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Wikipedia:Good article review/Archive 16

< Wikipedia:Good article review
Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Its contents should be preserved in their current form. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
← (Page 17) Good article review (archive) (Page 15) →

To archive an article from the disputes page, check over the dispute, and see if any enforcement is necessary. For instance, if a discussion results in 5 editors for delisting an article and 1 against, then delist the article as you archive it. If a dispute is close, for instance, an approximately even amount of editors taking a side, try to make a new comment rather than archiving, to see whether the dispute should continue. Make sure not to archive active discussions, a good rule is to not archive anything that has a comment less than a week old, unless a resolution has been posted to the discussion. An exception to this rule involves disputes which have a clear outcome in these ways: There is at least an 80 percent majority to do something with an article, there are at least 6 votes, and at least three days have passed since the article was nominated for review.

Archived Disussions

Niellim language

Result: 3 to 0 delist

There's barely any text in this article; the text that is there is a series of one sentence paragraphs and sections. I realize that this is an obscure language, but no language's syntax can be summed up in one sentence. I see no evidence of it ever undergoing the nomination process. Teemu08 21:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bench language

Result: 3 to 0 delist

A bunch of one sentence paragragphs, the article consists almost entirely of examples, no citations at all. As far as I can tell, it was never nominated and passed. Teemu08 21:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist It doesn't look like an illegal pass, December 2005 was when there was no review process, but by today's standards, it certainly isn't up to GA status now. A single reference at the bottom for an entire language? That just doesn't seem right. Homestarmy 17:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trans-Siberian Railway

Result: 4 to 0 delist

Too listy in sections, has a trivia section and an external link farm. Delist. LuciferMorgan 11:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Last Supper (Leonardo)

Result: 6 to 0 delist

This article has a few citations, but much of the article is uncited. "Legends and alternative theories" and "The Last Supper in culture" aren't mentioned in the lead and are mostly lists. Teemu08 21:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nintendo

Result: 4 to 0 endorse delist

I simply cannot figure out why this article was removed. Could someone either enlighten me or return it to the list.24.20.175.87 09:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it was delisting back in November of 2006, so the article was probably quite different back then, the delister's argument seemed to deal with the article being too listy I think. Homestarmy 15:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse delist: Aside from the listyness, which remains, the intro is filled with info that appears no where else in the text, thus it is a lacking summary. It also makes a POV assertion right off the bat: well-known console manufacturers. That's POV. The rest of the article did look messy. If this isn't reason enough I give the rest of the article a good go over, I am sure it fails a multitude of other criteria. IvoShandor 14:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Sears Catalog Home

Result: speedy delist

Warned by The Bethling last September about inline citations. Also some bad prose (ie "And, not all of them became private residences."). Teemu08 00:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Music of Trinidad and Tobago

Result: speedy delist

Warned by Agne last September about inline citations. Also heavy on redlinks and stubby sections. Teemu08 00:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Henry Morrison Flagler

Result: 6 to 0 delist

I'm nominating this for delisting since it has a "Trivia section", but first and foremost it contains no inline citations. Delist. LuciferMorgan 21:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist Forget lack of inline citations, the reference given doesn't even appear to have much to do strictly with the article subject, as far as I can tell from the title, its just about the railways the subject was involved in. Not well-referenced as far as I can tell.Homestarmy 17:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist as insufficiently referenced. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gridley Bryant

Result: 5 to 0 delist

Has zero inline citations and no article sections. Delist. LuciferMorgan 05:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist No sections means it has no WP:LEAD at all, since a lead comes before the first headline Homestarmy 17:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist Actually, it looks like the article is ALL lead. Seriously, this has no inline references, no sections, isn't sufficiently broad. Its NPOV, and that might be the only WP:WIAGA criteria it meets. Oh, the image is prolly OK too. But this is an easy delist.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist per above. Teemu08 00:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist This article is practically a stub. I put an expansion tag on it. I also notified some of the authors. Quadzilla99 23:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Meryl Streep

Result: Passage of article invalid from the start, and 3 to 0 to delist anyway

Article has only two citations, and so far as I can tell it hasn't been through the nomination process. PC78 18:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think someone just upgraded it to GA by accident, it was only this february, I presume they meant the next level up for assessment classes, which is technically A when it comes to just cursory assessments. Homestarmy 18:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment... was this ever listed on WP:GA? If so, I didn't see it. Did it ever have a GA template on its Talk page? If so, I didn't see it. Please note that WikiProject ratings and WP:GA are totally and completely separate. If some WP wants to rate their article GA in their WikiProject's rating system.. then they can. It's kinda... yuk... but there's no rule of any kind against it nonetheless. Therefore there was no reason to bring this article to WP:GA/R.
The only problem would've been if someone had slapped the GA template on the page, or listed the page on WP:GA, but I didn't see evidence of either action... --Ling.Nut 02:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've never heard that, as far as I understand they can't. Can you point to where this is stated? Quadzilla99 02:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Oops, I was half wrong. :-) Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment says they can't/shouldn't do it.. but it still leaves their assessment unrelated to the GA project. If you find an article rated GA (in a wikiproject's rating system, that is) that hasn't been promoted to GA, then simply change its rating and point them to Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. The WP:GA/R process never comes into play, period. --Ling.Nut 02:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering why people were voting, this just looks like someone accidently changed the article from B-class to GA-class, they didn't even use the template. Homestarmy 03:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That was my understanding. It's still silly that A class, which is often arbitrary, is above GA but that's a different story for a different day. Quadzilla99 03:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Schuttern Gospels

Result: 4 to 1, delist

Man, a lot of articles were warned about a lack of inline cites but haven't improved. This one was warned by The Bethling last September. Teemu08 20:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article has exactly one reference. Every statement in the article came from that reference. I suppose that one could add a footnote after every sentence to that one reference, which would, in my mind, be a silly thing to do. I can understand that having only one reference may violate the GA criteria. I will note, however, that the reference in question is about as authoritative as will be found on this manuscript. Dsmdgold 03:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Retain This is a highly relevant case for Jayron32's comment on the Talk Page just now:

"BTW, inline citations are not strictly required. It is possible, for example, where a short, though comprehensive, article is written from one or two sources where inline citations become moot. However, I have checked the articles YOU nominated on GA/R, and I would agree that these need more inline citations. But the lack of inline citations should not ALWAYS be an "autofail" in all cases. Each article should be ajudged of its own merit as to the need for inline citations. They are USUALLY needed, in a great majority of cases, but not always."

- quite why he though this article on a single manuscript did not meet the case he describes I don't know. It is as clear an example as you could hope for in my view. Perhaps he could explain? Johnbod 03:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist: The article can easily be converted to inline citations. With the sources in hand, it would take maybe a half hour? Also, I think the lead is not WP:LEAD compliant, at least on size issues. Finally, I see no discussion of why this particular codex is significant, leading me to wonder if it is notable. Let's ask these things be attended to and a new nom be made afterward. --CTSWyneken(talk) 12:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist: Let's not forget why footnotes (inline citations here) are used in academia - so that someone researching the subject or checking the claims can go back to the source they were taken from. I am looking at this article and thinking "which of those 'further reading' sources do I go to? Which bit of the article comes from each source? Inline citations and referencing are not a requirement of GA in order to annoy people and take up time - we are trying to create an encyclopedia here, one which can be used by people no matter what they may be using it for. Sticking inline citations in there and expanding the lead are just two things this article needs, and creating a damn good encyclopedia article should be the goal, not struggling to retail a little green cross on the talk page. Chrisfow 15:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All the material is from the one source, as its creator stated above. As is the norm on WP, "Further reading" means the source has not been used directly. The reference heading could be changed to Source(s) to help the literal-minded I suppose. None of this article is by me btw, except I have updated categories. Johnbod 20:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do not have "sources in hand" used in the "Further Reading" section. No library in my state has all of these sources. It would take weeks to months to get them via Inter Library Loan. All of which is irrelevant, since I did not use them to write the article. Every statement in the article (including the references listed in the further reading section) comes from the British Library Catalog. If I had used multiple sources, I could see an argument for in-line citations. Perhaps the lead does not meet the GA standards, but that is a different issue. As to notability, so far as I know, there is no expressed notability standard for manuscripts. However, I believe that any 1200 year old illuminated manuscript is notable. Dsmdgold 02:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On notability, the references given show pretty clearly that this is a non-issue under the WP criteria. As Dmsgold said, any illuminated MS of that age will be notable. Johnbod 03:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist due to lack of inline citations, as the article lacks verifiability. LuciferMorgan 11:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Carolingian Gospel Book (British Library, MS Add. 11848)

Result: 6 to 1, delist

Article was promoted way back in 2005 before the current nomination process. Warned by The Bethling last September about a lack of inline citations. Teemu08 20:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See comments above for Schuttern Gospels. Dsmdgold 03:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - same situation as Schuttern above. Johnbod 03:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist - see above. Chrisfow 15:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist - see above.Sumoeagle179 23:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist: You have to be kidding me, keep? This article is so far from thorough I can see the holes from here. IvoShandor 23:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist - I am echoing Ivo's sentiment, surely there's more to the subject than this? Gospel translations like this often have very signifigant historical background behind them. Homestarmy 21:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As the article says in line 2, it is a standard Vulgate text, which has its own article & was 400 years old by then. Johnbod 02:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I read "The Vulgate text..." Not merely "a Vulgate text....", which of course could apply to hundreds of things i'd think, but all this may be irrelevant, the only reference for the entire article appears to be linkdead. (At least, its broken for me right now) I really don't think an Encyclopedia article anywhere should derive all of its referencing from some catalog entry somewhere in the first place, but now that the link seems to be dead, the article is certainly not well-referenced. Homestarmy 15:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The link comes & goes - fortunately WP goes on forever (usually). The primary sources in all art history are "some catalog somewhere". It really is pointless dealing with you guys. Good luck with the rock bands, the anime & the non-notable mid-western courthouses. Johnbod 22:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, by the way, it's should have, would have etc, not should of, would of etc. Johnbod 22:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't an art history article as I read it, its an article about a Vulgate Gospel manuscript. While I understand that the "Creative Arts" can apply to writing, because the subject matter is also very historical in nature, I don't think its too much to ask for more references than a single intermittently available catalog entry. And trying to throw me off by making up non-existant grammar mistakes isn't helping. (It is definently which of, hundreds of, and all of, and certainly not which have, hundreds have, and all have) Homestarmy 00:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I should have made myself clearer on the grammar. I was referring to these: [1],and two here [2] Johnbod 21:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The interesting thing is that the only scholars that would be interested in this manuscript are art historians and paleographers. It is far too late to be of interest to anyone doing textual criticism for the history of the Vulgate, or the Bible. It does not have any marginalia, like the Book of Deer of interest to linguists or historians. What it does have is illuminations that are an early example of a significant school (School of Tours), within a major art historical movement (the Carolingian Renaissance); and a example of an important script (Carolingian minuscule). The cover is also of some interest as a relatively rare example a Carolingian treasure binding. (Most of them have not survived.) This is what makes this an art historical article. Those who have doubts about the viability of basing an encyclopedia article on a manuscript catalog, have not looked at a manuscript catalog. Catalog entries for manuscripts are always more full than they would be for a modern printed book. Some entries can be thousands of words long. I'm not sure what can be done about the screwiness of the link. It seems to me that it has to do with the internal workings of the BL database. Deep linking doesn't seem to work very well. I could put something like: "Go here. Set the collection dialog box to 'Additional Manuscripts'. Enter '11848' in the number dialog box and search. Click on 'show full description' link of the Add 11848 result on the result page." Although that would be a bit cumbersome, it would get someone to the entry every time. Dsmdgold 03:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Don't get me wrong, if this one catalog entry is basically it for everything important about this subject, then that's certainly something important to consider in terms of whether an article is well-referenced or not, and also something to consider about how long the article should probably be. But when people can't get to the link in question much of the time, its hard to figure out if just one reference will do it. If having those instructions is necessary, I don't think there's any rule against it, so go for it. Homestarmy 03:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The availability of the reference online should not be an issue here. It wouldn't be if it existed only in book form (I suppose this part of the Catalogue does exist in book form, but it would only be found in large university libraries, & would be pretty old, probably 19th C - the online version will be more up to date). It is what is called for books a descriptive catalogue, the equivalent of a Catalogue raisonné for paintings. A good example of such a catalogue will always be the preferred source for an article under WP:ATT (in WP terms it is a secondary source; I was using the terms in a looser non-WP sense calling it primary above). Johnbod 22:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist due to lack of inline citations. LuciferMorgan 11:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Still say delist, and choosing not to respond to the above due to my perception of an uncivil attitude towards the work of others. (EDIT) Clarify: By User:Johnbod IvoShandor 14:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sodium sulfate

Result: 5 to 1, delist

The article, as developed by the Chemicals WikiProject has been GA and A-Class classified for a long time. It recently was GA-delisted for failing the in-line references technical requirement (not applicable at the time of the original GA-listing). This requirement has been taken care of, and the article was renominated for GA. The renominated failed because of the above mentioned arguments. In my perceptions, the requirements for GA are over-estimated by the GA-renomination auditor. This article in my humble opinion should very reasonably be considered GA-class or even A-Class, albeit not FA-Class yet. I recommend re-instating GA. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 00:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

This is problematic, i'd really think an article over a topic like this easily falls under the WP:SCG I mean come on, its a chemical compound. Homestarmy 00:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, actually, I think I might see the problem here. While the second section certainly seems complaint with the Scientific citations criterion, all the others seem left a bit high a dry.....also, in the lead, it might be better to talk about the element itself more in the very first sentence, instead of how much of it is produced, it just seems like a bit of an awkward way to start in my opinion. Homestarmy 00:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist, no improvement that I can see on the two things I highlighted, article is not WP:SCG compliant, and the weird way to start the lead is still weird :/. Homestarmy 02:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bad prose: Although sodium sulfate is generally regarded as non-toxic, handle it with care. Do not breathe the dust as it can cause temporary asthma or eye irritation; these effects can be ameliorated using eye protection and a paper mask.
  • This reads like a how to handle sodium sulfate manual.
  • Structure: Two one sentence sections.
  • Glauber's salt, also known as sal mirabilis, is named after Johann Glauber, who discovered it in the 17th century. The white or colourless crystals were originally used as a laxative.
  • The history section lacks context.
  • The world production of sodium sulfate, mostly in the form of the decahydrate amounts to approximately 4 million tonnes annually
  • Could be challenged, needs inline cite.
  • Lead: Doesn't represent a good summary of the article per WP:LEAD
This is just at a glance, I am sure a full GA review would reveal other problems. IvoShandor 10:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Winston Churchill

Result: 6 to 3, no consensus

An editor delisted this GA. S/he did not list it here as far as I can tell. S/he gave a very brief explanation on the article's talk page, which amounted to saying they looked at one section and didn't see any criticism so the article therefore must not be NPOV. Then they added "Probably a whole lot else missing, but I can't be bothered digging any further, complete omission of criticism is bad enough for delisting."

An article should not be delisted on such scant investigation. No time was given for contributors to discuss/address the concern, and it is barely actionable anyway. This is not FA. A single complaint should not fail the article. Therefore, I have brought the matter her for review. Johntex\talk 03:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support delisting I agree that an article should go through here before being delisted, but you're not going to find much sympathy with all of those "citation needed" tags all over the article. This article is brutally under-referenced, contains a quotes section (which should be moved to wikiquote), short lead, and tons of one sentence paragraphs. Teemu08 04:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble is that many of the "citation needed" templates are also unfair. The article has 37 in-line references and 26 ADDITIONAL sources that are not in-line. All of the facts that are tagged "citation needed" are backed up by these sources. The GA critera does not require all references to be in line. I am a big fan of in-line referencing. Therefore, I have been reluctant to remove the tags. However, GA standard does not require this. The fact that we are going beyond GA standard with so many in-line references should not be held against the article. Johntex\talk 04:45, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • From what I can tell, the references aren't a huge problem. This is a GA we're talking about, not a FA. I didn't find any major NPOV or factual errors, so as far as I'm concerned, it meets GA criteria (although admittedly, I did not read the entire article). -- Cielomobile talk / contribs 08:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support delisting Cites haven't been correctly formatted, and the article is listy in sections - this isn't a GA, as far as I'm concerned. LuciferMorgan 16:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctant Delist, with Comment: I hope the dedicated editors of this article are reading this; I'd like to extend them congratulations on all the obvious hard work they've put into the article.
  • I agree that there do not seem to be grounds for the original reason for delisting, which was NPOV. If anything, Churchill comes off looking more than a little bigoted. I also agree that some of the "citation needed" tags are unnecessary. They should be placed beside text that is, or is likely to be, challenged. I do not think that was done correctly. Finally, though, I unfortunately agree with Lucifer that the article is too listy, and furthermore the refs section needs too much work to let pass... This trumps other considerations. I hope the editors will fix these problems and resubmit. GA is very much within reach, after application of some elbow grease. --Ling.Nut 22:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support delisting. The writing needs a lot of work, as noted above. I'd also ask for better referencing. A bibliography is not the same as providing references for claims. Vassyana 15:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re-instate GA-Class. The article is complete, reasonable well written, referenced, and generally complies to all GA requirements. If it not completely complies yet with various details of requirements, then that is acceptable for GA-Class (not for FA-Class). Wim van Dorst (Talk) 00:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  • Support delisting - One sentence paragraphs failing criteria 1, lead needs to be two paragraphs, the "Honours" is a mess. M3tal H3ad 12:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Support delisting While I agree with the person who brought this here that just speedy failing an article for not having criticism of a subject is probably not right, (The vast majority of biographies on Wikipedia probably have no notable criticism on the subject at all.) the lead is definently far too short, Winston Churchill has got to have more to the guy as a summary than what's there now. Homestarmy 15:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • delist Sumoeagle179 21:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • After seeing the lead increase to what it is now, I think its much more improved. However, I don't think I can quite bring myself to support yet, the bottom of the article seems to have some problems with it. "Churchill as historian" has no content at all, (Might want to just put the article in a "see also" if its not very important) and the "changes" section about cabinet stuff seems like something that could be easily turned into prose, which would have the benefit of perhaps putting all of the changes more closely together in context with each other. Homestarmy 16:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amtrak

Result: 5-0 Delist

Too listy in sections, has whole paragraphs uncited and an external link farm. Delist LuciferMorgan 11:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out that lists weren't what the good article criteria concerned; they fell under a separate editing criterion, Wikipedia:Featured lists, and, also, I may have improperly rendered a list concerning railroads joining Amtrak into prose. So far as "good article" status was concerned, the embedding of lists was noted as a practice to keep an eye on, though; however, lists are often worthy of inclusion in a good article. Stay tuned. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While some lists have been removed, I still stand by all my nomination concerns and my vote. LuciferMorgan 05:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weyauwega derailment

Result: Speedy Delist 5-0

Warned by me in December 2006 regarding lack of verifiability (only has 3 inline cites). Delist. LuciferMorgan 01:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

World War II

Result: 6-5 (Delist) No consensus, default Keep

This article is no longer a good article, if it once was. It is not stable, the text changes large amounts in short amounts of time, and there are constantly edit wars and/or very large heated conflicts on the talk page. The article is also unusably long. This article is not up to the standards that wikipedia should expect of it's good articles. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

  • KeepI wouldn't say it's unusably long; that's World War II and it was not only long but it was very important in history. It also seems to follow summary style so I guess that thats as short as it could get. As for the stability, I agree that its not as stable as it should be, and an article of this size could use more references. Tarret 18:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as GA.Sumoeagle179 10:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as GA - I have read through the article and the recent changes and I don't think there is any problem here worth a delisting. The article still meets GA standards in my view. Johntex\talk 21:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Am I the only one here who sees a horrible formatting prob on this page? The text bleeds completely off the text area and into the left sidebar... I'll look at it in a computer at school and see if that helps.. --Ling.Nut 17:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Quality is improving in general. Haber 12:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Lead does not meet WP:LEAD needs to be expanded to three paragraphs. M3tal H3ad 12:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Lead is definently not sufficient in length or content for a topic this expansive. Homestarmy 22:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep IF lead is made a summary.Rlevse 22:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Has no one else noticed that the article is massively underreferenced? The first inline citation does not come until about 2 pages down? I looked into reworking the lead on this one to meet the above objections, but, though the article is well written, the level of referencing seems to be below the threshhold that consensus has seemed to establish as being needed for GA.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 15:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Insufficiently referenced, has an external link farm. LuciferMorgan 17:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I commented about a month ago on the talk page about the horrid lead and was told "we had a longer one but we made it this way as it was easier to keep stable and avoid dispute" or something of the sort. Well it needs expansion and the editors seem resistant to the idea of expanding it. In addition, it has numerous fact tags and a severe lack of references. Quadzilla99 23:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Lead is completely inadequate for an article of this size and magnitude. Also, there are far too few references, especially given how many sources are available for this. Teemu08 00:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist: Inadequate lead, first inline cite isn't until the Causes section. External link farm. Some of the sources are very very weak for an article of this importance. I mean, commandosupremo.com? What the hell is that? I don't think that the aftermath section is very thorough, only two sentences, should just be merged with another section. This is my reasoning at a cursory reading of the article. IvoShandor 09:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Someone just expanded the lead, translating the French version into the lead:[3] Might be the start of an acceptable lead. Although it might be too long now, of course someone else came along and added a tag for length to the article. Quadzilla99 04:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bees and toxic chemicals

Result: Renominate

It was on hold, but then someone quick-failed it because some anon had put up a template, and though every other fact had been checked, one single one was behind a subscription barrier and couldn't be. It's been two months and no further sign of the anon, so I've removed the template, but, really, is this "GA quickfail" template even a good idea? It gives no suggestions for moving on. Adam Cuerden talk 17:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like just a bad quick fail to me, the mere existance of a template isn't a reason to quick fail an article unless its, say, the copyvio template or something like that. Homestarmy 18:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, was tired and had far too many tabs open that night. I likely failed it in error. IvoShandor 07:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if that, in of itself, is a reason to fail. Per the GA criteria, inline citations aren't required, and this article has them and they are pretty conisistent. IvoShandor 08:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Closer inspection reveals some consistency and a lot of incosistently, regardless the quick fail was an error, resulting from too many tabs and too little sleep. IvoShandor 23:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

History of the creation-evolution controversy

Result: Delist 6-0

No offense to the user who just passed this article, but I still don't think that the lead is close to, well, Good at all. (See the talk page) I don't know if i've been a major contributor to this article's content though, I used to do a bit of editing to stuff related to this, and much of it has been moved to new articles, so i'm not going to speedy-fail this. Homestarmy 17:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. There are a number of critical comments on the talk page that had not been addressed or responded to in anyway at the time it was passed. I generally respect the work of the editor who passed it, but in this case I think he just made a bad call. I should have just failed the article when I made my comments, but at this point it should perhaps be delisted by someone else less directly involved.Rusty Cashman 18:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist per:
    • Lead is inadequately short. Doesn't fully summarize
    • External links in article. Use wikilinks in article, not external links
    • Timeline is unreferenced.
Any one of these could lead to delisting. Surprisingly, the article is very NPOV. I like that. But it needs these fixes to be GA quality. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're Still the One

Result: Delist 6-1

Several issues with this article:

  • Cover is at too high a resolution and needs to be reduced and tagged with {{furd}}.
  • Cover doesn't have a fair use rationale.
  • References 3, 6, and 14 are completely unreliable.
  • Only an unreliable citation in the Music video section.
  • Only one citation in the entire Chart performance section.
  • No information on who wrote the song, when it was written, where it was written, or how it was written.
  • Contains a trivia section.

ShadowHalo 08:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist The 'Song information' section is a bit dodgy: the suggestion that it is about Lange and Twain appears to be OR, since it it not supported by a cite. There are some cumbersome sentence structures throughout. The cites should be formatted correctly: if not using the cite templates, then at least formatted to display the info that the templates would do (date, date accessed, etc.). Concur with above comments. The JPStalk to me 09:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per above reasoning. It's also overly listy too. LuciferMorgan 15:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist: per nom. Also see it as too listy. Fail GA criteria #1. IvoShandor 17:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I shrunk the image version and added a fur this is easy to do. I'm not sure if you're aware of that, just save it to your computer and shrink to 20-40% of the original size and re-upload it under the same name. I know the original uploader is only supposed to upload over an old image but in cases like this it's just easier to replace the old image when it's clearly a violation. I also tagged the trivia. Quadzilla99 17:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, already went through a review and remained a good article. Some users on here clearly need to be less nitpicky. The introductory paragraph clearly states who wrote the song, the cites for the chart performance are in the "Charts" section. I did remove the trivia section though... --Thankyoubaby 22:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, Music Video and Chart performance sections are not well-referenced, and that's most of the article, I don't think that one citation in each section for only parts of each section is enough to honestly call the whole thing well-referenced. (Especially if, as the nom suggests, one of the sections is referenced with an unreliable cite) Homestarmy 02:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist: per nom and Lucifer. IvoShandor 11:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Zaolzie

Result: Keep and watch (3-1)

In my view, the article fails to meet the following good article criteria: (i) neutral point of view policy, and (ii) broadness of coverage.

The reasons for the view are:

  1. The article does not refer to Czech population declining at the end of 19th century. Amendments adding this to the article are constantly deleted, although the census data quoted at the end of the article support this.
  2. The article claims that about 60,000 Polish immigrants arrived into the area (Zaolzie) between 1880 and 1910. At the same time, the article claims that almost all of the immigrants assimilated into the Czech population. This appears to be contrary to the fact that at the end of the 19th century Czech population was declining and in 1910 there were no more than 33,000 Czechs in the area (the 33,000 number is taken from the census data quoted at the end of the article). The discrepancy is not explained. Amendments presenting different views on the assimilation are constantly deleted.
  3. In the "Decision time (1918-1920)" section, the sequence of events appears to be wrong. The Polish (and Czech) takeover preceded the division of the area. The division was by an interim agreement. Amendments clarifying this are deleted.
  4. In the "Part of Poland (1938-1939)" section, it is claimed that the behaviour of the new Polish authorities was similar to that of the Czech ones before 1938. Although this is technically correct (yes, there is similarity) the behaviour was far from being identical. Amendment clarifying this was deleted.
  5. Authoritative Czech sources (such as Budování státu from Ferdinand Peroutka) are not accepted and references to them are constantly deleted.
  6. The article is mainly about Polish minority in the area as opposed to the area itself. Slovak or Roma minority are not mentioned.

Xixaxu 11 April 2007

Xixaxu raises some interesting points. However, he does not raise most of them on talk of the article, and the disputed edits that resulted in the low level revert war are - as far as I can tell - about rather controversial facts, highly critical of Polish side, referenced only with Czech sources (whose reliability is being questioned on talk). Reviews by other editors are appreciated, but my take is that that Xiaxaxu should discuss all of his changes on talk (not only the most controversial) and present English refs to back up the controversial ones. This should eliminate the problem. Until he does so, this looks like an attempt to insert controversial and poorly referenced POV to an article.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for now. Purely on the face of it, this looks like a ripe candidate for delisting due to instability. But I have always been a bit skeptical of instability resulting from the insertion of a viewpoint by a single contributor. Moreover, Piotrus is a trusted editor — particularly in this area, but also in general. Perhaps we should keep an eye on this article. --Ling.Nut 17:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Star Fox 2

Result: Delist 3-0

Just passed, I monitor all the GA pages. The review is non-existent. Concerns from original nom not met (Oct. 2006). Lead doesn't represent a summary at all. Too few citations in a couple of the sections. Plot section is written in-universe. Suggest immediate delist. IvoShandor 14:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

delist due to:
  • inadequaste lead
  • poor writing style in "plot" section, in obvious violation of WP:FICT
  • inadequate referencing in "gameplay" section
--Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment "As good as it's going to get" is not a valid reason for passing. I recall my push to get Big Rigs to GA status, but it faltered because I just didn't have the info. The reviewer wanted more dev info, such as whether Stellar Stone purposefully made it bad or not. I could not source that claim to any reliable publication, and so I concluded that it was doomed to B-class. hbdragon88 03:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Final Fantasy Chronicles

Result: Failure endorsed 3-1

The reviewer would have passed it except for a lack of bonus features being mentioned, but having double checked, it appears that they are already covered in the development section, so I think it should be passed. Judgesurreal777 01:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse fail. The development section mentions bonus features as existing. The reviewer asks for expansion on what those bonus features were. While the original review seems woefully inadequate, especially since it gives no guidance as to how to actually make this article a GA, the article still should be failed based on the following fixes needed:
    • Criteria 2 (referencing and accuracy): Last paragraph of "reception" is unreferenced.
    • Criteria 3 (broadness): This is the real problem. The article teases content, but says very little. It mentions changes from earlier releases, without delving into what those changes were. It mentions bonus features, but never mentions what they were. While a synopsis of the entire game is in no way needed, some explanation of the game's features and game play is probably needed. We don't want the entire game runthough, but we should get SOME sense of what the game is and how it is played. See WP:FICT for more ideas on how to expand this article.
I hope that review helps you fix this article. If you can make these fixes, I recommend a renomination. This article is a good start, but it needs some work to become GA. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fail I also agree that it is not broad enough. Although it is not a requirement to have a set number of sections, its good to have at least four or five to help cover the broad aspect. Look over other similar video game articles to get ideas or consider asking the WikiProject for assistance in helping to expand it. --Nehrams2020 22:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse fail: per Nehrams and Jayron. IvoShandor 17:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jihad (song)

Result: List (4-1)

GA nom

It looks a well referenced article. It'd look at the following:

  • expand the 'Music and structure' section, especially to include a discussion of the lyrics?
The article cannot discuss what does not exist. In other words, I cannot discuss lyrics unless it has been discussed or else it's original research. This song was never released as a single and it's by a Metal band. Furthermore, it's your opinion the "Music and structure" should be expanded, and not in GA guidelines. Finally, since the lyrics are discussed in detail in the "Origins" section, the "Reception and criticism" section and the "Controversy" section, your request frankly takes the piss.

Everything that can be found has been included in the article, so the article is as comprehensive as it can be. LuciferMorgan 20:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • work some references into the lead, especially where you are quoting a living person or group's reaction.
What? The lead of any article isn't even meant to be referenced. "Christ Illusion" is FA and doesn't have a referenced lead section, nor are other articles meant to. The lead is meant to be a summary of what is in the body, and any info in the summary is cited in the body. There's no need to cite it twice whatsoever. LuciferMorgan 20:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • some informal phrases in there: e.g. "gagging order"

Well done so far. The JPStalk to me 18:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, how else can it be phrased? Also, what other "examples" can you find? LuciferMorgan 20:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GAR review of the article

Minus the words between me and the reviewer, the above is basically a GA review of the above article and my response to the reviewer. I am not saying this is GA material or isn't GA material, but am saying I am unhappy with the review. I'm hoping the article can be properly reviewed here, and can people ignore the previous bickering between me and the reviewer? Thanks, and also can people vote fail or pass and also state their reasons for this? Thanks in advance. LuciferMorgan 21:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have commented on the article's talk page. As commented by other editors, since the article is merely on hold and has not yet been passed or failed, this 'review' is premature. There was no "bickering" between Lucifer and myself: the "words" were a barrage of incivil comments directed at me. Still, WP:TEA. I appreciate that it is sometimes disappointing to receive some criticism for something one has worked on. As for the final sentence about requesting votes: that is not how GA noms work for the first review. The JPStalk to me 21:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's rubbish JPS - the last GA from me was reviewed by ShadowHalo who had a few valid criticisms of the article actually, and because I actually could understand where he was coming from, I addressed them and guess what? After I addressed the valid criticisms he promoted the article Yours are actually invalid, and that's why it's disappointing, especially coming from an admin.
Also, perhaps then you haven't used GAR? That is how GAR works - I speak from experience may I add and have been on this page for a few months now. People endorse the failure or vote promote. Anyhow, this review is meant to be a GA review of the article, so let's keep discussion on the article's page or on our pages. Thanks. LuciferMorgan 21:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article has not been failed or promoted. It is on hold. GAR is premature. My constructive criticisms are very valid, esp. in reference to BLP. The JPStalk to me 22:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there have been a few times where someone brought a GA Candidate here because of large amounts of uncertainty about what to do, generally because some dispute or another erupted, or just because someone felt it would be a very close call. So an article doesn't necessarily have to be passed or failed before coming here. Homestarmy 22:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While I would say that Lucifer definitely over-reacted severely and could have handled it more congenially, he's right in almost every case. Leads aren't required to have sources (see FA's such as: Michael Jordan, B movie, Mutual Broadcasting System, Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Dime (United States coin) (on the front page today), History of Puerto Rico, 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Olivier Messiaen, etc.). Additionally, Lucifer Morgan's comments about lyric analysis in lieu of any existing articles which break down the lyrics in depth seems right on also. If I were him I would have just explained these things politely to the reviewer and then brought it here after (or when) he failed it though. Quadzilla99 23:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Quadzilla99 23:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Quadzilla's right in that I overreacted - I could've handled how I explained things better. LuciferMorgan 08:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(undent)

  • The article needs some light copy editing; much less so than many other GACs I have seen. I agree with 95% of what Lucifer says. No need for cites in the WP:LEDE if the same facts are cited in the body of the article, etc. etc.
  • I do agree with one point raised by the reviewer: the "Music and Structure" section looks odd at only 2 sentences total length. Even Hollaback Girl had a better "Music and Structure" section. I searched the Internet & other sources for anything resembling useful info on that score, and came up empty-handed. All I found was ordinary folks rambling on their blogs about "...intro with melodic riffs over slower tempos..." and "...starts with a strange slow guitar riff played high on the neck leading into a lower melody riff that picks up the tempo before launching into a typical breakneck slayer riff .." and so on. These are hardly reliable sources. :-)
  • SO I'm not sure what to do. I agree with Lucifer about everything not related to the "Music and Structure" section. I agree with the reviewer that the "Music and Structure" section needs beefing up. I also agree with Lucifer that it might be very difficult to do so. At the risk of sounding dangerously rash, I might even suggest deleting that section until further info can be obtained. There must be some Guitar Player-type magazine out there that breaks down the music theory etc. of this song. :-)... so.. delete the section, for now at least .. and PASS GA. My two cents. --Ling.Nut 00:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with LingNut on this one. The article is mostly GA quality, but a 2-sentance section simply BEGS for expansion. If it can't be expanded, I see no reason why the information couldn't be merged into another section, or maybe deleted altogether. Seems a shame to delete it though. Why not just merge it into the previous section and rename it something like "Development and structure" or something. Also, "gagging order" was really awkward language. There are better ways to word this. How about just saying "censored"... Also, I can see where the reviewer was coming from on his points WRT the lead, as sometimes a reference is needed in a lead, however this article is not the case. It should be noted that every item in the lead is referenced later, and so a ref in the lead is not really needed. Otherwise, I do think the reviewer did a MORE than adequate job of a review, since it was a hold candidate, and not an outright fail. As a hold, it only needs a few minor fixes by definition, and the short review was more than enough to raise any objections, and describe what needs fixing. In short, I endorse the hold pending 2 of the 3 fixes: Expand, merge, or delete the section titled "Music and structure" and rephrase the awkward language in the lead, perhaps changing "placed a gagging order" to "censored". --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll fix these concerns ASAP (tonight), and then ask for you to take another look. As concerns how adequate the reviewer was, we heavily disagree on that. LuciferMorgan 08:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to Ling.nut as concerns "Hollaback Girl" having a much larger "Music and structure" section, let us all remember that it was a single which went top ten in most countries of the world. This song was never released on single format. I'll expand it as much as possible though none the less. LuciferMorgan 08:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While I would have offered a much more thorough review for a GA on hold, I nonetheless agree with the on hold, which isn't a big deal, I have had all but one of my four GAs put on hold, per the above reasoning of Jayron et.al.IvoShandor 08:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) A member of the band used the term "gag order" when describing the situation. Suggest "censored" and include a bit about ".. which [name here] described as a 'gag order." --Ling.Nut 15:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has been addressed. LuciferMorgan 19:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The lack of references in the lead in relation to controversial topics violates WP:BLP. The lead is the first that that the reader sees. It should be referenced, especially in relation to controversial topics.
Although I have remained clam, I am increasingly becoming dissatisfied with the vitriolic attacks. My review was concise, and addressed the major issues. You were unhappy with it. Everyone knows now. There is little need to repeat it further. The JPStalk to me 17:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But it isn't a controversial topic, and this comes from someone who knows the topic inside out. The album "Christ Illusion" I got to FA had NO cites in the lead and the album was recalled in India. It's not controversial since all the facts are universally agreed upon, and I have no intentions of addressing the concern as in my opinion it has no validity. We know your opinion which was displayed in your "GAR", so can you please let me address the real concerns which have been raised by others? Thanks. LuciferMorgan 18:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is within the realms of common sense that a religious group's concerns about a song about 9/11 is controversial. If you insist on reducing the project's validity, than so be it. The JPStalk to me 21:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not responding to anything else this user has to say. I'll get onto everyone else's real concerns shortly. LuciferMorgan 01:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
JPS, who exactly is the subject of the WP:BLP concern? The article topic isn't a person, the people named in the lead don't seem to be protrayed as doing anything that is entirely unusual considering the subject matter, and if there are really BLP violations, we shouldn't be arguing about it here, we should be aggresively removing any such violations, as per the policy in question. Homestarmy 01:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, any attempt to remove things from the lead under the guise of BLP will be reverted since the article doesn't violate BLP. All the opinions in the article have not only been cited in the body of the article, but every sentence is cited in the body of the article. None of the points in the article are disputed by any party involved. The Catholic Secular Forum's concerns about the song were covered by several news outlets, and it's all been cited in the body of the article under the "Controversy" section. LuciferMorgan 02:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I suspect there are no BLP violations, but i'd prefer to see what it is JPS is talking about, it just seems a bit weird to me that someone can talk about BLP violations, yet despite the policy mandating that any such violations should be removed immedietly, not appear to do anything about it. Homestarmy 02:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Improvements made, reviewers take a fresh look please

I have expanded the "Music and structure" section so it's now larger. While it isn't big, it's as large as "Hollaback Girl" (an FA) and only slightly smaller than the ones for "Cool" and "Angel of Death" (other FAs). Some FAs have larger "Music and structure" sections, but please note these are all much more notable tracks which have had commercial success in the charts and gained much more critical acclaim, and also this is GA not FA. This song was never issued as a single,, and isn't that notable, so I feel I have covered "Comprehensiveness" with this one given the non-notability of the track and the lack of sources who have written on the subject. I'd like reviewers to take this into consideration when viewing the article again, and to take a fresh look and give their current thoughts on the article. Do you feel the article should be promoted to GA, failed or kept on hold further? My humble thanks in advance. LuciferMorgan 21:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support or List however you want to say it, I tweaked a few things that were really bothering me. I had written up a response with those issues in them with my support but since people don't usually address concerns once you've supported I just fixed them myself. Quadzilla99 23:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I fix concerns if I find them valid, even if people support in the same sentence. Someone added concerns to my talk page outside of this GAR, so their concerns wouldn't have counted since they weren't registered here. None the less, I addressed their concerns. Any others you have, feel free to mention - any help / feedback is welcome. Thanks btw. LuciferMorgan 00:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've never dealt with you so I have no experience to judge how you would respond—I was speaking about my experiences in general. Regardless, as I said I fixed the minor concerns I had and explained them in the edit summaries. The stuff was minor anyhow. This is pretty clearly a GA now. Quadzilla99 21:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm real appreciative of your compliment, so thanks. LuciferMorgan 22:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
List with reservations. The replacement of "gagging order" with "gag order" has cleared up the language issues. However, it does have a bit more emotional power (read:POV) than a word like "censored" does. However, it is a small issue for me. The biggest problem was the music and structure section, and this has now been adequately expanded. I would still recommend the use of the term censored; but will not hold up my support over such a small difference of opinion. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Gag order" has been changed to "censored" now in both the lead and body of the article, so I hope that small issue has been resolved. Thanks for your feedback. LuciferMorgan 00:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Crank it up to 11!" — PASS. --Ling.Nut 02:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your support. LuciferMorgan 09:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your support too :) LuciferMorgan 19:11, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This should be wrapped up and listed as Ivo said. Quadzilla99 17:06, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I only see four comments supporting listing, is that enough, what happened to the original reviewer? IvoShandor 11:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

American Civil War

Result: Keep 4-1

I am asking that this article be reviewed for the following reasons:
1. Historical inaccuracies are rife.
2. The article relies on one source (McPherson) for 39% of all references.
3. The article makes little to no use of some of the more established Civil War historians from the post war era using predominantly post 1960 authors.
4. The article makes little use of eyewitness accounts and official documentation of which there is an extensive amount.
5. Many of the comments are without reference.
6. The author/s have taken a heavily partisan point-of-view and not retained an objective stance on a highly debated and potentially sensitive subject; using their knowldege of the period solely to support their social opinions as opposed to providing a factual and comprehensive article on a period of history.
7. There are still grammatical errors.
8. The article has ommitted or glossed over key aspects of the conflict.
Spite & Malice 15:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose delisting After having reviewed the request for reconsideration, the Talk Page and the article itself, I have been unable to find support for the various charges against the article. Responding point by point:
1. Historical inaccuracies are rife.
No specifics are offered. This seems to be in reference to claims of an anti-Southern bias based largely on references to slavery as the primary factor leading to secession and the war. The scholarship is clear on this issue and there has been no attempt to introduce other sources that dispute this. The article references a separate article Timeline of events that notes the major events leading up to the Civil War – I believe folks would be hard-pressed to come up with non-slavery related issues that should be included on that list.
2. The article relies on one source (McPherson) for 39% of all references.
McPherson’s “Battle Cry of Freedom” is still considered, as far as I know, the best single volume work on the Civil War and its origins. If you go through the footnotes one by one you will see that almost all relate to uncontroversial factual issues (i.e. Confederate capital moved to Richmond, Scott’s strategy referred to as the Anaconda Plan, Federal troops advance was halted at Bull Run, etc.). A review of the section of the article involving origins of the Civil War has only a few references attributed to McPherson – in fact it appears an excellent mix of primary and secondary sources has been used in this section.
3. The article makes little to no use of some of the more established Civil War historians from the post war era using predominantly post 1960 authors.
The implication of this is that substantial factual material has been intentionally or otherwise omitted from the works of Civil War historians for the last two score and seven years. Absent some particular reason to suspect some sort of conspiracy, I would think that an encyclopedia would emphasize recent scholarship. The originator of this reconsideration request mentioned on the Talk Page the exclusion of “authors of [Bruce] Catton's era”. In fact, on most issues (including the importance of slavery as a cause of the war), Catton varies very little from McPherson et al. David Potter, Allan Nevins, and Don Fehrenbacher, for example, are roughly in Catton’s generation or slightly earlier and they differ very little from McPherson et al on the causes of the war.
4. The article makes little use of eyewitness accounts and official documentation of which there is an extensive amount.
The documentation is appropriate for the scope of the article. When quotes are used they appropriately blend in and add color consistent with the overall narrative. By the very nature of the article in particular and encyclopedia articles in general, it is to be expected that the article will be based heavily on secondary sources.
5. Many of the comments are without reference.
It appears from my review that every significant paragraph is properly (possibly excessively) footnoted.
6. The author/s have taken a heavily partisan point-of-view and not retained an objective stance on a highly debated and potentially sensitive subject; using their knowldege of the period solely to support their social opinions as opposed to providing a factual and comprehensive article on a period of history.
I can only assume that the reference is again to the origins of the war and slavery. The article presents a fair representation on the current consensus that has existed among history professionals for decades. The alternative Lost Cause version of history has been given its separate article on Wikipedia.
7. There are still grammatical errors.
Significant ones? It seems the proper action would be to correct them.
8. The article has ommitted or glossed over key aspects of the conflict.
Within the scope of a general article on such a broad subject in which so much has been written, it seems that the coverage is appropriate.

Tom (North Shoreman) 17:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose delisting The article is not "Featured" status, but it seems to easily pass the Good Article criteria. The article can be improved (for example, the entire causes section could be forked into a new article and summarized in about 25% of the space it is now). The main concern of Spite & Malice seems to be NPOV, that the article doesn't talk about what he wants it to, and such ommissions represent a non-neutral point of view. Two things should be noted:
    • Neutral POV does not mean inclusion of every POV. Specifically, minority viewpoints should not be given undue weight in the article. In the case where reliable scholarship overwhelmingly ignores or refutes a viewpoint, it may not even bear mentioning. (For example, the idea that the Great Pyramid of Gizawas built by aliens is a well reported minority viewpoint which is completely refuted by any serious egyptologist. Thus, even though many of us have heard of such a viewpoint, it is only given the briefiest of mentions in the article, as those who know consider it total bullshit.)
    • From a stylisitic point of view, not every single battle, event, cause, opinion, etc. etc. can be included, given the size of a good readable article. In choosing which items to include, it is important to look at what respected scholars in the field have chosen to include in their works, and do the same. It appears that this article does that quite well.
Again, this article is seems to meet the criteria of GA's quite well, and thus should remain a GA and not be delisted. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 19:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"the article doesn't talk about what he wants it to"
I just want non-bias historical fact to prevail over ridiculously one sided points-of-view. Of course slavery is a major issue in the war, but it should not be given so much time. Surely the article should focus more on the actual events of the war and not just blabber on about Uncle Tom's Cabin and slavery. Slavery seems to play an issue everywhere in the article, I find it almost childish. Perhaps it would be better to outline the causes briefly and devote another page to them, because they seem to be taking over this article on military events.
"Thus, even though many of us have heard of such a viewpoint, it is only given the briefiest of mentions in the article, as those who know consider it total bullshit."
Ah yes. Of course. My mistake. You were there I suppose... You saw it all, thus you know! How long have you spent researching the American Civil War? Are you an American? This article has become a vehicle to push moral ethics in a nation still reeling from its institutional racism, elitist culture, and complete intolerance for diversity or differing points of view.
"In choosing which items to include, it is important to look at what respected scholars in the field have chosen to include in their works, and do the same."
Even the greatest scholars of all time can be selectively quoted to provide someone with their own agenda a set of valid and well sourced arguments. Otherwise America would not have two heavily partisan camps of "historians" constantly pushing thier own agendas and threatening to tear history to shreds. The existence of two camps on the war should be a wonderful thing. It allows historians to debate, learn and evolve. When both camps shove their heads in the ground history becomes a waste of time. All I ask is an objective article on the subject and I am afriad that this will not happen, leaving nothing more than a bias so strong it casts doubt on some of the well-made points in this article. Of course it is not my decision, I have no intention to force my will on others, if people are happy to let this article stand as it is, then I will fully support the community decision, though I may strongly disagree with it.
" this article seems to meet the criteria of GA's quite well, and thus should remain a GA and not be delisted."
Fair enough. I'm just gonna remove the unnecessary "is" from this statement.Spite & Malice 09:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I haven't read the whole article, but it does seem to start out suspiciously undue-weightish, though i'll have to appeal to my personal experiences on this one. The article starts out immedietly in the lead with slavery as the apparent only issue in the entire war, since it doesn't mention anything else concretly. (It wasn't started by an argument over the right to secede, its just the right to secession was attempted as an argument by the South to secede peacefully.) The only clue that there was any other concrete cause is at the very end, with something about how the causes are debated. However, thinking about every history class i've ever been in, I really don't understand how slavery could of been the absolute only obvious issue in the civil war, I was always told it was slavery causing a massive amount of buildup, with a primary/companion cause being constant Southern discontentmant at not having as much States Rights in general over the slavery issue and many other issues. I don't know much about any fight that's been going on here over this particular article, but as far as I know, in the real world, (for me anyway) there is nobody arguing that the war was definently about slavery, that all the other causes are only mere possibilities, and that all the other causes really aren't important enough to elaborate on as much as slavery should be for a summary of the topic. But i'm not going to vote to delist just yet, I don't suppose anyone could give me (Or, really, all of us, since its a public page and all) some kind of defense of the structure and emphasis of the lead as it is currently written, that isn't just really vauge like "In the case where reliable scholarship overwhelmingly ignores or refutes a viewpoint, it may not even bear mentioning.", because I have no idea if anyone here who states that is correct until i've seen specific references. (And citing a bunch of names doesn't count, page numbers would be helpful.) Homestarmy 02:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm not voting here, since I contributed to the article, but I just wanted to point out that the sub-article on states rights was greatly expanded before due to previous comments, then reduced again due to many complaints about excessive length. Also, books written on the subject by the best historians (McPherson, Potter, Nevins and so on) present many issues that all get mixed up with the slavery issue, even if they start out as something else, and that's what was there to work with. For example, the Mexican War had something to do with Manifest Destiny but got mixed up with the Wilmot Proviso and compromises including a fugitive slave code. Kansas-Nebraska started with disputes over a transcontinental railroad, but slavery became a volatile issue there as well. And states' rights was part of the argument over slavery in the territories as well as a right to secession. And so on.Jimmuldrow 19:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But if the issues only had the force that they did because they were mixed with the slavery issue, then I don't see why almost only the slavery issue is mentioned to start with, since without the other issues, I seriously doubt the war ever would of happened in the first place, there wouldn't of been anything for Slavery to get mixed up in, and once again, as far as i've learned, Slavery alone wasn't anywhere near close enough to be an issue for the war to happen over on its own. I'm not talking about sub-articles right now, i'm talking about just the lead, since that's where the article should set the tone for what will follow. Homestarmy 19:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think mention of Manifest Destiny and debates over whether a transcontinental railroad should go north or south should be added to the lead? I suppose they played a role as well. Although others will complain about the length again if this is done.Jimmuldrow 20:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the length of the lead needs to be changed at all, just something needs to be done so that Slavery isn't the only concrete thing mentioned, then we can look at the rest of the article. Surely U.S. education isn't all a myth, don't any of historians you mention just "State's rights" in general as part of the dispute, or do they all just chalk it up to slavery plus a bunch of other things which primarily were a problem only because of slavery? Homestarmy 22:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, there's been enough discussion over this that I think it's time for a more thorough review, which will now accompany a Delist vote from me. I'll be going line by line through various problems as I come across them:

  • "....declared their states' rights to secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President Jefferson Davis." This seems unclear, if they declared their rights, then how could Lincoln just reject their rights? I don't think this is exactly how it went down, I think a better wording would be "declared that they had the right to secession,...."
  • "The Union, led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, opposed the expansion of slavery and rejected any right of secession." Whoa whoa whoa, where did slavery come from? Slavery where? From the Republic of Congo? (Not sure if it existed then) This assumes the reader already knows plenty of background information about America, which isn't a good idea from a compleate worldview type of perspective concerning how to write articles.
  • "...when Confederate forces attacked a federal military installation at...." Federal whatsit now? Who's the federated side? Once again, assumes the reader knows things that aren't exactly required reading everywhere else in the world.
  • "In 1862 large, bloody battles began, causing massive casualties as a result of new weapons and old battlefield tactics." Err, why? Did the old tactics not work effectively to reduce casualties when new technology was utilized? (I'm pretty sure that's right) Better: "causing massive casualties as a result of incompatability between new weapons and old battlefield tactics"
  • "In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made the freeing of the slaves a war goal, despite opposition from northern Copperheads who tolerated secession and slavery." Whoa, here's slavery coming out of nowhere again, was this proclamation designed for the Republic of Congo again? Those Congoites, financing the southern half of the U.S. and buying all the cotton, despicable....
  • "Emancipation ensured that Britain and France would not intervene to help the Confederacy." Oh did it? I was under the impression multiple factors were involved in ensuring that Britain and France wern't going to help the confederacy, and while slavery certainly didn't make them keen to help out the South, the South's lack of military victories at a certain point in the war certainly contributed heavily, probably much more than Slavery ever did. I don't see how the proclamation "ensured" anything here, Better: "Emancipation further influenced Britain and France to not intervene to help the Confederacy".
  • " In the East, Robert E. Lee rolled up a series of Confederate victories over the Army of the Potomac, but his best general, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson,...." Whoa, where'd this Lee fellow come from? Is he some sort of Congoite military advisor or something? Why does he have a general of his own? Is he head of the Confederate army or something? Might want to say that first.
  • "In the West, the Union Navy captured the port of New Orleans in 1862, and Ulysses S. Grant seized control of the Mississippi River by capturing Vicksburg, Mississippi in July 1863, thus splitting the Confederacy." The West of the U.S., you mean, California? Aha, that must be where those Congoite smugglers hosted their slave trading markets, it all makes sense now...Anyway, might want to specify where precisely the "West" in the Civil War was precisely.
  • "Lee won most of the battles in a tactical sense but on the whole lost strategically, as he could not replace his casualties and was forced to retreat into trenches around his capital" Tactical according to whom? It sounds like his victories wern't very tactical at all if they were compleatly pointless due to too many troops being lost. Better: "Lee technically won most of the battles in this time, but lost strategically overall, as....."
  • "William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia. Sherman's March to the Sea destroyed a hundred-mile-wide swath of Georgia." Yea, that Sherman, some punk Congoite rebel turned traitor I guess, intro doesn't say really who he is anyway, so the reader is free to imagine history for themselves.
  • "...all slaves in the Confederacy were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaves outside Confederate control were freed by state action or by the Thirteenth Amendment." Ah, so now it comes out those rotten Confederates were sharing slaves with the Congonese! Good thing that Congo, outside of Confederate control, was invaded by all the other states here and had its constitution amended to add a thirteenth amendment to it so there wouldn't be any more slaves there, eh? Wait, that doesn't seem quite right historically....
  • "The main results of the war were the restoration and strengthening of the Union, and the end of slavery in the United States." Yes, because as we all know, when you burn like half of your country to the ground, that's real nice for strengthening purposes, you don't need to say anything, we all know that builds valuable character that the Union really needed in those tough times! Perhaps if this was more specific, people wouldn't have to stop reading to wonder...But wait, what about Slavery in the Congo, didn't the Thirteenth Amendment up there end that? Isn't that a main result too? I mean, who knows what Slavery the article started talking about anyway?
  • "Secession was caused by the coexistence of a slave-owning South and an increasingly anti-slavery North." Ah, the innocence of youth, wouldn't want to talk politics on Wikipedia, now would we? Slavery wouldn't of been problematic from a sesessionist standpoint at all if the political atmosphere didn't encourage half of the states to be slave and half to be free. And you know, just like it says here, coexistance in and of itself between slavery and freedom in a nation automatically causes a Civil War, I mean, it's not like people in the Southern legistlatures decided to secede or anything, right? Slavery just caused it to happen with nobodies consent....
  • "Lincoln did not propose federal laws making slavery unlawful where it already existed, but he had, in his 1858 House Divided Speech, envisioned it as being set on "the course of ultimate extinction"." It was much more than that, Lincoln several times made it known that he would not just end all slavery, [4] due to the obvious problems of where would the slaves go or what would they do when suddenly freed, and of course because that would of just caused secession to be seen as necessary even more to the south. It was set on the course of ultimate extinction not because he intended to personally end it by outlawying it, but because he believed it would simply end itself if contained.
  • "According to McPherson,[2] while controversy over the morality of slavery could be contained, it was the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories that made the conflict irrepressible..." Hold the phone folks, who's this McPherson chap? Why should I, or more importantly, the reader trust some, as far as can be gleaned from the text, randomly chosen name to tell them about how much slavery made the conflict unavoidable? The reference just reads "McPherson, James. For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1998)", and doesn't tell me if he's some scholar, the grand ruler of all Civil War historians, or just some grad student who decided to write a book on the Civil War to get some pocket money. And even if he is the Grand Ruler of all Civil War historians, why only cite his opinion? Why not cite academia in a more broad sense? Or, better yet, if its an obvious fact of scholarship, just link a few things that say so, instead of just picking an, as far as the reader could tell, arbitrarily chosen name to tell them about the expansion of slavery and how it influenced the war.
  • Is the entire rest of the paragraph with McPherson there just right out of his book or something? If it is, the same thing as my last comment applies, and if it isn't, its not very clear where the information comes from. Besides, the section doesn't seem well named, it's not so much a note on causes as it is a note on Slavery as a cause, and by writing "note" there in the section, that seems kind of self-referency.
  • "According to Kenneth M. Stampp, each section used states' rights arguments when convenient, and shifted positions when convenient.[3]" Once again with the, as far as the reader can tell, arbitrarily chosen names....
  • "Stampp mentioned Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States as an example of a Southern leader who said that slavery was the "cornerstone of the Confederacy" when the war began and then said that the war was not about slavery but states' rights after Southern defeat." And was Stampp right to make this accusation? Does the very name Stampp entitle him to judge Stephen's work in front of the whole world to condemn his flip-flopping, and also entitle him to have everything he says be taken at face value no questions asked and no rebuttles presented? I don't know what kind of disputes have happened in the past over this article, but having all of scholarship on this issue rest on the back of one person at a time probably isn't helping to solve anything.
  • "...as reserved in Amendment X,.... " When I first read this, I was thinking "Amendment....EXTREEEEEME!" Why is the Roman Numeral used here, when the actual number of an amendment is spelled out in the intro?
  • "States' rights advocates also cited the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution to demand federal jurisdiction over slaves who escaped into the North." What fugitive slave clause? I was under the impression this fugitive slave business was because of some weird issue where the Supreme Court or something decided that now would be a great time to deputize the entirety of the North into demanding that they personally go out and catch escaped slaves wherever they could find them. I don't recall no fugitive slave clause in the Constitution, and I doubt most readers will have any idea what this is talking about either.
  • "According to McPherson, Calhoun regarded the territories as the "common property" of sovereign states, and said that Congress was acting merely as the "joint agents" of the states." Again with randomly chosen people to tell us what the facts are one person at a time, but this time we have the added bonus of throwing in the compleatly random name "Calhoun", there's not even a wikilink, is this supposed to be the former president? I have no idea what the point of this sentence is when it doesn't assert why the names in it are of any importance or even relevant to the issue at all.
  • "According to Stampp, states' rights theories were a response to the fact that the Northern population was growing much faster than the population of the South, which meant that it was only a matter of time before the North controlled the federal government." Well, whoever this Stampp person is, he apparently doesn't understand this whole "State population means nothing in the U.S. Senate" concept, if, as far as the article tells me, this guy can't even get basic U.S. politics right, why is he being cited again and again as the sole source to tell us something about the United States civil war? Now, if this was supposed to be extending the idea that increased Northern population would lead to more anti-slavery people in new territorites, and this in turn would lead to more free than slave states in the future, then this would make sense. But the article doesn't say that, so all I (or a reader) can do is guess.
  • "As Allan Nevins described it, "Governments, observed Calhoun, were formed to protect minorities, for majorities could take care of themselves." And welcome random person number, well, i've lost count, to tell us about the Civil War, and once again with compleatly random name Calhoun! Who is this person? Is this like some Carmen Sandiego thing where a reader has to hunt all over Wikipedia to find out this particular Calhoun's identity?
  • "The South's chosen leader, Jefferson Davis, defined equality in terms of the equal rights of states,[10] and opposed the declaration that all men are created equal" I think this is very misleading, if I know my history right. As I understand it, when the Constitution was created, it was already being crafted not to step on the toes of slave-holding colonies, and there was an implicit assumption among many that, as Jefferson Davis says in this quote, the phrase "All men are created equal", didn't actually extend to black people, I believe the current racist assumption at the time was that black people were subhuman or some such nonsense. So I don't think Davis was explicitly trying to reject the Constitution here, and there's no source actually arguing for this, just Wikipedia engaging in OR by interpreting Jefferson's statement how it pleases.
Ok, this is quite enough, and I don't even know if i'm halfway through the article yet, and i've quoted or mentioned almost half of the upper part of the article I think as having problems, most of which have to do with references and how they are utilized, ambiguity in the lead and in other places, and all sorts of stuff, rather than just the whole Slavery thing getting all the spotlight in the article argument. On everything i've cited alone, I think i'd be inclined to fail this article. It's a big topic guys, and a very high-up one when it comes to controversy, similar to Religion articles, articles on areas like Serbia and Kosovo, where you're going to get alot of disputes over minutia, and in order to make a Featured Article in this case, you're going to have to overcome the disputes (Assuming there are some, as I gather from the arguments preceding my first comments) and look at the article as a whole quite often to fix glaring errors. Nobody said writing an FA, or even a GA on this topic would be easy, and I doubt it will be much fun fixing all this junk in just the top half of the article, but its just something that one way or another has to be done. It will likely take quite awhile, depending on how much Stonewalling (no pun intended) that happens over controversial statements, but now that you've got some specifics from me and ideas of what to look for, maybe it'll go faster, I dunno. Homestarmy 20:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I agree with almost all the specific points mentioned by Homestarmy, and will address them.Jimmuldrow 18:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It should be better now.Jimmuldrow 22:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It does indeed look like many changes have been made for the better, i'll try to examine the second part of the article next, (Takes a good bit of time) though there was one or two things in the top that still bug me, and there's some weird paragraph near the bottom about Lincoln's leadership skills that I have no idea as to the point or source of... Homestarmy 12:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, i'm about to start looking at it now, this shouldn't take more than an hour or so unless something unexpected interrupts me. Homestarmy 01:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It was an exaggeration to claim that the North granted blacks the rights of citizens, but most Northerners disagreed with the Dred Scott decision." While I understand that Taney's decision (assuming my AP History book wasn't terribly paraphrasing) essentially stated that no black person could be a U.S. citizen, I don't know if that actually voided the citizenships of all black citizens in America instantly, did Taney even have the power to do that? Did government offices concerned with citizenship actually carry it out? It's just something i'm wondering about, and also, the way its written now seems to imply that Northern states granted no black people anywhere the rights of citizens, and I don't think that's true. (Though, of course, a reference might prove me wrong)
  • "Since fewer than 800 of the almost 4 million slaves escaped in 1860, the fugitive slave controversy was not a practical reason for secession (More had escaped in previous years; see Underground Railroad)." I presume that with the litany of references at the bottom dealing with the issue, there's probably something down there that deals with the Underground Railroad, but with the way this is written, it seems to be trying to use the Wikipedia article on the Undergroun Railroad as a reference, and that's a verification no-no. Just grab a relevant reference from the Underground Railroad article.
  • "Allan Nevins summarizes this argument by concluding that "Both sides were equally guilty of hysteria."[18]" Another random name problem, basically the same as what I identified before.
  • "....a process known as "popular sovereignty" The popular sovereignty article identifies it as an idea or doctrine, not a process. I think concept would be more correct than all three options though.
  • "Tensions between North and South now were violent." I think this is a bit of an oversimplification, the tensions between Northern and Southern sentiments were resulting in widespread violence now, but only in one territory, and only between the people from the North and South who were there and decided to be violent. With the current phrasing, it sounds like more of an almost-war had already broken out between the entire North and the entire South, or at least, it sounds that way to me, I think this could be made more clear basically.
  • "John Brown's battle against slavery began in Kansas in 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas crisis........" John Brown pretty much comes out of nowhere here, along with the rest of the paragraph. Since his raid already has its own section shortly below, I think it would be better for most everything about the raid to be talked about in that section, I don't think the article should go into the specifics in this section however, just use a section wikilink and make maybe a one or two sentence mention of the issue. Otherwise, I think the article will be repeating itself awkwardly.
  • "The major historians of the Civil War, including those written by McPherson, Catton, Nevins and others describe issues related to slavery as causes of the Civil War." In terms of GA status i'll give this to you, because it does represent a well-referenced way of talking about things, but I think if you go for FA status, this kind of thing will get this article eaten alive. Why only cite major historians? Why not just most civil war historians? If there are some notable ones who disagree with the opinions of these main ones, then you can say so at the end, and just saying "historians" to start with won't necessarily imply that historians of the civil war only say what you've got McPherson, Catton and Nevins saying.
  • "Lincoln said, "this question of Slavery was more....." Careful with using names like this, some people may think this is a compleatly separate non-Abramam Lincolnish lincoln because the section starts with listing a bunch of historians, and the quotes start with Nevins, and then goes to "Lincoln", so unless someone reads the quote, (It's a long article, some people might just skim) it might momentarily confuse them.
  • "The slavery issue was related to sectional competition for control of the territories, and the Southern demand for a slave code for the territories was the issue used by Yancey, Rhett and Toombs to split the Democratic Party in two, which all but guaranteed the election of Lincoln and secession. McPherson quoted Davis as saying Southerners would not be cheated by those who "seek to build up a political reputation by catering to the prejudice of a majority to exclude the property of a minority."[27] Three compleatly random names that i've never seen before linked together, and the Davis that McPherson quotes here is also ambiguous, there's nothing in this quote to specifically indicate that this is Jefferson Davis.
  • "And when secession was an issue....." Try not to start sentences with "and", though if this was originally part of some other sentence and this just got stranded, it might be worth it to go look at see if this was supposed to be tacked onto another sentence.
  • "As the historians Freehling[29] and McPherson[30] pointed out, Southern concerns included not only economic loss but also fears of racial equality." Why only McPherson and Freehling? Even though McPherson is a major historian, I don't remember a Freehling, and there's no indication in this sentence that anyone besides these two people points out anything on this subject. Sometimes weasel words have a valid use. (And i'm pretty sure that's in WP:WTA too)
  • I'm also a bit concerned that this whole slavery as a cause section is getting a bit too quoty. It's not really off-topic, so I think its not really wrong from a GA standpoint, but I think this is another thing which FA reviewers would massacre in a nom, because there's almost more quoted material in this section than actual content in the section.
  • "The Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s in religion inspired reform movements, one of the most notable of which was the abolitionists; these were later supported by Transcendentalism." "Abolitionists" are not a movement, they're a group of people. Is this supposed to be "Abolitionism"?
  • "Unfortunately, "abolitionist" had several meanings at the time, and still retains some ambiguity." Unfortunently according to whom? Also, i've never considered its modern day meaning very ambigious, who considers it ambiguous in recent times? It's always just seemed to basically mean someone who wants to get rid of slavery as far as i've been taught.
  • "Others, like Theodore Weld and Arthur Tappan, wanted immediate action" Are these others followers of Garrison? If not, then its more random naming, and if so, I think this could be made more clear, is this supposed to be "Other abolitionists"?
  • ""Antislavery men", like John Quincy Adams, did what they could to limit slavery and end it where possible" The article on Adams doesn't seem to demonstrate this, unless there's a ref at the bottom somewhere, a cite would be nice.
  • "Slave owners were angry over the attacks on their "peculiar institution" of slavery." I don't think the "peculiar institution" idea is very well introduced by the article, though I don't think that's necessarily, well, necessary, might want to strike the term in favor of a different wording. Plus, I doubt slave owners themselves identified it as a peculiar institution.
  • "Biblical arguments were made in defense of slavery by religious leaders such as the Rev. Fred A. Ross and political leaders such as Jefferson Davis.[37]" Was it a defense of slavery as a concept in and of itself, or the South's particular attitudes concerning how to implement it? This may seem a bit off-track, but if I don't address this now, I think its going to cause some serious problems later if someone comes to fight over it. Without elaboration, it seems like this is directly contradicting what McPherson said above since McPherson seems to be framing the abolitionists beliefs in a Christian senese, and if this arrangment of sentences is meant to show contradicting sides, I think it could state that more clearly. Also, as far as I know, abolitionists arguments against slavery pretty much began and end with criticizing the south's implementation; there's no Biblical argument that I know of for the South's terrible attitude against slaves, such as believing that all black people have inferior intellects or that its just ok to basically be a jerk to your slaves whenever you want. I think this part should be expanded to explain exactly how the Southerners cited here were supposedly defending slavery Biblically and exactly what they were saying, McPherson gets to say a quote anyway for the other side, so I think it all would work out.
  • "John Brown has been called "the most controversial of all nineteenth-century Americans"." By.....? Frederick J. Blue of the citation given? Specifics would be better here.
  • "His attempt to start a slave rebellion in 1859 electrified the nation. Uniquely among the Garrisonians, he resorted to violence. Historians agree he played a major role in starting the war, and that he was a zealot." This wording does not seem neutral. "Electrified the nation", "Uniquely", and the unexplained definition of "zealot" in this sense seem to ramp up the drama. What sort of Zealot is this talking about here? A zealot for what he believed? A zealot for what a particular church or group believed? A member of the 1st century Jewish group identified by the term?
Finding all this stuff takes longer than I thought it would, i'll just give all of this for now. Homestarmy 02:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment These issues were addressed.Jimmuldrow 17:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, so they were....i'll look at the last third of the article next, and if that's mostly all fixed, (Assuming there's anything left) I don't think that the debate over slaveries emphasis in the lead would be quite enough to deny this article GA status. Leave it to an FA nom to have people wrassle over it :). Homestarmy 18:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm starting on it now. Homestarmy 17:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Brown, like his Boston supporters, believed that the South was on the verge of a gigantic slave uprising and that one spark would set it off." Who were his supporters? Did they support the idea that a slave uprising was coming, or support both that and the idea that a raid by brown would be necessary to spark off a conflict?
  • "William Lloyd Garrison, the leading abolitionist, was motivated by a belief in the growth of democracy. Because the Constitution had a three-fifths clause,...." Was he necessarily the leader of all abolitionists, or just most likely the most prominent member of the movement? I don't think abolitionism was necessarily part of a single organization that wouod have a leader per se.
  • You may want to think about changing this arguments for and against slavery section to have a bit more content with it, its just mostly pure quotes right now, and while I don't think that's a GA related problem, I think FA people won't be happy with it.
  • Ehh, if its so clear that economics wasn't a major cause of the civil war, why is the next section so big? With the article as long as it is, might want to think about shortening the regional economics thing, the refs made the case in the first paragraph, and if the economic aspect of things isn't so important in terms of what caused the conflict, the section seems like overkill. Beard's perspective, if the article is correct, apparently fell out of favor long before this article was written, and if its not taken seriously, I question whether his opinion, despite his apparent proficiency as a historian for his time, is really this notable or important.
  • "Historian Eric Foner (1970) has argued that a free-labor ideology...." Argued in 1970? I'm not sure what this year means.
  • "By contrast, Southerners described free labor as "greasy mechanics, filthy operators, small-fisted farmers, and moonstruck theorists"." Based on the reference given, this seems highly questionable, the reference appears to be a Biography of Abraham Lincoln. The quote seems somewhat notable, if it can be googled, it might be a better idea to cite something that's more on topic.
  • "They argued that only a slave-owning society allowed the leisure for education and cultural refinement. They depicted slavery as a positive good for the slaves themselves, especially the Christianizing that had rescued them from the paganism of Africa." The references appear to vanish for this sentence which is bad timing, as the "Christianizing" that was going on (I understand that Sunday Sermons for slaves basically consisted of the one verse in one of Paul's letters that said that if you were a slave you should obey your master.) seems, as at least as far as i've read, extremely specious at best. Something like this is pretty controversial just left uncited with the way its worded now, considering there's already quotes above from Southerner types which I think already deal with the issue, might want to just remove this sentence entirely if there's no reference for it.
  • "...they supported secession and war because they supported republican values, and feared the impact of freed slaves...." What is republic values supposed to mean here? Surely not the values of the Republican party, I suspect this is in the more classical sense, might want to just replace the word with some more specific stuff.
  • The southern fears of Republican control section isn't obviously referenced, and while that alone certainly isn't enough to realistically deny an article GA status when an article is as big as this, an unclearly referenced section is an unclearly referenced section :/.
  • The "A house divided...." title seems a bit inconsistant with how titles work in most Wikipedia articles, this probably isn't a GA related thing, but might want to make this section title more formalized and specific instead of just a quote from the American Revolution.
  • "By seceding, the rebel states would reduce the strength of their claim to the Western territories that were in dispute, cancel any obligation for the North to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy, and assure easy passage in Congress of many bills and amendments they had long opposed." Ehh, isn't it kind of obvious that when you leave a country, you no longer have political influence in it? Not sure how important this sentence is.
  • "Separate articles deal with every major battle and some minor ones. This article only gives the broad outline. For more information see Battles of the American Civil War and Military leadership in the American Civil War." Not a GA thing either, but this represents obvious WP:SELF violations, FA people won't like this at all methinks, but it doesn't have to be dealt with right now necessarily.
  • "President Buchanan protested but made no military response aside from a failed attempt to resupply Fort Sumter via the ship Star of the West, and no serious military preparations" Why did it fail? There's probably a simple reason that won't mean adding much in terms of length, something like "an attempt blocked by a Confederate ship" or something like that, or just insert whatever the cause was.
  • "Confederates under General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard bombarded..." The Confederate army you mean? A local militia? Random civilians of the Confederacy? Homestarmy 20:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Northerners reacted quickly to this attack on the flag,...." Err, I don't think the Confederacy wanted the fort just because of the pretty flag hanging over it. And once again, what are these Northerners, a bunch of tourists in the wrong place at the wrong time or something?
  • "Northerners....and rallied behind Lincoln, who called for all of the states to send troops to recapture the forts and to preserve the Union." Since he was already elected, didn't they already support Lincoln anyway? This seems like superfluous language.
  • "Richmond, however, was in a highly vulnerable location at the end of a tortuous supply line." Then why was it like the almost last thing to fall in the whole war? Apparently it wasn't so vulnerable after all when the initial Northern attacks didn't get them, and didn't Virginia have plenty of stuff in the state already to supply an army? Was stuff coming up from Atlanta through the railroad? Because that doesn't seem too tortuous if you've got a rail line coming in....
  • "His idea was that a Union blockade of the main ports would strangle the rebel economy;" Is this the American Civil war or Star Wars? strangle+rebel seems like too strong a Star Warsy reference, and besides, they're called Confederates most everywhere else, and even without the Star Warsyness, referencing a quote where "strangle" is used would be most benefical here I think, unless a more neutral word will do.
  • "McClellan was stripped of many of his troops to reinforce General John Pope's Union Army of Virginia. Pope was beaten spectacularly by Lee in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run[86] in August." Careful about language overall here, "stripped of many of his troops" and "beaten spectacularly" seem a bit over the top when simpler language would do, and the whole section below this seems to have similar questionable word choices.
  • "While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern theater, they crucially failed in the West. They were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge.[92] Leonidas Polk's invasion of Kentucky enraged the citizens there who previously had declared neutrality in the war, turning that state against the Confederacy." Same as above, and into the rest of this section too, "crucially failed in the west" is ambiguous, along with what "enraged the citizens" means exactly, and there's other problematic word choices below.
  • In fact, the end of the war section has more word choice problems, citing them all would take awhile, but they're all fairly obvious words to change I think. Besides the word choices though, these sections seem well put together.
  • "By 1862, when it became clear that this would be a long war, the question became more general" What question, the question of what to do about slavery?
  • "The Southern economy and military effort depended on slave labor; was it reasonable to protect slavery while blockading Southern commerce and destroying Southern production?" This is bad form, articles shouldn't ask questions to readers, even if it is to answer them, unless its part of some historians quote or something.
  • "the same Congressman—and his fellow radicals—felt the victory would be profitless if the Slave Power continued" For which side? Why was he radical, and what was the radical position here? Considering that the south just pulled out of U.S. politics, I think the far-right Republican opinion wouldn't count as radical anymore, but relatively mainstream.
  • "but all factions came rapidly to agree that the slaves of Confederates must be freed" What factions? Republicans vs. Republicans vs. a few Democrats?
  • "Secretary of War Cameron and Generals Fremont and Hunter in order to keep the loyalty of the border states and the War Democrats." What attempts? Specifics would be nice, and should be easy to write in, even I remember learning the specifics....
  • "In his letter to Hodges, Lincoln explained his belief that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong … And yet I have never understood that...." Hodges leads to a disambig, no explanation of who he is, or if there is one, the article is so long, I doubt readers will always remember it.
  • "....ended the Confederacy's hope of getting aid from Britain or France" I think this sort of thing was already corrected once in the intro, might want to check for consistancy here.
  • "The best chance for Confederate victory was entry into the war by Britain and France." According to.....? The best chance for Confederate victory probably came when Lee could of just bypassed the defenders outside Gettysburg and marched straight to the capital, as I remember it, that pretty much would of won the war instantly assuming the north didn't make a new government or Lincoln somehow found out about the march in time to leave with the rest of the government. I don't think the sentence in the article is entirely accurate, though of course, Britain or France helping the Confederacy would of been a big boost to the Confederate war effort. Homestarmy 20:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Needless to say, the citation needed tag on the millions of pounds thing is problematic, though I think that could be re-worded to just eliminate mention of how quantitative the effort was to blockade run the Union blockade and then there wouldn't be a need for a cite I think.
  • "Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom’s Cabin three times when deciding on this" Although the name is wikilinked, a title or something being given here would be a good bit of help to readers.
  • The entire Analysis section is almost devoid of citations, is most of this even needed? Might want to get rid of some of it if it isn't that important, would shorten the article.
  • "The Union's more mature executive branch allowed a more streamlined conduct of the war" Err, this is kind of ambiguous, does this mean experienced, or does it mean the Southern legistlatures were a bunch of crybabies or bullies or something immature? Homestarmy 20:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Davis, on the other hand, kept his friends even when they failed." Citation has no page numbers or title, and what is "friends" here? I don't even remember the Confederacy having too many failures in strategy per se, just manpower problems and logistical issues which would of made a loser of the best generals. (Well, besides Lee and Jackson, but they wern't the only two "best generals" in the world)
  • "They fought in several key battles in the last two years of the war" Freed slaves, you mean? The reference given seems to support this, but it doesn't seem certain the way these sentences are put together.
  • "Finally, the Confederacy may have lacked the total commitment needed to win the war" Vauge, the reference is just "et al" which doesn't tell us anything except the date of the presumed work, and why did the Confederacy need commitment anyway, they had a strategic advantage in that they didn't have to invade any new territory, they just had to hold on to their own territory to win the war and be a new nation. Come to think of it, I don't remember the article ever discussing this, is it missing? I know its quite a popular remark to make in strategic discussions of each sides advantages and disavantages.
  • "Southern nationalism had to be totally repudiated" Ehh, assuming Gone with the Wind isn't too historically innacurate, didn't being defeated alone pretty much repudiate Southern nationalism? I don't remember this being much part of the reconstruction, sure the legistlatures wern't allowed until the 13th amendment was ratified, but I don't think that was necessarily intended to make the Southern population feel down in the dumps.
  • " For details on why the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendment were largely ineffective until the American Civil Rights movement, see Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan, Plessy v. Ferguson, United States v. Cruikshank, Civil Rights Cases and Reconstruction." Another self-reference.....
And that's the whole rest of the article :/ Homestarmy 20:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I addressed all of these issues with the exception of the Arguments for and against slavery section, which I don't know what to do with yet. The rest should be better now.Jimmuldrow 20:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as GA After all those fixes, even if the article isn't perfect, I don't see a compelling reason that's strong enough to cause this article to lose GA status. The issue of slavery's prominence in the article is probably more of an FA thing, while I still don't think its presentation as such an overriding issue is proper, the references given clearly seem to disagree with me. (If the article goes for FA status, some other references for other perspectives may appear though) The article is so long, the problems with the Arguments for and against slavery section really isn't a humungous issue either to me anyway. Not that I mind length, other people may not like it, but this is the Civil War, its the kind of general article that deserves tremendous length, and if nobody on the talk page is currently arguing about that, might want to remove the "Too Long" tag at the top. Homestarmy 19:42, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Taoism

Result: No consensus (1-1), Default Keep

If this were a GAC, I would review it as such:

  1. Well-written. The lede is problematic. Instead of providing an overview, it is preoccupied with the debate over the classification and definition of Taoism. This appropriately belongs in the article, not the lede. The article immediately jumps into the history without providing a context; that is, failing to inform the reader what Taoism is first, so the historical events have meaning and importance. The beliefs section is especially problematic. A reader would not come away with an understanding of what Taoists believe. Overall, the writing is inconsistant in quality and often confusing.
  2. Factually accurate and verifiable. The sections "Beliefs", "Deities", "Practices", "Taoist symbols and images" and "Relations with other religions and philosophies" are all poorly sourced. Overall, the article could use more citatations to support its claims and a wider pool of references. This is a widely studied and published topic, with many variant academic and mainstream viewpoints. Finding a strong variety of sources is necessary for beadth and NPOV.
  3. Broad in its coverage. This article mostly runs the bases, but lacks a discussion of the impact of Taoism on the West, nor on its cultural importance/impact throughout East Asia.
  4. NPOV. The state of the lead, which focuses so heavily on one issue instead of providing an overview, gives a reason to be concerned about POV issues.
  5. Stable. The article is reasonably stable.
  6. Use of images. Makes reasonable use of images. Could use a few more for the article length and/or perhaps a review of current images, with an eye towards the best compliment for the article.

This article needs a serious overhaul, especially in the lead, "Beliefs" and in overall structure and citation. I feel this article should be delisted. Vassyana 15:51, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • While there is plenty of room for improvement here, in general, I disagree with Vassyana's analysis, particularly his characterization of the introductory material as being "preoccupied with the debate over the classification and definition of Taoism." Rather, it serves as a more detailed "disamig" if you will, explaining that the term "Taoism" means different things to different people and helps avoid confusing readers (and potential editors). This is not an unusual approach for a scholarly work on Taoism to take, and it seems a reasonable approach here. And it is sensible to immediately direct people interested in Taoism as Chinese folk religion to the separate article where that information can be found. I do agree that the transition to the historical information could be a bit better. I disagree that this article would leave the reader without understanding of what Taoists believe. Vassyana should also note that with respect to "beliefs," the reader is directed to a separate article, Three Jewels of the Tao (and agree that article could use work). As for the citations, while there could be more inline citations, particularly in the "Relations with other religions and philosophies" section, I don't think this fault (if it qualifies as one) is enough to downgrade the article. Crypticfirefly 23:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. I don't believe scholarly works are the correct yardstick for a lede. The correct yardstick is WP:LEDE. The beliefs sections only mentions wu wei in passing and never even touches upon "pu". I just don't understand how the beliefs section actually informs the reader on that topic when it doesn't even cover the basics. I also do not understand how a near complete lack of verifiability in multiple sections is questionable as a fault. Just some thoughts. Vassyana 23:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Then I guess we can just disagree. The introduction addresses context: "Chinese religious and philosophical traditions." It tells you why it is notable: it has existed a long time and is widely practiced (admittedly added by me after writing my earlier comment, but you could have added it as quickly and easily). Finally, it tells you about the controversy over how the topic should be approached. Could it be longer? Sure. Could it be better? Sure. But is it in conformity with WP:LEDE? I would argue yes. As for "near complete lack of verifiability"? I think you exaggerate. I see in-line citations (which are not required for a "good" article) and I see a long list of references for this article. Again, could there be more? Sure. But many of the facts referenced under three of the sections you mention have wikilinks that verify them, and there are endnotes for many others. Again, I'm not saying that there isn't room for improvement, I just don't think it is quite as bad as you think it is. It looks as "good" to me as many other articles flagged "good." And I further urge you, if you think it needs work, to get hot. :-) That's what I intend to do. Crypticfirefly 01:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think we can agree to disagree without a problem. My opinion is just mine and anyone is always welcome to some salt with it. ;) I see you're already working on the article. I'll join you on that. I'm brainstorming on ideas. Be well! Vassyana 01:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Black Book (film)

Result: Lack of specific concerns, no consensus

I think there are many errors and/or misleading sentences in the Plot summary section. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Black_Book_%28film%29#GA_recommendations Clemwang 09:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I don't know if a plot summary is grounds for delisting or not, but what exactly are the errors you are referring to? I read the plot summary and it appears that it does need to be cleaned up a bit. I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't modify it. If it is just the plot summary, I'm sure the main editors of the article can fix it. --Nehrams2020 06:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

School counselor

Result: 6 to 2, delist

This article is US based, almost completely ignoring what a school counselor is outside of the country (except for one run-on sentence section about Korea). The history section only deals with this and also has zero citations. Theoretical framework and services only has one citation, and the citations in the article are not properly formatted. Teemu08 07:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the weather forecast sees potential for WP:SNOW... --Ling.Nut 12:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, this article does cite references in APA format. Wikipedia contains many articles that are American. School counseling was invented in the United States.whicky1978 talk 02:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Update, School Counseling was first developed in the United States, and is barely beginning to take root in other countries. It does have a large professional association [5] and the grand majority of school counseling training programs in the world are located in the United States. It is quite ludicrous to consider deleting this article based on it being written from a predominantly American perspective. I would invite people who know more about it from the perspective of other nations to join in and update it to a more international perspective. I, personally, would be quite interested to learn about school counseling training programs in other countries. I believe they are sadly quite rare at the moment. Kukini hablame aqui 02:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The article certainly presents the topic as if there were more than just the United States to consider, your argument seems flawed and if it's not the article's structure is. IvoShandor 10:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am considering archiving this discussion as Delist, Keep and Update isn't really a position for keeping this as a GA as much as it is an admission that the article fails GA criteria #3a. IvoShandor 13:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Four to two is indeed a majority to delist, but its not an 80 percent majority, the last real new thing was Kukini's keep vote on the 19th from what i'm seeing, that's only five days. Homestarmy 17:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I would tag this for cleanup if I saw it while browsing. Look at this section of the prose: "This movement emphasized personal, social, moral development." That's actually a sentence, or this one:"Often counselors will coordinate outside groups that wish to help with student needs such as academics, or coordinate a state program that teaches about child abuse or drugs, through on-stage drama (Schmidt[1], 2003)" where's the period?—and what's with the wikilinking for Personal/social development later on? I doubt an article could ever be created for such a topic; it would certainly get nuked at any afd. Also, the see also section is beneath the reference section, the writing is informal ("For example,""Though not ideal,""Additionally, it has to have"). The following statements seriously need sources also:
    • "Elementary professional school counselors also spend 35-40% of their time in classroom guidance."
    • "A fully-implemented district-wide comprehensive school counseling program meets the needs of 100% of the students—just as the district's mathematics program is for 100% of the students."
    • "" Quadzilla99 20:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, needs to represent a world view and it needs citations! --Valley2city₪‽ 17:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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