wałęsa famously scaled the the shipyard fence" - two "the"s

"Wałęsa famously scaled the the shipyard fence and became one of the leader of this strike." - Not clear how scaling a fence leads to being a leader.

"The Solidarity quicky grew, claiming over 10 million members - more than a quarter of Poland's population.[7] Wałęsa's role in the strike, negotiations and the newly formed independent Solidarity gained him fame on the international stage.[1][2]" - Sounds funny. Maybe use "Solidarity trade union" each time. Can also use just "trade union" sometimes for variety.

"Wałęsa kept this position until 13 December 1981, when he was arrested. General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of martial law on 13 December." - Try and do date just once.

" In late summer of 1988, Wałęsa organized an occupational strike in Gdańsk Shipyard, demanding only the re-legalisation of Solidarity." - Does the article say it was outlawed? I missed it if it did.

"organize "half-free" elections to the Polish parliament." - What does "half free" mean?

"the Opposition took all seats in the Sejm that were subject of free elections and all but one seats in the newly re-established senate" - should be "all but one seat"

"Wałęsa was one of the most public figures of the Solidarity" - Is this the Solidarity Trade Union, or something else?

"appeaing on many dissident posters" - sp

I'll do more comments soon.

2010/1/27 Peregrine Fisher - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Piotr to me show details Jan 28 (13 days ago) I am not replying with "done" comments for small things - they are all done. Also, you didn't ask for it, but I translated the titles of all the (relatively few) Polish sources for the convenience of the English readers. For the few bigger/other comments:

There is some overreffing. " His father Bolesław was a carpenter who died shortly after World War II.[1][2][3]" probably doesn't need three refs, for example. There's lots of places that one ref is probably enough.

True, but I like redundancy (what if a site goes 404, etc.).

"Wałęsa famously scaled the the shipyard fence and became one of the leader of this strike." - Not clear how scaling a fence leads to being a leader.

I hope the rewritten sentence sounds better; those are two related but separated events.

" In late summer of 1988, Wałęsa organized an occupational strike in Gdańsk Shipyard, demanding only the re-legalisation of Solidarity." - Does the article say it was outlawed? I missed it if it did.

Good catch, added the info on this.

"organize "half-free" elections to the Polish parliament." - What does "half free" mean?

It was explained in the next para which you cited; I rewrote this to be more clear and added some expansion.

"Wałęsa was one of the most public figures of the Solidarity" - Is this the Solidarity Trade Union, or something else?

In 99% Solidarity means the Solidarity Trade Union. Often, sources don't specify that and one has to assume that's what they mean (there were a lot of various suborganizations and spin-offs with Solidarity in their names, but we can also speak of them all forming the "Solidarity movement").

"appeaing on many dissident posters" - sp

Fixed that and some other spelling mistakes that my check spotted.

I'll do more comments soon.

Great.

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Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Jan 29 (12 days ago) The way "solidarity" is used for multiple things is confusing. It would be great if you could add an explanation early on, so readers have a better idea of the possible meanings they will encounter later. Also, maybe be explicit in all the cases that the refs allow you to be. Whatever you think is best, but I'm finding the word confusing. It's probably a Polish to English problem, or something.

"that some of his former colleagues are satisfied running the government together with former communists." - "were satisfied"?

"On 9 December 1990..." - Extra italics?

"to become the first democratically elected president of Poland for the next five years." - Sounds like another first democratically elected president will be coming along.

The para that begins "In 1993 he founded his own political party" would do well with an intro sentence that describes what's coming.

"Wałęsa supported Poland's entry into NATO and the EU." - Maybe put what years those things happened in parenthesis or something.

What's a Nato-bis?

"The concept, though supported by Polish right-wing..." - Probably should be two sentences. It's pretty long, and the para only has two right now.

"He has however been criticized for his confrontational style..." - Makes you think the previous para would be praise, but it's also something bad.

"tarnished his own reputation" - "own" not needed.

"about him being to authoritarian" - "too"

"(Sejm).[7]/>[20]/>[15][18]"

"Finally, Wałęsa's problems were compounded by the difficult transition into the market economy, that while seen as highly successful in the long run, has resulted in Wałęsa's government loosing much of its popular support." - "Poland's difficult transition"? I think "has" should be removed, unless it's still going on.

"Wałęsa's BBWR party performed poorly in the 1993 parliamentary elections, at times the popular support for him has" - same problem with "has"

"and he himself narrowly lost" - "himself" not needed.

"Wałęsa claimed to go to "political retirement"" - "go into"?

"on the political scene became increasingly marginal" - Maybe "in politics became increasingly marginal"

I'll do more soon.

2010/1/28 Piotr - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Piotr to me show details Jan 30 (11 days ago) Peregrine Fisher wrote: The way "solidarity" is used for multiple things is confusing. It would be great if you could add an explanation early on, so readers have a better idea of the possible meanings they will encounter later. Also, maybe be explicit in all the cases that the refs allow you to be. Whatever you think is best, but I'm finding the word confusing. It's probably a Polish to English problem, or something.

Fixed all of those; but with regards to Solidarity, I am not sure what you find confusing. It is linked and explained on the first uses, both in lead and text. If refers to the Solidarity Trade Union; in few cases where it doesn't, a full name of the other entity is used.

I've went over and made sure that after the other entity name is used, the next Solidarity reference specifies we are talking about the trade union again.

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Piotr to me show details Feb 1 (9 days ago) I am wondering if it would be possible to expedite the review? I would like to send an appeal to ArbCom regarding my site ban soon; and I'd love to have LW as a GA by then.

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Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Feb 1 (9 days ago) I'll try to move quickly.

"Since his 1995 presidency" - Why don't we use his name since it's the beginning of a section.

"That year he has also founded" - No "has"

"In 1997 Wałęsa supported and helped" - is "supported" needed? It also gets repetitive with the supported later in the sentence.

"However, his the real leader of the party" - No "his"

"Wałęsa again stood for the" - Maybe "Wałęsa again ran in the"

"Simultaneously, he expressed support for Poland's newly-formed Democratic Party - demokraci.pl in the parliamentary elections of the same year" - ref?

"citing differences with the party's support of the Law and Justice party" - Maybe "citing their support of the Law and Justice party"

"secret informer of the Polish communist secret police - Służba Bezpieczeństwa" - dash is weired. Maybe commas around "Służba Bezpieczeństwa"?

"by international press.'[35]" - Extra single quote.

"to a big public surprise" - Maybe "to the public's surprise"

"Wałęsa received many other international prizes" - "has received"

"He was also the first recipient of the Liberty Medal on 4 July 1989 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania[48] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom." - Makes it sound like he was the first to get a PMF.

".[3]A History of Foreign Leaders and Dignitaries Who Have Addressed the U.S. Congress, The Office of the Clerk " - Fix ref tag.

The para that begins "In 2002, Wałęsa represented Europe" is choppy. Most of the sentences are "On date, Wałęsa did this", "In date, Wałęsa did that". Mix it up to remove choppiness.

"were big hits in Poland in the 1990" - 1990s?

"Wałęsa was the subject of dozens of books" - Maybe "has been" instead of "was"

OK, fix that stuff, and I'll pass it. Tell me what you want me to do on wiki.

2010/2/1 Piotr - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Piotr to me show details Feb 1 (9 days ago) Peregrine Fisher wrote: I'll try to move quickly.

Thanks!

"Simultaneously, he expressed support for Poland's newly-formed Democratic Party - demokraci.pl in the parliamentary elections of the same year" - ref?

Couldn't find one - removed claim.

The para that begins "In 2002, Wałęsa represented Europe" is choppy. Most of the sentences are "On date, Wałęsa did this", "In date, Wałęsa did that". Mix it up to remove choppiness.

Tried to, but it's really difficult to do something with this para :( Any suggestions what else can be done with it would be appreciated.

OK, fix that stuff, and I'll pass it. Tell me what you want me to do on wiki.

Done. Once you tell me the article is 100% ready I'll email the editors who agreed to transwiki it. They should also nominate it to GAN after moving it; I'll ask them to notify you when this has happened so you can pass it.

Thank you for your help!

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Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Feb 2 (8 days ago) OK, we'll call that good. Email me when it's ready to be reviewed. Do you want me to copy our emails over to the GA1 page, or just make a not of what we did?

Is anyone going to object to plopping the article in over what's currently there?

2010/2/1 Piotr - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher Reply Forward Reply

Peregrine Fisher to Piotr show details Feb 3 (7 days ago) I added it.

2010/2/2 Peregrine Fisher - Show quoted text - -- Peregrine Fisher - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 23:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)