Talk:Mohammed bin Salman/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Averroes82 (talk · contribs) 00:43, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Human Rights violations listed as political accomplishments!
Listed among his accomplishments is the so called "purge", although it is an extrajudicial power grab with use of torture. Averroes82 (talk) 00:43, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
 * What are you on about? Daily Mail is not a RS as per WP:DAILYMAIL. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Use of torture is additionally reported by David Hearst in MME. Also, nearly all media outlets as well as Amnisty and Human Rights Watch have confirmed extrajudicial detention at the Ritz hotel in Riyadh: which is a human rights violation. -- Averroes82 (talk) 12:18, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
 * If reliable sources say that we should include it, but this is not usually how a GAR goes. You can ask for another editor to help you if you don't know how a GAN goes. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:36, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I researched this further and found more human rights crimes   and War Crimes   serious enough to not be undermined by whitewashing throughout the article in rush for GA. Since it's an article about a controversial living person, more care should be applied to neutrality standards. Averroes82 (talk) 00:07, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not a rush, it just that this an usual way of doing a GA. Not sure exactly what you are saying. We should add that information or something else? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 10:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Restarting review
I'll take over this review, as it has been effectively abandoned. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:39, 27 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Not an issue for GA, but is a dead link; you may want to fix it.
 * The lead is a little short for the length of the article; I think you could add three or four more sentences.
 * The second paragraph of the lead is cited only to human rights organizations. Human Rights Watch is reliable for information on the facts and figures of human rights, but I don't think it should be treated as sufficient to establish that this is lead-worthy information.  Surely news organizations have reported this?
 * What makes gc4hr.org a reliable source? I also see that the linked page is datelined 2016, but bin Salman took power in June 2017, so is this even relevant?
 * Footnotes 17 and 18 are to different sources but are the same text, by the same author.
 * The Daily Mirror is an odd choice as a source; it's reliable for some things, but it's not necessary here as footnotes 13-15 all say he was appointed as Crown Prince too. And why cite that three times?  It's not controversial.
 * There is a note saying he has no birthdate, and a birthdate is given; if these are not contradictory the reader should be given an explanation.
 * There's an excessively long direct quote from per Earwig: "were Ali Sa’eed al-Ribh, whose trial judgment indicates that he was under 18 at the time of some of the crimes for which he was sentenced to death. As a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Saudi Arabia is legally obliged to ensure that no one under 18 at the time of a crime is sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of release".
 * Both citations for the above are actually to the same press release, given by two different organizations.
 * Thomas Friedman is an op-ed columnist; he is not a good source to describe bin Salman as a "lawyer by training". I think you could just cut this; you have his law degree, and the reader doesn't need to be spoonfed the deduction that bin Salman knows law.
 * At this time, Mohammad bin Salman began to rise from one position to another such as secretary-general of the Riyadh Competitive Council, special advisor to the chairman of the board for the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, and a member of the board of trustees for Albir Society in the Riyadh region: The source doesn't say this; it just lists these positions. I'm a bit doubtful about the reliability of the source, to be honest; it's essentially self-published, since it's his foundation, but for the simple facts about positions he held it's probably OK.
 * n October 2011, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz died, and the current King Salman began his ascent to power by becoming second deputy prime minister and defense minister in November 2011 and making Mohammad bin Salman his private advisor. The source does not say this.

This is an alarming list of issues, given how little of the article I've gone through to find them. I picked another source, more or less at random: footnote 43,, is used to cite "In Yemen, the political unrest (which began escalating in 2011) rapidly became a major issue for the newly appointed Minister of Defense, with rebel Houthis taking control of northern Yemen in late 2014, followed by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his cabinet’s resignation. Mohammad bin Salman’s first move as minister was to mobilize a pan-GCC coalition to intervene following a series of suicide bombings in Sanaa via air strikes against Houthis, and impose a naval blockade". Mohammad bin Salman is not mentioned on this page.

I'm afraid I'm going to fail this immediately. The article needs to be thoroughly gone through to find and fix problems like this, and GA is not the place to do it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:37, 27 February 2018 (UTC)