Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Power of Nightmares

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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 promoted 02:18, 9 September 2007.

[edit] The Power of Nightmares

A controversial BBC documentary arguing that al-Qaeda doesn't exist. Has had a peer review with a rather small response, and recently was listed as a Good Article. I don't think there's much more information that can be found concerning the topic. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 06:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

  • For an extremely controversial film dealing with an extremely controversial set of topics, I think that the criticism section is completely inadequate. The views and references presented are not at all exhaustive, as one would expect for an article with GA status, let alone FA status. I have not plumbed the depths of the media, and the internet, but I believe that there must be much more reaction to this film from a much wider range of critics than presented here. Have no sceptics groups weighed in? No people have criticized this as another conspiracy theory speculation? What about public reaction? Have we found all the media rebuttals? Somehow I am not convinced that this article covers the subject exhaustively. --Filll 16:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I might also add, how many people have viewed this film in each country where it was shown on TV? Although a short comparison section with Fahrenheit 911 was included, there are no allusions in this article to other 911 conspiracy films, both professional and amateur (of course, these days with internet distribution, even an amateur production can have a very wide distribution). There are many other video productions in this category, including Loose Change and "Zeitgeist, the movie". This set of television programs can be viewed as just another film on this continuum of efforts to explain what is going on "behind the scenes" of a current complicated world situation. Surely there are some relations and connections between this film and the 911 conspiracy movement. Surely someone has noticed this, or commented on it.--Filll 16:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I have done a lot of searching. If you can find any more reliable sources with additional commentary, comparisons, and criticisms please bring them to my attention. I'll even run another Google search of "Power of Nightmares" conservative towards this end right now. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 16:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I didn't find much else, if other reviewers were waiting for the word on that. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 17:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Support couple small things but otherwise I think it's solid.

  • In the infobox, instead of the release date(s) and original run fields, the television template suggests first_aired and last_aired for miniseries, also link the dates per MOS:DATE.
  • Also in the infobox, preceded by and followed by is generally reserved for sequels and the like, if these are intrinsically related it's not mentioned in the articles.
  • Are the two first photos random examples of people from the given ideologies, or are they prominently featured in the film? Maybe make the caption a little more specific.
  • In paragraph three of the context section, "are both featured in the films to accuse..." and "appears in The Shadows in the Cave to comment on..." etc. read slightly ambiguously, they can be read to mean he's controlling what they're saying or they may or may not be implying such. I'd change the "to"s to "and"s, i.e., "Cahn and ... Brock are both featured in the films to accuse the Neo-Conservatives of..." and "appears in The Shadows in the Cave to and comments on..." Something like that. It could be read as inferring that they're pushing an agenda instead of reading NPOV.
  • Was awarded a British Academy of Film and Television Arts what?
  • I don't like the criticisms header, it means basically the same thing as critical response. Maybe controversy? They must have come up with something appropriate in one of the Michael Moore articles.

Doctor Sunshine talk 01:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

    • From what I can tell, none of Moore's films (with the possible exception of Sicko are at this stage yet. I did see Bowling for Columbine has a "Specific Criticism" section though. Thank you for commenting (it had been over a week since the last comment.) --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 04:21, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
No problem. Great work, by the way. Doctor Sunshine talk 21:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Good work! Separa 23:37, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment Hello again. I understand the film was released into the public domain at some point (and is available here). It would be good to add something about that. Also it would be nice to probably replace the current images with screenshots. Haven't actually seen the thing yet but I'll be watching it soon. Doctor Sunshine talk 09:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That will probably have to wait until confirmation from the Beeb itself can be found. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 15:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
For the record, it seems like everyone who's said it's public domain has assumed so because it's available at archive.org but this seems to contradict that. I withdraw my comment. You're right to wait. Doctor Sunshine talk 01:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
  • In the infoblot, spaced en dash, MOS says, where there are internal spaces. Thy hyphens in the titles should be en dashes. MOS says don't italicise whole quotes.
  • Spaced en dash still not fixed (20 October–3 November 2004). Tony 10:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Commment - The fair-use rationale of nonfree Image:PowerNightTitle.jpg needs to be fleshed out to include everything requested at WP:FURG. —Angr 16:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I've attempted to add some more detail and used the template to rewrite the rationale. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 19:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Sayyid Qutb neither founded Islamism nor did he establish the Muslim Brotherhood. He didn't join the organization, which was founded in the 1920s, until the 1950s. Either the movie got it wrong, then the reader should be made aware of this, or the WP article is wrong.--Carabinieri 11:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for pointing that out. I've checked the transcripts, rewrote the Brotherhood bit, but left the other one in because the film does go far to frame Qutb as the effective founder of the modern movement. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 13:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the changes. I have now read the article more thoroughly and I still oppose on the following grounds:
          • The titles of the parts of the series in the section headings should be in quotation marks. (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(titles)#Quotation_marks)
          • "When he returns to Egypt, he is disturbed by westernization under President Nasser and becomes convinced that in order to save society it must be completely restructured along the lines of Islamic law, although it still can utilise western technology." As far as I'm aware Sharia does not forbid the use of modern technology, so the contradiction implied by the word "although" does not exist.
          • The second paragraph of the "Part 1" section should make it clearer that the views depicted are those of the movie maker, not those of the Wikipedia article.
          • "The title of this episode is taken from a popular song which Qutb heard played at a church-organised dance for young people, which he saw as symptomatic of the immorality of American society." This statement is not sourced.
          • "After the American invasion of Afghanistan fails to uproot the alleged terrorist network, the Neo-Conservatives focus inwards, searching unsuccessfully for terrorist "sleeper cells" in America." Why is "sleeper cells" in quotation marks?
          • "The ideas and tactics also spread to the United Kingdom where Tony Blair uses the threat of terrorism to give him a new moral authority." The ideas and tactics did not "spread" to the UK. The UK joined the US in the war on terrorism. The idea that Blair was simply "using" the threat should be explicitly attributed to the film.
          • "The title of this episode appears to refer to Plato's allegory of the cave, which is mentioned in the course of this part of the film, and to the belief in the complex in Tora Bora." Also unsourced.--Carabinieri 20:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
            • I've done some work towards this, but some parts of the plot summary remain the same as I assume their presense in a "Synopsis" section disclaims it's the film's opinion. I even wrote it mostly present tense just to be safe. Perhaps the section should be retitled to further stress this. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 23:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
              • Technically, you're probably right, the section being titled "Synopsis" should be enough. However, I think with controversial topics like this it's better to be safe than sorry and attribute the more controversial views to the film explicitly. The section does use the word "alleged" or its derivatives repeatedly to do just this. If we are to assume the title of the section is enough to establish the fact that all opinions in it, are merely those of the filmmakers, then the word should be removed (except for one instance where it attributes a statement to neo-conservatives).--Carabinieri 23:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose, 2, WP:MOS breaches throughout. WP:DASH fixeds needed throughout, including section headings (spaced emdashes are not used on Wiki). Also, pls wikify the date parameter in the cite templates so date format on accessdate and date will match per user prefs. Why are solo years linked in the text? And full dates are not wikilinked? Pls understand correct date linking. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I took a look at the MOS pages to try and figure out what to link. The dates in the refs are now linked, and I linked a few more dates in the article itself. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 16:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Looks like you got it all, thanks ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 1 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.