Wikipedia:Peer review/Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan/archive1

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… another editor and I are attempting to get this article up to Good Article status. We both have looked at this article for a long time and believe that the article would benefit from a fresh set of eyes. In particular, I hope that someone would help suggesting ways to generally improve the content. Is there too much information? Too little? Does the layout/structure make sense? Is is grammatically correct? Are there any sudden leaps in logic? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, RDavi404 (talk) 20:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments by A. Parrot

The article looks to be neutral in its approach, which is commendable with such an emotionally charged subject. It also looks reasonably well organized, with some exceptions that I describe below.

The references are mostly news sources and look pretty reliable. (A reviewer might question The Idiot's Guide to Pakistan, but the author is a journalist who spent years there and is presumably well informed.) My one suggestion about sources is to find more academic and analytical sources, like the paper by C. Christine Fair or the book by Zahid Hussain. When writing articles myself, I strive to find the gist of a subject, the big picture, and make it clearly visible to the reader amid the details. Sources that analyze the situation in Pakistan, and not just news articles about the latest terrorist attack or political announcement, will help do that.

Because the article leans so heavily on news sources, it does sometimes feel choppy, with single sentences on particular events strung together into paragraphs of loosely related information. That may not be a problem in a GA review unless, because of that lack of cohesion, the article leaves out essential information—the gist that I was talking about—or confuses the reader. I saw one case where I think it does both of those things, which I describe under "Relations with other militant groups", below.

Lead

• The lead specifies "the TTP" as an alternate name, but the article sometimes says "the TTP" and sometimes "TTP". It should be consistent.

• It says in the lead that the TTP is also called the Pakistani Taliban, yet in the next sentence it says, "Most, but not all, Pakistani Taliban groups coalesce under the TTP." That suggests that "Pakistani Taliban" can mean something other than the TTP. The distinction should be clarified. For example, you could say (assuming that this is factually correct), "Most, but not all, groups that are commonly called the 'Pakistani Taliban' are part of the TTP." Also, because the lead should reflect what is in the article body, there should be something about what defines "Pakistani Taliban" in the body.

• The second paragraph nicely draws a distinction between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. The "however" in the third sentence, though, makes it feel like the attacks on the US described in the rest of the paragraph are a similarity with the Afghan Taliban, in contrast with the differences described above (people seem to forget this, but the Afghan Taliban has never launched attacks in the United States). Also, rearranging the third and fourth sentences to put events in chronological order (Camp Chapman attack, Qari Mehsud's declaration about US cities, Times Square bombing) would make sense.

• "In 2009 Pakistan launched offensives to force the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan from its territory in South Waziristan." That kind of leaves the reader hanging, because it doesn't give the results of the offensives or the current state of affairs. I suggest replacing that sentence with a paragraph about the areas in which the TTP is operating or has operated (has it ever reached far outside the tribal areas?), and how its fight with the government of Pakistan is going.

• The War in North-West Pakistan, and perhaps terrorism in Pakistan, should be mentioned and linked somewhere in the lead.

History

• The BBC quote is long, and I don't see a particular reason why it shouldn't be paraphrased.

• "The TTP soon held a shura to appoint his successor". This probably needs a brief gloss, e.g., "…soon held a shura, or council, to appoint his successor."

• The section on the TTP's designation as a terrorist organization needs some expansion to justify its existence as a separate section. The statement about the US designation mentions some of the measures the US government has taken as a result of the designation; if more detail is available it might be useful to include. The British and Canadian designations need some indication of why those designations make any practical difference for the TTP. I also wonder about the exact reasoning for the designation—was it just "the TTP has blown up X and killed Y and Z and is therefore a terrorist organization", or was there some kind of statement about the TTP's geopolitical significance? And finally, does Pakistan label the TTP as terrorists?

Relations with other militant groups

• The bold heading saying "Cross-border controversy" should either be changed into a real heading or eliminated. I favor the latter, because a section with a single subsection is rather clumsy organization. I realize that cross-border issues are a significant part of the relationship between the TTP and the Afghan Taliban, but if the text about them is so long that it seems to need a separate section, perhaps it should be trimmed.

• The section on the Punjabi Taliban needs some clarifying. If the organization is merely alleged to exist, as the first sentences of the section suggest, who alleges it? It may be an untraceable rumor that is widespread among the Pakistani public, but if so it should be explicitly stated. Was the term really invented by Rehman Malik, as Sharif claims, and what exactly were the "ethnic grounds" for his claim? Are any ethnic groups particularly apt to repeat the rumor out of dislike for Punjabis?

Yet in other sentences, the Punjabi Taliban appears to be real. For example: "TTP has significant recruits from Punjab based sectarian organizations also called Punjabi Taliban." (Punjabi Taliban organizations that are somehow "other" than the imaginary Punjabi Taliban? Who's to say they aren't the Punjabi Taliban?) And the quotation from C. Christine Fair, referring to "the movement", seems to be speaking of the Punjabi Taliban and implying that it is a real organization. I think the confusion here demonstrates the problem with writing style that I mentioned above: statements are reliably sourced and relevant to the topic but don't necessarily form a cohesive picture when strung together. A few sentences at the start of the section should state how certain or uncertain it is that the Punjabi Taliban exists, who argues over the issue, and why.

Claimed and alleged attacks

• The title looks redundant at first glance. I think I grasp the distinction now: attacks that the TTP has claimed responsibility for versus attacks that outsiders have accused them of. The title should probably be reworded so it is clearer and doesn't seem redundant.

• This list is pretty long, which looks cumbersome. More useful than a litany of TTP attacks would be a summary of its usual tactics and targets, and the most significant attacks it has made. Perhaps you could make a section on "Attacks" with a subsection for the list and a subsection for the analysis, or maybe you could just turn the list into an article.

I wish you well in your efforts. Let me know if you need any other help. A. Parrot (talk) 01:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)