Template:Did you know nominations/Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani

Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani

 * ... that Saudi Arabian professor and ACPRA co-founder Mohammad al-Qahtani expects a "snowball" loss of control by the Saudi government?
 * Reviewed: Michaela DePrince

Created/expanded by Boud (talk). Self nom at 00:51, 21 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol confirmed.svg Long enough, new enough at time of nomination, inline citations used, hook is short and sourced.
 * Symbol possible vote.svg Some close paraphrasing issues from this link (See the report ).  Mohamed CJ  (talk)  09:36, 28 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't see the evidence for the close paraphrasing claim - i think there is a misunderstanding here.
 * The bold phrases in the toolserver link
 * start with the full name of ACPRA, which should be copied word-for-word,
 * "the right to a fair trial" which is a standard English phrase for the concept,
 * "the families of political prisoners" which is about the simplest way to describe the concept,
 * several two to four word phrases which would be pointless to reword,
 * a few phrases which do show an arbitrary choice of style: "the Arab Spring" - but this is now a standard term; "the Daily Beast" - but this is the name of a publication; "surprise renegades" - if this were part of the main text, then it would not be close paraphrasing, it would be a quote that needs quotation marks (to put it diplomatically); but it's part of the bibliography, so it must be copied word-for-word
 * "King Abdullah" is something of an arbitrary style choice, and not favoured in the MOS, but it depends somewhat on editors of the articles and common usage, and it's in the templates at the bottom of the article, not the main text of this article;
 * In, the edit is itself almost paraphrasing, but not quite - in both cases the new version says almost the same thing in slightly different words, but the meaning is changed to something different to what is in the source.
 * Starting a two-day fast is not the same thing as going on a fast for two days. Maybe al-Qahtani quit before the two days were up, maybe he kept going for a week to make the protest more dramatic. The source is published on Thursday 6 Nov 2008 and says that al-Qahtani (and others) started a two-day fast on Thursday, presumably Thurs 6 Nov 2008. So we cannot state how long the fast lasted without an additional source.
 * In the case of "charges" vs "accusations", the meaning is also changed: "charges" have a specific legal meaning of formal legal accusations written and recorded and forming the basis for a court procedure. "Accusations" means claims made by any person of someone else doing something bad. The person making an accusation is not necessarily a judge or other legal person, and an accusation can be made without any legal documents being printed or signed. (The person making the accusation might risk a defamation case, but that's his/her problem.)
 * Probably the relevant part of the guideline here is Close_paraphrasing. This especially applies when there are not many sources. Wikipedia articles are best when there are many sources, so the guideline does not focus on this, but in some cases we have to start with the small number (often 1) of sources that is presently available. If there is only one source and it has said some information in a fairly simple, straightforward, neutral way (e.g. without WP:WEASEL words), then there is little choice in using almost the same words, and this is perfectly acceptable under copyright principles. Amnesty International and AJE tend to use rather neutral terminology, so in some cases of something being described in about 3-4 words, there is no choice other than using some of the same words. The question then is when to use quotation marks: is the choice of words "necessary to describe the information, or is it a somewhat arbitrary stylistic choice of words?" Something like 3-4 common, straightforward, standard words probably don't need quotes. Something like 7-8 words or more probably has to be quoted if it cannot be said in a simpler way. In between are borderline cases. In any case, paraphrasing does not avoid paraphrasing! And a slight change of words that modifies the meaning does not avoid paraphrasing.
 * Boud (talk) 11:19, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I found one place (pointed to by the above toolserver link) where the paraphrasing could be worth discussing - see Talk:Mohammad_Fahad_al-Qahtani. Boud (talk) 18:29, 28 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Hey, sorry for changing the meaning. Seeing that right to a fair trial is actually an article and after some changes in the article, I believe the problem is solved and article is Symbol confirmed.svg Good to go.  Mohamed CJ  (talk)  22:16, 28 July 2012 (UTC)