Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/American Revolution/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 19:42, 20 January 2007.

[edit] American Revolution

I recently passed this article for GA, and I think it's very well-written, reasonably referenced and broad in its coverage. I think it could be FA. Druworos 11:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Mild object don't link solo years. References(footnotes) should be in their own section and between See also and Bibliography. The full dates in your webbased refs should be wikilinked. Deeper look later.Rlevse 14:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment This statement really needs a citation: "Historians find little trace of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influence in America." MLilburne 14:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Reply I'd gander that the Rousseau statement is most likely unreferenced because it's untrue. —ExplorerCDT 20:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - hmmm.. the article was passed GA on 10:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC) by the nominator himself and within a half hour it is nominated here. Doesn't the article need improvements from GA?? The article might be GA, but not-yet FA. Here are some examples:

1. Women section needs expansion and certainly needs copyediting. This following statements has a prose and logic problem:

   The boycott of British goods would have been entirely unworkable without the willing participation of American women: women made the bulk of household purchases, and the boycotted items were largely household items such as tea and cloth.

   Just because tea and cloth are household items, can it be concluded that women who purchased the items daily then contributed to the boycott which otherwise it would be failed??

2. The Military history: expulsion of the British 1776 section is still stubby.
3. A large part of the article is still choppy and story does not flow smoothly from one section to another.

Clearly a lot amount of copyediting is still needed. Note that the above are only just examples. — Indon (reply) — 15:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• There's quite a to-do list on the talk page; from the above comments, it doesn't appear this article is ready for perusal - has the article had a MilHist peer review? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• OBJECT. While this article has the potential to be a great candidate for FA, it is not near being ready. It is not comprehensive. It is missing a lot of coverage of various angles of the Revolution. e.g. Discussion of the French and Indian War (the basis for the British Government's rationale for taxing the American colonies) is not sufficiently explored. The article is missing a lot of the historical progression leading up to and throughout the revolt. No discussion of Valley Forge, the invasion of Quebec, Battles at Monmouth, Brandywine Creek, Benedict Arnold's betrayal at West Point (which solidified American resolve at the end of the war...and cause a monumental amount of colonists to join the army). Discussion of the national debt (from the war) makes no mention of Alexander Hamilton's solution to the debt crisis. It's just amazing how much is missing from the article. Also, there are a lot of spin-off articles that could be but are not even attached through {{main|article name}} templates. Needs substantial referencing, right now it's non-existant. Note: Just looking at how bad this article is, I'm seriously thinking about taking this article on as a pet project. At this time, I'd recommend the nominator withdraw it from consideration, ask people at various WikiProjects (states, military historians, etc.) to ante-up, and see how it looks a few weeks from now. Maybe then this might be a worthwhile FA candidate.—ExplorerCDT 20:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The article will be delisted from Good Articles, it is not GA quality either. —ExplorerCDT 20:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment While I agree that the article needs work---and I DEFINATELY agree that the GA process is broken---I'm not sure if your unilaterally delisting the article is appropriate. If it passed in good faith, which this one did, then it should go through the GAR process. I suggest withdrawing the nomination and putting this up for a military history peer review. I'd also suggest a GAR. Get some feed back there.Balloonman 07:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Reinstated GA If you believe the article fails to meet GA status, you need to take it through GAR. The GAC process is broken, but you don't fix the process by ignoring the one part of being a GA that works---the GAR. This is NOT a case of somebody creating a puppet or passing their own article, this article appears to have been passed by a somewhat experienced editor in good faith. As such, to delist, it needs to go through GAR.Balloonman 16:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
  • As there already is a American Revolutionary War article, this article also should be renamed as it is misleading and confusing. It should be renamed to something like Political and social origins of the American Revolution given the dab disclaimer at American Revolutionary War. If I may say boldly, this entire nomination and the history surrounding the article (GA-promotion, etc.) is a clusterfuck. —ExplorerCDT 20:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for that illuminating terminology, Explorer - very professional. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Anytime. It might not be a pretty word, but it sure is apt. —ExplorerCDT 23:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• I agree that it is not yet FA ready... but it would be helpful to know why it is not worthy of GA status (the military slang is not enough). Would you enumerate what areas need improvement? (probably a post to the atricle's talk page would be better than here.) Blueboar 03:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Why is there no discussion (or even mention) of the Enlightenment in the body of this article (yet it is in the Enlightenment category)? Many historians see the American Revolution as a product of this intellectual movement. Dmoon1 05:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
• Withdrawn I have no qualms about withdrawing this nomination, which, may I point out, is not in any way a self-nom. I have not personaly added or removed as much as a comma to the article. It seemed, to me, a perfectly good article, maybe not quite up to FA standards yet, but one that could benefit from constructive comments (such as clusterfuck, I suppose). I very much object to arbitrarily removing the GA listing though. I passed the article in good faith, not having been involved with it in the least. It passed GA in full compliance with the process, etc etc. If you have objections about the process itself, take it up with someone, or simply hate it, I guess. So long as it exists in its present form, however, maybe it would be more constructive to try and work within it. Seek a GAR rather than arbitrarily delisting it. At any rate, I wash my hands of it, and I encourage the editors involved to seek a GAR about the article. Many thanks to the people who actually did make constructive comments. :) Druworos 09:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
  • If an article does not meet the GA criteria, it can be delisted. this doesn't meet the GA criteria. Therefore it was delisted. Simple modus ponens. Nothing arbitrary about it (and characterizing it as "arbitrary" is rather hypocritical...because I could say that about your promotion of it...which I think was "uninformed."). —ExplorerCDT 10:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
    • It can be delisted, but it needs to go throught the GAR process... It is too easy for an article to be listed as a GA. I personally think it should take 2-3 separate reviewers to approve it as a GA (you don't need the full spectrum of FA for a GA) but as the process currently stands all it takes is one person to approve a GA. As the process currently stands, it takes MORE than one person to delist a GA. This is to prevent wheel warring or personal opinions to get involved. The article was approved as a GA in good faith and via the proscribed criteria, it should be delisted in the same vein---through a GAR.Balloonman 17:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I'll ask again, if it is not GA worthy, please post a list of what needs to be improved to the articles talk page so we can continue improve it. Simply saying it is a "clusterfuck" does not help.Blueboar 13:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.