Talk:1989 Serbian general election/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 02:22, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I love learning about the political history of different countries. I'll have a review for this posted within the next day or two. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:22, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Vacant0, I've posted the review below. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:56, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Vacant0, it's just about there. I've left some replies below, and those should be the last things. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Well-written

I did some copyediting to the article. My edits can be seen here, feel free to change them.

General notes:

• The article doesn't seem like it's in chronological order. After the background, it should be Milošević becoming president of the presidency (with the "conduct" section), then the selection of candidates, and then the electoral system comes after that.
  • I disagree. The standard practice across election articles is to have Background first and then the Electoral system after it. You might have confused the president of the presidency of the Central Committee of SKS and the president of the presidency of SR Serbia, these are not the same positions. I have, though, reorganised some sentences and sections a bit. I do think that the article looks more chronological now considering that everything that occurred after Milošević's appointment in May 1989 is now in one section.
• If you want to, you could put the original Serbian quotes in footnotes so there aren't long stretches of text.
  • I've used this styling in other GA articles.
• Short sentences and paragraphs shouldn't have their own headings. The "Election date" and "Political parties" headings should be removed.
  • I don't see a particular reason why the "Political parties" should be removed, the section will then look unorganised.
    • You'll have to find a way to make it comply with MOS:PARA: Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheadings.

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• • • • Expanded.
• There are a lot of acronyms in this article, so we should consider removing some if they're unhelpful. Can "SR Serbia" be replaced with "Serbia? Can "SFRY" be replaced with "Yugoslavia"?
  • I've removed SFRY. Assembly of SR Serbia and president of the presidency of SR Serbia were official names for this body and position at that time.
• "However" is used in a lot in places where it should say "but". I changed or removed a few of them, but some of the others could be rewritten.
  • Done.
• The article uses "would" a lot. If you're talking about something that happened, you can usually use a verb. Instead of saying "would be", it can just say "was". Or instead of "would elect", it can be "elected".
  • Done.

Lead:

• Milošević was challenged by Mihalj Kertes, Zoran Pjanić, and Miroslav Đorđević in the presidential election – The body says that these candidates were chosen to make the election appear democratic. "challenged by" makes it sound like they were actually opposed to him and trying to win against him.
  • Done.

Background:

• with several problems such as problems with the economy, constitutional problems – Using "problems" three times in the same sentence makes it harder to read.
  • Done.
• a possibility of the rise in ethnic nationalism – Can this say "a potential rise in ethnic nationalism" to be more concise?
  • Yes.
• Yugoslavia eventually implemented austerity measures to reduce its debt, however, debt, inflation, and unemployment saw a swift increase in the 1980s instead – It's not clear what this is saying. All of the commas with the "however" makes it harder to read, because it looks like part of the list. It also says "debt" two times very close to each other.
  • Fixed.
• Martinov also noted that – Be careful with "noted". Even though we know now that he was correct, at the time he was just saying it, not "noting" it as if it were a fact.
  • Switched "noted" with "claimed".
    • GAs have to follow MOS:WTW. Both "noted" and "claimed" are listed under the MOS:SAID section there. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
      • Done.
• while Stambolić also began serving as president of Serbia – How did this happen?
  • He was elected by the presidency. I've added it.
• The word "eventually" is used three times in the same paragraph. Consider changing or removing one or two of these.
  • Removed.
• Although Milošević denied that he was directly involved in the protests, he actually had direct contact with the organisers of the protests – This uses "protests" twice. It could say "direct contact with their organisers" or "direct contact with the organisers".
  • Done.
• The "constitutional changes" paragraph says "amendments" and then it says "amendment". Was there just one, or was there more?
  • Amendments.

Electoral system:

• This article should stay focused on 1989. Instead of describing how it changed in 1974, just describe how it worked in 1989.
  • What is in that section is how it worked in 1989. I've changed the wording only a bit.
• Workers would also vote for separate delegations. – How did this work? The article could go into more detail.
  • Sources do not go into detail about this...
• This section uses "delegations" to mean the people chosen by voters and "delegates" to mean the members of the Assembly. Is it possible for a different word to be used for one of these?
  • I've changed "delegations" to "delegation bodies".
• The voting system was complex; it combined elements of a direct, indirect, and the first-past-the-post voting majoritarian system. – This is what the article is about, so it should try to explain everything about it, even if it takes up a lot of space.
  • No more info on this either.
• Serbia became a one-party state once the Communist Party took power in Yugoslavia in 1945 – At this point it doesn't really matter how it got there. I suggest cutting this sentence.
  • Done.

Presidential candidates:

• The article doesn't actually say how presidential candidates are proposed or chosen.
  • The source only says that they were proposed, it does not go into detail on how and why they were proposed.
• At a session on 1 November 1989 – A session of what? The Central Committee of SKS? The Assembly?
  • SSRNS.
• multiple candidates were proposed for the election – Who proposed them?
  • SSRNS.
• However, no candidate initially wanted to run against Milošević – Why not? Was it risky for their political careers? Was it dangerous to oppose Milošević at this point?
  • This is actually mentioned in the source. Ive added it.
• Socialist Alliance of Working People of Serbia – What is this? What gives it the power to propose candidates? I would assume that SKS was in charge of choosing candidates.
  • SSRNS was a mass organisation that acted as a supra-party body of SKS. Considering that the first mention of this is now in Rise of Slobodan Milošević, I've added a brief description of it there.
• SSRNS previously proposed Milošević to the position of the president of the presidency of the Socialist Republic of Serbia and was successfully appointed on 8 May 1989 – This feels like it's important and should have been mentioned in the "Rise of Slobodan Milošević" section. And again, what gives SSRNS this power?
  • Moved it there.

Conduct:

• At the time of the election, Bogdan Trifunović was the president of the presidency of the Central Committee of SKS – What does Trifunović have to do with the election? He's never mentioned again.
  • Trifunović would then be unsourced in the infobox.
• As part of the pre-election campaign, over 10,000 conferences were organised in Serbia. – What conferences? What were they for?
  • For delegations.

Results:

• Were these results legitimate, or were they fabricated by the party? It says earlier in the article that they wanted to election to seem democratic, which suggests that it was not.
  • While reading, there were no mentions of the results being rigged. Martinov even said that "such results are not even surprising" because of Milošević's actions in the past few years.

Aftermath:

• From now on, the president of the National Assembly would be the one who would schedule parliamentary and presidential elections. – "From now on" is in present tense.
  • Done.

Verifiable with no original research

All sources appear to be reliable. Great work on finding recent sources; sometimes it can be tempting to use sources from that year, but that's never as good as the sources that can analyze everything later.

• I did struggle a lot with finding sources, especially for this election. The two books that are in "Further reading" are the only two remaining that actually cover this election, every other source that covers this election is already in the article. I'll try to get those two in the future considering that they are currently unavailable in offline and online mode.

• Given that I'm not familiar with Serbian sources and can't read Serbian, I'm going to WP:AGF to a certain extent that the publishers of these sources are reputable organizations. However, I am curious about b92.net. Can you explain how it's a reliable source?
  • B92 has changed a lot in the past decade, in the modern period it could still be classified as a reliable source although with a big caution when covering the political opposition in Serbia considering that its text could contain bias (as evidenced in their articles related to 2023 protests), although until then B92 was considered a professional outlet with high-quality journalists and investigative journalists. The reference, in this case, is from 2002, so it is from that era when B92 had high-quality journalists.
• The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Southeast Europe is a partisan organization, but it's only used for a basic fact.

Spot checks:

• Mihovilović (2003) – Good.
• Biondich (2011) – Good.
• Thomas (1998) – Page 46 mentions Kertes and page 69 mentions the election, but I don't see in either of them where it supports their claims.
  • If you are talking about the statement, the full quoted statement is in the WAPO source. Thomas (1998) only says that he became known.
    • Is Thomas (1998) necessary at all then, if it doesn't add anything?
      • Removed from that sentence.
• Gagnon (2004) – The congress eventually started with a polemic between Borut Pahor and Milomir Minić and continued with Milan Kučan saying that Slovenes reject Serbia's proposed centralisation policies – Where does the source support this?
  • Wrong source. This is covered in Pauković (2008).
    • Oops! Copied the wrong text. That should be With the help of Kosovo, Vojvodina, Montenegro, and Yugoslav People's Army delegates, all proposals from the Slovene and Bosnian delegation were rejected while Serbia's proposals were accepted. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
      • Here is the direct quote from the book: On this (Serbian) side also were the newly installed leaderships of Vojvodina, Montenegro, and the JNA.
• Tempest (1990) – With the help of Kosovo, Vojvodina, Montenegro, and Yugoslav People's Army delegates, all proposals from the Slovene and Bosnian delegation were rejected while Serbia's proposals were accepted. – Where does the source support this?
  • This is mentioned in Ref 51, Ref 52, and 53. Tempest (1990) specifies the part that Bosnian proposals were rejected too.

The spot checks are generally good, but it looks like there are some cases when several sources are used to support parts of a sentence, but it's not clear which parts or whether all of the sources apply.

Broad in its coverage

The article gives a lot of space to the background, which is fine, but it's more than the other sections get. There are no aspects that are missing, but I did list some points above under criterion one where more detail might be helpful. The main one is that after reading the article, I still don't really understand how the candidates were chosen.

Neutral

No ideas are given undue weight. The article does not use any language that praises or vilifies any candidates or organizations.

Stable

No recent disputes, no significant updates will be needed.

Illustrated

There's one non-free image in the infobox. I'm not sure whether non-free use is permitted for election infoboxes like this. Do you know if there's precedent for this, or if there's any policy that talks about this? All other images are Creative Commons. Captions are sufficient.

• I am not sure about that non-free image. I think that someone who knows better could give their opinion on that.
  • A look at some archived media copyright questions discussions, it seems that the consensus leans against such use. Since it's not an article about that person, it's not "essential" for understanding of the election to know what he looked like. It probably needs to be removed. If it messes up the alignment when there's a missing picture, you can use a placeholder file like File:3x4.svg. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Image has been moved to his article.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.