Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tobacco smoking/archive2

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[edit] Tobacco smoking

This article previously failed the nomination for Featured article for having being non-NPOV and for not having enough references. Since then, it was signficantly modified to become more accurate, better cited, far more neutral, and cleaner. Before, the article just focused on the harms of smoking. Now, it focuses on the Reasons for smoking, health effects of smoking (both pro and con), history of tobacco smoking, smoking in the media, and tobacco regulation. Tobacco smoking is a very stable topic and is not likely to be changed very frequently. Please re-review it and decide whether it is now Featured article quality. --GoOdCoNtEnT 21:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

• Support - per nom --GoOdCoNtEnT 21:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. When the headings conform to MOS (capitalization and order of sections), and the footnotes have a bibliographic style, I'll have another look. With all those blue links to websites in the footnotes, I can't determine the quality of your references without clicking on each one. There also seems to be a link farm in the External Links. The TOC seems overwhelming, but I'm not sure any of it can be deleted. Sandy 21:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - the page was modified to conform to MOS (capitalization and order of sections) --GoOdCoNtEnT 22:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Please have a look at WP:GTL for the correct ordering of sections. Your TOC is overwhelming: there are one paragraph sections that could be combined into one section. When you've updated the references to include full bibliographic info, I'll take a closer look at the article. Sandy 00:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I upgraded a few refs as an example to get you going. You should also fix your footnotes; the inline cite goes right after the punctuation, with no space. I was pleased to find a number of PMID references, but saw some journal studies with no PMID abstract: you can find the abstracts by using the PubMed search function. Also, there are quite a few statements that need inline citations. Sandy 02:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, regarding the Free London Press report: per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Medicine-related articles), be careful with media reports of medical studies. You can go to PubMed and find the actual study, and link to both the actual study and the media report, which will strengthen the quality of your article and references. You might go to WP:MCOTW for some tips on getting the article up to FA quality. Sandy 02:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Object—2a, 2b and 3a. There's a pervading lack of precision in the writing, and in some places it's over-sectioned; the lead is inadequate (should be at least two paragraphs, and do what WP says it should; it's not comprehensive—no mention of women and smoking, inadequate on the third world, superficial WRT advertising, and US-centric in places, e.g., "Taxation".

• • Spot the redundant word in the opening sentence: "Tobacco smoking is the act of burning the dried leaves of the tobacco plant and inhaling the resulting smoke." (The context of the smoke is so obvious that we don't want "resulting" here.) The rest of the lead needs therapy, but here I'm going to straight to the first para in the History section.

• • "Tobacco smoking, using both pipes and cigars, was common to many Native American cultures of the Americas." This sentence is a bomb-site. Do you need the amplifier "both" here? Can you avoid the repetition of "Americ(an)"? Check that you do mean "common to (emphasising "a common element in many cultures"), and not "common among". Why not: "Tobacco smoking with pipes and cigars was common among Native Americans." That's what it seems to boil down to when the fat melts.
  • "It is depicted in the art of the Classic-era Maya civilization about 1,500 years ago." Perhaps a reference?
  • "The Mayans smoked tobacco and also mixed it with lime and chewed it in a snuff-like substance." You can't chew something in a substance. I'm always looking for ways of avoiding "also", which is usually an admission of defeat. This might do the trick: "The Mayans smoked tobacco, and mixed it with lime to produce a snuff-like substance that they chewed." The comma is optional.
  • "Among the Mayans tobacco was used as an all-purpose medicine, and was widely believed to have magical powers, being used in divinations and talismans." Why the complicated passive voice? Try: "The Mayans used tobacco as an all-purpose medicine; they believed that it had magical powers, and used it in divinations and talismans." But this doesn't solve the awkwardness of listing two very different items—talismans are objects; divinations are processes.

You'll need to enlist the help of other copy-editors to get this up to standard. Try the medicos. They should be interested, given our reach into the third world. Tony 05:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I do not think that excessive links would hurt an article in any way. By the way, we are fixing the errors noted above. Can you please wait till we fix the errors before continuing voting? --GoOdCoNtEnT 03:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Please refer to WP:NOT and WP:EL. Let us know when the article is thoroughly referenced, and I'll take another look. Sandy 18:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. There are some serious issues with accuracy in this article which I am disappointed were never caught by anyone. Amazingly, in this article, it credits an increase in the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain with the effects of nicotine. The information seemed suspicious to me, and to my dismay, I found that the source that was cited did not mention this at all! In fact, as nicotine binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain, it has an "antagonistic" effect, meaning that it inhibits function of these receptors, which is the exact opposite of what acetylcholine does. This alone almost made me want to put out a NPOV on this article and when I saw it was almost a featured article I thought I had better put this notice in here to make sure you correct the factual inaccuracies.

NPOV isn't there. The article still reads very much like an advertisement for trying smoking tobacco or marijuana. It omits to reference the existing WP articles such as "Tobacco and health" and "Smoking cessation", the mere existence of which is supposed to excuse this article in minimizing reference to health effects.