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Revision as of 18:27, 15 January 2008

Macau

previous FAC (02:34, 13 December 2007)

The said article has been substantially revised according to the comments stated in the last nomination. I'm now nominating the article to be a featured article. "Support" is welcome. "Object" or "Oppose" is more welcome as this article can be improved continuously in this way. Nominator: Josuechan (talk) 13:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support - Article seems comprehensive. A few comments:
  • 1) The image ] has been requested for deletion. Can this be sorted out?  Done: the figure is replaced by another relevant one Josuechan (talk) 04:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
  • (2) The Template Group" template is hidden behind sister projects box. This is disturbing and since the number of templates isn't that big no template group is needed.  Done: the template group is deleted. Josuechan (talk) 04:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
  • (3) Too few external links. See the Portuguese article . Baldrick90 (talk) 23:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)  Done: more external links are added. Thank you very much for your comments and support. Josuechan (talk) 04:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - Article has several major issues:

Prose is not FA standard

Referencing in several areas is not FA standard

Zero negative aspects. For example, the economy section has no mention of poverty.

And less significantly, there is no mention of military/foreign relations/education/religion--Miyokan (talk) 14:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your comments. You're concerned that the prose and referencing are not FA standard. Can you illustrate your points by giving us some examples so that the problem might be addressed? You also stated that there was no mention about poverty, military, foreign relations, education and religion. However, it was mentioned in the section "government and politics" that military and foreign relations are not handled by the Macau government so there is nothing much else to say about them. Religion is mentioned in the section "demographics". As of poverty, it's not a major problem of the region so the editors left it out. And I'll add a paragraph about education shortly. Done I hope that this will address your concerns and you'll reconsider your objection. Josuechan (talk) 15:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support - minor issues:
  • further size reduction in the section of history is strongly recommended esp in the section of 20th century (optional).
  • external links should be reduced more (optional). Coloane (talk) 15:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Much of what I have written below has been made redundant by Josuechan's thoughtful response (posted moments before I was originally going to post mine), but these observations may prove valuabIe going forward:

I believe Miyokan's "strong opposition" constitutes a revenge vote, made in retaliation for the (highly detailed) opposition raised by Coloane (one of the primary editors of Macau) to the FAC of Russia (on which Miyokan is a primary editor).

Miyokan's brief comments accompanying his Strong vote include verifiably false and misleading statements: "no mention of...religion" (in fact, the article does cover religion), and "no mention of...military/foreign relations" (in fact, Macau is a special administrative region of China and thus does not have its own military and foreign relations, as clearly stated in the article's lead). Miyokan claims spuriously that "Referencing in several areas is not FA standard." In fact, referencing appears to be up to standard throughout--Miyokan certainly does not offer a single example to the contrary. Prose is certainly a debatable issue--but, again, Miyokan does not offer a single example of where it is substandard. The bit about "Zero negative aspects" seems to be largely a WP:POINT reaction to the Russia FAC, though the example given is fairly taken.

There are two things worth considering out of this. A sentence or two on poverty levels and/or labor issues (likely related) would be helpful. As would a sentence or two on the country's tripartite educational tradition and the general level of educational achievement.—DCGeist (talk) 15:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

 Done: short paragraphs about the education and "imported labor problem" in Macau are added as suggested. Thanks a lot for your comments. Josuechan (talk) 20:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose this article seems to be going backwards in many respects when compared to earlier versions listed here at WP:FAC. Suggest comparing this article closely with existing FAC countries; there is still a lot of work to do to bring it up to the required standard. Here are some quick comments, don't have time for a full review.
  • The article is missing demographics statistics about the religions practiced and the languages spoken  Done The suggested statistics is added. Josuechan (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  • There is an insufficient diversity of images presented: an overabundance of casinos, and nothing of the Macau world heritage site. Is a picture of a racing car in a museum relevant to a country article?  Done Excessive casino pictures are removed and a variety of relevant ones added. Josuechan (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The images don't comply with the WP:MOS requirement regarding image sizes.  Done
  • The etymology details don't belong in the article introduction. The history section or an etymology section would be better.  Done
  • Non-notable information seems to be scattered throughout the article, such a "Macau also received the Future Award 2007, voted by 26,000 German travel trade members", and the table of health care statistics. Comment: health care stat table is removed. However, it seems that the tourism award is relevant as Macau is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region. Josuechan (talk) 18:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The external links listed need to be culled to comply with WP:EL Comment: can you be more specific about this? Josuechan (talk) 18:43, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "Ninety-five percent of Macau's population is Chinese, dominantly Cantonese and Fujianese" is not what the source cited claims.  Done The citation is fixed.

(Caniago (talk) 17:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC))

Comment

• why do you think that the statistics of demography and religion should be required, on the other hand, the health care statistics is a non-notable information? don't you think they are all stats? For the article of Indonesia, the section is quite closely similar to here and what demo stat/table didn't show up.
• World heritage site is not very closely related to the economy. At most, it may be related to tourism or history. However, casinos created huge revenue for the Govt. of Macau and it is closely related to the economy. Again, it is simply a personal taste. What do you mean by "overabundance" is also debatable. The picture of a racing car in a museum is related to the culture as Grand Prix, which is one of the biggest event in Macau, already mentioned.
• Again, this is only an introduction and the size of the article should be carefully considered, for more details, you can simply refer to other articles.
• for the image don't comply with the WP:MOS, can you specifically point out what it is? "If there are too many images in a given article, consider using a gallery" and now gallery is already used. Coloane (talk) 17:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

One casino image is sufficient to represent the industry, 4 just look like tacky advertising. People don't need to see an image of 4 casinos in the country to understand that casinos are an important part, one is sufficient. I bet you can't provide an example of a FAC country where such repetitiveness of images is used. Representing the diversity of the country is important. Image size issue is "Specifying the size of a thumbnail image is not necessary: without specifying a size, the width will be what readers have specified in their user preferences, with a default of 180px (which applies for the overwhelming majority of readers), and a maximum of 300px.". The healthcare stats are obsucure details which are not included on any other FAC countries that I'm aware of. Indonesia and other FAC countries most certainly include stats on the breakdown of religion and languages used. The size of the article is not currently an issue, there is only 24kB of text which is well under the guidelines. (Caniago (talk) 00:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

FAC "country"? Macau is not a country! be more careful! Coloane (talk) 01:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

By FAC I meant FA, and though it is not a country it is similar enough to be compared to country articles: the content of the article should be much the same. (Caniago (talk) 01:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

I am talking about what you are talking about FAC country, I am not talking about if this article should be compared with other FA articles. You didn't pay attention. Coloane (talk) 02:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm only comparing it to country articles; there is no need for pedantic arguements. The issue we're discussing here is the quality of the article, not my language. (Caniago (talk) 02:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

well, I just don't care if you would like to compare this article with penicillin, penguins or others. I just illustrated my point that Macau is not a country. Period!Coloane (talk) 02:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Great, back to the quality of the article and how it compares to our FA country articles... (Caniago (talk) 02:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC))

Your comments are much appreciated. I'll try to address the problems you raised and I hope you'll come back in a few days to reconsider your objection. Thank you for your time. Josuechan (talk) 04:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the improvements Josuechan, here are a few more comments:

• The "Macau also received the Future Award 2007, voted by 26,000 German travel trade members" is not notable and amounts to a peacock claim since there are bound to be hundreds of travel trade groups (not to mention travel magazines) around the world, each of which could conceivably award their own travel awards each and every year using any criteria they choose. Its almost certain this award has no international significance. Focus on objective details of why Macau is a popular tourist destination. (Caniago (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC))  Done fair point taken. The apparent peacock claim is removed. Josuechan (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• do you have any counterevidence to prove that this award has no international significance? didn't the article already provide the link World Tourism Rankings with reference ? from that reference p.8 International tourist arrival by country of destination: Macau rated 21, where is much better than Indonesia(39) and Singapore(29). From the reference p.9 International Tourism Receipt: Macau rated 24, where is much better than Indonesia(41) and Singapore(29).Coloane (talk) 16:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The onus is on you to prove it's significance; I bet you can't even find an article on the body which awarded the award on Misplaced Pages, let alone the award. It says nothing about the tourism industry in Macau, and is in the same mould as the peacock claims you accuse the Singapore article of making. Seems like the height of hypocrisy Coloane. As I said, the "World Tourism Rankings" is a ranking not a rating. The sentence as it stand implies that the Macau is one of the best tourist destinations rather than one of the most popular. The claim need to be written and merged into the claim about arrival numbers as I said above. (Caniago (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC))

• The point "Macau is currently rated as one of the world's top tourism destinations by the World Tourism Organisation" should be rewritten to avoid being a peacock claim, and integrated with the claims about tourist arrival volumes since this is what the ranking (ie. its not a rating) relates to.  Done fair point taken. Changed "rated" to "ranked" and reorganized. Josuechan (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• see aboveColoane (talk) 16:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• I'm afraid I have to agree with Miyokan that the negative aspects of Macau have been excluded from this article. It's ironic that User:Coloane has been bad-mouthing the Singapore article at Talk:Singapore, saying "Peacock is common everywhere in this article (of course including the article of Changi Airport), plus pos. and neg. statements are not in balance.". Here's a paragraph from the Encarta article on Macau to give you an idea of the sort of things missing: "Education levels in Macao are low. Only about one-quarter of the population has a secondary-level education, and less than 5 percent has a college education. About 7 percent of the people are illiterate. Macao has one of the highest standards of living in Asia, $14,990 per capita in 2002. However, this wealth is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small, educated, and dominant elite. The region has a much larger number of poor residents who have problems finding adequate housing and jobs. Observers believe these difficulties are likely to increase if rural Chinese people continue to migrate from neighboring Guangdong Province, adding to the region’s already high population density."

• What you are talking about what I wrote is completely unrelated to this page. I just feel shocked after you've mentioned Encarta which is one of the unreliable source online. First of all, there is no citation I could find from there.(that is why citation is important). I even don't know who author(s) is/are. Basically many parts of information are not reliable. The most obvious one is :The Monetary and Foreign Exchange Authority issues the region’s currency, and the Banco Nacional Ultramarino functions as the region’s central bank. Come on, BNU didn't perform the role of central bank anymore, rather, this main role was already transferred to the Bank of China(Macao). Plus: "$14,990 per capita in 2002" again, should we rely on this old figure(no citation) which is from 6 years ago? I doubt that you might take too much reference from Encarta and wrote Indonesia with the Australian guy last year. That is why I am not completely wrong to take that to FAR. Coloane (talk) 16:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the point is there is insufficient balance in the coverage of Macau in this article, something you accuse the Singapore article of, but for some reason seem unable to see it here. With regards to citations, its really up to you to find suitable ones, I'm not suggesting that you cite Encarta. With regards to your criticisms of the Indonesia article, I suggest you spent your time improving this article instead of nit-picking on Indonesia. You have a long way to go before you match the quality of that article and the reliability of its sources. A large proportion of the citations for Indonesia are from academic books, rather than the hodgepodge of semi-reliable websites this article is cobbled together from. (Caniago (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC))

Since User:Coloane doesn't own this article, there's nothing ironic about it. It also seems to me whether User:Coloane is hypocritical or not has nothing to do with the business here at a FAC page. Please refrain from making similar comments and if you must, please take the discussions about the various merits of Singaporean/Indonesian articles elsewhere. That said, I have to thank you for making a fair point about the coverage of the current article. I added a paragraph discussing the education levels/literacy rate of Macau. Together with some information I added earlier about income inequality, I hope this will address your concerns. By the way, the Encarta seems not to be very accurate.  Done Josuechan (talk) 17:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

(Caniago (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC))

Thanks a lot for your comments. Your efforts of improving this article are much appreciated. Josuechan (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• Conditional support Bogdan 20:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC), at first glance, the article looks good to me, I'll be sure to read it later on. Expand the demographics section per Caniago's concerns and you've got my support. (P.S., I cannot see why Coloane's resent purging should plague this, very decent article.)

Some other concerns:

• "The best season in Macau is autumn ", says who?  Done this arbitrary sentence is deleted. Josuechan (talk) 15:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
• "The work force in Macau is mainly composed of manufacturing; construction; wholesale and retail; hotels and restaurants; financial services, real estate, and other business activities; public administration and other personal and social services, including gaming; transport, storage and communications." Really long sentence, I see no point in listing industries, they are all usually implied. List only what is unique to Macau.
• You should really list all GDP statistics in the Economy section (i.e., nominal, nominal per capita, PPP, PPP per capita).  Done The suggested stat is added except GDP (PPP) per capita as I couldn't find any reliable source (the Macau government only published nominal per-capital GDP). The page List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita says Macau's figure is as high as the US's, which does not seem reliable, so it is not added. Josuechan (talk) 15:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

• Although this isn't mandatory, there is a lack of print sources in the citation. Perhaps you could use the "Further Reading" section?

Comment: It is true that a large portion of the citations are from online sources, but many of them are either official government sources (e.g. Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) and Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM)) or online version or printed books (e.g. Macau Encyclopedia). I'll try to find more printed sources to improve the reliability. Thank you. Josuechan (talk) 18:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Regards, Bogdan 04:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your comments and support. I'll make sure each of your concern is addressed shortly. Josuechan (talk) 18:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)