Wikipedia:Featured article review/Scouting/archive2

Scouting

Review commentary

former FAR

Relevant parties notified of this FAR: WP:WikiProject Scouting (diff), User:Rlevse - "Lead Coordinator" of WP Scouting (diff)

My rationale for this FAR is the following:

• Wikipedia:WIAFA #1a: A couple sentences begin with numbers (e.g., 367) when they should be written out ("three-hundred and sixty-seven")
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #1a:Membership section is an inappropriate embedded list, with little prose introduction and elaboration
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #1a: Under Scouting#Scout method, there is a list with only one bullet
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #1b: The Controversy and conflict and In film and the arts sections are quite anemic despite having their links to their own articles
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #1c: Seven of the sources appear to be dead (Checklinks) --Eustress (talk) 17:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #1c: Article is lacking a plethora of citations, as indicated by the 23 "citation needed" tags added --Eustress (talk) 17:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #1d: POV: "It is the use of the Scout method that binds Scouts together, worldwide."
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #3: Several images are not appropriately placed in the article next to a section with corresponding text—some perhaps even bordering irrelevancy to the article
• Wikipedia:WIAFA #3: Images need more elaborate captions to explain relevancy to article/section

I hope these issues can be addressed to get this back up to FA standards, but I feel that some of these issues will take time to resolve and that the best course of action might be to demote the article. Best regards --Eustress (talk) 01:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

A lot of this is very subjective and the last one is counter to WIAFA guidelines, which calls for "succinct" captions, not elaborate ones. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:CAP says that a good caption "establishes the picture's relevance to the article." A caption should be succinct, but "succinctness is not the same as brevity," and my concern was that the current captions do not establish relevancy. I see you've started to make some changes on the article to this effect. --Eustress (talk) 02:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by doncram Nice article. But I notice that the article does not develop the division/distinctions between Girl Guides vs. Girl Scouts which are discussed in some detail in Marti Gerdes, Robert W. Blythe, and Patty Henry (March 21, 2005), National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Juliette Gordon Low Historic District. See p. 20 especially. Link to the full PDF at Juliette Gordon Low Historic District. It is a reliable source providing great detail on Juliette Gordon Low who should be discussed in this Scouting article. Also it describes that Campfire Girls was pre-existing and did not choose to join the U.S. Girl Guide movement. There is, basically, a lot there which I think should be woven into this Scouting article. I am peer reviewing a related article on scouting in South Africa, by the way. doncram (talk) 02:32, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind this article is international in scope, it is not US specific. It should not delve too far into country/organization specifics. Low was almost exclusively an American Girl Scout leader. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:39, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Point taken, but the source is eloquent on interesting stuff, like how Baden-Powell and others did not envision girls as "Scouts", consistent with wider views that women should be men's "helpmeets" instead, hence Guides not Scouts, while Low and others came to view that girls deserved more and/or there was interesting U.S. vs. British tension. Also the Campfire Girls organization is/was very large and i think it is not mentioned in the article. Anyhow, just read the source i suggest and i think you'll find it interestingly complementary to what's in the article, too. doncram (talk) 07:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I just brought this up here because this was open; I have no opinion about whether the article needs to be under review. Will copy this to talk page instead, given others' comments below. I am done here. doncram (talk) 21:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• Many of the "nominator's" points are the type of arbitrary fault-finding that can be done with any article, including any featured one. The case is not particularly convincing. The nominator fails to mention that he or she added the "citation needed" and "original research" templates him/herself. I reviewed some of the statements so-tagged, and most of the tags seem arbitrary, unnecessary, and lacking in rigor. Sure, the article can be improved, but we don't need big guns. As long as the templates stay in place, of course—whether there is any justification for them or not—we get the cheap appearance of an FA that belongs at FAR. That's not thoughtful analysis of an article, it's a game played on wikipedia. –Outriggr § 03:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
• Most of the nominator's points are unclear or without connection to the context of the article, nearly all of his excessive set {{fact}}-tags are unnecessary or referenced in neighbouring sentences. Including an {{or}}-tag on the usage of long trousers as a potential part of the Scout uniform ([1], line 99) is very close to disruptive behaviour.
  However, I added some of the demanded references, which were - with one exception - all used earlier in paragraphs close to the demanded reference. --jergen (talk) 10:50, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
• Comment The outdates refs and legit cite tags are all fixed. Many of the cite tags were mere Wikipedia:Tag_bombing. As Outriggr alludes to, most of the rest of this is rather WP:POINTy. It should also be noted that moments prior to this FAR being filed these threads occurred with the nom and myself directly related to this article: Talk:Scouting#Pics and captions, User_talk:Rlevse#FAR, Talk:Boy_Scouts_of_America#MIA Scouts. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:52, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

→It's nice to see progress on this article. The hope is that FAs can be rescued through FAR if possible. I've put a strike through the citation concerns, which have all been addressed. --Eustress (talk) 17:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Preferably, these issues should be taken up on the talk page first. Anyway, since we are here, I will take advantage and see if there are any prose/MOS tweaks to be made. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:05, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Outriggr, Rlevse, and Dabomb87. The legit issues here are already fixed and given the links Rlevse has provided, this FAR certainly looks retaliatory but I hope it's not. The proper place for the very minor issues that remain is, as Dabomb87 says, the talk page. This FAR should be dismissed and the remain discussion picked up on Talk:ScoutingSumoeagle179 (talk) 20:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to pile on, but I completely agree with Dabomb and Rlevse. Most of the concerns raised are minor issues, and should have been addressed via talk page discussion. However, the article has made quite a bit of progress, so I think this FAR can be closed. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 15:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations, MoS, and prose. Joelito (talk) 15:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)