Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/National emblem of Belarus/Attempt 1

National emblem of Belarus
The last official symbol of Belarus to be taken through FAC. The length is about the same as My Belarusy, but it is not as picture heavy as Flag of Belarus. I hope that I hit on the needed points and perhaps try and get this done before the March 19 elections commence in Belarus. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 07:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Seems to be enough comprehensive. Brandmeister 18:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Poorly written. Not enough eyeballs. Full of POV aimed at bashing this bastard Lukashenko (I am deleting most of it right now). I'd say a vanity nomination, by  a major contributor, who still lacks critical evaluation of himself, despite his obvoius important, large, and good job done here and in many other articles. I strongly oppose any FAC nominations if an article did not go thru Article Improvement Drive. Turnig a FAC nomination into an AID done hastily is a bad-bad habit forming recently. mikka (t) 20:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * If all FACs must go through AID first, we'll have a total of 4-5 FACs per month (that's a 80-90% reduction). Needless to say, I think such a requirement is ridiculous.  Furthermore, insulting Zscout's work here is uncalled for&mdash;he put the article up for peer review, where I commented on it, saying that it was in good shape. At least spread the wealth and tell me that I'm incapable of judging the quality of articles as well.  And finally, unilateral and mass deletion of text is uncalled for&mdash;bring up your specific issues here or on the talk page, or fix it yourself; don't just delete material you don't like. --Spangineer  (háblame)  21:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * So you are replacing AID by FAC. Right. A wider bandwidth. As for the article, your opinion, and wholesale revert clearly show that you are not qualified to judge the topic by its content. Let's better talk about Salsa Rueda, a topic where we can probably find common grounds. mikka (t) 21:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * This is absolutely ridiculous. AID is a tool for improving articles, not by any means a requirement or even a suggestion for articles to become featured. In any case, comments from those not familiar with the subject are just as helpful as those not, primarily becuase those familiar tend to be wrapped up in their own biases about the topic and also often miss problems the article has in communicating its subject to the layperson. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 21:55, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not ridiculous. If an article arrives to FAC in such a poor shape, AID is where it must go. My point is don't turn FAC into AID. mikka (t) 22:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I've been doing FACs for awhile now and have written four FAs, and this is only the first accusation of incompetence that has been levelled at me, so I'm going to continue to assume that my work here hasn't been totally useless. Regarding your deletion, I'm not sold on the necessity of keeping the information you eliminated, but it is sourced and just deleting it (twice!) without discussion suggests to me that you'd rather cause problems than solve them. --Spangineer (háblame)  21:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, everyone has his first one. Relax. A person physically cannot be competent in everything. I specifically wrote "by its content". Of course, excluding the English langugage, the article appears to look good. But is is still ridden with other minor problems. I also wrote "too few eyeballs," and 3 minutes ago I reaffirmed myself in my opinion. The person is aware of his level of English. It is worse than mine (which you may notice is ..er..).  mikka (t) 22:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * You see to have missed the fact that it has already had a peer review, which is widely considered a sufficient number of "eyes". AID is not for just any article that needs to be improved, it is for important articles in dire need of attention. While I hate to bring this up here, your own edits seem to be designed specifically to remove sourced and relevant information from the article rather than to improve it. "Some have alleged" is not POV if it is true, as the sources have indicated. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 22:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, colleague, you still seem not to read the article talk page. If you have objections, please post them there, i.e., where the actual article content is discussed. Here we discuss its overal quality. My opinion it is bad and it is "in dire need", yours whatever. Please continue specific questions in the appropriate place. Right now I've just detected still another nonsense in the article and I am afraid I will have to delete another "sourced" but irrelevant piece, whether you like it or not. mikka (t) 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Mikka, I took your suggestion and placed the article at AID: Article_Improvement_Drive. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 01:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Mikka, sorry for overreacting; I misread the intended meaning of your reply. I reverted not to suggest that your edits were incorrect but that they were needlessly impolite toward a good editor who has done alot of work on this article. In my experience, calling someone's hard work poor and deleting it (even if that really is what is necessary) is a bad way to get your point across.  Sometimes, discussion before action is wise (though perhaps I failed in this respect as well).  Thanks for expressing your concerns on the talk page, and kudos to Zscout for being more level-headed than me. As for getting more eyes on FACs, I think a much better solution than requiring AID is to get more people involved in peer review. --Spangineer  (háblame)  04:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * To everyone, just relax, the point of FAC (and PR and AID) is to make sure our articles are pretty good, accurate and show what Wikipedia has to offer to the world. While as I said earlier that the elections on March 19 motivated me to perform this FAC earlier, I am glad we figured this out now before the elections happened.. I thank Mikka for fact checking, Sprangineer for a grammar check and Petaholmes for her POV check. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 04:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Object. Fantastic article, however, it requires a heavy copy-edit. Once this is conducted, I will change my vote to support. (For example, portions of the lead section are a bit awkward.) &mdash;Eternal Equinox | talk 21:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: "This emblem" in the lead&mdash;does that refer to the subject of the article or the Byelorussian SSR? --Spangineer (háblame)  21:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose
 * Screeshot is not referred to in the text and appears to be included for decoration. Not very useful or relevant anyway as there is a good image at the top of the article.
 * This is my fault. I deleted a piece of text that was going, like "the law specifies emblem usage, but this bad dictator lukashenko uses it as he likes", which is (a) a misreading of the law (b) a distortion of facts. Still, the screenshot is not as useless as you think: it is an example of everyday usage of the COA. mikka (t) 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I added the information back in, along with the appropriate text. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 01:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Section order is a bit odd. The selection of the symbol should probably come before the current legislation for use.
 * partially agreed, but I think selection must go into a slightly rehashed "History" supersection, which is separate from "Description" supersection. mikka (t) 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Who actually designed the symbol?
 * The grammatical structure of the article needs work.
 * --nixie 23:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I mentioned about the screenshot at, but it was removed in the various editing. I'll take that out now. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 00:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I moved the section that you mentioned. As for the question of who designed the actual symbols, I will look that up soon. Yes, the grammar needs works since I wrote this article, mostly, in a span of about 5-5 hours. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 00:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose. Although I dislike mikka's political motivation, I don't think it is a FA stuff. Sorry. --Ghirla -трёп- 17:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It's ok, no big deal. Just tell me what I can do to make this article "FA" in your eyes, please. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 19:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Very weak oppose. The article seems just a little bit thin, it is very close to perfect for a subject such as this. Has the symbol been a major part of some piece of popular culture? Was there public reaction, either way, to any of the legislating over the symbol? Also, I think this could use a few more references, especially for sentences such as "The Pahonia was used as an official coat of arms on several occasions, with the first being used from 1366". Where did you learn that date? Staxringold 00:57, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Strong object Thank you for the announcement in "portal Russia", which let me  find this discussion. First, "various other elements" in the lead section should be reworded, I think - just say "the main elements are" or something like that. Second, it should be said, by which "election observers" it was considered "flaw" and "undemocratic" ("OSCE" should not be hidden in the footnote), what about other, e.g.Russian, observers, what did they say? Third, it should be mentioned, why referring to it as the "coat of arms of Belarus" is incorrect, if not, then just don't say that in the lead section. Fourth, I think, everyone can compare the emblem of Byelorussian SSR and the current one himself/herself, hence just a description, not comparison should be provided in the section "Byelorussian SSR".
 * Object On comprehensiveness. The outstanding problem for me is that there is no description of the symbolism involved, what the various design elements refer to. --Tsavage 03:40, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No official symbolism was given for each element of the arms. Placing what the symbols "mean" with the absence of law is WP:OR. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 03:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Is it usual in the world of flags and emblems and whatnot, not to have any provenance or evolutionary history of the symbolism involved? Apart from guessing (WP:OR), I would've thought at least these things usually incorporate elements used previously that have some known significance. I think in an article about an emblem, where each element in the design is described, this should be dealt with. A basic test I use in FAC reviews is to see whether and what sort of questions an article itself raises but doesn't answer, and after reading the design description, I definitely wondered what wheat-ears and all the rest represented... --Tsavage 17:39, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Tsavage, I understand what you mean, since I agree that each element of the emblem has some sort of meaning. Other than the "general" meaning that I found while browsing on FOTW, I have not found anything truely specific yet. I will try and browse around as soon as I get home (I am at Univ. now) but sooner or later, a reason will be tracked down. But I highly think the wheat ears are for farming. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 20:49, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't read all the article, when somebody will have taken care of the above mentioned topics, say this here, please, I'll come back to look at the article again. Cmapm 22:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I reworded the lead, and added some more of the elements that were in the current emblem. Two, I added the note that the Belarusian emblem is missing elements that a full coat of arms has, so that is why it should not be called a coat of arms.. The only observers who went to the election were the OSCE and the BHHRG, all others were barred (well, foreign ones. There were some local observers according to the BHHRG). I also added to the BySSR emblem section. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 00:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It became much better, but I'm neutral now, because that TV screenshot doesn't look nice, although I don't know the way, how this could be changed. Cmapm 01:44, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That is the best screenshot I could get, since I downloaded the stream of TB a week ago to record My Belarusy for my own personal collection. I could try and and see what other frames I could get, but I mainly chose that one so I could one pic for both this article and for My Belarusy (thelyrics are at the bottom). I still intend to keep the screenshot in, but I can get it without the lyrics and nuke the picture from My Belarusy and from WP servers. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 02:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * on second thought, the image is bad, so I will just nuke it. I will keep the text, though, since that is something that can be verified (I own a recording of My Belarusy from TB). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 02:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

results

 * 1) Who observed the election and declared it was flawed? Can we have a more reputable source than the second of third hand quote from Flags of the World - please.
 * You are probably talking about the referendum. It was considered flawed by opposition for two reasons: (1) bundling of questions (2) underparticipation. This can be found. mikka (t) 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I want to know who observed that it was flawed. Where there UN observers, or is it the opinion of local "independent" individuals, the media, or the opposition? For the sake of verifiability and POV this needs to be made explicitly clear.--nixie 01:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * USAID said the elections were flawd . This election not only involved the Belarusian emblem, but also the flag, the use of the Russian language and also the election of members to the Belarusian parilament. It occured on May 14, 1995. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 02:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No USAID says that " May 1995 parliamentary elections were judged less than free and fair and low voter turnout invalidated results in most districts. Observers noted lack of press freedoms, campaign restrictions and a flawed election law. A new legislature did not convene, leaving Presidential power largely unchecked." That is discussing the 1995 elections, was the referendum held at the same time, otherwise this statement is totally irrelvant? The USAID information is also unsourced. Who were the observers? The article needs to provide verifiable information on who oberserved the referendum so the basis of the claim that results were unfair can be established. --nixie 02:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The parilament elections and the vote on the national symbols occured at the same time. A vote about the Russian language also occured on that same day. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 02:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, how about Human Rights Watch and the CSCE? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 02:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The CSCE source is probably the most balanced.--nixie 02:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Added. One of the things that you suggested was a copyedit. Can I go ahead and place the article in the category of articles that need a copyedit? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 02:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Question
Other than AID and the grammar check, is everything kosher now with the article? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 22:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The assertion in the lead that the referendum was unfair needs a cite, and as you mentioned the language still needs work.--nixie 23:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * In the lead it says "the current emblem, which is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the coat of arms of Belarus," but the caption to the picture refers to it as the "Belarusian coat of arms." Someone needs to reconcile that. Foxmulder 16:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed, thanks. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 16:47, 8 March 2006 (UTC)