User:RQWill/2002 Malagasy political crisis/Javij-s Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

(provide username)RQWIll


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RQWill/2002_Malagasy_political_crisis?veaction=edit&preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Does not exist

Evaluate the drafted changes
(Compose a detailed peer review here, considering each of the key aspects listed above if it is relevant. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what feedback looks like.)

General Feedback:
This article covers the crises very well, with minor changes it will be ready to be published I believe. It does a good job maintaining specificity in order to not confuse the reader throughout, and moves in a chronological way that is easy to follow. It also does an excellent job maintaining neutrality, although a bit more on the causes of the differences between the two candidates would not hurt. It certainly meets the notability requirements, and follows a nice pattern, consistent with most wikipedia articles. I am a big fan of its linear time base organization. It is very discoverable.

Lead
The lead is excellent, accomplishes everything it sets out to do

Lead up to the election
This part feels fairly disconnected from the rest of the article, particularly the commentary about the 1990-92 election, because it is so temporally separated. Also it deals with the rejection of the results, which is dealt with later in the article. I would maybe remove this section all together, or perhaps change it to focus more on the presidency before the election

Main Candidates
The first paragraph of this is great. The second paragraph I would perhaps move to a different section of the article, as it does not pertain to who Didier Ratsiraka is, and is part of the political maneuvering of the campaign. There is also some sentences with passive voice in the second paragraph, that I think could be amended to use more active phrasing. The neutrality of the language feels good, and it does seem to present a balanced view of the candidates.

The third and fourth paragraphs also feel like good and neutral views of Marc Ravolamanana. The third sentence does feel like an analytical one rather than an informative one, but it also has two sources, which I believe would be enough to prove it is factual. The information about Norbert feels like it again could go in a different section, such as perhaps the lead up section, as it is less related to the candidate and more related to the campaign.

December 2001 Election
The second and third sentences of this section should be edited for clarity. The rest of this paragraph is great. The beginning of the second paragraph feels like an abrupt switch of topics, maybe work it in later, after having discussed the two sides reactions to the elections, as a sort of neutral view of things. There is no resolution on what happened to Ravolmananas request that the polling results be released, that would be a good thought to finish. The final sentence feels out of place, as the preceding paragraphs were about how unclear the election was, and this one is about a clear winner. I would also add a heading to this section such as ELECTION or something like that,as the rest of them have headings.

Standoff over Results
This is an excellent section, it is clear, and deals with the issues in a linear manner. A bit more explanation as to why Ravolamanana did not want a run off would be good, as that sitil feels unclear.

Ravalomanana Declares Himself President
A bit more explanation of the geography in this section could be helpful, as the city names are not placed in any sort of context. It is also not clear what city is the capital, which I may have missed earlier in the article, but if not that would be a good thing to mention. Knowing the city sizes and locations/importance in terms of the state of Madagascar would help to demonstrate the size and scope of these events.

Dakar Summits
This section is again easy to follow, and sums up the events nicely, with a clear emphasis on the dates on which they happened, which is very useful to the reader. More info on the HCC count, and why it was important would be useful. Also more background on how the document in Dakar was drafted, and how the men decided to meet there would be useful. I assume it was through the involvement of the AU but Im not sure.

Ravalomanana Secures Power
This section feels disjointed and starts abruptly. Why did he go to paris? What did he do there? What happened in between the second Dakar agreement and the Paris trip? Answering all these questions would make the end of the crisis make a lot more sense.

Sources and References
This part of the article is great. There are far more than the required amount of sources, and they come from reliable sources, many of them peer reviewed journal articles. In the article it does feel like the second and third sources are relied upon quite heavily. The sources reflect a variety of materials from stuff written right after the event to more recent things.

Response
Hi Javi,

Thanks for such an in-depth review! I definitely like your suggestion about that second paragraph of the Ratsikara section, so I've moved that to the election section. I'll keep thinking about how to make the transition to the second paragraph in said section a bit more fluid.

As for your point about Ravalomanana pressing the HCC to release individual station tallies, my sources are really unclear as to whether or not they eventually did (even in the recount), so I'll have to do a bit more digging.

To your point in "Standoff Over Results," Ravalomanana didn't want a runoff because he felt that he had won in the first round, and most likely just didn't want to risk further tampering in any runoff. I can try to find sources to confirm this though.

I clarified the landlocked geography of Antananarivo, and I did mention that it was the capital city in an earlier section.

I wasn't able to find any article describing what actual negotiations took place to produce the actual terms of the Dakar agreement, and I am assuming that is because the parties involved didn't want their supporters to be aware of any concessions that they might be making and/or wanted to reduce potential pressure/blowback against their negotiating strategies from their supporters back home. In any case, the Dakar agreement was reneged on so quickly finding these sources won't be at the top of my list.

I agree with you that this article does seem to end somewhat abruptly, but I had no information on the inner thoughts of Ratsikara and could only report what he said he was going to do. That said, I'll definitely continue to try and fill out the intervening period between the summits.

Thanks again for taking the time to review my article!

Riley