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Happy editing! ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 20:20, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am a page watcher of Merbabu's talk page.

Some issues to offer you (on wiki - I would be very much more open off wiki)

first things first

• queries in small text (says who, needs clarifying etc) need cleaning up

• red links need to be cleaned up - either removed or redirect or actually create the articles

• careful read of the larger paragraphs with limited refs - why? need more?

• updating (some parts show legacy of being written ten to twenty years ago)

second things second

• your personal capacity to deal with indonesian and dutch materials

• if none - who to do you turn ask ?

• very problematic but, your capacity to know of the problem of the same article in the indonesian wikipedia - where are the differences, why and how? (the javanese wikipedia even...)

• selection of sources - are they accessible for reviewers or locked behind paywalls or simply not on line ?

• seeking out editors with competencies that can give advice but do not have the capacity in terms of time to assist - some have long holidays between edits

third things third

• in most cases GA reviewers know nothing about the subject before coming to the article

• nuances of 'perspective' can be quite confronting - dutch, indonesian, ethnic groups in indonesia, in some areas of 'knowledge' are quite combatitive in their stances, and have historically remained so despite who has been at the helm in the ship....

• overviews of recent scholarship are rarely up to date in the broader picture of south east asian history, anthropology, or other disciplines - in wikipedia articles.

the sense of 'catch up' in relation to scholarship is also quite interesting in the 'fashions' of western academic trends, and how they are able to fit contemporary indonesia for instance. In some cases articles have sources that are up to ten or twenty years old, and anything since is either avoided intentionally or unintentionally...

fourth things fourth

• personally I am not showing my hand on anything here, and I have quite an intense personal dislike of the Ga process, nothing against those who do it from either side, and in many cases they end up doing a very good job - the reviewers and the editors - for me it is like watching the request for admin process - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship - no one needs to go through that sort of process, totally unreasonably time wasting to have deal with the issues

• please dont let me discourage you, there are many very good things about the article, and what it does to explain the nederlands oost indies(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nederlandsch-Indi%C3%AB_Oud_en_Nieuw - was a monthly item that has important material, I discovered that it did not exist in commons or wikipedia as an article, so there are always black holes in the wikipedia material) - the material is there, and there is a vast untapped resource available at the least expected turn in strange places, it is the task of the enthusiastic editor to be able to tie it all in a way that ends up the possible GA that is aspired for.

• I would recommend that you also ask other editors such as User:Dan Carkner and another resident of the country to your north - User:Crisco_1492 - both are serious and competent editors who might (or might complain to me for referring to them) have a minute or two to offer their input as to the veracity of the project

fit the fifth

• The level of very careful thought about the aspiration is the general appreciation of the dutch institutions capacity to offer vast hoards of images and texts online, and current Indonesian tendency to do the same, it is as if potential reviewers think they cannot find the material online it might be valid. Basic problem, many books and many archival materials remain offline. The specific task of the editor who is working on the article - reviewer or contributor - is that there are indeed holes, and in many cases the books in national libraries are the last stop, which can be both frustrating and enthralling if you are fortunate to be in london, cornell, canberra, or jakarta.

sixth fit

• It is just an encyclopedia article, not a lifes work or a phd for that matter, but... Well worth looking at how britannica explains from its perspective... But well worth not quoting from their article. I have probably explained too much, there is a lot more where that comes from! good luck! JarrahTree 08:00, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]