Wikipedia:Featured article review/Coca-Cola

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[edit] Coca-Cola

Article is no longer a featured article.

[edit] Major review commentary

For these reasons:

• Doesn't comply to LEAD criteria.
• Not enough references.
• Biased article in POVness and in criticism/good points. Lincher 15:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment References seem adequate although some should in-line references should be converted to footnotes. Also please specify where there is biased and POV. Joelito (talk) 15:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• More reasons and answer :

  As per POVness :

  1. However, widespread outrage and boycotts after the announcement of the rollout led the company to restore the original drink, while keeping New Coke on the market.
  2. for the first eight months only an average of nine drinks were sold each day.
  3. thanks to a belief that carbonated water was good for the health.
  4. Goizueta claims that Woodruff endorsed it a few months before his death in 1985.
  5. As a publicity marketing strategy started by Robert W. Woodruff, the company presents the formula of Coca-Cola as one of the most closely held trade secrets in modern business that only a few employees know or have access to. In particular, the secret ingredient "7X" has long been touted an integral component of Coca Cola's formula though it has never been established what, if anything, the "X" refers to. It has been stated that Coca-Cola had employees mix the drink by numbers assigned to specific ingredients rather than by name, to avoid the possibility of employees reverse-engineering the recipe. However, experienced perfumers and food scientists — today aided by modern analytical methods — can easily identify the composition of food products, a fact that is further supported by the many cola flavorings and competing soft drinks like Pepsi. is not NPOV to me.
  6. Advertising for Coke is now almost ubiquitous, especially in southern areas of North America, such as Atlanta, where Coke was invented., what does that mean, ads are the same everywhere or they show the same amount of ads everywhere in the world?

• • Could there be citations for the history section?
  • There is also no relevancy for the link The Coca-Cola Company#History as it doesn't go into further details of the history but talks about WWII coca-cola.
  • There is also no relevancy for the link Coca-Cola Company#Criticisms as it doesn't go into further details of the criticisms but states the same thing.
  • Coca-Cola was the first-ever sponsor of the Olympic games, who says that? 1924 there was RBC read that [1].
  • Coca Cola Also took over sponsorship from nationwaide of Division 1 2 & 3 in English Football in 2004 (Now Known As Coca Cola Championship,League 1 & League 2) Coca-Cola has a long history of sports marketing relationships, which over the years have included several major sports leagues both in the United States and internationally. needs copyedit.
  • Too many red links. Lincher 16:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I suppose this article on MSNBC is quite relevant to this review. Presumably the nominator read it, bringing the issue to his/her attention... DJR (Talk) 16:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Sure, I have read it, though this nomination of the article on Coke was done back in July of 2004 which is not the article that is up now. It has changed in all and every aspect. I was mentionning more than their biased criticism, mentioned in the article and that is why I ask for a review. Anyway, if the article would be re-assessed for FA with the present criterias then it would simply fail. Lincher 20:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

  Plus, I normally work on GA articles, it wouldn't even qualify for that. Lincher 20:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• I totally agree. The lead alone is woefully POV, and the fact that the page has got external sources referring it as overly critical should really send alarm bells ringing. Demote from me - defs. DJR (Talk) 20:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
• (No idea what the FAR jargon is, so I'll go with FARC terminology here.) Keep as a featured article. The lead was not biased; read any account of the New Coke controversy or of urban legends surrounding Coke, and in the end, you will still be able to distill it to the two sentences which were originally removed from the lead. It's impossible to deny that Pepsi claimed it was superior to Coke based on taste testing. It's impossible to deny that Coke rolled out New Coke because of this challenge, because the executives themselves said so, and not a single account of the issue challenges this depiction. And there was widespread outrage over the New Coke rollout, although perhaps those of us who did not live in America at the time/weren't alive at all at the time probably won't understand it. (To get an idea of the outrage, pick up a decent book, such as one of those listed in the references, or just read the Snopes articles cited as sources. People were forming clubs like the Old Coke Drinkers of America - or something of that sort - and smashing cases of New Coke in the streets.) I've since rewritten the lead, redone the criticisms section (which did not need such a major pruning; all you had to do was cut the cruft, and you get the core of the issues - and anyone who thinks that including things like Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola, the major pesticide controversy over Coke in India that made headlines even here in Malaysia, or Mecca Cola, in the article constitutes bias needs to get their head checked). I will try to get citations for the history section, but that means I'll need to make another trip to the library (which isn't that near my home)...you'll need to give me at least two weeks for that. (And in any case, there's been a longstanding agreement on FARC that we wouldn't defeature articles with no references at all - this was only recently revoked, with significant opposition. There is/was something of a consensus as well that articles which collate references but don't have inline citations, and were promoted prior to the implementation of footnoting systems, should remain featured.) All in all, I see no reason not to maintain this article as an FA. Compared to other WP articles on Coke, it's actually the most neutral of all (probably because we dumped all the POV cruft from this article to those other ones). If this is defeatured for POV issues, then I'll finally see why people claim Wikipedia has a pro-Coke bias, because I can't see how the original article prior to the recent spate of edits due to the MSNBC article was significantly anti-Coke. It is not anti-Coke to mention a major court case against Coke, nor is it biased to mention major competition in the Arab world for Coke's ostensible pro-Israel policies, nor is it biased to mention (and refute) claims that Coke is bad for your health. IMO, if we actually have people complaining that the article is pro-Coke (as happened about a month ago - the revision then was almost the same as the one prior to the recent controversy) and anti-Coke, we're probably rather neutral on this. (Oh, and it's not external sources - it's just MSNBC. For all we know, they themselves might not be exactly neutral on this, although this is more of a point about how we can't assume something is right just because someone said it than a point about MSNBC being biased, which it likely isn't.) Johnleemk | Talk 10:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

John, see Wikipedia:Lead section on how and what a lead section is. It is a balanced summary of the entire article body contents. Criticisms should constitute a sentence at most in the lead section, it is just once section of many, every company has criticisms, even your favorite company, why are you making such a big deal over it, do you not like the company? The MSNBC article is accurate, the article was a screed against Coke and a discredit to Wikipedias claim to neutrality. -- Stbalbach 02:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

What are you getting at? If you're insinuating that I haven't been informed of the policies and guidelines in question, I have been since they were established and publicised. What you're missing is that you haven't given examples of how the lead as it stands is biased. You have not given any sound reasoning for your suggestion that criticism should be limited to just one sentence in the lead; if anything, this would constitute a bias in favour of the company. 20% of the article is currently about criticisms of the drink (a reasonable amount, considering the numerous and prolific urban legends related to the drink's ostensible health effects), but a three-paragraph lead should have only one sentence about criticism? Smells like pro-Coke POV to me. Anyone who has been remotely familiar with my involvement in the article since 2004 knows that I have been accused on more than one occasion of being a pro-Coke POV pusher, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. And does it matter whether I like the Coca-Cola company or not? What does this have to do with my argument? In the first place, why should I have to like the company? If anyone is having a bias here, I dare say it is you. Johnleemk | Talk 05:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• This article needs a good gutting, which I'm giving it now. But there are some things I'm not in a position to fix. Take the "International appeal" section; for all practical purposes, Coca-cola's only major competitor as a drink is water. Yet this section spends far more time talking about countries where, at one point or another, it isn't the bestselling drink. This misleads the reader about Coke's dominating international influence. There isn't enough "meat" here to justify featuring the article. About 15% of the article is editorializing. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 11:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
• Delist. The article was featured around Jul 25 2004. here is what it looked like. IMO the article has not changed much (except some anti-Coke activist who hijecked it while no one was paying attention). If it was up for FA vote today it would never pass, in its old state, or todays condition. I think it should be delisted. -- Stbalbach 01:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • That's activists; there are far too many anti-Coke POV pushers out there to deal with. And considering no reasonable argument has been presented for defeaturing this article (excess detail on criticisms has been dealt with; there is no consensus on defeaturing articles with insufficient inline citations, and defeaturing an article with a clear and ongoing effort to deal with the problem would appear to violate the consensus that has been built among editors intimately involved in the defeaturing process over the past months). There have been only two arguments presented for defeaturing, neither of which apply. I would like to see a detailed explanation of why they do apply, because as far as I'm concerned, it seems me and Ryan Delaney are the only ones who are reading the current version of the article, with everyone else stuck on the version before we rewrote it. Johnleemk | Talk 05:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree major changes have happened since I asked for them so the FA status should stay.

I still think there aren't enough citations (though not a good criteria to de-feature)

There are inline external links that should be added to the Notes and references section.

It is more NPOV than it has been before.

A tad too many redlinks.

Good work you wpdians who worked so hard on the article. Lincher 15:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Demote - I just went through the first section of the article - "History" - with the intention of adding {{fact}} tags all over the place. However, closer inspection unearthed lines and lines of what can only be described as poor English. I appreciate that lots of work has gone into this article and lots of editors have been improving its POVness, but the amount of changes I ended up making without the intention of making any was disturbing. It has been said several times before - if this article, in its current state, came to WP:FAC, it would not stand a chance. If taken on the basis of the work done and commitment of its editors, it should remain an FA. However, if that was the universal basis for decisions then one hell of a lot of articles would become featured. Featured articles should represent the very best content on Wikipedia, and the moment an article slips beneath the standard expected it should be demoted. At the moment, this article definitely does, and it is something more inherent than surface text. If it deserves it, it will be able to quickly re-obtain featured status through WP:FA. I personally feel that all featured articles should have to be re-submitted annually in order to conform to ever-increasing base standards. DJR (Talk) 17:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Just to elaborate, I believe the article fails on the following WP:WIAFA criteria:

1 - in its current form, definitely does not "exemplify the very best work of Wikipedia"

2a - as I have stated above, the quality of English in many places is not great.

2b - going through the article, there are several hidden messages regarding omitted information

2c - all of the "citation needed" tags need to be addressed.

I really do not see the harm in demotion - if the article regains featured status then it will then thoroughly deserve it. DJR (Talk) 18:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for building a reasoned argument for defeaturing based on comprehensiveness and language. I do not think language is an issue; as far as I can ascertain, this problem is confined to only the history section, and it's not a very major problem. Many of the {{fact}} tags appear to be based on a failure to take the whole article into context; it doesn't make sense to tag a particular sentence with {{fact}} when everything in that whole paragraph is corroborated by a couple of footnotes at the end of the same paragraph. (I've removed the apparently invalid ones.) As I said before, there has been a strong consensus built only very recently among those involved in defeaturing not to defeature an article as long as it is clear that there is ongoing work on the article. (The main problem with FAs is not that they do not meet the FA criteria anymore, but that they don't have anyone actively interested in bringing them up to par. To avoid defeaturing articles under active maintenance, FARC enjoined nominations filed prior to a determination of whether anyone was actively interested in improving the article back to FA standard. Since FAR is essentially a combination of FARC with peer review for FAs, I assume the same requirements are in effect.) As a result, I don't think a FARC nom should be filed as long as it is clear that work is ongoing; this major review can remain open for some time still. It is not mission critical to defeature FAs with active work ongoing, especially when they are being overhauled. The two main issues - comprehensiveness and citations (the latter being a questionable removal criteria) - will be very easily addressed within two or three weeks when I can get my grubby hands back on Pendergrast's book and any other books on Coke/Pepsi my library might have. (If the concern is that this will take too long, not to brag but I have gotten newly created articles to FA status within a week of creation, and also successfully rewritten several FAs nominated for removal in the past before the FARC nomination expired. Coca-Cola is a relatively straightforward topic as long as the various gossip issues regarding the company are kept out, so I think a good weekend's work would be enough, even if I worked alone.) Johnleemk | Talk 18:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the important thing here is that this article does not leave review with the status of "featured article" unless it deserves that status. Wikipedia now has over 1000 featured articles, and it is harrowingly important that this unique status is not trivialised by sub-standard articles. Assuming you do bring it up to scratch, then fine. However, I am not sure I agree with a convention to avoid demoting a sub-standard article simply because "there is ongoing work on it". Featured status is the pinnacle of Wikipedia, and that pinnacle is undermined by articles that have a de facto title that, de jure, they should not hold. If they later made good enough to deserve the status then as I said, it is not difficult to get them re-instated. DJR (Talk) 20:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This also has to do with the fact that users in general will go for FA first thing first without considering other avenues. The Good article status would be nice for the article but considering demoting it is too frustrating for people who work on the FAC. If there were other level of achievement in the articles progression then it wouldn't mind being kicked a notch down but as there is only FA and nothing else thus leaving old FA articles the way they are and not bothering to reconsider their nomination. It would be nice to see articles fluctuate between levels. Even the PR isn't necessary anymore when these articles have achieved such status as the best being FA. Lincher 20:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Goes back to my annual review idea really... IMHO, it should be compulsory in order to preserve the integrity of the status. The best articles wouldn't take two seconds to pass, while articles such as these are filtered out and improved by brute force. That gonna have to happen in the future. DJR (Talk) 20:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delist per other users' reasons and too many redlinks, poor writing and cluttered images. -- getcrunkjuice 02:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Please note: Major reviews do not concern declarations to keep or remove. Tony 12:56, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It should then be listed in the FARC since people have started voting on keeping or removal. Lincher 17:57, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Please do not use colors as it is a bit abusive and breaks the flow of reading.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lincher (talk • contribs).

I used red to alert reviewers to a significant procedural misunderstanding; there's nothing abusive about it. An article should go through a major review before being listed as a FARC, if at all. The purpose of this is to allow time for contributors to address the concerns raised here, and thus to minimise the number of FARCs. Tony 09:45, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concerns are LEAD section (3a), citations (2c), and POV (2d). Marskell 10:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Also image status (4). Pagrashtak 21:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per all of the above, unaddressed during the FAR. Sandy 12:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• Remove—2a. Here are examples.
  • "whose distinctive shape have become a part of the drink's branding"—ungrammatical.
  • "as a major soft drink first in the United States and later around the world."—Where are the commas?
  • "this was removed a long time ago as health regulations were tightened. Nevertheless, Coca-Cola has been criticized for its possible negative health effects, with many urban myths surrounding it." What's the logic of "Nevertheless"? What does "it" refer to? (Coca-Cola? If so, I'm confused.)
  • "heavily-publicised"—No hyphens after -ly words.
  • "The most famous of these is Diet Coke, which has become a major diet cola, but others exist, such as Cherry Coke." Does "but" contradict the previous statement? It should.

Not good enough. Tony 13:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment. This is at time but I'd like a few more comments before closing. The LEAD has been expanded, for instance, while I'm not noticing any remaining fact requests. I'll make a note on the talk and maybe we can wait two more days. Marskell 14:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• (Weak) Remove There are several image problems, so it fails criterion 4:
  • Image:CocaCola.gif, Image:Newcoke.jpg, and Image:Diet Coke FOOTBALL.jpg have no fair use rationale.
  • Image:Camel-3.jpg has no source.
  • Image:Cokebottles.jpg can be replaced with a free alternative, which invalidates the fair use claim.
  • Image:Shark tale coral cola.PNG has no fair use rationale and the use of the {{logo}} tag is questionable.

I've listed my remove as weak, as I haven't read the article to see if it fails any other criteria. If these problems are fixed or the images removed, count my vote as neutral. Pagrashtak 21:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)