User:Weregerbil/Coatrack

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This article is the official policy of absolutely nobody.

A coatrack article is a Wikipedia article that obstensibly discusses the nominal subject, but in reality is a cover for a tangentially related bias subject. The nominal subject is used as an empty coatrack, which ends up being mostly obscured by the "coats".

Coatrack articles can be born out of purposeful desire to promote a particular bias, or they can be born accidentally through unintended excessive focus on some part of the nominal subject.

Coatrack article is a shameless protologism.

Contents 1 Typical coatracks 2 "But it is true!" 3 Fact picking 4 What to do about coatracks 5 What is not a coatrack 6 How's this example?

[edit] Typical coatracks

An example of a coatrack article is A Journalist Mentioned It In Passing:

Joe Q. Random is a journalist. One day he wrote an article about Conspiracy Theory X. The main points of Conspiracy Theory X are as follows ... followed by page after page about the conspiracy theory.

or Some Dude Did It So It Must Be Good:

Jim B. Ean is an athlete. One day he converted from religion X to religion Y. Isn't it nice how he saved his soul that way? Here are some more fun facts about religion Y, the greatest religion in the world: ...

or The Criticism Gambit:

A halibut is a species of fish.

==Criticism==

It has been reported^{(crackpotreference)(nutcaseblog)(outofcontextquote)} that halibuts may be evil invading robots from outer space. I shall now take this opportunity to give you a long lecture on extraterrestrial robots: ...

There have been genuine cases where only the first sentence of an article is really about the nominal subject, with several pages following about the bias subject.

[edit] "But it is true!"

The contents of a coatrack article can be superficially true. However, the mere excessive volume of the bias subject creates an article that, as a whole, is less than truthful.

When confronted with a potential coatrack article, an editor is invited to ask: what impression does an uninitiated reader get from this article?

If an article about a journalist mostly describes a conspiracy article he once wrote, the reader will leave the article with the false impression that the journalist's career is mostly about that conspiracy theory, and he is a vocal advocate of the theory.

An article might have a disproportially large "criticism" section, giving the impression that the nominal subject is hotly contested by most people. When in fact the criticism is merely selected opinions, and the section is larger than any real controversy. This, too, gives the reader a false impression about reality even though the details may be true.

The coats hanging from the rack hide the rack — the nominal subject gets hidden behind the sheer volume of the bias subject.

Thus the article, although superficially true, leaves the reader with a thoroughly incorrect understanding of the nominal subject.

A coatrack article fails to give a truthful impression of the subject.

[edit] Fact picking

Often the main tool of a coatrack article is fact picking. Instead of finding a balanced set of information about the subject, a coatrack goes out of its way to find facts that support a particular bias.

A common fact picking device is listing great amounts of individual peoples' quotes criticising of the nominal subject, while expending little or no effort mentioning that the criticism comes from a small fraction of people. That small fraction thus gets a soapbox that is far larger than reality warrants.

Even though the facts may be true as such, the proportional volume of the hand-picked facts drowns other information, giving a false impression to the reader.

[edit] What to do about coatracks

An appropriate response to a coatrack article is always a brutal reduction of the time spent on the bias subject.

In extreme cases, when the nominal subject is barely notable and there is little chance the article can be salvaged, deletion of the entire article may be appropriate.

An editor who has created a coatrack article is not in a position to demand other editors to fill out the article so that more time is spent on non-bias matters. Editors may fix an article by balancing it out with more facts but are in no way required to do so.

It is inappropriate to "even out the percentage of bias" by adding fluff, such as minute details of a journalist's personal life. These scarves, hats, and gloves, along with the coats, further obsurcure the coatrack, and is fair game for cropping.

[edit] What is not a coatrack

An article about an astronaut might mostly focus on his moon landing. A moon trip that took only tiny fraction of the astronaut's life takes up most of the article. But that does not make it a coatrack article. The event was a significant moment in the subject's life, and his main claim to notability. A reader is not misled by the focus on the moon trip.

[edit] How's this example?

Breast implant. Claims to be about breast implants, but appears to actually be entirely devoted to ruptured implants and medical harm to implant owners. Every other angle & subject is glossed over, while reams and reams of medical data are piled on regarding pain & suffering from ruptured implants... creepy! Kasreyn 06:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)