Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Joseph Smith, Jr.

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[edit] Joseph Smith, Jr.

This is a very detailed and complete article about Mormon founder Joseph Smith. It is a focal point of WP:LDS and has recently undergone an exemplary and careful splitting process. As stated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr., we'd like to see an article about Joseph Smith featured on December 23, the 200th anniversary of Smith's birth. Which of these is selected is not very relevant, at least not in my mind, but it has been suggested that this article be nominated as well and they are both worthy candidates. Cookiecaper 00:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Comments

1. Great article, almost there. That table at the bottom can be made to look better. deeptrivia (talk) 04:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...what do you suggest? That box is discussed in length at Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr./Archive 3.

Oh, I just meant some cosmetic improvements, like thinner borders, etc. deeptrivia (talk) 14:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Well-referenced, NPOV, and interesting. In my internet browser, however, there are slight formatting problems with the infobox at the top. I don't see any problem with the footer box. Also, some related materials could be merged into larger paragraphs. But still, I've modelled other articles (in terms of referencing and format) on this one and its counterpart. Thank you. Saravask 15:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

• Weak Object. 'Physical characteristics and likeness' section is one sentence, needs merging into another section. The infobox at the top is missing borders and is a bit messed up. The table of contents is quite confusing, it could do with a more logical layout without so many subsections. There is no need for two subsections in the 'Major teachings' section. One sections title is extremely long ('Joseph Smith as a translator and prophet in New York and Pennsylvania'). The article is also too long, at 46KB - I know it has been split up into other articles already, but I think there is still too much detail in some of this article that makes it 46KB. The table at the bottom (as mentioned by deeptrivia) is not very good looking, it should look more like the infobox at the top. Apart from what I'm mentioned, it looks good (the spelling/grammar and references are excellent). — Wackymacs 19:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The Newsweek section was moved to History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as discussed on the talk page back when it was added. I've removed the physical likeness section for now and merged King Follet Discoursewith Major Prophecies, and shortened the long title mentioned above. Much of the article length is due to references, but I'll see if there are some things I can take away. The boxes have not yet been changed; please provide more suggestions on how they can be corrected, especially the box at the bottom. The box at the top is duplicated on the pages of all other Church Presidents as well. Please see those and make suggestions on changes. Thank you deeply. Cookiecaper 01:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yikes! Its now 48k in size... — Wackymacs 12:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Note that the body of the article is <5000 words. Alai 06:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The suggested limit is 32k, some browsers have trouble with articles larger than that. This would be unsuitable as a featured article, please see Wikipedia:Article size. — Wackymacs 08:04, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Many featured articles are greater than the minimum requirement. My random selection of 1 article in the each of the first 22 categories counted 10/22 (45%). Thus I see this size limit as a guide - and less necessary for strict observance now that few browsers have trouble with large article sizes. Trödel|talk 21:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• object - it's very long, the writing does not seem concise to me. The section on 'physical characteristics' is superfluous, and I think that the paragraph on a Newsweek cover is also not necessary. Generally I think the article needs a once-over by a good copyeditor to improve the sharpness of the prose. Worldtraveller 19:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Support. This article is well written - steps have been taken to reign in the size. The constant attempts to include in some way new material that is POV in nature, rather than simply reverting them result in constant pruning of the article. In general this is a article that is worthy of feature status because it meets the criteria and is on enough watchlists to stay a high quality article. Trödel|talk 22:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with many of the comments below, but still think that it is a high quality article. Trödel|talk 14:36, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Unfourtanately, I cannot give anything better to this article than a weak object (so far). My reasons are as follows (in order of importance):

1. I KNOW that Joseph Smith Jr. had more than two short paragraphs of "Major teachings". For goodness sake, there are hundreds of websites out there that are dedicated to arguing (for or against) a position on the numerous, often controversial teachings of Joseph Smith. This article CANNOT be complete without more meat there.
2. Much of what has been said about his life is in the three seperate biography articles. If there is anything here that is not in those articles, move it there (even creating a new article, if nessicary, for his life from 1831 until death). His biography should be much more concise.
3. Although this is rather minor (and this article would have my support without this), the biography box would be more logically placed at the end of the biography section, or, better yet, beneath the general infobox at the top of the article.

If these things were adressed, I could give it my undying support, but cannot yet. --Trevdna 01:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Abstain. I've been a contributor to the article, and would like to see it featured, so I'm not an unbiased observer. But I'd just like to comment on a few things that I think would improve the article, regardless of how the vote goes:
  • shortening of the historical sections, with more material moved to sub-articles
  • introducing a section about Smith's physical characteristics and artistic portrayals of him.
  • introducing a section about portrayals of Smith in the media, e.g., a brief historiography, portrayals in the cinema and parodies like on South Park, what various public figures said about him.
  • more about his family and friends
  • pruning of the References section of anything that's now obsolete.

COGDEN 19:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Object - Would it be possible to rewrite several of the sections to eliminate the one-sentence paragraphs? --JohnDBuell 01:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• Object I concur with JohnDBuell. One sentence paragraphs should be eliminated. Roy Al Blue 23:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)