Talk:1996 Spanish government formation/GA1: Difference between revisions

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Nominator: Impru20 (talk · contribs) 11:28, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: A.Cython (talk · contribs) 01:42, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will start reviewing the current article, I will need about a week to provide comments. A.Cython (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, I find the article well structured and interesting on the political difficulties in forming a government in Spain in 1996. However, there are a number issues (prose, complex sentences, overuse of quotes and em dash, etc) that need to be addressed, most are minor but not all. Below I include what I noticed from a couple of readings.

• Attempts to form a government in Spain followed the Spanish general election of 3 March 1996, which failed to deliver an overall majority for any political party. This is a good intro, but it can be improved per MOS:FIRST. I suggest to be rewritten as: “The Spanish government formation, followed the Spanish general election of 3 March 1996, failed to deliver an overall majority by the elected political parties.” This is essentially the same but it is more direct by using the title of the article (in bold) at the beginning of the sentence.

• At the lead you use: As a result, the previous cabinet and As a result, regionalist, rewrite to avoid duplication.

• At the lead: whether incumbent prime minister Felipe González change “prime minister” → “Prime Minister”

• Acronym: IU was not used in the lead, either use it or remove it. In general, if an acronym is not used then there is no need to define it.

• I do not see the point of “Legal provisions” section entirely based on the Spanish Constitution Articles. WP is an encyclopedia and as such we need to summarize and present an approachable narrative to the ordinary reader. See MOS:QUOTE & WP:SUMMARY. I strongly suggest to add a summary/narrative paragraph to explain the relevant Spanish Constitution Articles with your own words supported by WP:RS in relation to the subject of the article and if possible remove or minimize the use of primary sources, i.e., the Spanish Constitution Articles by placing them as quotes in references or part of notes. Consider having the support of secondary sources, otherwise reliance exclusively on primary source could possibly be construed as WP:OR.

• by barely 1.2 percentage avoid subjective characterizations, i.e., remove “barely”.

• the smallest victory of a party you imply that the victory was small, but I think you mean it was a victory by small margin. Consider rewriting as “it was a victory by the smallest margin”

• that point since the country’s transition to democracy. add the date, i.e., “… transition to democracy in 1975.”

• This left the peripheral nationalist Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV)—both of which had been very critical of the PP’s perceived centralist platform during the electoral campaign[6][7]—as the likely kingmakers together with Canarian Coalition (CC), which had offered to support the party coming out on top if it supported its “non-negotiable” proposals for the Canary Islands. Consider rewriting by simplifying the sentence structure as I have trouble understanding what you are trying to say here.

• Aznar offered to “reach out” to other parties remove double quotes. I feel you overuse quotes. In general, try to reduce the use of quotes in the main text, per MOS:QUOTE. A good rule of thumb on whether to use a quote is whether it is found in secondary sources, i.e., historians use the quote itself. The use of quotes from us (WP editors) taken from primary sources (even if reported in newspapers) can be construed as WP:OR. Try to use your own words to describe the events and avoid the language used by the politicians or journalists. Other examples in the same paragraph include,
  • “other possibilities would open up”
  • “with a different approach”
  • “move his pieces”
  • “in a joking tone”
  • “especially happy”

• On 15 March, González encouraged Aznar to fully commit to an agreement with CiU that guaranteed Spain’s governability—stating that “a government formed around the People’s Party” would, in his opinion, be “the most reasonable way to respond to the wishes expressed by the public at the polls”—but also reminded him of the limits established by the Constitution for the process of power transfers to the autonomous communities, set in the “maintenance of territorial and social cohesion”. For reasons mentioned above, rewrite by removing the quotes by replacing them with something by your own words.

• “finalized” with only a few economic details remaining, whereas Pujol noted that “some progress had been made” but there were still “significant discrepancies” that needed to be studied[56]—led to a new impasse on 22 April, as Pujol acknowledged that the meeting “had not gone well”. Again, reduce the use of quotes.

• to an uncomfortable Aznar,[13][14] who in ensuing years would minimize them as being Two issues.

1. “uncomfortable” is this directly supported by the sources? If not remove it.
2. “minimize them” this needs to be rewritten (sounds offensive)… maybe you wanted to say “sideline”?

• On the PSOE side, González claimed that, while he did not contemplate the hypothesis of forming a government and would ensure an “orderly and responsible” transfer of power as interim prime minister, his party would vote against Aznar in any prospective investiture,[17][18] whereas Public Works minister Josep Borrell called for CiU to not allow Aznar’s election on the basis that electoral results in Catalonia had shown “a general and clear rejection of a PP government”. Very difficult to read, consider breaking into two sentences.

• Aragonese Party (PAR) acronym does not appear to be used in the main text, use it or remove it.

• “Catalan” has a wikilink at the section “Majestic Pact” but it has appeared several times beforehand. Consider moving the wikilink to the first appearance.

• Consider changing the section title The “Majestic Pact” by removing “The”, also the quotation marks are not needed. Note that later on you do not use them in Majestic Pact significance… speaking of which, consider the alternatives “Majestic Pact’s significance” or “Significance of the Majestic Pact”.

• Consider reducing the use of Em dash, per MOS:SPARETHEDASH. Some people love them and there is no restriction in using them, however, overuse leads to construction of complex sentences that exhaust the reader. We want the reader to enjoy the whole article.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Given that holidays are fast approaching, I will wait three weeks for the first changes to take place or if there is a request for an extension, which I will be happy to provide. If changes are initiated then there is no deadline provided there is some activity. However, if there is no response/changes after this amount of time, I will conclude the review. A.Cython (talk) 04:04, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for your detailed review, A.Cython! I will use this section to reply to some of the aforementioned comments:

• This is a good intro, but it can be improved per MOS:FIRST. I suggest to be rewritten as […]. Here, I know what you mean, but I see a number of issues with your proposal:
  • 1) The current formatting follows the same structure as 2015–2016 Spanish government formation and 2019–2020 Spanish government formation, which attained GA status in 2021 and 2023, respectively, and so are already reviewed. As this article belongs to the same category of articles on Spanish government formations, I see no reason as to why they should be treated differently;
  • 2) As per MOS:REDUNDANCY, the first sentence of the article should be used to provide relevant information that is not already given by the title of the article. The title need not appear verbatim in the lead if it is descriptive. The current sentence is used so that the links to Government formation and Spain (major topics within the article) can be added to provide more context than the mere use of the title would do (and these are not bolded because links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the first sentence of a lead, as per MOS:BOLDLINK). It is also a way to use a more easy and natural first sentence, as per MOS:BOLDAVOID;
  • 3) This was not the only “Spanish government formation” to ever exist, so your proposal (without adding “1996”) would clash with MOS:BOLDTITLE in that we would not be bolding the actual title but part of it (to little to no gain).

MOS:FIRST was taken into account when writing the intro, though I see the rationale behind your comments (that is why I am explaining mine for the current version). We can discuss this to see whether this change is absolutely needed (in whose case we would have to review those for the 2015–2016 and 2019–2020 articles as well, as they all share the same reasoning and structure).

• […] rewrite to avoid duplication  Done
• change “prime minister” → “Prime Minister” I have doubts here per MOS:JOBTITLE. As the sentence is “the incumbent prime minister Felipe González” and not “Prime Minister Felipe González”, it would denote a description rather than the title itself, so I understood this should be left uncapitalized. I am aware, however, that JOBTITLE can get difficult to understand some times, but I prefer to leave this up for discussion (so you know why this was left uncapitalized).
• Acronym: IU was not used in the lead […] It is used! First sentence of the second paragraph: “[…] or a prospective left-wing bloc comprising the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and United Left (IU)”. Just looked at it again, I misunderstood; you actually meant the acronym was not used elsewhere in the lead. I have removed it, so  Done
• Legal provisions:
• avoid subjective characterizations, i.e., remove “barely”.  Done
• Consider rewriting as “it was a victory by the smallest margin”  Done, though I used “the smallest margin victory of a party” to adapt it to the sentence without having to rewrite it too much.
• add the date, i.e., “… transition to democracy in 1975.” This is deliberate, precisely because there is not a consensus on when did the transition to democracy end (some point to the approval of the Constitution in 1978, some go all the way to the PSOE’s victory in 1982). And while 1975 is the widely accepted start date, it would make no sense to highlight that date since 1) the transition lasted a couple years, it did not take place wholly in 1975; and 2) there were no general elections until 1977. Maybe it could be changed to “since the first democratic election in 1977”, but then we would have to remove the link to Spanish transition to democracy. I leave this up for consideration.
• Consider rewriting by simplifying the sentence structure as I have trouble understanding what you are trying to say here.  Done, I have separated it into two sentences to make it clearer.
• remove double quotes  Done
• For reasons mentioned above, rewrite by removing the quotes by replacing them with something by your own words.  Done
• Again, reduce the use of quotes.  Done
• Two issues. [uncomfortable] [minimize]  Done, rewrote this by removing “uncomfortable” and changed the sentence to “with Aznar downplaying these as being in a joking tone due to people’s euphoria over the election results.”
• Very difficult to read, consider breaking into two sentences.  Done
• (PAR) acronym does not appear to be used in the main text, use it or remove it.  Done (Removed it)
• “Catalan” has a wikilink at the section “Majestic Pact” but it has appeared several times beforehand It has not, the use of “Catalan” in that sentence refers (and links) to Catalan language, not to its use as demonym or to refer to the ethnic group (which is its previous use). Nonetheless, I have edited the wikilink to remove the piped link, so that it now shows “Catalan language” in full text. It can be considered as  Done.
• Consider changing the section title The “Majestic Pact” by removing “The”, also the quotation marks are not needed  Done
• consider the alternatives “Majestic Pact’s significance” or “Significance of the Majestic Pact”.  Done
• Consider reducing the use of Em dash  Done. I have reduced the use of em dash and replaced most of them with parentheses, let me know if this would be a better fit or you think this should be reduced even further.

Let me know about your thoughts on this. Thank you very much for your time in reviewing the article! 🙂 Impru20^talk 09:19, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]