Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rosicrucianism/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Rosicrucian

It is an article about an ancient esoteric movement, which is very active in current-days. It presents the inception, history and legend surrounding the movement and the mysterious "Rosicrucian Order" (including internal links to the articles on their main XVII century foudation documents: "The Manifestos"). It presents also a list of deceased notorious world persons, at different periods, known or considered to have been Rosicrucianists (or at least to have influenced the movement). It also gives an insight into the foudation of modern groups, current aims and studies, and establishes a NPOV relation among all the current-day groups (i.e. instead of having long texts about each group in the article, as some wiki languages have, each group - at least the main ones - has its own article accessible from this main article). It has many internal related references and also external links to groups and to the most deep studies available on the Rosicrucians from a variety of old and current authors, for readers who might want to learn more about it. It may be an example to other articles on similiar subject. The Portuguese language version "Rosa-cruz", which absorved some material from this article, is already a "featured article" and the French version "Rose-Croix" is at this time also nominated. It is currently available in 13 languages at Wikipedia. --GalaazV 01:34, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Object for now. It's an interesting topic, the prose is very well-written, and it has lots of great free images; but there are some improvements that need to be made before it's ready to be featured.
    1. All images need descriptive captions in complete sentences
    2. The lead section should have two paragraphs for an article of this size. The second paragraph could summarize the content in the article.
    3. The last sentence in the first paragraph refers to "some": does that mean "some modern societies" mentioned in the previous sentence? Or "some critics"? This ought to be specified, preferably with a footnote to an example of one who holds this view.
    4. You say that the early Rosicrucians "held certain views in common". Which ones?
    5. You state that the pamphlets "caused immense excitement throughout Europe", but the article doesn't say why. What was in the pamplets?
    6. The Lutheranism paragraph contains only one sentence and seems out of place. Perhaps you could flesh that out into a longer paragraph that give many of their teachings? Maybe that should even go in the lead section, as a summary.
    7. How were so many greats (such as Mozart and Shakespeare) associated with Rosicrucianism? Were they known followers? Did they influence Rosicrucianism without knowing it? More detail (where known) would be helpful.
    8. You mentioned that Rosicrucianism probably had little influence on Freemasonry. It probably had little influence on Islam as well, but why is that noteworthy? I assume that you note its lack of influence because others have contended that it did in fact have such influence. If you were to add a paragraph here giving information on the former view, preferably with a footnote, it would help.
    9. The «» symbols aren't used in English.
    10. I've re-written the "modern groups" section to conform to certain style guidelines and to add clarity. It would be better if the subsections were entitled "para-Masonic groups" and "Esoteric Christianity groups" (without the "Personalities related to. . ."), and if the sections each began with a paragraph explaining what each category was about. – Quadell (talk) 02:42, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object beyone the points made by Quadell there are too many lists and too little prose.--nixie 03:00, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support this is an interesting article and a piece of knowledge vital for understanding the esotericism movement and its undercurrents in the enlightenment. General public knowledge in the matter is very scarce. Nixdorf 06:50:58, 2005-09-09 (UTC)
  • Support most of the objections above are fairly likely to be addressed and repaired as a result of its appearance on the front page. This article is worth featuring, as it's actually a whole constellation of related articles. Featuring this article would show off several other articles of near-feature-worthiness. Pedant 09:17, 2005 September 9 (UTC)
  • Object - a good start, but the lead section is inadequate, and there are too many lists of people - move them to List of Rosicrucians or whatever and mention a few of the more important personalities in paragraphs explaining who they were and why they are relevant. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:17, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Object - On principle. The article is okay now and could become better with editing. But whatever state it gets into from this process, the subject matter is such that future revisions will inevitably become weighted down with true-believer claptrap. These future revisions will continue to hold the "Featured Article" seal of approval, and I don't think that's desirable. Bacchiad 15:16, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
    • This objection does not look actionable to me, and seems to display a lack of belief in the wiki process. If an article meets the featured article criteria (comprehensive, stable, NPOV, well-referenced article, etc), we should feature it. We should not withhold featured status for fear of what later editors may or may not do. Subsequent revisions that do not improve the article further can always be reverted. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:32, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
      • I second ALoan's comments. – Quadell (talk) 03:22, September 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • The prose is nowhere near good enough yet. Can you find someone to go through it? For example, the opening paragraph doesn't really tell me what the movement is all about. Instead, we're told that 'Several modern societies have been formed for the study of Rosicrucianism and allied subjects.' That belongs lower down. Origins in the 15th or 17th centuries: the fact that they're not contiguous centuries is unusual and interesting; it needs some type of acknowledgement, such as 'is believed to date from either the 15th or 17th centuries ....'. Please don't finish a sentence with 'thereof' in modern English! Tony 01:20, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, and I request that everyone lend a hand to address the objections. Sam Spade 17:29, 11 September 2005 (UTC)