Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Boy Scouting (Boy Scouts of America)

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[edit] Boy Scouting (Boy Scouts of America)

I was REALLY blown away by the quality of this article. I believe it easily qualifies for featured article status. I know there are some out there who be negative-nellies about virtually anything, but I defy even the most resolute doubter to find fault with this piece. IT IS REALLY REALLY GOOD. - Sue Rangell 02:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

• 'Weak Support'Strong SupportNeutral I'm an Eagle Scout and thus want to support this article. But there are few MINOR things I'd like to see improved. 1) The intro needs to be expanded. 2) More citations in the Emblem section. 3) I didn't like the section with the law/motto/etc. They are absolutely necessary, but I didn't like how they were presented. They weren't aesthetically pleasing/introduced.Balloonman 04:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

addressed 1 and 2, will work on 3 later.Rlevse 12:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

done with 3, good input.Rlevse 22:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

With the changes that you made based upon the comments on my talk page, I am changing my vote to strong support.Balloonman 04:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Changing vote to neutral per concerns about sources only coming from BSA... I don't believe that it is necassary to include the controversy of gay/athiest, but the sources should be...Balloonman 02:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Sources are not only from BSA, in fact, most aren't.Rlevse 09:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - Needs more citations from printed sources--History Fan 00:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Not an actionable objection. There is no requirement that sources be printed.Sumoeagle179 10:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• I see, don't like anyone to disagree, so just say their opinion is not valid. Good articles should draw on many source including printed. I guess not everyone can contribute to wiki then.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Historyfan07 (talk • contribs).
  • Stop being so sensitive. You made an objection based on something not required; sources are required but being in hardcopy is not required. The article has several different sources, AT LEAST THREE (footnotes 4, 13, and 14), ARE HARDCOPY REFS, so your objection is even less valid. Several other footnotes, at least 3, 11, 12, and 16; are available in both web and hardcopy versions and the refs in total come from at least 10 different entities.Sumoeagle179 15:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Strong support. The changes made by Rlevse per Balloonman's suggestions, esp the boxes on the side, are really nice. Very nice article.Sumoeagle179 02:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Strong support. though note I was a minor contributor. Gadget850's recent additions were excellent.Rlevse 15:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comments Thanks Randy- I really like the boxes for the Oath and Law- obviously we need to replicate that in the other articles. Life has been busy, but I found some time to get back to this. One big issue is the article name: Per the Language of Scouting, it probably should be Boy Scouting, not Boy Scouts. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • You're probably right about the name. Not sure if we should change it in the middle of the FAC though, but I guess it'd be okay.Rlevse 10:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
    • RENAMED here, talk page, article itself, and archives per talk here and on talk page.Rlevse 17:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support. It just occurred to me that I never officially said that I support the page. (Even though it's obvious because I nominated it) So it's missing my contribution of bold letters. The recent upgrades are great, taking an already great page and making it REALLY super. I am proud to promote, nominate, and strongly support this page. I don't even want to guess at how many hours of work went into it, I hope all the contributers get barnstars. Sue Rangell^{[citation needed]} 17:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. In printed sources 13 and 14 I see no page numbers.--Yannismarou 09:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm not going to bother to lodge an oppose on an article that obviously isn't ready yet, because the regular editors should know this article is nowhere near FA-worthy. As but one small example, can someone explain why Scout Motto isn't wiki linked ? If regular scouting editors allow this article to be promoted in this shape, I'm surprised.  :-) Sue Rangell also nominated Sonoma County, California for FAC, about here. If regular scouting editors want respect for their articles, I suggest they clean up this article, or oppose the nomination. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• fixed the links. if you have additional issues, please be specific, I can't read your mind, what is obvious to you may not be obvious to us.Rlevse 01:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose This article needs more reliable sources and is far from comprehensive. The fact that it does not address the controversy of gay and atheist members at all but leaves that to an internal wikilink is astonishingly POV. Awadewit 23:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment that is an issue for the Boy Scouts of America article, which does discuss it and links to the FA on Boy Scouts of America membership controversies, which was already in this article's See also section. This article is on the program not the association, please don't confuse the two.Rlevse 01:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Reply The lead begins Boy Scouting is one of the traditional membership divisions of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), part of the worldwide Scout movement. Available to boys ages ten through seventeen, it provides a program for community organizations that, along with Cub Scouting and Venturing, offers effective character, citizenship, and mental and personal fitness training for youth. - Because "boy scouting" is directly linked to the BSA this information must be included. Moreover, the page claims that "boy scouting . . . [is] [a]vailable to boys ages ten through seventeen." But, of course, if those boys are atheists or gay, then "boy scouting" is not available to them. This must be made clear. A link in the "See also" section is not enough. Awadewit 01:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's just shoehorn it into this and the other membership articles. We will worry about keeping it synchronized later since it is going to creep all over the place. Given the edit history in the main BSA article, no one is reading the comment embedded in the section, so we will have to patrol it aggressively. We obviously need to reword the lead-in since "available" doesn't mean what I thought it meant. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 02:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that almost every source for this page is published by the BSA or Boy Scouts themselves. One would like to see some independent sources here to verify what the Boy Scouts are claiming about themselves. There are also scholarly works on the Boy Scouts. Why those are not cited here, I am not quite sure since wikipedia encourages the use of such sources whenever possible WP:ATT, WP:CITE, and WP:RS. Awadewit 16:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Only about half the references are from BSA sites or manuals. The U.S. Scouting Service Project is used for several references (and I can see where they have more)– it is not formally associated with the BSA. If you have any further references that pertain specifically to the Boy Scouting division, please let me know. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 17:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point. Using references from associations themselves to prove information about those very associations has to be done extremely carefully. The Boy Scouts have an interest in representing themselves in a particular way in their literature as does the USSSP. Here are some books that I found in a quick search. There are obviously more books and articles available. Some of these books would allow the editors to historicize and contextualize boy scouting more. It has not always been the same and it arose out of a particular historical context.

• Jay Mechling, On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth, University of Chicago Press (2001)
• M. Rosenthal, The Character Factory: Baden-Powell and the Origins of the Boy Scout Movement, Pantheon Books (1986)

This one is used in Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell- it is specifically a biography of B-P and history of The Scout Association.

• R. H. MacDonald, Sons of the Empire: The Frontier and the Boy Scout Movement, 1890-1918, University of Toronto Press (1993)

Again, more oriented towards UK Scouting history.

• Timothy Parsons, Race, resistance, and the Boy Scout movement in British Colonial Africa, Ohio University Press Awadewit 17:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

At first glance, reviews of On My honor' made this one look like it belongs more in Boy Scouts of America membership controversies, but it might just be worth a look. The last three are really about the history of UK Scouting. These last really are not relevant to the BSA Boy Scouting troop program, except as a historical reference of another national program. Some like material is in History of the Boy Scouts of America, another part of the BSA series. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

On My Honor, from its table of contents, is clearly about more than just the controversy. Also, my point here is that there are reliable published works about scouting by scholars. If these books are not helpful, their bibliographies might lead you to more relevant material. Moreover, I found these sources in just five minutes of searching on google scholar. Imagine what a sustained search amongst various research tools by the editors of this article would elicit. Awadewit 22:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)