Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of post-Soviet Russia/archive1

History of post-Soviet Russia
Another important article for the main page, and a potential boost to our editing pool of users on still underdeveloped Russia-related pages. Partial self-nom. 172 08:09, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC) I believe that all of the specific objections have long been resolved, barring the ones from the 32K stickers. Going through the objections of Dan Gardner and Dan Gardner, A. Shetsen, Andris was especially helpful. But since the FAC process lately does not seem as biased against relatively long articles, I thought it would be worth trying again. (I note, e.g., your response to Everyking on History of Bulgaria.) 172 09:08, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Something about the very important recent Ukrainian election should be mentioned. Business oligarchs should also be mentioned, as well as Russian organized crime. Neutralitytalk 08:11, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * A note on the recent election has been added. There is already considerable detail on the oligarchs and organized crime. 172 08:32, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Have previous objections (see here) been resolved? Jeronimo 08:54, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Object. Abstain. The article is quite extensive, but seems to forget about any darker sides of recent Rissian history. 1) The article 'First Chechen War' section is very short, and the Second Chechen War is simply mentioned as a link. This important conflict is not mentioned in the lead, and all examples from the text are one-sided. There are examples of Chechen actions against Russians, but nothing is said of the devastation of Chechnya and Grozny brought by the Russian intervention, human rights violation by Russian troops, controversal elections won by a Russian backed candidate, etc. From the reading of the relevant sections one can get the impression that there are 2 sides: good guys and bad guys. Rather POVed, I think - not what I'd expect from such NPOV warrior as 172. 2) Article doesn't mention any controversies about Putin moving away from democratic values and more towards autocracy. 3) A note about Putin in the lead would not hurt as well - for such an important topic I'd expect lead to take almost one screen. 4) External links should be moved to 'external link' section, and linked through notes (especially as the article already does so for some of the external links). 5) I'd like to see something about history of foreign relations in that period - for example how Russia reacted to its former satellites or parts breaking away and eventually some of them joining NATO and EU, or the note on Russian continuing support to Belarus and Aleksandr Lukashenko. 6) Why isn't the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 mentioned? If such an event is not mentioned, it makes me wonder what else could be incomplete... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:44, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * (1) You seem to be accusing me of whitewashing Russia's role in Chechnya, which is obviously nonsense, if you take a look at First Chechen War, an article with quite some detail on the brutality on the Russian side, which I wrote. As for the Second Chechen War, I've been the one taking the word "terrorist" out and coming under fire from some Serb and Russian nationalists; so, I suppose my biases are anti-Russian to a (say) Russian or Serb nationalist and anti-Chechen to a (say) Polish or Ukrainian nationalist. However, perhaps a few more sentences are needed, so I've added some content. (2) The article makes it quite clear that there are signs that the presidency increasing its already tight control over parliament, regional officeholders, and civil society. Maybe not for Polish Russia-hating POV warriors, but we have an NPOV policy, so comments like "Putin moving away from democratic values and more towards autocracy" aren't going to fly. (We can discuss his actions, but being within such a recent realm of history, we are in no position to speculate about his "values." (3) A note about Putin in the lead is not a bad idea. I added one  (4) Some of the external links are a part of the references. They serve a more important function there than in the references section. (5) This belongs in the Politics of Russia or the Foreign relations of Russia articles. The recent election in the Ukraine is mentioned, but NATO expansion can be addressed in other articles. (6) Russia was officially a part of the Soviet Union during the August 1991 coup, so the coup is covered in the last Soviet history entry, not this article. 172 19:49, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't understand why you have to accuse everyone who doesn't agree with you of being [insert random nationality] nationalist. Aside from that, your recent clarifications about Chechenya and Putin make this article much better now. I still think at least a paragraph on foreign policy history is needed - since the article discusses 'history of economy', why not politics and foreign relations? And as for external links in text - I don't like them. External link and note sections were designed just for the very purpose of ensuring that article main body doesn't contain off-wiki links. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:01, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, the "nationalist" comments were honestly tit-for-tat for you calling me a 'POV warrior,' which is somewhat odd because I have no personal, ideological, ethnic, family, etc. connection to Russia or the Soviet Union; and insulting, considering all the time I spent in school in order to start working as a historian. There is nothing wrong with Polish patriotism, though. My comment was just meant to point out that your background shapes your own POV, as my background shapes my own POV. At any rate, regarding the article, I'll work in a survey on foreign relations. I don't know what we can do about the external links. It is important to have them embedded into the article in order to substantiate a number of important facts that may be new to a lot of general readers. 172 00:27, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * There is now more coverage on Russia and the expansion of NATO, Lukashenko, the recent disputed election in the Ukraine, the recent recentralization of power under Putin and the erosion of fragile democratic institutions, and the airwar on Yugoslavia. All of Piotrus' specific objections have been addressed. 172 01:26, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Very good work. All but my external links complain, but as it is a minor technicality, I changed my vote to abstain - as I said they could be transformed to ilinked notes in the text, clicking on which takes reader down to the note section which can contain either external links themselves or references (actually, it may be prudent to simply merge notes into the references entirely). If/when it is adressed as well, I will support - as far as I can tell, the content is quite comprehensive and NPOVed now. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:55, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Support, it's excellent work. Everyking 18:15, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. Excellent work - only one quibble; have there been any books published on post-soviet russia? because a print section would enhance this fantastic resource even more. CGorman 17:26, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Support, despite two curious omissions (IMHO): 1) the rapid rise and influence of organized crime gangs in Russia after the Soviet collapse, and  2) the role of Russia in the "War on Terror".  Edeans 05:49, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * They're both in the article, just with no specific link to "war on terror." I'll look into working one into the article in reference to Putin's relationship with Bush. 172 06:05, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Object - The structural issues I mentioned before have not been fixed yet. A 'main article'/specific topic article is a place for more, not less detail on a topic. This gives readers a choice as to how much detail they are exposed to (many people will need to have a more condensed history than is presented here - maybe about half the current size - but may need more info on just a few topics). For example, Russian presidential election, 1996 is still a stub but its section in this article is rather long. I'd like to see something a bit longer than the ==The 1993 constitutional crisis== section (btw, the Chechen War info seems to be under-represented). I'd also like to see Putin administration become its own article and a summary left here. Same for ==Dismantling socialism== (which is already long and detailed enough to be an excellent article on its own ; esp if merged with info for the pretend 'main article' link under the heading). ==Change and continuity in post-Soviet Russian culture== is also another interesting topic that could be expanded into its own article so more a summary is left here. In short, great stuff but needs more condensing so it is more useful to a larger readership. This can be done by moving and summarizing - no deletion of content required. I'll help if I'm asked since I'd like to see this topic featured. --mav 06:39, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * (1) Russian presidential election, 1996 is not a stub but a complete article. This article and similar articles tend to be data lists, e.g., Russian presidential election, 2000, an article started by Adam Carr from which I borrowed the format for '96. The section on the economic reforms ("Dismantling socialism") is aleady a summary of a main article. See Russian economic reform in the 1990s, to which the section is already linked. (2) We are not ready to summarize a main article on the Putin administration and the last section on culture ("Change and continuity in post-Soviet Russia"), since these sections already go into roughly the same amount of detail relative to other sections. Right now Wikipedia is lacking pertaining to the Putin administration in general; so this is a problem with our body of work on this topic on whole, not the post-Soviet Russian history article. (Vladimir Putin in particular needs a lot of work, along with the article on the Second Chechen War. They are not ready to be main articles) Out of consideration of these problems, the vote ought to be changed to abstain, IMHO. (3) This article would hardly be largest FA. A few others are quite larger. 172 01:43, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Even if Russian presidential election, 1996 is not a stub (which it is), it is still tiny compared to the amount of detail for that section in this article. The 'main article' you mention is just a link to a subsection of another huge article;Economy of Russia. The size of this article is a symptom of the structural issues I mentioned. Size by itself (either way) is not an automatic disqualifer (some things do need more space - such a summarizing the history of a 1000 year old country). --mav 06:01, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)