Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Westboro Baptist Church/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Westboro Baptist Church

I nominated this page because I believe that it meets the criteria for a featured article. It is truthful, neutral (considering the circumstances,) and extensive. It is a fine example of what Wikipedia can achieve. Scienceman123 00:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Object style inconsistancies, but more importantly, article seems to have some ulterior motives (see closing paragraph)
    • Do we really need a link to the website in the lead? This part would appear on the main page, I think, and seems awkward
    • Article is very long (74k)
    • Provides an external link to a google maps of the compound in the body of article. Is this really necessary? We don't tend to do this with other articles mentioning buildings where the street adress is widely known.
    • Meticulous detail, including uncited speculation about whether they bought a new Ford F-150 or merely gave it a paint job... again, is that really necessary?
    • Inconsistant citation style usage. WP:FN would be best but is by no means required. The problem is that some citations are just [url] style that don't appear in the references section. Should really be adapted to the citation style of the rest of the article.
    • Uncited paragraph about the composition of the congregation, claims to debunk the claim that only 80% are related to Phelps by pointing out that there are "about 100" members, and Phelps has 90 relatives. Yet it fails to establish that all of his 90 relatives are members (in fact some aren't). Seems quite problematic.
    • More uncited claims... like "played a large role in getting Phelps Sr.'s children accepted there.", "WBC theology resembles Hyper-Calvinism, but pushes the doctrine even further than Hyper-Calvinists."
    • Uncited claim "some of which appear to be inherently contradictory". Seems to be original research. If not OR it's definently pointed and POV, rather than using the "purpose" section to explain their purpose, it just tries to slyly critisize it.
    • Selected quotes seem pointed towards making Phelps sound crazy and whatnot. I realize he probably is, but still, choosing the worst quotes you can find is not really good.
    • The Hockenbargers are allegedly members of Christian Identity one paragraph, then a few sections later they are declared to be members for sure. Huh?
    • And that's just 1/3 of the article. You get the idea. The whole thing seems to be A) an attack against WBC by chronicling as much bad press as possible and B) meticulous, extreme collection of minute information about them. Instead of explaining WBC to the reader, it is laid out and written more in the spirit of "Okay, here's the dirt on these wackos..." This simply doesn't strike me as a very encyclopedic approach. --W.marsh 02:57, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but object:
  • Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at WP:GTL.
  • This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.
  • Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.
  • The article has a few or too many inline external links, which hamper the readibility of the article. Please convert them to footnotes, preferably in the cite.php format recommended by WP:WIAFA.
  • Thanks, AndyZ t 14:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)