Omar al-Bashir[edit]

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…

The article itself is well written, and comparable in scope and sourcing to other featured articles of living persons. Aside from that, the article is what could be considered a comprehensive study of the subject's life and importance to world history considering the amount of information available to the wider global community about his life, and moreover due to recent updates and copy-editing, I feel the article now meets WP:FA criteria. I feel it is also important to note that given the recent interest generated about al-Bashir due to the fact that the ICC has officially charged him with three counts of genocide (the first sitting head of state to be charged with a crime of this magnitude, as well as the first to be charged at all), his biography can be considered to be of significant interest to world politics and social sciences and indeed recent world history in general.

That being said, there are some points that might be contested about this article's (future)nomination, including:

The brevity of sections dealing with his personal life and early history.

Potentially the lack of sections describing the historical and sociological background in which he came to power and ruled as president.

The (relatively) short description of the Conflict in Darfur for which he is best known to the international community

The fact that as he is involved in a current event (I.E. the new warrant for genocide) more updates can be expected to be made to his bio, perhaps in quick succession.

The fact that given his reputation, his page has been and most likely will continue to be a target for vandalism.

The relative lack of free-licensed images.

General minor oversights vis-a-vis manual of style, clarity and coherence, etc.

In this review, I am looking for any criticism at all regarding the content or sourcing or any other physical aspect of the article itself so that I will be able to make the required changes. Please refrain from arguing the merits of the man himself or of the merits of his biography becoming a featured article. This review is for style and clarity and those concerns can be voiced at the nomination for featured article should it article ever reach that point.

I have looked at the edit history of this page, and the top most contributors seem to be either bot functions or consistent vandals, and the article as a whole appears to have been a collaborative effort rather than as an individual project. Therefore, in keeping with this review, I will do my utmost to try and respond to any comment/criticism and to edit the article to reflect any contentions that might arise, and I will hold myself responsible for the article as per this nomination for the time being. If any editor has an issue with that or claims that they should be responsible for this article, then please contact me via my talk page and I will step aside and update the review to reflect that, and as always feel free to voice any other concerns on my talk page and I will do my best to respond promptly.

Thank you all for your time and efforts, I truly appreciate them. Thanks, Cwill151 (talk) 21:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note to nominator: Due to a shortage of reviewers, peer reviews are being delayed for up to two weeks. It will help to speed things up if you can find time to review one article from the backlog list, which appears on the WP:PR page. Thanks. Brianboulton (talk) 16:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: I think this looks pretty good, here are some suggestions for improvement with an eye to FAC.

• A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow. There are 93 FAs in Category:FA-Class biography (politics and government) articles, some of which seem like they would be good models. Perhaps Barthélemy Boganda would be a good model. There are also 47 FAs in Category:FA-Class Africa articles, which might be useful.
• In the lead, I think that his name should be given in Arabic (see the FA on Ban Ki-moon for an example of foreigh language names included in the lead of a FA). I think that it might not be a bad idea to say something like "commonly known as Omar al-Bashir", but am not sure that is required.
• Watch WP:OVERLINKing. For example, Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation and Hassan al-Turabi are each linked three times in the body of the article. My rule of thumb is once in the lead, once in the body (first use) and then perhaps in captions or tables or refs.
• Looking at the External links checker in this peer review (upper right box), there are several dead or probably dead links that will have to be fixed before going to FAC.
• Many of the refs cited do not have all the information needed - for example, internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. For example current ref 51 is just "Tribune correspondent charged as spy in Sudan". LA Times. 2006-08-26. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/chi-060826salopek,0,6941372.story?coll=la-home-headlines." It needs the author's name (given in the online article) and the date accessed, and LA Times should be spelled out in full.
• Please make sure that the refs are also all internally consistent, so some refs say "accessed on DATE", other say "retrieved on DATE" - again using templates is one way to get these more consistent.
• As for images, I think the article could have a map of the position of Sudan in Africa also showing Chad and Egypt (and other nations perhaps), and one of the nation of Chad itself showing Khartoum and Darfur etc.
• There are many images of Khartoum on Commons - not sure if any would work here. Same for Sudan. There is also another free photo of Bashir at File:Omar al-Bashir, 12th AU Summit, 090131-N-0506A-342.jpg to use here
• I think bevity is OK in general - I would make sure that enough background is included to provide context to the reader. For example, I owuld say when the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan ceased to exist (when did Sudan become independent). Or what year did he return to Sudan from Egypt?
• Comprehesiveness is a FA criterion - one way I try to check that is to look for gaps in history. Here there is nothing from 1973 to 1989, which may be an issue at FAC.
• I do not see any way to avoid vandalism (if it gets too bad, ask and the article can be semi-protected). Similarly, changes from current events do not necessarily compromise an article's chances of becoming or staying FA (though it makes more difficult). FOr example Barack Obama is a FA (and had been since before he was elected a US Senator, IIRC.

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 _><>°^° 03:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]