Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Assata Shakur/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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 17:48, 22 May 2008.

[edit] Assata Shakur

Self-nomination. I'm nominating this article for featured article because it is a comprehensive and well-referenced biography of a somewhat controversial figure. It has been a good article for almost a year and underwent a peer review last October. It has been extremely stable since then. Savidan 01:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments I haven't given it a thorough readthrough yet, but some issues I see:

• Please consistently use F.B.I. or FBI.
• Please review the quotations to ensure that ending punctuation is placed outside the quote marks unless you are quoting a complete sentence (example: undertaken by a "kangaroo court.")
• Please change the all-caps article titles to sentence case to improve readability (example: SYMPOSIUM CRITICAL LEGAL HISTORIES)
• Examples of refs that need accessdates:

• Williams, Houston. May 2, 2005. "U.S. Government Declares $1 Million Bounty For Assata Shakur, Tupac's Godmother." All Hip Hop News.
• Daly, Michael. 2006, December 13. "The Msgr. & the Militant." New York Daily News.

• Examples of refs that need publishers:

• Ryan, Andrew J. "Tupac Shakur: Keeping it Real vs. Keeping it Right
• Riley, Lisa. 2008, March 26. "Assata Shakur." The Gazette.

• Is there a reason that so many NYT citations have no author name or article title? It would be difficult to look these up. Examples:

• New York Times. March 31, 1977. Section 2, Page 6, Column 3.
• New York Times. March 31, 1978. Section 2, Page 17, Column 3.

Maralia (talk) 03:52, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your thorough comments. The New York Times sources include all the information that lexis-nexis provided me, which unfortunately did not include a title or author. They are traceable using that database. Also, does your comment about punctuation and quotation marks apply to bibliographic titles in footnotes? Otherwise, I think your comments have been addressed. Savidan 05:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Upon further investigation, I've found that I can find more complete citations with Proquest Historical. I'll fill those in asap. Savidan 05:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you also use the cite xx templates for all references. There are also some irregularities with the last name, first name convention on some of the news refs. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 16:43, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed the last name/first name thing. I don't like those templates, though. I think they create too big a barrier to new contributors, both directly and by making the raw text of the article incomprehensible. I think we need to have a very good reason before straying too far from WYSIWYG and this template does not meet that threshold. Savidan 17:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Support, much improved and no remaining issues from me. Oppose The prose is long-winded and hard to follow in several places; I suggest getting someone to go through and chop up many of the longer sentences. There are some basic MoS and fair use issues. Some specific examples of fixes needed:

• Weak Oppose. To me, the article came across as very pro-Shakur. There is very little information in the article about the prosecution's case in the NJ Turnpike trial. Did any witnesses try to rebut her medical evidence? Did the prosecution present any evidence beyond the trooper's testimony? Also, why are her other trials not covered? I believe the article should at least briefly outline the charges in each case, especially the one that resulted in the hung jury.

I consider this objection to be unactionable as currently stated. The information about the trial is exhaustive in terms of published sources; for this objection to become actionable, it must be demonstrated that the article has omitted some published information. The same with the other trials; they are covered, there's just is not as much published information about them as there is about her main trial. Please be more specific about the information that you would like added; please do not request information just based on what you'd personally like to know, but rather what has been published. Savidan 16:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I am no expert on this person (I never heard of her before reading this article), and I have no idea what is available and what is not, therefore I cannot provide you with a list of particular sources to use. However, I find it difficult to believe that in a trial apparently covered pretty broadly there would be no other information about the prosecution's case, especially considering that many of the people in the area likely sympathized more with the prosecution than the defense (at least that is the impression I got from this article). Karanacs (talk) 17:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The key element of the prosecutions case—Trooper Harper's testimony—is covered in the article. There weren't any witnesses other than the four mentioned in that section; all the crime lab evidence (fingerprints and gunpowder residue) is also mentioned. I don't know what other evidence you think the prosecution would want to admit for a case like this. I seriously doubt there was some video footage that they showed that somehow was never mentioned in any of the articles I've read about this... Savidan 20:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. The article is strongly biased in favor of Shakur. Some examples:
  • Most of the "turnpike trial" section is dedicated to her defense that she couldn't have fired the shot. Well, that's irrelevant, she wasn't convicted of firinig the shot, she was convicted of being an accomplice. That fact gets one sentence, the irrelevant details about gunpowder and her wounds get three quarters of the section. And even the important sentence starts "Although the prosecution could not prove that Shakur fired the shots that killed either Trooper Foerster or Zayd Shakur" - clearly biased phrasing.
    • I agree with you that this defense does not remedy the accomplish charge; however, that's just both of our opinions, it's not a neutral fact. Nor does it make the information "irrelevant". These sectinos present the citable information about what evidence was presented at her trial. Whether it seems relevant to you (or me or anyone else) is not the issue. The important thing is that the article describe what transpired at her trial to the extent that it can be cited. As for the last part: this is not a biased phrasing, this is merely a statement of cited information. The fact that someone was charged as an accomplice because it couldnt be proved that they did the nominal crime is notable. Savidan 15:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Don't remove it, just shorten it so it doesn't get so much relative weight. Severely shorten it. Focusing on irrelevancies is an attorney's tactic, we shouldn't. Giving the same page space to prosecution's and defense's case seems a good first approximation; if you consider that the prosecution carried their case, you may even want to give the prosecution's case more space. --GRuban (talk) 15:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "Judge Appleby eventually cut off funds, effectively preventing any further expert defense testimony." Biased language, implying that it was the nasty mean judge, who didn't let the truth come out that it wasn't actually Shakur who fired the shot, when that wasn't the point.
    • The sentence does not say that he was a nasty judge. It says that he cut off funds, which he did. That he cut of funds is a fact; that he was a nasty judge or that he didnt want the truth to come out are two possible opinions which could be associated with this fact (although not the interpretation I subscribe to), but they are not stated in the article. Savidan 15:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The rather important claim that a trooper admitted to lying is cited to an editorial column by a prominent Shakur supporter, whose profession is professor of theology; in fact that editorial column is used as a source six times.
  • The escape is glossed over. "No one, including the guards, was injured during the prison break." Biased, clearly implies it was carried out by the forces of goodness, if even the guards didn't get hurt. If something didn't happen, don't write about it. Instead, how about looking how the best known newspaper in the country writes about it? "Killer Says He Helped In Chesimard's Escape" " 2 Ex-Fugitives Convicted of Roles In Fatal Armored-Truck Robbery" And the accomplices weren't just "charged with assisting in her escape;" or "held on charges related to the escape", thurey were tried and convicted, a rather important difference.
    • I can tell this is going to be a recurring problem with you. That no one was injured in a fact; that those who carried out her escape were the "forces of goodness" is just not in the article at all. You seem to be making your comments based on your own emotional reponses to the facts in the article rather than the way that facts are cited or stated. This is one of several citable details mentioned. I will add the conviction info, though. Savidan 15:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
      • No, actually, I am responding to the way the facts are stated. The most neutral way to say that something didn't happen is not to say it. Consider if the article bore the following "facts"? "Despite the overwhelming anger felt by the policemen, who were friends of the murdered victim, Shakur was not beaten, was not starved, was not waterboarded"? "The sentence was not successfully appealed to any court of appeals." "The governor did not pardon Shakur or commute Shakur's sentence." These would all be facts, but no less biased in the way they were stated. --GRuban (talk) 15:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "Shakur maintains her innocence to this day" - innocence of what? Again, remember, she was convicted of being an accomplice, which she doesn't deny. She seems to be insisting she didn't pull the trigger, but that's not what she was convicted of.
    • Actually, I suppose you're right that this can be removed. Savidan 15:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Instead, how about this, where she continues to advocate "armed struggle"? Fugitive in Cuba Still Wounds Trenton; Chesimard Unrepentant at Trooper's '73 Killing; Whitman Is Irate" Again NYTimes. It's clear bias to say that she says she's innocent of killing people and leave out the part where she asks other people to kill people. Or is "armed struggle" somehow not include killing?
    • It's not clear what you're proposing to add here. Could you be more explicit? Savidan 15:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
      • It is important to say somewhere that she claims to be innocent; but it would be preferable to be specific about the way in which she claims it. I also propose that it is important that she advocates armed struggle, since, while that doesn't mean she did or did not kill anyone, it does seem to say she endorses killing in general in certain cases. The specific NYTimes article there seems to refer to some other (Newsday?) article, that would be a preferable source, if you have access to it.
  • "Sheriff Joseph DeMarino lied to the press about the exact date of her transfer to Clinton State Correctional Institute " - again, biased language. Is it really that important where she was held at each state of her trial and imprisonment? It seems just an excuse to get the comment that police lie in the article one more time.
    • This has been discussed extensively on the talk page. "lied" is the word used in the article cited and by the sheriff himself. It is important where she was held, as apparently it was headline worthy at the time, as was the sheriff feeling the need to misinform the press about it. Savidan 15:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Where is Christine Whitman's widely publicized statement, in which she attacks Shakur?
  • Where is information about the slain police officer?
    • Please be more specific about which information you would like to see about him. This is not his bio (although its likely he'd be deemed notable if an article were started about him). Savidan 15:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Quite right. The proposal is more in the interest of balance, if we can reduce the emotional content that seems to make the reader sympathize with Shakur, we can live without much on the officer.
  • "All of the jury members were white" - cited to a NYTimes article, but no link provided. All NYTimes archives are on the web now, provide a link.

--GRuban (talk) 13:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• • • Not all historical nyt articles are available online, and often not for free. I'll see if i can a free link though. Savidan 15:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

In general, I consider most of these objections a little unreasonable. Some of them don't even maintain the pretense of commenting on the article as a compilation of neutrally presented and verifiable facts, but rather concern themself with arguing directly about a given point of view related to Shakur. For example, your first comment, rather than saying that the information in the article is inaccurate, says that its irrelevant because it doesn't prove that Shakur was innocent. It should go without saying that this is not the standard for relevance. The goal of this section is to neutrally and factually present verifiable information about her trial. To say that the cited facts about the trial are "irrelevant" because they don't accomplish some external argumentative purpose misses the purpose completely. However, you have raised some legitimate issues, which I will respond to/remedy specifically. Savidan 14:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

As the other user says above, this article is the first time I have ever heard of this case. If you assume anyone who criticizes this article must have a personal point of view against Shakur, you won't get far. --GRuban (talk) 14:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't assume that you have a personal view against Shakur, only that some of your comments reflect a set of assumptions about the opinions readers should form from the facts presented in the article, rather than focusing solely on the accuracy and neutrality of the information itself. I think that ultimately I will be able to remedy many of these to your satisfaction, though. Savidan 19:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.