Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Joseph Goebbels/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 16:31, 31 March 2007.

[edit] Joseph Goebbels

A very nice article recently rewritten, well referenced, written and formed as far as I can tell. Covers Goebbels comprehensively. I saw few praises and suggestions for FAC on the talk page and decided to take this up.

  • Nomination and Support --Pudeo (Talk) 23:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose For starters, the article should have plenty more images and a section on Goebbels in popular culture. Many movies have featured him and he was often parodied in much propaganda during the war. --128.253.240.31 00:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Added one image more. --Pudeo (Talk) 00:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Pop culture is embarrassing to FAs. I'd prefer it wasn't there. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree. Keep those pop culture references out of there. The article is at 71k already and we're probably going to generate an extra talkpage archive for just for the discussion about Gobbles. Peter Isotalo 03:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Request - please reference the Joseph_Goebbels#Defeat_and_Death pargraph starting "on april 30". Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny lead. A good two paragraphs can't be that hard to write. Peter Isotalo 03:34, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I made a first attempt at one, though I'm not terribly familiar with Goebbels' life and career. Peter Isotalo 21:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Follow-up I've been reading the article a lot closer. It's of really high quality, but it has a few problems that need to be addressed before it can be promoted. There are way too many quotes from the authors of the sources that need to be integrated with the article. It could also probably use some trimming to get the length down a bit, and there are a few citations that are repeated a bit too frequently. I'm going to put in some work of my own on this over the next few days. Peter Isotalo 15:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is a controversial area and such an article requires very, very thorough citations and extreme care. For example, immediately after the sentence where Goebbels says that the process of wiping out the Jewish race is of vast importance, the next sentence says that Goebbels kept his grip on reality. I don't think many people would agree that murdering many millions of people is keeping a grip on reality. DrKiernan 14:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
    • It looks rather well-cited to me... Just please try not to push anyone into breaking any kind of citation record. I would certainly not want an article about such a prominent, if controversial, figure be the first FA to break 200-footnote limit. Let's try to focus on citing statements that are actually controversial for something other than being purely heinous. Peter Isotalo 21:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
      • After one week, I am still opposed. Some paragraphs have no citations at all, and there are still sentences for which I would like to see references: e.g. (just in the first two paragraphs) "his height (1.65 m; 5 ft 5 in), exposed him to ridicule and humiliation"; "student fraternities ... were dominated by extreme right-wing politics" DrKiernan 16:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I know that you have citations, but what about a reference section, or having a full bibliography in the same section? I know that there may be some people interested in purchasing the book, or checking it if they already have it, and full bibliographical information would be nice. JonCatalan 17:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I started the reference section. I couldn't be entirely sure about the exact editions, but I picked whichever ISBN numbers that seemed the most appropriate. If someone has a quip concerning the page numbers being from the wrong edition, it'll be easy to fix. Peter Isotalo 21:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Disagree that the article must have more images(tough more would be nice it is certainly not required), popular references can also be excluded. The level of citations seem thorough enough. The inclusion of a separate bibliography section removed my pet complaint. The information is well presented, and seems complete. Abel29a 10:22, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: This is a good article, but I think there are a number of issues that need adressing before making it a featured article.
  • It is much too long and needs condensing.
  • The main infobox listing him as German chancellor is misleading, even if he was chancellor for a day. Would it not be better to describe him as propaganda minister, with a note that he was chancellor very briefly? The same applies to the box at the bottom of the article.
  • Speculation on motivation and emotional state (psychology) should mostly be removed. Some could be presented as opinion. Even if it is substantiated, it is not all relevant to an encyclopedic article.
  • There are other comments that may be good for readability but are nevertheless POV, e.g. "surprising degree of success [with women]". Actually, why should it be surprising that a man with such power, intellect, and persuasive powers, should be "successful" with women.
  • information about the conduct of the war, relations between Hitler's "lieutenants", etc. that is not directly relevant to Goebbels or is not encyclopedic in nature could be condensed.
  • Although there are a lot of citations, because of the length of the article there is still a lot of information that is not backed up by citations:
  • In my opinion, many of the direct quotes should be removed or relegated to footnotes.
  • The redlink should be removed (possibly by creating an article).
  • I saw no mention of his half-Jewish girl-friend/fiancĂ©e (who is mentioned in other sources).
  • His paper Der Angriff possible deserves more prominence. --Boson 07:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I'll admit I haven't read it quite closely enough to comment on the type of thing as individual occasions of poor phrasing or POV statements, but on the whole the article looks quite thorough, well-cited, and well-written. I would, however, second the notion that the infobox should label him as "Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda" not as Chancellor, a post which he held for only one day, and only as a result of the confusion of Hitler's death and the very much impending end of the war. LordAmeth 10:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Looks good, but I agree that rewriting the infobox for his main job as information/propaganda minister would be a good idea. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 16:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Object Still a good article, but now it's starting to become a size problem, and some other issues still need to be addressed:
    • Article was at 71k when it was nominated and has now grown to 78. Excluding infoboxes, templates and references (but not the footnotes, unless someone wants to tell me they're not relevant to begin with), it's still just 78k. Lack of focus usually starts at around at 50k, and at 60k it's usually past encyclopedic.
    • There are still full quotes from Fest in the article which don't seem motivated. Either they should be worked into the prose or, if they're very speculative and exclusive to the author, removed entirely.
    • Overall, the article has a lot of quotes from Goebbels, some of them on the long side. It doesn't seem quite necessary to include them all. Also, remove the "he wrote" and "he said" from those passages and work them into the prose preceding them; they just look awkward and are mere artifacts of the sources. I'm pretty sure the amount of quotes are partly responsible for the size, not to mention the occasional instance of overzealous citation, the use of Fest p. 90 being the most obvious example.
    • Ameth and L&McC make a good point; "Chancellor of Germany" in the infobox is not relevant.

Peter Isotalo 18:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose. 54KB of prose surpasses guidelines at WP:LENGTH, footnotes should be expanded to a consistent biblio style (example, blue link only at Wahlen in der Weimarer Republik website ), and publishers are not indicated on book references. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • What is "consistent biblio style" and how does one expand to it? And why not add the publishers yourself? It's not a really a requirement... Peter Isotalo 08:45, 26 March 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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.