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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Montanabw(talk) 04:05, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

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Assassination of Iranian Nuclear Scientists

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Created by Mhhossein & Gatoclass (talk). Nominated by Mhhossein at 18:32, 16 February 2016 (UTC).

  • This isn't a full review, but comment on the the hook. It asserts it as a fact, which upon reading the article you find out it isn't. Jolly Ω Janner 18:53, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Jolly Janner: Thanks for your note. You're exactly right and I should have considered that. Any way, how is ALT1? Mhhossein (talk) 04:04, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
ALT1:... that an assassination campaign aimed at Iran's top nuclear scientists was allegedly run by Israel for several years?
  • Another WP:NPOV disaster by user that has difficulty comprehending or abiding my policies of WP:NPOV. Material presented not backed by sources in violation of WP:V (e.g. [1]). Plot Spoiler (talk) 22:26, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
  • It's really an unfair consumption of editors' time to nominate in article in such shoddy condition for DYK. Plot Spoiler (talk) 22:46, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I have to agree here. The article is new enough and long enough, but from there I begin having issues. It needs serious copyediting for language reasons; its title does not meet the Manual of Style; it has a serious neutrality problem, which extends to the hook; and stylistically it does not look like an article in this encyclopedia. Raymie (t • c) 00:15, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I think failing this is the best option for the project. Myself and others have invested too much time into spoon-feeding improvements for Mhhossein's articles. This needs a complete rewrite. Jolly Ω Janner 01:28, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Hey people, I don't think what you are alleging is as big as what we have in reality. This is not a suitable excuse for rejecting that. Mhhossein (talk) 06:40, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
  • The fact is that the article does not reflect an encyclopedic style and has serious neutrality issues. Aside from the length and recency, this article has a very hard time meeting DYK standards. Raymie (t • c) 02:10, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I've tried to reflect all the viewpoints besides all denials. I can't understand your objections until you present your specific issues with the subject. Btw, I don't deem we can fail it because of what you said. Mhhossein (talk) 03:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • DYK is not a peer review or request for comment. If this article's not up to scratch, then it's not used. Maybe try to improve it to GA and then return? Jolly Ω Janner 03:49, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I know that. But there's no policy prohibiting us from discussing the DYK requirements here. Thanks for your good faith suggestion Jolly Janner, however I prefer to ask BlueMoonset tell us his point. Mhhossein (talk) 04:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Mhhossein, having read the article, I think the NPOV template on it is appropriate. The allegations are unsupported, the sentence that you just restored a clear case of putting words in Ya'alon's mouth—he didn't say (or even clearly threaten) that assassinations would resume—since he's never said that Israel was assassinating scientists, the claim that he said they would resume is a complex question and unworthy of a Wikipedia article. I also don't think much of the IBTimes based on the headline which makes the same inappropriate assumption, and wonder whether they should be deemed a reliable source if they're willing to publish it. Reading the article, the prose is definitely rough, but far more important is that the article is built so that the only conclusion is that Israel has been assassinating Iranian scientists. Three people are cited as backing this conclusion—Burleigh, Rubin, and Hibbs—though their arguments are weak and highly circumstantial. Further, not one skeptic is included, nor any contrary evidence, and I very much doubt these don't exist. I'm afraid that I agree with the comments above; I don't see how this article can be salvaged for the purposes of DYK given the base assumptions that pervade the article. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:01, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @BlueMoonset, Jolly Janner and Raymie. I have done some editing to restore NPOV. Perhaps you can now review and give the poor man his DYK credit? :D Please ping me if you think the articles needs more editing. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 09:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @FreeatlastChitchat: Article still needs editing, especially the lead. I would rather see this nomination rejected and improvements discussed on the article talk page. Jolly Ω Janner 09:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
BlueMoonset: Thanks for reading the article. By "The allegations are unsupported" did you mean they were not sourced, or you yourself find it unsupported? I read the interview of Ya'alon which was originally published in Der Spiegel and I found nothing about resuming the assassinations, so you could have meant that the analysis by IBT was just an Op-Ed. That's right, but what do you say about similar things published in the independent and The Jersalem Post (read the first three line in both)? Btw, I think we are not here to judge whose conclusion is weak or strong, because simply we have to rely on reliable sources and reflect them from a neutral viewpoint. Instead we'd better say whether they are credible to make such comments or not. Those three persons have their points, certainly. These are while I can accept that the article structure had to change to achieve neutrality and I agree on most of the changes done by FreeatlastChitchat. Neutral articles are much better understood by the readers in my opinion, and and If I had missed a point, this does not mean that I did not wanted them added to the article. Mhhossein (talk) 11:45, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
@Mhhossein: I've done some major copyediting for tone and grammar, which has improved the article. My one thing that I think could use improvement in your future articles is that you're overlinking. Once you link to an article like Mossad once, you probably don't need to do it again. However, my concerns about neutrality still remain and I would be hesitant to give it a positive review. Raymie (t • c) 00:40, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Raymie: Thank you very much, the article is even better now. Also, thank you for your practical tip. Mhhossein (talk) 03:12, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
The article is copy edited. Mhhossein (talk) 06:32, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
  • This now needs a new review. The new reviewer is requested to pay specific attention to the policy of NPOV and whether this article now adheres to it.—♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 15:35, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
The article looks mostly okay to me, except the section suggesting Iranian government involvement which looks overblown. I might trim it back a bit before relisting this one for review. Gatoclass (talk) 07:28, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Date and length fine. However I cannot pass the proposed hooks. The first one claims Israel's involvement to be a fact (which the article says it isn't) and the second one may say "allegedly" but still implies it in the same way as the first one. There needs to be some new hooks before we can consider allowing this to run on the main page. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:27, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree with that. I was going to mention the hooks, but thought it best to deal with one issue at a time. I will probably suggest an alt hook after working on the article if nobody has come up with a viable alternative by then. Gatoclass (talk) 11:45, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
The article is looking better. I would propose the following as a potential hook (135 characters, including spaces and punctuation):
ALT2: ... that several parties are alleged to be separately responsible for an assassination campaign aimed at Iran's top nuclear scientists?
- tucoxn\talk 20:42, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
I like the new ALT2 hook. I'm giving this a re-read, as it has been some time since I originally examined the article and copyedited it. I think the article has improved substantially and is now likely ready for a DYK after the extensive copyediting and neutrality improvements. About the only thing I did was change out some semicolons for colons. That said, I'd want someone else to agree with me before sending this to a queue. Raymie (t • c) 07:04, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I have to agree with Raymie: this article has truly been worked hard on by many contributors. As a result, it's become a great and fascinating topic. It's certainly more than ready for encyclopedic usage now, if you asked me. I'm happy to give it (and with the nomination itself, also ALT2) a tick.—♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 21:36, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I have pulled this from prep3 due firstly to some issues I have with the hook, and secondly because there is ongoing edit warring due to some unresolved issues in the article. I don't think the issues are too serious and would expect them to be resolved within a couple of days, but decided to pull the hook now while the nomination has my attention. I will try to put some work into assisting with the unresolved issues in the next day or two. Gatoclass (talk) 16:29, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I'll take the time to propose a new hook, though I won't get involved in the edit warring...
ALT3: ... that four Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2010?
This article needs about the most factual and impartial hook it can get, even if it is a restatement of the first sentence. Raymie (t • c) 06:41, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
ALT3 would be passable if "killed" was replaced by "assassinated", though I think the hook could use a little more detail. However, the article is still not ready for review as I have discovered some more issues after looking more closely at the sources. I will probably post an update to the article's status in a couple of days. Gatoclass (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
Raymie: Do you have any suggestions for having the first sentence "factual and impartial"? Mhhossein (talk) 17:00, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
At this point, I don't... This nomination has gone on a very long time (it's now among the 5 oldest currently pending DYKs) and run into multiple issues, and I don't know what more I can add. Raymie (t • c) 17:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
So, let's see when Gatoclass is going to perform his modifications. Mhhossein (talk) 05:41, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I've had a few distractions this week - I'll try to get back to this sometime over the next few days. Gatoclass (talk) 07:16, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
  • @Gatoclass: what's the status of this? This is running late. —♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 22:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I know, this article is my next priority, but I've been unable to find time to get back to it just yet. I was hoping today would be the day but it didn't work out. I'm sure I will have it done within the week, one way or another. Gatoclass (talk) 11:52, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
Dear Gatoclass, I saw that you did some changes. Are you finished with that? Mhhossein (talk) 12:59, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
No, that was just a few preliminary changes I made. I still haven't found time to get back to this one - I really just need one good evening to get it done, but haven't quite managed to find one yet. Gatoclass (talk) 18:37, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
@Gatoclass: Are you looking for something specific that we might be able to help out with, or do you just need to go over it more thoroughly in general? AdventurousSquirrel (talk) 07:15, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the offer AdventurousSquirrel, I don't need any assistance right now but if I haven't got this done in the next few days I might reconsider your offer. Gatoclass (talk) 01:09, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

I finally managed to get back to this nomination and barring further interruptions, expect to have it ready for review in the next day or two. Gatoclass (talk) 04:59, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

  • I finished work on this article, so it's now ready for re-review. It turned out to be a much bigger job than I originally anticipated, as the article was essentially structured around a number of outdated sources and I had to carefully re-read through all the sources to try and get a grasp on the chronology of commentary. I should emphasize, I think, that I don't think Mhhossein is to blame for the problems I encountered, this is just something that sometimes tends to occur when a number of editors are working somewhat at cross purposes on the same article. Regardless, my apologies to Mhhossein and others for the delay in getting this finished - I've had a number of off-Wiki distractions over the last few weeks that have prevented me doing much on Wikipedia at all.
Gatoclass: Now I think that It was really worth waiting and the article's much better now. It seems that you have gone deep in the sources to add the required details and remove the unnecessary ones. So, I don't mind the time passed as I understand that those "off-Wiki distractions" are natural. I wish you have done your best regarding your real life issues. I also like the proposed hook although I think we can reflect that this is something more than a simple accusation and "Western intelligence services and U.S officials are said to have confirmed the Israeli connection." Thanks --Mhhossein (talk) 05:07, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
  • "In early 2011, a young Iranian named Majid Fashi confessed on Iranian state television to the killing of Masoud Alimohammadi, saying that he had trained for the operation at a Mossad facility near Tel Aviv. Fashi was executed in May 2012. The same month, Iranian authorities announced the arrest of another 14 Iranians—eight men and six women—whom they described as a terror cell trained by Israel and responsible for carrying out five of the attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists." - This is all unsourced. I will do this review but this needs to be removed or sourced within the article - we should not been naming a murderer without references. ツStacey (talk) 10:26, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
Stacey: I wonder how you did not see the Reuters and Hrw sources which were already cited there! Anyway, I added the Time source. --Mhhossein (talk) 13:04, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I added the missing cite - it was from the "Spy Fail" article. Gatoclass (talk) 14:31, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Gatoclass. And Mhhossein, I missed nothing - none of those sources mention Majid Fashi. I will look at this article for review later today. ツStacey (talk) 16:20, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
I apologise to Mhhossein, I hadn't searched in the sources including his middle name: Majid Jamali Fashi so missed it.

Article is long enough, it was nominated within the required time. It has been substantially changed and massively improved during the DYK process. It is written neutrally (this is an incredible feat due to the article subject). There are lots of citations from many reliable sources. Hook is sourced: "Tehran has long accused Israel’s Mossad of running a campaign to assassinate Iran’s nuclear scientists" & "The similarities among the attacks were not lost on Iranian authorities, who immediately blamed both Israel and the U.S. for Wednesday's attack." The hook is interesting and I am sure it will generate a lot of interest. I'm not sure why QPQ hasn't been provided yet? Its been sat here since February! ツStacey (talk) 17:38, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Stacey. It's provided now! --Mhhossein (talk) 01:44, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
Now G2G, well done! ツStacey (talk) 07:26, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
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