Talk:Sabah

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sabah/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: NgYShung (talk · contribs) 05:34, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Status: Y GA Passed. See comment below. NgYShung ^huh? 05:10, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

GA Criteria Table

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Appropriately tagged with {{EngvarB}} and on the article talk page.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	No doubt.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	A ton of references (500+) had been given.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The sources were reliable for majority. Please note that some of them are dead (see checklinks result), I hope there are improvements after on.
	2c. it contains no original research.	I did not suspect any original research. Looks clear!
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Note for other user: At Earwig's copyvio detector it displays 60%, but it qualifies under fair use as it was used in quotation. see WP:COPYQUOTE.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	I see some disputes over Talk:Sabah/Archive 2. And the article undergo a lot of editing by User:Molecule Extraction.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	Quite tense as there are a lot of images in the article. If there is anything I did not notice, please comment down below.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	For majority of the criteria is approved, I would like to say the article, Sabah successfully passed through WP:GA?. It may even passed WP:FA, but there is still one step ahead for WP:FA?. I would like to see some of the references fixed, and be more stable by not edit too frequently. Other more experienced reviewers, if you think the article does not fit perfectly on good article criteria, feel free to reassess it.

Reviewer/Nominator comments

First look: Looks quite good at first sight. There is a red link in the article (which should be removed). Decorated with lots of picture. NgYShung ^huh? 05:34, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

On hold 5+ days. Lack inline citation at the lead section. Try add more citation there from the current available references. See WP:LEADCITE. NgYShung ^huh? 09:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi NgYShung, thanks for taking your time to review. About the lead citation, AFAIK based on the MoS guide as been stated here:

The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.

That means only the very controversial part in the lead that really needs citation (for example such as in this article, the population numbers and the making of Islam as the official religion of this state) <-- this could still be disputed by some readers if the statement come without any reliable citation, especially if it come without government documents. I have see other past nominations in the GA nomination page before with the reviewer there telling to not using too much citation in the lead. Molecule Extraction (talk) 10:40, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. But please cite "along with the threats of annexation from the Philippines which existed until today" at the lead section. The content biased a little and did not mentioned in the article. NgYShung ^huh? 10:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I write the part based from the citation here, from a book written by Hans H. Indorf in 1984. Will add this to the sentence now. :) Molecule Extraction (talk) 11:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I have added two more citations [1], [2] for your understanding on the issues. Molecule Extraction (talk) 11:39, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Along with a book written by Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E. Miller. :) Molecule Extraction (talk) 11:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

@NgYShung: Thanks, but wouldn't this article should be checked for the grammar with a copyedit? Because I feel the English in this article still need to be corrected as I am not an English native contributor. Molecule Extraction (talk) 05:27, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Just a note I'm not a native English speaker also. And also I think the other criteria outruns it. You can just be WP:BOLD and correct it, and maybe also contact the WP:GRAMMAR team. Regards, NgYShung ^huh? 06:01, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

OK then if like that, I just hope that any random copy editors passer-by will fix any grammatical errors in the article. So once again, thanks for reviewing! May the nature bless you always! Molecule Extraction (talk) 18:11, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Concerns on indigenous Sabahan representation

Recently I've begun to notice that a lot of edits create forced, irrelevant associations with the cultures and languages indigenous to the Luzon, presumably as an attempt to frame Sabah within a Filipino-adjacent perspective. As a native Kadazandusun I don't respect this.

Other attempts presumably with editors with roots from the Southern Philippines try to do the same flavor of unsolicited irredentism by adding bits of trivia that try to make Sabah sound more Tausug, Islamic, or Malay than it actually is and ever was.

Whereas the indigenous cultures, languages, and peoples notably the Kadazandusun, Murut, Rungus, Sama, are merely mentioned in passing references like tokens to bulk the article word count. AnderGapoh (talk) 11:11, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi AnderGapoh, do you have specific examples? If information is "irrelevant" ("undue" may be a better word), it can be removed or shifted to a more detailed page. CMD (talk) 13:43, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis I occasionally check this article and remove any irrelevant statements that try to nudge the narrative in favor of the current irredentist claims. The latest edit where I removed a few questionable sources (including one that described itself as an 'alternative' news source) is one example of what I'm concerned about.

I personally have no gripes with mentioning the pan-Austronesian ties that the region shares across borders (not just Sabah with the Philippines), but citing coincidentally similar-sounding words in a language native to what happens to be the political center of a country making irredentist claims is obviously an attempt to establish an unreasonable narrative.

Sabah is also a state that historically (and really still is) affected by politically-motivated demographic engineering.

Examples: https://www.thevibes.com/articles/news/107459/villagers-in-sabah-find-themselves-listed-as-muslims-without-their-knowledge

https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/items/4d9f9189-6d29-4e6c-94bf-b519432c0db1

Some of these Islamization efforts naturally spill over into online spaces where Sabah is represented to the world (i.e. Wikipedia). For example, commonly misattributing the name of the state to the Arabic word for 'morning' (which is meritless since ه and ح are completely different letters anyway). AnderGapoh (talk) 13:59, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for taking my concern seriously. It's really common for concerns such as this to be ignored online. AnderGapoh (talk) 14:00, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Another concern of mine is the gross aggrandization of the territorial extent of the so-called Bruneian and Sulu 'Empires'.

Contemporary historiography often frames these village-states as akin to the Roman Empire with territories completely encompassing modern borders. Brunei's influence was limited to the coast in Putatan, for example, yet you'd find tons of maps online that color the entire north of Borneo yellow, to imply a fictional 'historical' Bruneian subjugation of the territory and the indigenous population within it.

Some of these images have spilled over into various Wikipedias. AnderGapoh (talk) 14:05, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

If there are specific issues we can deal with them. We aim to present the demographic changes, cultural links, and similar without doing so in a way that unduly favours a particular narrative. CMD (talk) 15:20, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi AnderGapoh, Wikipedia, as much as it strives to be neutral, are after all still a majorly open platform to editors from all background. The neutrality of course depends on how many editors subscribes to such mentality, because we typically do not realize our own biases. Even administrators, may have their own biases, but of course since they are elected through voting system and tend to be scrutinized for their credibility, can be the judge but there are only a handful of them.

As such, I believe it is the responsibility of each of us to edit articles/paragraph that we find skewed. Only then it will attract the attention of other editors to judge your edit, hence with many people seeing the edit change, not only it helps more peer review, but also sometimes makes us realize our own biases before judging others.

Hence, feel free to edit those you find problematic, and surely with notification, people will note the changes and support you if it is indeed correcting the biases. Let's strive for a neutral public Encyclopedia.

P/s: you might feel that this just became worse recently, trust me the battle that some of us had to undertake to withstand vandalism and war edit during the 2013 sulu invasion and 2021 arbitration was so much more intense. Danazach (talk) 01:11, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Remove undocumented template parameters

There are some template parameters which aren't documented in the template doc and are preview errors in VisualEditor (eg. p#, demographics#_type#). They should either be replaced by other suitable parameters, replacing the template with {{Infobox political division}}, or removed from the article. Toffee Dude (talk) 12:41, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Article review

It has been a while since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed the following:

• There are some uncited statements within the article.
• There is a yellow "too large" banner at the top of the page from June 2023: I agree with this banner. I think there are some sections that could be summarised more effectively or spun out including "History", "Territorial disputes", "Economy", "Transportation", and "Portrayal in media", although all sections would benefit from a copyedit with a focus on reducing prose size.

Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 21:45, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't really agree with the "too long" statement. This is about perfect for the length of an article about a place with as rich a history as Sabah, and I think it might even be too short. Guylaen (talk) 09:31, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

The article is presently close to 16k words, which is a length at which it should be divided or trimmed. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:25, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Sabah

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Nearly a month has passed with no efforts made to address these issues. Bgsu98 (Talk) 01:35, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

There are some uncited statements within the article. There is a yellow "too large" banner at the top of the page from June 2023: I agree with this banner. I think there are some sections that could be summarised more effectively or spun out including "History", "Territorial disputes", "Economy", "Transportation", and "Portrayal in media", although all sections would benefit from a copyedit with a focus on reducing prose size. Z1720 (talk) 03:32, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

• Delist. No significant edits since this GAR was opened. Z1720 (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Minor grammar issue

"The arrival of uncontrollable illegal immigration have cause major impact on political, economic and socio-cultural problem particularly on local indigenous peoples."

Spotted this while reading the article. It should probably be rephrased as: "The arrival of uncontrollable illegal immigrants has caused major impacts on political, economic, and socio-cultural life, particularly on local indigenous peoples".

Though it may benefit from a full restructuring. SolInvictusXLII (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2026 (UTC)