Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Nicolas Sarkozy/archive1

Nicolas Sarkozy[edit]

(Partial self-nomination, wrote some of it.) I think it's now rather complete. David.Monniaux 20:32, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Observation: the article sort of looks a little bit austere with only one image; obviously it will be difficult to gather Free ones, yet I wonder whether some special effort could be made in this direction. Rama 21:26, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've already asked Sarkozy's party for other photographs, they didn't answer. I suspect they don't know ho to handle requests like that. Perhaps now that we've had a full-page article cited on the front page of Le Monde they'll pay attention if I make another request.

As for taking the photos ourselves, this is obviously difficult: people like Sarkozy are always surrounded by journalists, photographers, policemen, security guards etc. Unless you're accredited as a journalist (which is near impossible for us, because the criterion for a journalism card is basically being a paid employee of a news source), it's only through sheer luck that we could do it (as Anthere did for Jean-Pierre Raffarin). David.Monniaux 05:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support Nice work. 172 | Talk 23:40, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support Rama 23:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, please add a list of the sources you have used to write the article.--nixie 03:00, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- References added. There are also some press sources scattered through the article. David.Monniaux 22:10, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'd be a good idea to provide full citations for the links included in text so if the sites go down or the articles are removed then there is a record of who wrote the article and who published it.--nixie 10:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - Done. David.Monniaux 07:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Undistinguished prose at best, including misspellings ('cozy'), unevenness of register, and redundant wording ('he felt inferior in relation to his wealthy classmates'—just 'to' would do). Stop/start paragraphing at the top. Tony 11:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Needs good copyedit. I would suggest to place it in peer review so that editors can comment on the prose. After that is done, this article will be excellent and worthy of FA. ≈ jossi ≈ 15:38, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Copyediting done. David.Monniaux 05:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- When you say 'done', I immediately wonder how simple it was. A quick look at random revealed that it's far from 'done': 'professing Catholic'—not idiomatic English; no hyphens after -ly adverbs; the heading 'Ambition for the future' should be two words, not four; one-sentence paragraphing is a problem, at the start and in a number of other sections; check the logic of the hierarchical headings—and why a three-line section at one point? See if you can get someone else to look through it thoroughly—it needs a fresh pair of eyes. Tony 06:21, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - I used {{cleanup-copyedit}}. I guess there were not very thorough. David.Monniaux 16:06, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, I think this article is not really NPOV. It doesn't give an impression of Sarkozy's personal style and how it is reflected by the press. It should be stated already in the head that Sarkozy's opponenents see him as populist, careerist and activist. Some anecdotes or citations illustrating these points could make the article much more fun and interesting to read. Example of citations: "Each morning when I am shaving, I think about it" (the 2007 presidential pool), "One should wash that city out with a kärcher" (the suburb of Courneuve after the death of a young boy), "I am ruling the only cabinet which works also on sunday". One should also mention that for months the French press has been making the main titles with the quarrels between Sarkozy and Chirac, often ignoring major European or world-wide news. One could also cite some press title like "Sarkommence" from Liberation. IMHO, this could improve very much the article. Vb 08:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to work on that, but I'm afraid that discussing a person's style is fraught with POV. Sarkozy's opponents claim that, though he shows himself everywhere, he actually does little with real long-lasting impact; but should we fill entire sections with such claims? David.Monniaux 19:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to improve the article a bit in this direction but I am not French and not specialist in the French politics and also not very fluent in English. I therefore cannot help you more than this. However I am ready to support this article if it gets less boring. I think the biographical details may be interesting but a discussion of the image of Sarkozy in the French press and of his particular style is very important. Sarkozy is a controversial character and this should be brought more clearly to the front. Of course the price to pay is to risk non NPOV. Yes indeed. But political correctness is not the goal of WP and is not NPOV either. An easy first step would be to expand the quotation section. Vb12:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]