Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Boy Scouts of America membership controversies

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[edit] Boy Scouts of America membership controversies

Self nomination: I think this is a very well-written and thorough page. Supported by a strong consensus of a diverse group of editors, quite stable, and impeccably referenced. I hope you all agree. --Alecmconroy 05:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment - Previous FAC loacted here. Fieari 21:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. I think the Scouts' entitlement to federal funds and access to military facilities should be mentioned quite early on (I don't think it is currently). Also, you may want to add a section about media coverage and commentry on the situation. I'm not sure if I'm happy with the great division between support and oppose, it would be preferable to structure it along issue lines. --Oldak Quill 10:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I moved the "Litigation over the policies" section up in the article. --Jagz 18:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

*Comment Why put the ACLU logo there? WP 10:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I moved the ACLU logo. --Jagz 18:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak support. The topic, albeit narrow, is covered in good detail. It's not the absolute best of the candidates, though. --Gray Porpoise 19:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Would it help if I made the photo of President Bush larger? :) --Jagz 20:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Object. 1, 3c, and 5. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 06:48, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
1) There are many controversies in the world, this one does not standout as something that is important to the world, but just the US-Centric
3c) I don't want to have to look at so many sections. (Reason for Section 5)
5)Each "main" subheading should be a paragraph with the {{seealso}} going to another article containing the facts of the main headings. Concise.
K. Obviously, if your 3c & 5 views are prevalent, we have to address that. I'm confused by #1 though-- I didn't realize that FAC depended on the subject matter having world-wide importance. When you look at the list of featured articles, there are many that are less notable than our subject: the video game chracter Wario, 1981 computer game, a fictional food found in the tv show Babylon 5, etc. --Alecmconroy 07:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Scouting is a worldwide movement and the Boy Scouts of America is part of it. --Jagz 15:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
They are correct in that there is no requirement to be international. Many FAs are country-specific.Rlevse 15:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I think this person may be confused about FA requirements. Subject matter does not and has never been a requirement for FA. "Our Best Work" doesn't have anything to do with the topic of the article. There should be as many headings as is needed for the topic, and you only need the {{seealso}} tag if there is in fact another article that goes into more depth. There doesn't have to be one. Fieari 17:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Nope. I suggest running this by the WP:GA committee *first* before I would vote in support of it. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 18:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
That would be easier than having to justify your comments. --Jagz 19:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - I feel that this article is now ready for featured status, after many vast improvements have been made to it. Fieari 17:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment In my opinion, this article's topic should be no hindrance to its reaching featured status. Fg2 00:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - I helped edit this article so I support it and think it is a particularly well-balanced coverage of the subject. Given the controversial nature of the article, almost everyone will be against some of the issues discussed but that's okay because we have freedom of speech in the US, so this article should be acceptable at least on that basis. --Jagz 22:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support; excellent writing, well ref'd. However, you have duplicated references (The Impact of the Boy Scouts of America’s Anti-Gay Discrimination occurs three times in the list of refs). Instead of using the <ref> tag for every reference, the first time the ref appears, use the tag <ref name="name here"> or whatever instead of just <ref>, and then for follow up comments using the same ref simply use <ref name="name here" />, with out the rest of the ref (the name and URL for example). This will shorten your list of references by removing duplicates. Thanks! smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 13:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

*Object - This article glosses over the issue of admission of girls as scouts and women as leaders, which was headlines and fought in court many times, before the issue of atheists and homosexuals ever gained traction. Reading this article, one would think that nobody tried to crash scouting's party before the gays and atheists, and that is absolutely not the case. Give Peace A Chance 00:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

In order to keep the article to a reasonable length, we only included current controversies. Since women are now allowed as leaders, it is not included in this article. The admission of girls is discussed in section 5.1. --Jagz 01:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
One clear consensus that came out of the first FAC was that the article should try to keep a clear focus on just the current gay/atheist controversy. There are a lot of controversial aspects about the BSA, and no one article could cover them all. There's the exclusion of girls, the former exclusion of women, the former segregation of races, exclusion of people who disagree with the BSA on a wide variety of issues, the unitarian controversy and more. I think it's important this article keep focused just on the one main gay/atheist controversy and leave all those other issues to other pages-- one page could never cover them all in appropriate detail. --Alecmconroy 06:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
You are making my point. You think that it is more important that it stays focused on the gay/atheist controversy, and so the article is written that way...biased. That's why I object. Saying that we could never cover all the controversies, there is only room for 2 is a copout. Scouting is a 100 year old organisation!! Suddenly in the 1990's, court cases involving gays/atheists start garnering more press attention and we're simply to pretend that there was no controversy for the organisation's first 85 years? Hogwash. I will withdrawl my objection if someone inserts a paragraph near the begining giving these controversies context, simply mentioning, not even elaborating, on the fact that other groups, not gays/atheists, tried to force their way into scouting first. I think the article is good in almost every respect, except for its lack of context. A few other things ARE mentioned at the bottom, as an afterthought, it seems. Give Peace A Chance 02:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I moved the discussion of the admission of girls up in the article from section 5 to section 2, Litigation over the Policies. It is also now mentioned in the article introduction. --Jagz 02:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support My concerns are addressed, and I think that the reader gets a better sense of context now. I have not contributed to the article myself, but may still jump in and tweak a word or two, though I think its a very good article overall. Give Peace A Chance 02:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Support this has come a long way from the first attempt at FA.Rlevse 22:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)