Talk:Alice Bailey/Comments
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Well, first of all I want to state that I didn't originally assessed the article. But i do agree with the assessment, so I will make a few comments about it.
- About Quality.- I have no doubt that this is a start class article. It has a relevant picture, a largely discussed section ("Life" although I will may comments about it later) and also has a good amount of start section to divide the article. It does remain at start class because a lot of things. The "Life" section is a complete mess, it heavily relies in primary sources and self-published ones, containing only two secondary sources, which unfortunately cannot be checked to comply with WP:RS guideline. It also mixes her life with her way of thinking, so it is not a proper "Life" section, maybe it could be broken into an "Ideology" section. In a more technical criticisim, most of the sources in the "Life" section are not Wikified. Maybe the "Criticism" section is better balanced than the former, having published sources (FYI, published doesn't mean printed) as well as keeping the criticism short and factual. The only problem I see in it is that it does not comply with WP:NPOV because it tends to bias a part of the article. I suggest that its content be merged into the already proposed new section "Ideology".
- About Importance.- I had little trouble assesing this article as Mid-level class. As this is a bio, it does not fall in the low-level class. Many readers are familiar with what White Magic and Teosophy are, but may have not heard about Alice Bailey. Also, this article is not needed to the broad understanding of the occult.
- About Notability.- Ok, it is not the assessment objective to establish notability, and because this aspect of the article has been the object of discussion I will comment on it. From what I can see from the guidelines about notability, this person is notable. It has been the object of several published secondary sources. I must admit, that if we are to be very strict about the guidelines, there are also reasons to deny the notability. The secondary sources that talk about her may not be reliable, but I'm in no position to make a statement about that
Before, I have explained my reasons to assess this article as a Start-class quality mid-level importance article in the scope of the Wikiproject Occult. As this article has been the target of a lot of controversy I would like to make some comments as a form of conclusion. If we strictly compell to the three main policies of Wikipedia, this article violates some aspect of each one (WP:V,WP:NPOV and WP:NOR). But lets face it, Wikipedia is full with this kind of articles, and it is our job to either better them or delete them. So to take some serious actions in pro of the Wikipedia spirit I suggest that all sources be checked troughly against the WP:RS guideline, in order to determine which content is admisible to be in the article, and further more, if the article itself sustains notability. Please, read the hole text of the policies mentioned above and then try to applicate them into the sources. If not, this article is doomed to stay this way, and maybe fall into a stub, which may in the long term result in a speedy deletion. --Legion fi 23:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)