Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Raëlian beliefs and practices/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 17:40, 30 September 2007.

[edit] Raëlian beliefs and practices

(self nom) I hereby nominate Raëlian beliefs and practices for Featured Article status. Kmarinas86 04:12, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Article as of Oppose 1

Oppose Weakly oppose This article is horribly written and presents only one POV, not any opposition. In addition, approximately half of it is a collection of quotes and lists. Several references are blank/poorly formatted. Other sections of text have no references. Numerous MOS problems and passive voice. Recommend speedy deletion. — BQZip01 — ^talk 05:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC) Recommend giving this person more time to make changes as they are VERY responsive, knowledgeable, and efficient. — BQZip01 — ^talk 04:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"This article is horribly written^G and presents only one POV, not any opposition.^H In addition, approximately half of it is a collection of quotes^C and lists.^B Several references are blank/poorly formatted.^D Other sections of text have no references.^E Numerous MOS problems^F and passive voice.^A Recommend speedy deletion.^wtf?"

Fixed A. Aggie Bonfire consists of 33% passive sentences. In your favor, I have now removed 100% of the passive sentences which are outside blockquotes. Overall, passive sentences are now 1% of the sentences in prose.Kmarinas86 17:17, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed B. I have converted the lists into prose.

Fixed C. Impact of quotes reduced.Kmarinas86 14:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed D. There are no more blank references in this article, and although the cite template is not used, the citations are consistently formatted and are in an acceptable form.

Fixed E. More references have been added and especially in the part about creation of life on other planets.Kmarinas86 15:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed F. As for WP:MOS problems, there are no longer any in the headings or the lead. None of them involve the dashes used in the article, nor the overall use of punctuation.Kmarinas86 17:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Dispute G. As for being "horribly written", Thedagomar begs to differ (source).Kmarinas86 14:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed G. See how I fixed the article. I used Microsoft Word in order to fix the grammar and style mistakes.Kmarinas86 02:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there any reliably referenced criticism of Raelian beliefs and practices? I ask because I've always been the under the impression that they are such a fringe faith that, with the exception of their cloning claims (which is in the article), no-one's really paid them any heed at all. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 09:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The primary cause of criticism is disturbed people, scientists against cloning, religious people, and those who attend sensual meditation exercises.Kmarinas86 00:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed H. I added a bit of "criticism" from the Raelism article concerning the "infiltration" of two college students who took video inside (http://www.wired.com/news/culture/1,68593-1.html). I also added the bit about Brigitte McCann attending a masturbation session. I also added a bit about Geniocracy and the claims that it promotes fascism and racism.Kmarinas86 00:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

1. Please don't take too much offense at comments. I apologize if anything here was taken as hostility; none was intended.
2. As for the rest of your comments:

A I'm glad you read other work to which I contributed. I'm not saying that passive voice isn't acceptable only that it seemed excessive.

B That's all I asked for.

C see B

D I never said you had to use citation templates and have no problem with you using a different form. What you have used now appears to be acceptable.

E MUCH better!!! I personally look through the end of paragraphs and see if any of them don't end with some sort of reference. I feel the few you still have could be easily referenced

F IAW WP:LEAD (part of the MoS), there should be citations in the lead. I think you & I both feel differently about this than the MOS currently reads (it is a summary of everything below...), but nevertheless, the claims should be backed up. In addition, IAW WP:MoS#Images, the pixel sizings for most of your images need to go.

Fixed. I added several citations to the lead and removed pixel sizings from the images.Kmarinas86 19:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

G That's all I wanted

H see G

WTF see #1

Article as of Oppose 2

Oppose Issues surrounding quality of writing, references, and NPOV J.Winklethorpe ^talk 20:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• Lead is short, and does not adequately summarise the article. WP:LEAD suggests two to three paragraphs for an article of this size.

Fixed. Two paragraphs.Kmarinas86 00:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Lead size increased. Second paragraph made.Kmarinas86 04:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it's still on the brief side. I'd suggest looking through each section you have, and making sure it has a decent mention in the lead.J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Two paragraphs increased.Kmarinas86 17:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• “Beliefs” is very list-like. “Raelians believe” kicks off a dozen different sentences, not to mention “Raelians claim” and “In Raelianism”. This contributes to the general lack of flow in the prose, along with some short stubby paragraphs (and a single-sentence paragraph in cloning). Two sub-sections are a single paragraph, suggesting that they are either under-developed, or not worthy of their own section.

Fixed. List-like repetition was remedied.Kmarinas86 01:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Three new references.Kmarinas86 00:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip!Kmarinas86 04:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• Taking the “Human Cloning” section as an example, I'm very dubious as to whether there is a NPOV. I would be amazed that no-one has disagreed with the Raelians on the feasibility of what they suggest. In fact, Ref 28 (The Maneater) contains a criticism, which has not been used in the article.

Added the criticisms.Kmarinas86 04:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

A very short peice of research uncovers more criticisms of Raelian beliefs. If it's this easy to find items that have not been covered, then it implies to me that there's not a NPOV. J.Winklethorpe

Fixed. Two references added.Kmarinas86 00:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant questions. Which Raelian beliefs do the pedophillia accusations criticize? Are they a criticism of their belief in "sexual liberty"?Kmarinas86 12:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea which belief is refered to, as I'm unfamiliar with them. But it's clearly an important enough criticism for a public response from the Raelians. My point is: criticism exists, and is not covered. This makes me doubt the NPOV of the article. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 14:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• The only piece of criticism in that section is noted as “anonymous - BBC”. As un-signed pieces are the norm on the BBC site, I find that unnecessary, and may imply some unreliability that does not exist. In addition, I don't think that giving a quote from either side with little narrative adequately covers this issue.

Fixed. Ditto.Kmarinas86 00:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. The "ANONYMOUS" has been removed.Kmarinas86 04:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• A couple of examples of bad writing in the article: “After the coming of the about 40 other prophets of Elohim, if that occurs, Raëlians believe, this information will be accessible to scientists on Earth who will perform resurrections of many billions of individuals either for long-term reward or short-term punishment” and “According to Raëlianism, if humans saves itself from nuclear annihilation, it will become like their creators, extraterrestrial Elohim”

THANK YOU. This is what I like to hear.Kmarinas86 04:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Bear in mind that they're only examples; you may wish to have someone unconnected with the article give it a good read through. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. See how I fixed the article. I used Microsoft Word in order to fix the grammar and style mistakes.Kmarinas86 02:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Not fixed. While Word might help you catch some obvious mistakes and the like, it is of no help in bringing an article to the "Well written" standard required by the FA criteria. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• Some unreliable looking references

• Ref 75 “Same Street, Different Parade”. I'm unconvinced of the reliability of a blog whose latest entry is “Restrooms around the World”.
• Ref 66 “eric_bolou's photos”, is an inaccessible page on Yahoo photos – surely not a reliable source?
• Ref 74, from Cruftbox.com – some photos on a personal website. Questionable reliability, I would say.

Ref 74 & 75 are obviously blogs. They show pictures of the Raelian float, and they come from blog websites. The claim on the article was, "In Pasadena, California, the Raëlians and their silver inflated "UFO" float were sighted at the Doo Dah Parade by online bloggers.[74][75]". The Doo Dah Parade is in Pasadena, California, per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doo_Dah_Parade.

74 - http://cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/doodah03.html

75 - http://support4change.squarespace.com/journal/2006/11/30/same-street-different-parade.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsnet/66571180/ - Pictures say a 1000 words. You don't.Kmarinas86 03:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

As for Ref 66, Yahoo! Photos died, which is why the link doesn't work anymore.Kmarinas86 03:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

A couple more refs of concern. Ref 68 links to nothing, ref 69 is a page of photos. Blogs and photo pages really don't count as reliable sources. Overall, that section is very low on use of reliable sources. On another note, Ref 71, "Raelity show" is listed as from Associated Press. It's from the Tapei Times; the photo is credited to Associated Press.J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Taipei Times replace by Associated Press.Kmarinas86 14:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Former Ref 68 removed.Kmarinas86 14:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you reliable? Just kidding =P. Seriously, I did not use those blog sources as evidence for any characteristics of Raëlians except what is demonstrable from the pictures. Those pictures could be taken by anyone, and they say a lot. Anyone who does not think the pictures are evidence they actually participated in a parade has no faith in humanity. The fact is that many of the free pictures used in the article are from "unreliable sources" because all of them came from permission of the "primary source". But it is ridiculous to suggest that the pictures have significantly doctored content, especially the blog pictures.

I make no suggestions of doctoring, or anything else. I'm quite happy to believe that they represent exactly what they say they represent, as I prefer to err on the side of trust. However, we owe it to our readers to present verifiable and reliable information, and blogs and photo collections simply don't cut it as reliable sources. WP:RS explains it better than I could.J.Winklethorpe ^talk 14:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight should only be used in articles about the sources themselves. Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources.

—WP:RS#What_is_a_reliable_source.3F

Fixed. Third party sources added to support the blogs whose sole use is for the pictures, titles, dates, and the Raëlian symbol. Any prose of the any of the blogs is absolutely not used in the article.Kmarinas86 00:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Not fixed. Refs 92 to 98 are unreliable, and are used to support the appearance in a parade on stated dates. If you read the WP:RS section you quoted, you will see that unreliable sources may only be used in articles about the sources themselves. If the news article supports those specific claims, then reference them with it. If not, remove the claims. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. The blog sources have been removed.Kmarinas86 14:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

And on a different note, I don't know what's going on with the colours above, but you've made that section unreadable on my monitor. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 20:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Color replaced by lettering system.Kmarinas86 00:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I will be off-wiki for approx a week. Rest assured I will review my oppose once you've had an opportunity to work on the article. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, well you obviously been putting in some hard work on the article, for which you are to be applauded. Unfortunately, as I've noted above, I still don't think it approaches the "Well written" FA criteria. For example, the following are, at best, awkward to read: “the idealized political framework for a worldwide political union is one advocating problem-solving and creative intelligence as criteria for regional governance.”; “For example, the most intelligent among the creation may reject spontaneous generation and support the ideas primordial soup or biogenesis.”; “a reporter from a Spanish television station saw Raëlians who crawled around in cross-dressing plays in which both sexes were participants”;

Fixed. The quoted examples have been addressed.Kmarinas86 19:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Further notes:

• While you've improved the listiness of the prose, that tendancy still remains, along with examples of short, stubby paragraphs.

Questions. I have put together paragraphs that go together. Which remaining paragraphs do you think are too short and stubby?Kmarinas86 14:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, the majority of the short paragraphs are dealt with. I'd say the last four paragraphs in Human Cloning could be merged together into two, though. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 09:11, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Another question. I have moved those four paragraphs, containing mainly criticism, to a new section on Clonaid located under "Practices and history". Would you say that this is an appropriate place to put it in comparison to the "Beliefs" section? The criticism focus on the ethics and feasibility of the first stage human cloning (i.e. development of a baby clone), however the beliefs section only has a sentence or two about the first stage human cloning. The vast majority of the human cloning section covers stage two and three.Kmarinas86 18:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I would say it was more appropriate to the Beliefs/Human cloning section, but honestly it could go in either. Perhaps you should think about what the Clonaid controversy brings to the article - does it illustrate a belief, or a practice? J.Winklethorpe ^talk 18:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• You still need to beef the lead up

Maybe fixed. I beefed the lead.Kmarinas86 14:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• No need to italicise Yahweh and Elohim per MOS. It might be reasonable to italicise the first usage as citing, but not the rest. It would also save us from “thought to be from Elohimic origins”, which is just horrible. Similarly for baptism, sensual meditation.

Fixed. Italics removed.Kmarinas86 13:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• “The religions thought to be from Elohimic origins include Hinduism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, and Bahá'í.” Supported by Ref 20 “Glenn Carter's Raëlian Webpage”. In what way does that reference (which is of dubious reliability anyway) support that sentence? It has a list of religions, which it then describes. At no point does it say extra terrestrials founded them. If the claim is in Intelligent Design, which is cited earlier, then use it to support it. If not, remove the claim.

Fixed. Better citations found and implemented.Kmarinas86 13:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

• And what do the other world religions claimed to have been founded by extra terrestrials have to say about it all? I can’t imagine they’re impressed…

Comment. Would this help detract the article from an FA rating?Kmarinas86 13:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if any commentry on this aspect of Raelian belief existed, that therefore might need to be reflected in the article. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 09:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Not all small parts of Raelianism that are mentioned in the media have warranted attention by those interviewed or commented on by the media.Kmarinas86 02:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

A Google search reveals little or no commentary on this from members of other religions. They are often reported in the media from the Raelian point of view or as an observer of a Raelian speaking about their beliefs, not as a contrary to those beliefs. http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=raelian+%22prophets%22+jesus+mohammed http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=raelian+%22prophets%22+elohim Kmarinas86 14:08, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

J.Winklethorpe ^talk 10:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Article as of Oppose 3

• Oppose, below are a comments on why, but please realize many of those are just examples of things I consider to be a problem throughout the article. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The image of the 'twins' in the cloning section has nothing to do with the subject and only serves to make the article more 'pretty'. In addition, inclusion of photographs of random people in an article about a religious topic has potential BLP issues. Please remove the photograph.
    • Fixed. Photo removed.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Examples of bad prose:
    • "causing the clone to mature much, much faster than normal"
      • Fixed. Deleted.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "Note that "genetically identical" does not mean altogether identical"
      • Fixed. Deleted.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "The purported extraterrestrial explained... ", just one sentence earlier there is no such reservation about him being extraterrestrial
      • Fixed. Deleted.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "The elohim will visit the earth officially when enough...", are they now visiting unofficially or not visiting at all?
      • Fixed. The sentence is redundant in the paragraph so it has been removed.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "for everything that one does, including what one tells others, have natural consequences"
      • Fixed. Replaced "have" with "leads to".Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "an American woman underwent a standard cloning procedure", at the moment there is no such thing as a "standard" cloning procedure
      • Fixed. "Standard" removed.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "the only thing which can stop war and injustice that currently persists in today's world"
      • Fixed. Redundant addition of "currently" removed.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The section "Extraterrestrial elohim" is difficult to understand:
    • "These humanoid extraterrestrials were able to master solar astronomy...", appears to mean they "mastered" those things after arriving on earth.
      • Fixed. Replaced "were able to master" with "who mastered".Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "...share their advanced scientific knowledge with us, their creation.", first time it is suggested "we" are "their" creation, please expand on the subject, as earlier in that paragraph it is stated that "primitive people of the past called "those who came from the sky" elohim". So did they create us, or where we already here when they came?
      • Fixed. This has been resolved with the addition of the mention that they were fashioned out from scratch.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Elohim" is inconsistenly written with either a capital letter or not
    • Fixed. Capitalized "elohim".
  • In general, I find the prose to be too "poetic" (for lack of a better word), which complicates reading. Examples (but definately not all of them):
    • "Religious texts foretell their return"
      • Fixed. Resolved.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "on the dwelling they have designed"
      • Fixed. Replaced it with something else.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "had meals with the living body of Jesus Christ"
      • Fixed. Removed "the living body of".Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "with us, their creation"
      • Fixed. Removed "their creation". Changed "us" to "humanity".Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "disagree with them on said consequences"
      • Fixed. Resolved.Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Golly gee whiz. Just how many other things need to be changed? 20, 100, 1000?Kmarinas86 21:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• LOL - there are thirteen references for the last statement on the intro. How about picking the best two? ←Ben^B4 12:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Removed recently added non-summarizing statement.Kmarinas86 15:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like a case of The Heymann Standard; the point of FAC isn't just to change things to accommodate a person so you get a support. The article you nominated is not the same as the one it is now (hm). I think you need to withdraw and take some more time on this article. ALTON .ıl 21:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree on this point. The article now is very different from the one I looked at about a week ago, and the changes are not all for the better (for example the addition of several very colorful, but incomprehensible and unexplained images). Many of those changes were not done because of this FAC, so the article clearly is still under development and thus is not stable. The article should be taken off FAC, worked on until its finished and then passed first through peer review before it is listed again. I'd be happy to give my comments on a final version of this article. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 12:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The images were added because the image copyright status of Image:DNA_UFO_Raelian.jpg was questioned and support for keeping it in the article could not be delivered, so I had to replace it with something. Also, I find notions of incomprehensibility very contentious. Obviously the problem must be in the captions and not the images themselves. There is absolutely no reason that the images would have a fundamental problem. Adding or subtracting words in the images themselves would make them "incomprehensible". I have revised the captions to illustrate this point.Kmarinas86 17:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, the notion of the article as being finished is rather arbitrary. As it stands right now, I don't see why a new FAC could be started right now in place of this one. After all, the article has already changed enough. The whole point of me bringing this FAC is for others to bring up issues that are invisible to my limited mind.Kmarinas86 17:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, while the article may have not been stable a few days ago, it is now, because I have run out of ideas for changing it.Kmarinas86 17:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Two points. 1) “The whole point of me bringing this FAC is for others to bring up issues that are invisible to my limited mind”. Actually, that’s the point of peer review. FAC is supposed to have reviews of the article under the FA criteria, and minor fixes being made. 2) I was trying to ignore the pictures, but seeing as they’ve been brought up…of the three above, the details in the life cycle are incomprehensible (what’s the figure with a staff representing? The group of three figures bring to mind a cartoon family, which surely isn’t the intent?), the electorate picture only makes sense after reading the paragraph next too it, and the cloning picture adds nothing. The picture at top right of the article is genuinely incomprehensible to me, and I’ve read the article enough times that it shouldn’t. The genesis picture also is only understandable after reading the paragraph, and in no way adds to the explanation. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 19:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I am really sorry, but you should have made a "finished" version of the article before bringing it here. This way, we have to comment on several, different versions of the article. That makes things complicated, as people might support a specific version, but the large changes later might cause them to reconsider (as I said, some of these big changes have not been for the better). --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 21:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The images have been replaced.Kmarinas86 07:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• PLEASE REMOVE THESE OBSTRUCTIVE IMAGES—relocate on a linked page if you feel it's necessary.
  • Obstructive images removed.Kmarinas86 15:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Poorly written, uncritical, silly. Take the lead as an example of the whole text.
  • The lead has been recently changed and probably has a higher percent of errors than the rest of the text.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Exercizes"?
    • Spelling fixed.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "upper level members"—a hyphen?
    • Hypen added.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "they hope to extended life through cloning"
    • Tense fixed.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "outerspace"—one word?
    • Space added.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "civil extreterrestrials"—they're not rude?
    • "Civil" deleted.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "sexual self-determination"—which is what? "sex-positive feminism"?
    • No. What makes you think that?
  • You do meditation, do you?
    • Revised.15:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, I don't.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "genital masturbation"? (As opposed to the ankles?)
    • "Genital" removed.Kmarinas86 15:02, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Tony (talk) 02:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Please address the following:
  • What areas should be made more critical?
  • What can be done to remove the silliness that prevents this from being a FA? Specifically, what harm does the silliness have on the article's adherence to the FA criteria?Kmarinas86 15:19, 30 September 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.