This was a
WP:COTW back in October 2004, and I been tinkering with it ever since. It was substantially re-written by
UW and
Tfine80 in September 2005 based on the much better (and featured) article from the German wikipedia. --
ALoan(Talk)18:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)reply
Object - See point 5 of the FA criteria. This topic could use a more condensed treatment.- -mav 18:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. I take it you think there is too much information in the article? Are there any particular areas you would like to see condensed? --
ALoan(Talk)19:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)reply
One thing I have noticed is that the German Wikipedia is much less likely to split articles than the English one. Personally, I feel like each article should give a complete overview of the item listed in the title, which in this case is a very complicated subject. If any of the issues need to be expanded upon, separate articles should be created, but they should not simply remove the text and force the reader to navigate through the hypertext. Previously the Red Cross pages were scattered all over the place with very little coherence, which is critical on this subject because it is so commonly misunderstood.
Tfine8001:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)reply
Object. Good attempt, but this article is 64.2k in size (biggest article I've ever seen so far), the suggested limit is 32k (See
Wikipedia:Article size). This needs a serious copy-edit and cut down, there is just too much information. The Table of Contents could also be simplified. I was expecting a lot more references, including footnotes as well. —
Wackymacs19:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)reply
Actually, the suggested 32k limit originally came from technical issues of some browsers. Otherwise, it is just a recommendation, and the optimum size of an article depends on the topic of the article. And there are several articles in the English Wikipedia which, due to their topic, are far longer than the Red Cross article.
Race or
2003 Invasion of Iraq or
Joseph Chamberlain or
Hugo Chávez or
George W. Bush are some examples, some of them are double the size of the Red Cross article. A size of 64k translates to 20-25 pages of printed text in a book which is not that much considering that several of the books which I used as source and which are mentioned as references in the article have 600-700 pages. The two volumes about the history of the ICRC combined have over 600 pages, and that's ICRC history from 1863 to 1945 only. --
Uwe09:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)reply
Regarding the references: first, it would be nice to know which references you miss (if you have any specific in mind that you miss). Second, the article is a translation of its counterpart from the German Wikipedia. That original version has a couple of more (German) references. The problem is that most readers will regard a list of German books in an English Wikipedia article of little use. Most readers of the English version lack the required language capabilities and access to German books and articles. Of course, the German references can easily be added if that's deemed necessary or useful. Third, the total amount of references is somewhere in the range of 2,500 to 3,000 printed pages which I have on my bookshelf, so the list of references should not be judged by the number of its items. --
Uwe09:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)reply
Object. The very complete "History" section should probably migrate in largely its current form to a new article
History of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, with a summary-style history left in this one. I'll also note that I find the table-of contents structure of the History section strange, particularly the existence of the sub-sub-section 1.2.1, "History." I'm also concerned about some wording that seems a little too POV regarding Dunant: "...his tireless activities..." for example. —
Bunchofgrapes (
talk)
20:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)reply
To me, the license statement "Any part of this website can be cited, copied, translated into other languages or adapted to meet local needs without prior permission from any component of the Movement, provided that the source is clearly stated." equals "copyrighted free use". I don't see how the words "adapted to meet local needs" put limits on modifications. --
Uwe09:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)reply