Template:Did you know nominations/Film Essay on the Euphrates Dam

Film Essay on the Euphrates Dam

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• ... that a Syrian filmmaker repurposed footage from his first film in his last film in order to criticize his younger self?

• Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvz9383k.15

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Panhandle Gap and Template:Did you know nominations/History of education in Wales (1870–1939)

Created by Zanahary (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 13 past nominations.

꧁Zanahary꧂ 07:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC).

• I'm not sure how this hook squares up against the rules to avoid hooks solely based on the content of works, but regardless of that, I am not sure how it's interesting or relevant that, basically, the filmmaker changed his mind about something... (t · c) buidhe 23:35, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

• That rule is: If the subject of the hook is a work of fiction or a fictional character, the hook must be focused on a real-world fact. This is a real-world fact about a nonfiction work. As for the fact, I think it's definitely unusual and remarkable for a filmmaker to make a film criticizing his own work. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 08:12, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

•  Doing... ミラP@Miraclepine 18:33, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing: - Earwig says that phrases like "advent of the dam" and "through the lens of salvage ethnography" and "with an eighteenth-century BCE limestone statue of the goddess Ishtar excavated from the" are identical to what's in the abstract of ref 2, so they could be changed to avoid close paraphrasing unless it can't be avoided. "Naive early enthusiasm" is similar to "earlier naive enthusiasm" in ref 4, so "Naive early" or just "early" could be changed to "initial" if possible. Otherwise the whole thing's good.

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Nominated on creation day and sized at 2360 B. Can't access refs 2 and 3 to verify anything so will AGF. @Zanahary: I have to agree with you this hook is interesting based on your explanation, but fix the paraphrasing issue and you're good to go. Film Essay on the Euphrates Dam, which is linked in the hook, is a stub sized at 233 B, so if you want to expand it and make it a second bold, feel free to do so and ping me if you're done; I can even hold the nom for you for the time being. ミラP@Miraclepine 19:01, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the review Miraclepine! I’ll fix the paraphrasing. I can also try to expand A Flood in Ba’ath Country. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:00, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: I've found the fix satisfactory. I'll approve Film Essay on the Euphrates Dam, but ping me once A Flood in Baath Country is sufficiently expanded. ミラP@Miraclepine 20:33, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Miraclepine: I've done it! ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:41, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: Thank you. I'm busy with school right now and with other things, but I'll review this tonight or tomorrow. ミラP@Miraclepine 20:50, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: Since your hook now has two bolded articles, please do a second QPQ. ミラP@Miraclepine 16:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Miraclepine: Done! here. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 17:41, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: Thank you, I'll start reviewing the article now. And for the record: I'm putting it to where the first QPQ is listed for convenience. ミラP@Miraclepine 17:43, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - See below.
• Neutral: - Ref 21 says that the report of the cancellation (but not what the report led to) was a rumor; fix Jeune Afrique sentence to say that, and also to for due weight to note that the JCC organizers affirmed their anti-censorship guarantee at the time. I think the "strongly" in "strongly criticizes" is MOS:EDITORIALizing? Otherwise it's all good.
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing: - See below.

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: @Zanahary: Yeah, this article has serious problems with close paraphrasing which need to be fixed, as well as some issues with WP:V.

Extended content

Regarding WP:V issues: About the infobox: need a source for the producers, cinematography, editor, distributor, running-time, country, and languages. Ref 1 said "some film pirates" but not "two", fix that. Ref 9 says "mistake" but ref 10 says "distress", fix this to clarify what word to use. Ref 9 says it was named after his family but not him himself. Fix "nephew of a local Ba'ath Party leader" -> "nephew of said village's chief" since the ref says the local Baath Party leader is the nephew, not the chief. Refs 32 and 33 don't say he was going to Beirut (but rather Jordan), that it was an airport he was detained at, or (directly) that the Al Arabiya broadcast was in Syria, just that it was to Syrian viewers, so change "aired in Syria" -> "was also seen by Syrian viewers" Ref 12 only says he was a tribal chief but not what tribe and is redundant anyway because ref 14 says he was a leader of the tribe and what tribe it was; relocate ref 12 from that sentence to fix the confusion. Ref 19 is literally redundant to 24. The "won the award for best short film" needs only ref 20. Ref 27 is redundant to 25/26 (and I don't speak Arabic anyway, so I'll AGF since video is not something I can easily translate unlike text) I also need clarity on what the working title is: NYT and Reason say Fifteen Reasons Why I Hate the Baath (both caps), but Fifteen Reasons Why I Hate the Baath Party is used by The Douglas Hyde (uncaps) Masress (uncaps) Eclipse of the Sunnis by Deborah Amos (caps) (worst case scenario we use a footnote). Now, this is the full list of CLOP issues: "one of the leaders of Busha’ban tribe admits in the documentary: A Flood in Baath Country directed by Omar Amiralay in 2003 that he sent his tribesmen to Aleppo in the 1970s to help President Hafez al-Assad fight against the Muslim Brotherhood" = "Shaykh Diab al-Mashi, a former leader of the Busha'ban tribe, admits that he'd sent his tribesmen to Damascus in the 1970s to assist in President Hafez al-Assad's fight against the Muslim Brotherhood" "As a reward, al-Mashi was granted a permanent seat in the Syrian Parliament. His tribe's villages were also provided with electricity, and many of the men were exempted from compulsory military service" = same as ref 16 "Το reward them for their loyalty, Sheikh Dayyab al-Mashi was granted a permanent seat in Syria's Parliament. Additionally, the villages of his tribe were provided with electricity and many of his tribesmen were exempted from military service (Dukhan, 2019)." I can't access 15 and it's redundant anyway. Also I think it's way too tangential to note in the article. Sort the list of filmmakers protesting the festival's decision in alphabetical order to prevent close paraphrasing. Change "A Flood in Baath Country was pulled from the lineup of the 2004 Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia" to "the 2004 Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia cancelled a screening of the film". "allegation that the film had been pulled to begin with" should be changed to "news that the screening was cancelled" to carry over paraphrase cleanup. "reported" should be added between "Following" and "political pressure" since the ref says it's apparent. Also, there's a conflict between the Jeune Afrique ref which says the news on the cancellation was a "real-fake "scandal" with a persistent rumor ... [that] turned out to be unfounded" and the Variety/Bidoun refs that together say that the screening was cancelled but put back on the program on the last day; need to sort this out per NPOV. "asked the network to include a dedication to a friend" = "asked the network to include in their broadcast a dedication to his friend", so change to "later requested that said network also air a dedication to his friend" (and also since it seems ambiguous if the dedication was directly part of the broadcast) "a Lebanese journalist and critic of the Syrian regime who was killed on June 2 by a bomb hidden in his car" = "a Lebanese journalist who'd been critical of the Ba'athist regime before being killed in 2005 by a bomb hidden in his car" -> "a Lebanese journalist who had been critical of the Ba'athist regime before his assassination in 2005" "Since Bashar al-Assad had permitted satellite television, this meant the movie would be shown in Syria after all" = "and since Bashar al-Assad had recently permitted satellite broadcasts in Syria, the film would be viewable there after all", so -> "allowing the film to be viewable in Syria since satellite television was legalized by Bashar al-Assad's government" "introduced by writer Farouk Mardam Bey and followed by a debate" is lifted straight from the source after being translated into English. Change it to "featuring a debate and an introduction from writer Farouk Mardam Bey" and move it a little earlier between "Baath Country" and "was held in" As for overquotes: The "I wanted ... of my life" can stay, but the "thing that ... eleven thousand years before Christ" should be rewritten. I don't think we need that Ba'athist textbook quote in full, just a sentence describing what it says.

Oh, and this was expanded from 233 B to 9718 B within a few days of being bolded. ミラP@Miraclepine 05:34, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

• @Zanahary: Please address the above. @Miraclepine: This is a very long review. Can any of this information be moved to a different location (the article's talk page perhaps?) or summarised? Z1720 (talk) 15:50, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Z1720: I'm not sure. I understand it's long, but all this info is still relevant to the DYK, and moving it outside this page might cause all the discussion to be decentralized. Further, I think all the necessary details should be present, and of course there's a lot of them given there were noticeable copyright issues in the page. Would it be best to collapse all this?

Oh, and while I was writing this reply, I noticed a lot of work's being done on this article. I'll take a look at it as soon as I can. ミラP@Miraclepine 16:12, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay, review done at last. @Zanahary:, this is long so I'm collapsing it (and also the other; I'm just using Template:Collapse instead of cot/cob given WP:DYKNOM's severe issues with WP:PEISX):

Extended content

Now let's see, the Infobox issue is fixed but ref for languages doesn't support that it's Arabic (unlike this one; doclisboa says it's 47 mins, but that ref and the cinemas-asie one say 46 mins); the issue with the film pirates, Jordan, and the nephew of the village chief was fixed; and the festival's anti-censorship guarantee but everything else for V and NPOV are still not fixed. Now re CLOP, noting that irrelevant/redundant content is a sign of close paraphrasing: 1 - still too close; "men of his tribe to fight in President Hafez al-Assad's campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood" -> "his tribesmen to assist in the Islamist uprising" 2 - nevermind, I think it's too tangential, should be removed 4 - done but unclear from the refs if how many screenings so "planned screenings of" -> "plans to screen" and "the screenings' cancellation" -> "the screening's cancellation" (as in process); change "guarantee against censorship" to "commitment to anti-censorship" to prevent CLOP 5 - changed to "requested", but still similar since "broadcast" is not changed to "air" and doesn't address my point in ambiguity 6 - car bomb should be removed to fix CLOP 3 and 7 are fixed and 8 is unchanged For new additions, everything else is fine but: Refs 22 and 23 doesn't support the "they think this lake has been here forever" quote unlike Jadaliyya ref, add that ref; also add "saying that" "different" and "they think this lake" and replace the ";" with ",". "describes the "oft-repeated signature shot" of the film as an excruciatingly slow passage through a doorway, which Berman finds claustrophobic in imitation of "circumscribed political vision" -> "says that the recurring use of shots of an entrance through the doorway is the film's "oft-repeated signature shot", describing it as "excruciatingly slow"." for NPOV; excruciatingly is an adjective used in the ref, thus should be quoted. "the Syrian regime asked the Tunisian government, through the Syrian embassy in Tunis, to prevent the screening of Amiralay’s film, “Flood in Baath Country,” at the Carthage Film Festival" = "the Baathist regime had directly asked the Tunisian government to prevent the screening", so "directly asked the" -> "attempted to convince the" "restraining order preventing him from leaving the country. At the end of last week, Haaretz learned that the order had been lifted." = Haaretz reported in November 2006 that the restraining order prohibiting Amiralay from leaving Syria had been lifted.", so "restraining order prohibiting Amiralay from leaving Syria had been lifted" -> "ban on foreign travel placed on Amiralay had been removed" aawsat.com implies 20 September "day before yesterday", and eng-archive.aawsat.com says 19 September but sage ref says 18 September citing Middle East Times; just use September 2006. don't need ref 40 next to "which aired in Syria" To avoid CLOP: "travel to work on" -> "travel abroad for work on" and swap Euphrates and Manbij alphabetically.

BTW wish I had brought this up last time, but consider the refbombing cleanup optional. @Zanahary: these issues need to be fixed, or this nomination won't get to the main page, and I highly recommend making as many issue fixes at once instead of through numerous so I can track these changes quicker and faster. ミラP@Miraclepine 20:53, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

All edits done, except:

• I did not change "guarantee against censorship" to "commitment to anti-censorship", since the latter implies an ideological alignment to the combating of censorship while the former merely means that the festival promised not to censor anything. I don't think these three words form a copyright issue.
• I read no ambiguity in the source about the dedication's attachment to the broadcast. From the source: Amiralay said that one of the Arab satellite networks had bought "A Flood in Baath Country" ... Amiralay said he had asked the network to include a dedication to a friend, ... "include" here implies that the dedication would be part of the broadcast of the film.
• I'm confused by also add "saying that" "different" and "they think this lake". What are you asking for?
• I don't see how saying the Syrian government "directly asked" is a problem. Changing to "attempted to convince" is a departure from the original meaning and a superficial alteration to avoid two words matching with the source. I think these words are fine and not a copyright problem.
• I changed the restraining order Haaretz text to just say "order prohibiting Amiralay from leaving Syria had been removed"
• "Travel abroad to work on a film in Jordan" is redundant. This, again, is too small to be a copyvio.
• Can you specifically name the ref you want removed from "which aired in Syria"? And why?
• Removal of the car bomb detail—how is that CLOP?—would strip the implicit accusation of assassination of its context. If I said "his death", the reader would not know if he was blown up, disappeared, killed himself, etc., and I obviously cannot say "his assassination".
• 3 and 7 are fixed and 8 is unchanged—I don't know what these numbers refer to, as your notes are just bullets.
• For your previous notes: there is no source explaining the discrepancy between variants on Fifteen reasons. It was a working title. Before that, it was twelve reasons. I don't think this needs a footnote, but feel free to add one if you disagree. Ref 19 is literally redundant to 24. I think these ref numbers have changed, and I don't know what sources they refer to. I don't see a reason not to have both Le Matin and Le Nouvel Obs for the prize claim. Two sources for a claim is pretty standard and not in the territory of WP:CITEKILL. The Farouk Mardam Bey thing is another example of an apparent disagreement between you and I on close paraphrasing and WP:LIMITED—I don't see a reason to alter the natural wording into something superficially more distant from the source's obvious verbiage. I've trimmed the Baathist textbook, but I think what is there should stay; it's very interesting and exemplifies the school section of the film quite well. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 08:50, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: I'm currently busy with schoolwork and can't do the whole thing at once right now (also including changes you've made since then), but I'll try to catch up between Tuesday and Friday (worst case scenario the latter date). For now:

1. Re 2: Okay, seems I overlooked this. Feel free to write it that way.
2. Re 3: Ooh, sorry. I meant you would add "saying that"
3. Re 9: These are what the bullets would be if the extended detail reviews used numbers.
4. I'd like to note that the principle of WP:LIMITED, which I've used in DYK before, is that it applies unless there is a different plausible way to say it; in these cases I found them here and there, hence my request to make the changes.

Hope this clears things up. ミラP@Miraclepine 17:37, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: Just looked at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_202#c-RoySmith-20241101020900-Crisco_1492_mobile-20241101015300, so I've done a few fixes outside the ones you've objected to. I'll finish the rest of the review once I come home or tomorrow. ミラP@Miraclepine 20:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Zanahary: Since I'm home, where were we?

• Re 1: I felt "committed" and "guarantee" have the same meaning in indicating promise, but then your reply gave me an idea: something in the lines of "kept its promise against censorship"?
• Re 4: How about "directly asked the Tunisian government to prevent" -> "directly requested that the Tunisian government prevent"? "directly asked" seems redundant, and I'm sure one will get the idea about whom they requested it to if "directly" is used before "requested".
• Re 5: I'll approve that.
• Re 6: Following on the principle on WP:LIMITED: just use "travel to Jordan to work on a film"
• Re 7: The Haaretz ref, marked with ref name ":13". The Asharq Al-Aswat ref, which the Haaretz ref is next to, already says the whole thing.
• Re 8: Okay, you make a point about relevance. we'll compromise. Per the principle of WP:LIMITED, how about "before his death by" -> "before being fatally injured by"
• Re 10 is somewhat long, so I'll reply:

• Yeah, assuming the secondary sources got the name mixed up, I'm going with Mohamad al-Roumi.
• That's because sources were added thus increasing the ref numbers; about the refs in question, both Variety articles from Ali Jaafar, I've read the Gale ref thru WP:LIBRARY and it's technically the same thing as the weblink Variety, so I've replaced it with the same. (For the record, I referenced Special:Permalink/1256099108 in the first review.)
• Keep the prize claim refs per your point in WP:CITEKILL.
• The ref still verifies everything the Farouk Mardam Bey proposal says.
• The textbook quote and "The restriction on Amiralay's travel" thing will stay your way

• For content added since then: "the script Amiralay had sent him was entitled" = "The script he sent me was titled", so I've changed to "the script he received from Amiralay was named"; I've also copyedited the other for sentence structure.
• Continuing from the first extended review: In the first paragraph of the Content section, I prefer "remorse" over mistake and distress; change "at a Syrian airport" to "at the Jordan–Syria border" per [1]; and my point on "aired in Syria" -> "was also seen by Syrian viewers" still stands.

Hope this help. ミラP@Miraclepine 05:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)