Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/July 2009 Ürümqi riots/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 14:32, 27 April 2010 [1].

July 2009 Ürümqi riots[edit]

Nominator(s): User:Rjanag, User:Colipon, User:Seb az86556, User:Jim101, User:Benlisquare and User:Ohconfucius 14:45, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is once again being nominated for FAC because we believe the article meets those criteria. It has been worked on carefully by us, and others, since last July; we have made our best efforts to maintaining a NPOV on this difficult and polarised topic. We've been careful about POV, weight, referencing, and the reliability of sources. It was much improved by going through the last nomination, but failed because of a comment by an editor who we feel made an unfair criticism but which we perhaps failed to resolve in a convincing and decisive fashion. Ultimately it would be nice to get this to FA status in time for July 5, 2010 (the first anniversary of the riots). 14:45, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments. No dab links. Dead external link to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012601158.html; http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-11/05/content_8917186.htm has rather unintelligible content. Ucucha 14:55, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- The China Daily link looks like a completely blank white screen on my browser. Maybe I need to have some sort of Chinese text display support installed? Stonemason89 (talk) 02:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's not a font problem, it's a dead link. (本网页已删除 = "this website has been removed"). I'll look into it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It seems to have been deleted on February 5, and web.archive.org doesn't have it. I found a Google cache of most of it here and will save it on my hard drive for later. In the meantime I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done but tag the link (it might be restored eventually, who knows) and perhaps try to replace some of the references to it with comparable references that are still working. Unfortunately, sudden disappearance of links is just something that comes with the territory when using Chinese websites. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - You might want to consider widespread use of an archive site (such as http://www.archive.org/index.php). I've noticed that Chinese sites, like Japanese ones, have this odd tendency to disappear off the web every so often. ɳOCTURNEɳOIR _{talk // contribs} 17:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - http://www.webcitation.org/ was the site I was thinking of earlier but failed to mention. My apologies. ɳOCTURNEɳOIR _{talk // contribs} 17:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - The particular article in question above never was archived at web.archive, so that wouldn't have helped. If I'm understanding webcitation right, it looks like it allows me to archive a URL at will, which might be helpful for pre-empting these things...but right now webcitation itself is a deadlink :P rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - In my experience, Chinese websites are taken down very quickly. Most archive websites don't seem to touch any of them. Makes it difficult to write articles about official reports on subjects which fall off the Chinese weblink timeline. What to do? Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:32, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        I've started pre-emptively archiving Chinese sources and recording the archive links in comments. The ones I've tried so far are very slow to load, but seem to work. Any assistance would be much appreciated, as it's rather tedious work :). 36-41, 48, 57, 59, 62, 67, 72-5, 77, 88, 103-4, 124, 137-9, 157, 174-5, 177, 186, 189, 195, 202, 205, 208-11, 213-15, 27 appear to be the ones that need it.
        
        Also, for what it's worth, we seem to have lost another one: http://chinanewswrap.com/2009/07/10/hu-jin-tao-sends-zhou-yong-kang-to-xinjiang-to-direct-safety-work. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:27, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. This is a very interesting, and generally well-written article. Congrats to all. A quick scan suggests that good sources have been used. I have a few prose niggles to start with:

that three people were killed and 26 were injured -> had been killed and 26 injured
129 people had been killed -> another word for killed
at 197 dead,[1][2] 1,721 injured[3][4] on 18 July -> put "on 18 July" earlier in the sentence.
bursting through doors and pulling men and boys from their beds, and rounded up 100 suspects -> be consistent with past tense here: burst...pulled... and rounded.
said the United States regrets the loss of life -> regretted
"put the brakes on" like -> .....on" as
the riots the previous day -> the previous day's riots
94 "fugitives" were arrested in early December; 14,000 security personnel ; I don't think you are supposed to start sentences with digits, are you?
Nine of the individuals sentenced were executed in November -> November 2009, I presume, but not clear from context, or at least it won't be in November 2010!!!
still inaccessible (two in two sentences)-> one of these needs changing.
uninhibited -> unrestrained or something similar

Now all done. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:04, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other issues

I am uncomfortable with the way quotation marks are being used. Often it is fine but sometimes it is unclear who is being quoted or if these are "scare quotes" of some sort. eg. "thousands" of people; "harmonised", "for public safety"; "incident"; "to prevent the incident from spreading further" , and there are others. Scare quotes should be avoided obviously, and if they are quotes then they should be attributed more clearly.
I also don't like the use of the word "Some" (Uyghur/Han) at the start. It seems weaselly to me, and I'm also not sure how accurate it is, either. For example, I happened to note in one of the sources you use elsewhere that the BBC says "Many Uyghurs feel economic growth has bypassed them and complain of discrimination and diminished opportunities." Can you find a way around using this problem?
Consider switching the "Later unrest" and "Arrest and trials" sections. The timeline would seem to work better that way.
I realize that neutrality is a major challenge to achieve in an article like this. I generally think you have done a good job with a difficult subject. Since I have a friend who is very knowledgeable in this area, I asked her to read the article and comment on balance and neutrality. She felt it was somewhat tilted towards the Chinese govt perspective, and when I asked her for specific examples, she mentioned two things:

The Chinese government's accusations that the riots were organized by Rebiya Kadeer is mentioned (several times) but there is no mention her denials of this.[2][3][4] [5]
The second will take some more detective work. My friend mentioned that there was also considerable tension and volatility because Uyghur girls had been sent away as migrant labourers, and that some had been rumoured to have been raped. The source she gave me [6] deals with the issue well before the riots, so does not make the required connection and of course does not mention the rape issue. Do you know of sources that make these points as catalysts for the riots? --Slp1 (talk) 03:49, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no deliberate use of "scare quotes". Quote marks all denote words taken 'verbatim' from the source, in lieu of the full cited text; some can no doubt be removed without unbalancing the article. Now that we are aware of the problem, I will try and do something about it. Rebiya Kadeer's rhetoric and comments were unfortunately too unrefined, even by the standards of the PRC propaganda; there was much hyperbole and most were unfortunately soundbytes. Again, I'll see what we can dig up. As to the rape stories, I understand you may want to see more details broken out of the Shaoguan incident. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:04, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response and work to address things. I thought that the quotes were probably from sources, but it needs to be clear who is doing the saying. BTW, a sentence like this "A government statement called the riots "a pre-empted, organised violent crime [...] instigated and directed from abroad, and carried out by outlaws in the country" which you changed, is fine. It is clear that it is government statement that is being cited.

I think you are right, and it is the Shaoguan incident that my friend was referring to, and since I note that article has reliable sources suggesting it was a trigger event for the riots in Urumqui, it should be included here. I am somewhat confused by your dismissal of Kadeer's comments as worthy of inclusion. The original comments may be unrefined or hyperbolic, but her repeated strong denials of PRC allegations were widely reported and need to be included in one form or another.--Slp1 (talk) 13:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As for the "scare quotes": other than "harmonised" (from which I have now removed the quotes), all the quoted words/phrases you mentioned are taken word-for-word from the sources immediately following them.
As for Kadeer's view: we've been careful for months to make sure that every paragraph or section discussing the two opposing views gives about 50% of its space to each one. Earlier versions of the article presented the Kadeer/WUC view first, then the PRC view, and then had another sentence (something like "Kadeer denied all that") essentially giving her the "last word". Even though her view is the one I believe, that still isn't really fair for an article, which is why we've gone to the way it is now: 50% for each viewpoint. In any case, it seems this point is moot now, as Ohconfucius has added a mention of Kadeer denying the riots. (And there's not more to say other than that; of course she denied involvement, who wouldn't.)
As for the use of "some", I'm not sure I agree. WP:WEASEL is just a guideline, and I would be more comfortable stretching one guideline than making sweeping generalizations about an entire people; therefore, saying "Some Uyghurs feel..." or "Some Han believe..." is certainly better than just saying "Uyghurs feel..." or "Han believe...". The last thing we want to do here is paint a caricature of entire populations. With that kind of wording ruled out, the alternative that's left is "Many Uyghurs feel..." and "Many Han believe...", which is just as "weaselly" as the "some" wording so the issue becomes moot. Just because one source in the article happens to use "many" rather than "some" doesn't mean "many" is any more accurate than "some"; besides, there's hardly any difference between the two either (except that "many" steps a bit closer to caricature).
As for the rape issue, that is part of the Shaoguan incident and can be discussed more there. This is a long enough article as is, I think. There are lots of little details and unknowns about that incident, and it's impossible to discuss them all in depth here, nor are they really even relevant. For someone wanting to learn about these riots in particular, all they really need to know is that there was a fight in Shaoguan where some Uyghurs were killed and that's what ostensibly sparked the protests in Urumchi; the complete details about exactly what happened in Shaoguan (not like anyone will ever know exactly what happened) are more relevant in that article. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.