Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mumia Abu-Jamal/archive3

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 04:16, 23 October 2007.

Mumia Abu-Jamal[edit]

previous FAC

The criticisms from the second FAC have been taken on board and suggested improvements implemented to the extent that this is presented again for candidacy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BiasThug (talk • contribs) 11:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The user who nominated this has now been blocked indefinitely. Oppose per WP:SNOWBALL. Karanacs 15:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It actually looks fairly well-written. --Hemlock Martinis 07:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Great, and I'd agree. On that basis does it mean you're in favour of granting FA status to it, then?IchiNiSan 09:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you agree that edits made by sockpuppeteers through multiple accounts should not be recognised? Setting up an enormous number of sockpuppets is not the way to go about evading blocks.
If I was a tedious prick who delighted to act the schoolmaster, I might. But that would be in another life, however. :-D—Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.230.26.43 (talk • contribs)
You are supposed to demonstrate a willingness to reform and adhere to policies and guidelines. Simply returning to the same pages and inserting the same material without an admission of guilt or remorse, and persisting in showing the same pattern of behaviour, will not win you any friends. If your other disguise(s) is (are) not blocked, then you need to contribute responsibly and contribute to discussions sensibly and civilly for a long while to regain the trust of the community. DrKiernan 12:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What did you get your doctorate in? Talking down to people??—Preceding unsigned comment added by IchiNiSan (talk • contribs)
Looking at the sock's contributions, it's DavidYork71 for sure. During previous DY71 sock infestations, standard practise has been to revert all activities - this page should be shut down. If an established and reputable editor wants to renominate, they should go for it. --Merbabu 10:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Hidden comments

Three suggestions for improvement:

  1. Criterion 2b: stubby sections should be amalgamated.
    •  Done I wouldn't say that stacked up, as we see as many and even more short or even 'stubby' (sub)sections in, for example, Truthiness - which happens to be the mainpage feature article for tomorrow. As a measure of appeasement I have amalgamated the majority of subsections under 'Life as a prisoner'. The smallest subsection in the article is now the one titled 'Controversion of prosecution witnesses', which comes immediately after 'Prosecution witnesses at trial' in the lengthy Arrest&Trial section. IchiNiSan 23:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Criterion 3: three images (map, chair, panther) missing source information; copyright of the mural.
    • The MAP has been 'released into the public domain by the copyright holder' and has since been linked to by 23 other articles/templates on WP. The PANTHER logo has a detailed fair use rationale also making the compelling point that it belonged to an organisation defunct since the 1970s and therefore a copyright owner wouldn't be surviving or identifiable as well as there being no value in the logo to protect any more. The CHAIR is a 'public domain US Government work'. All this can be seen on the description page for each image. So I'd be striking the querying of images through as a non-issue.IchiNiSan 17:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • If the map has been 'released into the public domain by the copyright holder', then who is the copyright holder? We are not told. Some images from 1887 are still in copyright (unpublished corporate authorship copyright term=120 years from date of creation), so an image from 1970 could easily still be copyrighted. The chair is not proven to be 'public domain US Government work', as I said: no source is given, so how can we know?
    •  Not done Which three are you referring to? I see fair use rationales have been employed on image description pages where use/copyright issues were raised at the time of the GA review. GA was subsequently passed. Re photographs of public murals: precedent for their informational placement in Wikipedia can be seen, for example, at Northern Irish murals or by the great many available on Wikimedia Commons - simply too many of them to be proposing that the Bristol Mumia Abu-Jamal mural image is one that presents as a novel case or an exception to the general tolerance of their use across a number of WP articles.IchiNiSan 23:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • None of those articles are FA, whereas an NI article that is an FA does not use murals for the very reason I have outlined.[1] DrKiernan 09:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        •  Done All four named images now suppressed from display.
  1. Criterion 4 and 1c: trim the external links by removing sites duplicated in the notes and references.
  •  Done Trimmed of duplications down to a bare handful of five. I have left danielfaulkner.com notwithstanding quite a few existing references are to the fact summary and trial transcripts found there.IchiNiSan 23:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My oppose remains even with the three points addressed. It is up to the FA director to determine whether my oppose is valid. DrKiernan 12:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Much more desirable to be optimally effective in hating someone than to be focused on building featured content for the encylopaedia.—Preceding unsigned comment added by IchiNiSan (talk • contribs)
  • These additional reasons for my oppose were not addressed from the last FA.
    • Please wikilink full years (that's the exception to the wikilinking policy), so it would be July 18, 1971 instead of July 18, 1971).
      •  Done
        • This is not done. There are several instances of full dates that are still not wikilinked. Karanacs 18:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          •  Done, per Sbacle.
    • THe paragraph on his marriages and children is not straightforward; It needs to be expanded and mention when the children were bron, and when he was married to each, if possible. Is Jamal the son of one of those wifes? Was Lateefa the daughter of one of those wives?
      •  Done Years of birth supplied and all parentages clarified.
    • The prose needs work overall. For example,
      • Many of the sentences begin the same way; the first paragraph of the early years section has lots of sentences that start with "He", for example. Try to vary, if possible.
        •  Done He-this-he-that monotony has been broken up and varied.
      • Many sentences are short and stubby.
        •  Done Short sentences are good. They are direct. They work. Just like this. I see many longer sentences too. Overall now, I do not see any issue with 'stubbiness'.
      • There are too many one-sentence paragraphs.
        •  Done Now I only see one which is the last para under 'physical evidence', and one which describes the French plaintes put in December last year and yet to be resolved. That's not too many.
        • The entire section titled Character witness is one sentence. The section below that has a two-sentence paragraph, and three one-sentence paragraphs. Karanacs 18:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Don't include (see...) in the body of the article. Use a see also section at the end of the article, or incorporate the term into the sentence.
      •  Done Removed.
    • Be consistent with your citations. See info about Robert Chobert in controversion of prosecution witnesses section and the section following.
      •  Done Cite templates have been used as extensively as possible.
    • I think the article needs to be reorganized. The section on the arrest and trial does not flow well.
      •  Done There has been some reorganising by way of combining smaller paras and recent expansions. Look at the table of contents and you'll see it has a logical overall structure with the article telling a story that has not yet reached its end on some important fronts.
    • Short quotations should not be offset, but should be part of the paragraph, per WP:QUOTE.
      •  Done OK, sure. His one-word supposed 1992 confession has been moved back inline. Note also, however, that a short quote can be highly significant when it is the only thing a person has said about an important subject (like whether you killed someone) for a lenghthening period of time.
        • Not done. There are 4 very short quotations, either one line or one and a half, which are currently offset and need to be moved back inline. Karanacs 18:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          •  Done, per Sbacle
    • Need a citation directly after the quotes by Abu-Jamal in last paragraph of physical evidence section
      •  Done Um, every quote by him has some manner of citation.
        • There are no citations for his quotes in the first paragraph of the section Verdict, death sentence, and reactions Karanacs 18:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Almost all of the images are on the right, and that makes the article look off a little. Can you vary the placement more, please?
      •  Done 5 at left, 8 at right now.
    • External links should not be in the body of the article, but should be in the external links section
      •  Done Already remedied. You should have checked.
        • Not done. See plainte, at least...there may be others. Karanacs 18:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Seems  Done now.
    • Citations need to be properly formatted, including the author, date, access date, and publisher. Dates need to be appropriately wikilinked.
      •  Done Dates are wikilinked. All known fields in cite templates have been completed with the exception of access date, which I won't be supplying because I find it not valuable in establishing verifiability of the content and we know there's no rule or policy which requires this in any case or to any degree as mandatory or even desirable for Featured Articles. Plenty FAs do without it.
        • Citations are not properly formatted. All citations must have a publisher, and many of these do not. Karanacs 18:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Definitely  Done now
        • Also, many of these do not have their dates wikilinked. Please see the documentation for the cite templates as well, accessdate is considered a required field. Accessdate is necessary in case the content is taken off the web; with the date is was accessed we may be able to still retrieve that content from sources such as the wayback machine. Karanacs 18:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          •  Done Accessdates present for all webcites.
    • Use named references <ref name=mynamehere>citation text or template</ref> then subsequently call <ref name=mynamehere/> That will clean up the references section a lot so you don't have so many duplicates.
      •  Done
    • The external links section needs to be shortened.
      •  Done Culled of links that were already cited somewhere in refs.
      • While this is better, I believe the list is still too long. Please see WP:EL; it might help you decide where further to trim. Karanacs 18:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Karanacs 14:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

        • Now  Done. Culled right down to a handful having biographical relevance. 5, in fact - his writings repository, a collection of local newspaper articles, freemumia.com, mumia.org, and his Myspace homepage.

In summary, the whole list of concerns had already been addressed before reapproaching the FAC as we see clearly described in the nominating comment. Did you not check and verify it so before re-presenting the entire list again unedited ?IchiNiSan 17:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While parts of the requested changes were addressed, not all of them were. Please be civil and assume good faith in your edit summaries and comments. Karanacs 18:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In other words and in all good faith and with civility, the answer then is no, you didn't.

More comments...

  • After the initial reference to a person, subsequent references should use their last name (unless they have the same last name as someone else in the article). SeeWP:MOSBIO#Subsequent_uses_of_names
    • No, not should but may. Precisely "After the initial mention of any name, the person may be referred to by surname only". All you are precluded from is using surname-only to make the -first- reference to a person.
  • Why is hospital bed in italics in the heading?
    •  Done Gone.
  • You need a citation directly after the long quote from Pate.
    •  Done
  • Are there no images of signs made for people who don't believe he is innocent? I wonder if the numerous Free Mumia, etc images in the article are POV if no alternate ones appear.

Karanacs 18:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)**The picture of Daniel Faulkner (which is included in the top half of the article) is the sign carried by people who don't believe him innocent, including those associated with the Fraternal Order or Police.[reply]

    • As it stands there's no mural, and be mindful that the 'Free Mumia' stencil image is balanced by the 'copkiller' graffito that's been scrawled under it, while the image of the biographical subject is balance in an appropriate place further down by an image of the person he's been convicted of killing. So I see balance.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
    • Also we could say that the image of the German Freygang concert and the Barcelona street banners is balance by images of the man (Tom Ridge) who signed the first two death warrants and the man who has pledged to sign a third (Ed Rendell). Also, it's fair to say that as a mass political movement 'Free Mumia' is several times larger than 'Fry Mumia' and things should ideally be represented in due proportion to their occurrence in actual life.—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Update: Full dates (including the ones in citations) have been wikified, and short quotes brought inline as per recommendations above. By the way, I think you meant to refer User:Karanacs to WP:MOSQUOTE, not WP:QUOTE, as the latter has been rejected as a guideline. The {{cquote}} template has been removed from the article as per the MOS guideline. Still working on other concerns mentioned above. Sbacle 20:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Take a bow!

Ok, so everything's been compromised, altered, and ticked off. Are we done with all the negatives and the criticism and ready to make a judgement on quality? Come forward.—Preceding unsigned comment added by NewLabourNewLies (talk • contribs)

It is suspected that NewLabourNewLies is yet another sock of BiasThug. Jeffpw 14:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the talk page mannerisms, it's User:DavidYork71 for sure - and thus I presume BiasThug too. --Merbabu 10:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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