Talk:Polish constitutional crisis/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) 14:29, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Starting review. CMD (talk) 14:29, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

While there are some good points to this article, there are a number of issues that I feel will take longer than a week to solve that prevent it from reaching GA level. Regarding 1a there are no issues, the prose is clear and understandable throughout. Regarding 1b however, the lead of this article does not appear to be a summary of the article. Some points in the lead are not covered in the article (eg. the point on the EU coronavirus budget). Also importantly, there are a lot of topics that are covered in the body that go unmentioned in the lead. On layout, there are numerous short paragraphs and sections throughout the article.

On verifiability, there is a good list of references (2a), although the formatting is inconsistent. Further, not all sources appear reliable, with one paragraph being sourced entirely to one tweet, and another source is a wordpress blog. There are quite a few unsourced areas throughout the article, including a couple of subsections and the entire Opposition Groups section. On original research, while individual points are sourced, I have some concerns about the overall sourcing of the article and whether the topic as a whole has a firm basis. Notably, none of the two names given in the lead, "Polish constitutional crisis" and "Polish rule-of-law crisis", appear in any of the source titles. A few spot-checks, including the sources in the lead, show these phrases are not in the body of these sources either. Through a quick web search there's a lot of sources on both topics, but many have different time frames and I didn't find one linking 2015 to the present as a continuous crisis. There should be sources linking each subsection topic to a wider constitutional crisis to avoid potential wp:synth.

These concerns relate to potential broadness and focus concerns (3). On broadness, for a start this is quite a small article for a topic that supposedly spans five years. As noted above there are many small subsections throughout, and if they justify a section there would certainly be more to say. Many don't quite explain how their sections feed into the wider constitutional crisis. If the crisis as a whole relates to EU law, it is odd to have one paragraph at the end specifically about the EU as you'd expect it to be threaded throughout (and it is mentioned in many subsections). There is a note on the talkpage about diversity of sources. Large sources such as the books mentioned there are useful sources to tie together various topics, as I mentioned was needed above.

Regarding neutrality (4) the text as it is seems reasonably neutral. However, there are presentation concerns that could be handled better. The Opposition groups section needs to be text, not a list. It should explain what each group is and what exactly they oppose. It combines a number of groups that oppose the government in many distinct issues. Better connection between subtopics would also help assess how neutral the overall balance is.

Based on the above, this nomination is unsuccessful. However it's an interesting topic and I hope it gets further developed. Best, CMD (talk) 15:39, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * On neutrality, I found this in the first section:
 * In May 2015 Andrzej Duda was elected as President of Poland with a radical right-wing platform. The reference (BBC) did not use any pejorative adjective and just called the party "opposition right-wing". Later, Duda vetoed the 2017 Supreme Court retirement scheme voted by his own party, PiS.
 * Overall, the article is veering off-topic. It is supposed to be about the rule of law, and the legal disputes between Poland and the European Courts. However, it is now a hodge-podge of opposition talking points, such as Deforestation or COVID, which are unrelated to the larger issue.
 * If this can be related to the "rule of law" then it has to be explained how: through the interpretation of a particular legal school, the Brussels Commission and Venice Commission adhere to, but not the current Polish government. Such an analysis of both legal arguments can be found for Singapore where a similar (but contextually very different) debate takes place.
 * Kahlores (talk) 12:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC)