Wikipedia:Peer review/European Union/archive2

European Union

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I suppose this article should be nominated for featured article, which it was in the past, I believe most of issues from past revisions were already handled and I would like to see others opinions on what else needs to be fixed, there is already discussion in the article regarding this nomination so you may find some suggestions on what needs to be reviewed there

Thanks, Petrb (talk) 08:58, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: While I am glad that editors are working to improve this article on a very important topic (and thank you for your work on this), the article itself is a pretty long way from being ready for FAC, and I am not sure it would pass GAN in its current state. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

The Link checker finds two dead links and others which may be problems. These would need to be fixed before FAC.
The disambiguation links checker in the toolbox in th upper right corner of this page (EL checker there too) finds several dab links that will also need to be checked.
The lead does not follow WP:LEAD, which has a limit of four paragraphs maximum (this currently has five paragraphs in the lead). See WP:LEAD
The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way.

The lead was already mentioned (see talk page) and some users said this lead is better because it is not easy to put it to four, I will try to discuss it again. Petrb (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One of the things that is somewhat characteristic of the EU (and its predecessor bodies) in my opinion is the ability of member states to pick and choose to some extent what parts of the EU they participate in and what parts they do not. So not every EU country has adopted the Euro. The EU also allows non-member states to participate in aspects of membership to some extent - so not all EU countries are in the Schengen Agreement, but some non-EU countries are, and the EEA and Western European Union are / were the same way. I think this should be in the lead somehow.

Improved, WEU does not longer exist, you mean to add that participation of member states on certain EU parts is only on their own decision so many states does not have to participate on several things, if so I do not think it is actually true in all cases, opt-outs in eurozone are only in few special cases so I do not think it needs to be mentioned in lead section (partially it already is) and concerning other institutions excepting UK almost all other states participate on the same Petrb (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I knew WEU was defunct, which is why I had the is / was construction. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The biggest problem I see is a lack of references in places. As examples, just in the History section these statements need references. Jean Rey presided over the first merged Commission (Rey Commission). and With enlargement towards Eastern and Central Europe on the agenda, the Copenhagen criteria for candidate members to join the European Union were agreed. and followed in 2008 by Cyprus and Malta, and by Slovakia in 2009. In June 2009, the 2009 Parliament elections were held leading to a renewal of Barroso's Commission Presidency, and in July 2009 Iceland formally applied for EU membership. plus the whole paragraph On 1 December 2009, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force and reformed many aspects of the EU. In particular it changed the legal structure of the European Union, merging the EU three pillars system into a single legal entity provisioned with legal personality, and it created a permanent President of the European Council, the first of which is Herman van Rompuy, and a strengthened High Representative, Catherine Ashton. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
Another problem (and this was pointed out back in 2008 in the last unsuccessful FAC) is the heavy reliance on EU sources. Now obviously if the text of a treaty or law is being quoted, the EU is a fine source. But WP:V and WP:RS point out that articles should rely as much as possible on sources which are reliable and independent of the subject. There are many books on the EU and it is covered by many newspapers and magazines and scholarly articles as well.
Some references do not provide enough information - see current ref 6 for example, which is just "European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions [1]" or refs 172 to 175 which are just URLs. Iinternet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful.
Wikipedia is not a reliable source, but current ref 7 is just a link to another article. "Gibraltar is part of the EU" linked to Special Member State territories and the European Union

That article contains many reliable sources. Petrb (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SOrry to be unclear, but the reliable sources have to be given in this article. Everything has to be sourced here, as part of this article's references. Wikilinks are fine, but they are not refs and cannot be used as refs or links to refs in other articles. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 16:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the notes are things that need references.
The article is written in a fairly choppy manner - there are a lot of short paragraphs (one to three paragraphs) that disrupt the flow of the prose. Where possible, I would combine the short paragraphs with others, or perhaps expand them if needed.
There are also places where it seems someone jsut came along and added a sentnece about something and no one has tried to make sense of it within the larger section of the article or to integrate into other parts of the text. One example: The European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC) is an agency of the EU which gathers information through satellite images.
WP:MOSIMAGE says to avoid sandwiching text between right and left justified images, but there are such sandwiches in Environment, Monetary union, and Foreign relations sections (and some other places that are not quite as bad)

Improved Petrb (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is WP:OVERLINKed - for example customs union is linked in two consecutive paragraphs in History. ALso do not link words and phrases whose meaning is lcear to almost all readers - what is the benefit from linking passport? It just adds to the sea of blue links and detracts from the lkinks that are useful.

Improved. Petrb (talk) 21:03, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the talk page discussion - there seems to be little in the way of criticism of the EU or controversey in the article. Again using third party sources more should help with this.
Do all 16 external links meet WP:EL?

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]