Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hasan al-Kharrat/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 01:50, 17 May 2016 [1].

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Hasan al-Kharrat

Nominator(s): Al Ameer (talk) 21:15, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

This article is about Hasan al-Kharrat, a major rebel commander during the 1925–1927 Great Syrian Revolt against French rule in Syria. He died less than a year into the revolt. A native of Damascus, al-Kharrat chose the city's Ghouta countryside as his area of operations. The rebel push into the city that he led nearly ejected French forces from Damascus and prompted heavy aerial bombardment of the city on the orders of High Commissioner Maurice Sarrail, whose Damascus residence the rebels briefly captured. Prior to the revolt, al-Kharrat served as a night watchman for the orchards of al-Shaghour, a quarter of Damascus, and as its qabaday (a quarter boss whose role in traditional Levantine society is defined in the article). Unfortunately, there's little in the sources (at least the English ones) about his personal life. However, the essence of al-Kharrat's notability lies in his role in the 1925 revolt and as the qabaday of al-Shaghour, two aspects which I believe are more than adequately covered in the article. In 2013 "Hasan al-Kharrat" was listed as a Good article and was featured in the Did you know column of the Main Page. I did not send this article for peer review because I believe it currently meets the FA guidelines in all respects. I hope the reviewers here will concur, and if not, I welcome your suggestions and criticism. Thank you for considering this nomination. Al Ameer (talk) 21:15, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Comment Very good first impression. Small things; can you break the lead so its not all one paragraph; you link Seattle in the biblo, but not London. Reading through. Ceoil (talk) 14:22, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

@Ceoil: Thanks, I split/expanded the lead. As for London, it's already linked once in the Biblio (for the Philip Khoury source), should it be linked again? --Al Ameer (talk) 04:11, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Al Ameer, much better (though I wouldn't link either, its the consistency that's most important). but before al-Atrash's return letter reached al-Bakri - *return letter* doesn't read well. Can you rephrase/clarify this pls. Ceoil (talk) 10:14, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

@Ceoil: I revised the wording, how is it now? --Al Ameer (talk) 21:07, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Better yes. Am fixing as I go mostly, sorry for the slow progress. While out of my depth on subject matter, I expect to support on prose; spot checks on refs to follow. Ceoil (talk) 23:06, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Your work's appreciated. Let me know if you need help with the spot-checks. I'm going to add the link for a full-view of Michael Provence's book (a major source for this article) to the Biblio. --Al Ameer (talk) 23:30, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

• Al Ameer, Ive read this a few times now and to be honest its pretty heavy going. As currently written its a barrage of names, dates, positions and locations, and that makes it hard to figure out. I'm still basically leaning support, but re prose, can you lessen this density. Not sure how actionable this prob vague request is, but its how I read the article. Take my edits as attempts to create more flow and trim where I can. Of course you can revert at will. Ceoil (talk) 20:03, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Yea, I'll do what I can today and tomorrow, and then update you here. --Al Ameer (talk) 21:12, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Finished the bulk of my trimming quicker than I thought. How's it look now? --Al Ameer (talk) 22:46, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

@Ceoil: Ok, I've finished with my copyedits. In terms of sheer prose size, I've reduced the article by some 3,000 KB. I removed a lot of uncritical/unnecessary detail, including locations, names and incidents/operations that didn't directly involve Kharrat or were not necessary for context. Hopefully, this has lightened the density and made it a smoother, less confusing read. When writing this article, I worried that the obscurity of al-Kharrat to Western readers (and non-Syrians in general for that matter) would necessitate this amount of context, but I don't think my recent copyedit has affected the comprehensiveness in a significant way. In any case, I'm currently working on a draft article to improve coverage for the Great Syrian Revolt. Anything removed from this article will likely be covered in that article or its sub-articles. --Al Ameer (talk) 17:09, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I think it reads quite well, and certainly better than it did before. I think to a Western eye, all names and some placenames starting with "al-" can become tiring, but this is not so different (if Ceoil will forgive the comparison) to more culturally Western articles where names are mostly either van der something or van something else except when they're "the Master of the Legend of St. Ursula" -- not to mention the multitudinous ways in which Mary is commonly referred to. It can be confusing but the sense is still there. Al Ameer has now made good use of notes to relocate some of the lists of placenames out of the main narrative. MPS1992 (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Noting significant work by Al Ameer and MPS1992. I was watching diffs during the week and impressed but have not yet read through from top to bottom, so still holding. Thanks for addressing perhaps badly stated and unspecific concerns. Ceoil (talk) 16:58, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Have now had time to reread, and very pleased to register Support. Ceoil (talk) 21:20, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Sources check: A look at refs 5, 26 & 32 do not show problems; they back claims, are reliable, with no close paraphrasing. Ceoil (talk) 21:46, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Shaghour_1910.jpg: when and where was this first published?
• File:Fakhri_Kharrat_execution,_1925.jpg: are we certain that the copyright here would have been Syrian and not French?

Nikkimaria (talk) 16:10, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

For "Shaghour", the source does not indicate where it was published, only that it was a picture of Shaghour, Damascus taken in 1910 (during Ottoman rule). The licensing for this image probably needs to be changed unless it turns out to be an LoC image (couldn't find it in the LoC digital library though). Al Ameer (talk) 18:49, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

For "Fakhri", I'll come back to you about this in the next couple of days hopefully, because I'm not sure if pictures taken/published in Syria during French Mandatory rule come under French or Syrian copyright. --Al Ameer (talk) 18:49, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I posted a query at the Commons Village Pump (See Here) and the response was that we would use Syrian copyright law for pictures taken/published in French Mandatory Syria. This is similar to how we use Israeli copyright law for images taken/published in British Mandatory Palestine. There's a slight possibility that we should use French historical copyright law as opposed to modern French copyright law, but using Syrian copyright law is the more likely way to proceed here. --Al Ameer (talk) 04:31, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments by MPS1992

• "destroyed all French buildings" - please double-check the source to see if "all" is perhaps slightly too strong. It implies a total level of success that may not be entirely justified.

The source says "He rose to prominence in the battles that ensued and led armed bands into Damascus for sabotage attacks on French installations. He disarmed patrols, held their soldiers hostage, and burned down all French buildings in the Shaghur, Souk Saruja and Jazmatiya neighborhoods." I replaced "destroyed" with "set alight". If you're still skeptical about "all", I have no problem removing the word. Also, I split the disarmament and hostage-taking bit from the sentence, because the source doesn't make clear whether disarmament and hostage-taking occurred in those aforementioned neighborhoods or throughout Damascus in general. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

No, if the source uses the word then you are entirely right to reflect it. I will go back over this and see if I am happier with your original wording or a variant on it. MPS1992 (talk) 22:31, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I've come up with a variation and added it to the article -- your original was right in that the source is quite strong, all French buildings were burned down. MPS1992 (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

• "the French and their sniper units" - this is a misunderstanding of the source. It is the French themselves who are receiving continuous "sniper fire" according to the source -- the source does not say they are using snipers themselves.
• "failed to apprehend them" - this is poor wording. One does not commit a large force backed by tanks, aircraft and artillery in order to apprehend someone. "Apprehend" implies an arrest without a substantial likelihood of death.
• "causing the French to abort the operation" - which source does this come from? Provence does indeed say that the rebels were forewarned of the French advance, but does not say that the operation was aborted as a result, merely that it was a failure (for whatever reason, perhaps the futility of using tanks, artillery, and 1920s-era aircraft to try to corner rebels in densely forested terrain they know well). Be careful to avoid confusion with the earlier 60-gendarme failure, discussed by the source in this context because of the village-burning it was used to justify; that operation was a failure due to the forewarning, this operation's failure was not caused by forewarning (from what the sources say).
• "Thus, French intelligence justified the punitive measures against..." - I don't think this needs to be laid out at this length when the previous sentence has essentially already said the same thing.

Regarding your last four points, I revised the entire passage to more accurately reflect the source. The rebels were doing the sniping (hiding among the trees and sniping at regular army forces with rifles was actually the common mode of rebel/guerrilla combat in Syria, Palestine and Lebanon during the colonial period, as opposed to open or trench warfare). I removed the "failed to apprehend" and "caused" bits, I just wrote that they couldn't lure the rebels out and withdrew. I think I reduced the redundancy (and confusion) regarding the French burning of al-Malihah. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, I will take a look. I may also have some extra ideas for dealing with Ceoil's comments above. MPS1992 (talk) 22:31, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

• I have made these edits and these edits. MPS1992 (talk) 20:12, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

@MPS1992: Thanks for your copyedits and clarifications above. I hope my revisions have addressed the issues you've raised. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

This is looking great now I think. I have made a few slightly bold edits including adding half a sentence to the lead about his later reputation, you may wish to tweak it around.

A couple of minor extra points;

• The Moubayed source says al-Kharrat "received no high school education". I think this could be added to the existing text, something like: "... Michael Provence maintains that al-Kharrat was likely illiterate;[15] Moubayed indicates that his education did not reach high school level.(ref)"
• It's good that there is now a gloss as to what the Gouta is, which I think is a recent addition. But I wonder if we can go slightly further with this and similar information. We know very little about al-Kharrat, including the details of his death etc., but we do know he was very much not just a man of his time, but a man of his locality -- as far as we know he never went beyond Damascus and the Ghouta, and his successes were in large part due to his local power and reputation in those places and, maybe even more importantly given the forest fighting, local knowledge of those places. So I think if anything can be pulled out of any reliable source (not just a revolt-related source) describing the Gouta or its relationship with Damascus in the first half of the 20th century, that would merit a separate sentence, and equally anything about the al-Shaghour district that can be reliably sourced might also merit a separate sentence. This way it may be possible to bring in extra context and background about the man (thereby helping the reader understand him better perhaps) without adding more names or places and similar details that might confuse the reader as mentioned by Ceoil above. See what you think. (Also incidentally, notice the use in some sources of "the Ghouta", maybe a slightly easier way of referring to it that makes the reader aware it's a piece of territory not a specific settlement.)

This article has come a very long way over the last few weeks. All of my significant concerns have been addressed, and I am happy to Support. MPS1992 (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

@MPS1992: Thanks for supporting this nomination and for all your help. I agree the importance of al-Kharrat's environment i.e. Shaghour and Ghouta each warrant a sentence describing them, especially since the articles we currently have on these areas are lacking. I'll get to that very soon and update you here when the additions are made. And I restored "the" before all mentions of Ghouta. Also, I'm currently working on a draft article for Ramadan al-Shallash and the Great Syrian Revolt for readers who are interested in finding out more about these two subjects, which are obviously important in relationship to this article. They'll be ready for mainspace in the coming weeks, hopefully no more than a month. --Al Ameer (talk) 18:31, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

@MPS1992: I've added a sentence about the Ghouta, but I wonder if it's awkwardly placed within the passage. Could you take a look and make an adjustment if necessary? I've yet to add a similar sentence about Shaghour, but I don't anticipate any issue with placement/flow for that coming addition. --Al Ameer (talk) 00:55, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

It looks good to me, I have made a few small changes. I have also watch-listed al-Shallash and the revolt itself, thank you for the pointer, I will get more involved in those as they develop I hope. If you have time for a rather more recent Syrian revolt, please take a look at recent changes to Asma al-Assad and its talk page, this is a university project focusing on Women in Warfare, some recent discussion from the participants at User talk:Adam (Wiki Ed)#Wiki project Women in Warfare with Dr. Phelps. Some of the edits have included removal of a perceived over-focus on the fashion sense of the subject, whether this is wise or unwise is perhaps part of the project. I am sure the students would welcome any feedback on the article talk page or elsewhere. MPS1992 (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 01:47, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the c/e and supporting this nomination. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:58, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Sure, happy to help. - Dank (push to talk) 04:22, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Source review: everything here looks to be in order. There are sufficient citations and they all appear to be to reliable sources. Unless a spotcheck is needed, I think this is good to go. --Coemgenus (talk) 15:13, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 01:50, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.