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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 not promoted 15:43, 5 April 2008.

Early life and military career of John McCain

[edit]

Withdraw. The re-citing/re-framing course I've embarked upon is very time-consuming, and I haven't even started on the hard sections yet (Vietnam/POW). And when that's done, the whole thing will need another copyedit/MOS/extlink sweep. Due to various reasons, I will not be able to complete this within a reasonable timeframe for this FAC. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Self-nomination. No previous nomination, although a good deal of this material was present in the old, pre-split-up John McCain when it had this failed FAC a few weeks ago. I'm nominating this article for featured article because unlike that case, this time the main editor is behind the nomination, and the stability concerns regarding the presidential election that troubled that FAC are not relevant to this article's scope. Furthermore, while this is a subarticle in the WP:SUMMARY sense, I believe it is a well-defined biographical narrative with its own beginning, middle, and end, and thus is worthy of FA consideration. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:35, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - I see a minor problem with pronoun usage, i.e. not using them as often as they should be used, but that is surely no reason to object to this wonderfully written and heavily referenced article. Happyme22 (talk) 21:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All links checked out fine with the tool. Sources look good. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
bioguide.congress.gov seems to be down at the moment. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not love) 00:25, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It was working as of a couple of days ago. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, it's back up now. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not love) 17:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - This is a minor point, but the article is not consistent with regard to placing periods and commas inside or outside of quotation marks. E.g. ...earning him membership in the "Century Club". versus ...in what biographer Robert Timberg called a "manic, intuitive, highly idiosyncratic way." Similar situations with commas. According to Wikipedia, the American convention is to always put periods and commas inside quotes; the British convention is to do so only when they are intended as part of the quotation. While it doesn't matter which convention we follow, the article should be consistent one way or the other. Kier07 (talk) 07:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm following WP:PUNC's logical quotation system. The punctuation is not part of "Century Club", but it is part of Timberg's original sentence clause (in his case, a comma not a period, because he added another clause, but the "sense of the punctuation" per WP:PUNC is the same). Wasted Time R (talk) 11:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then you are being inconsistent. "Logical punctuation" would require that, if punctuation appears inside the quotation marks, it must be exactly what appears in the original text. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends against logical punctuation, on the grounds that this degree of precision is impractical, and an American probably should not use it unless he is one of the minority to whom it comes naturally. MOS, as often, is the combined prejudices of two or three cranks, and should be ignored. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm... not sure I understand, Wasted Time R. Suppose we follow the example in Wikipedia's punctuation guide. Let's say Arthur said "The situation is deplorable." Then by your logic, could we not also write, Arthur said that the situation is "deplorable." Because the period is part of what Arthur said. But my understanding is that deplorable is a fragment, so you instead would write Arthur said that the situation is "deplorable". Similarly, "manic, intuitive, highly idiosyncratic way" is a fragment, so I'd think you'd put the period outside. Anyway... this is probably not a significant point, especially as you've already considered it; just thought I'd mention it and let you do with it what you will. Cheers! Kier07 (talk) 02:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've changed that instance to be period outside the quote, and another instance like it as well. I've also changed one comma-quote case that didn't meet the logical quotation bill. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments.
    • It would be nice to know if the plane survived his first crash, before 1960, since a point is made that the second plane he crashed did survive.
      I've made a change to indicate it sank to the bottom. Presumably it is still there. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • McCain had by now garnered the reputation of a serious aviator. McCain and his fellow pilots were frustrated by Rolling Thunder's infamous micromanagement from Washington. These adjectives are uncalled-for; infamous really must go. I have no doubt that it is McCain's opinion; we should not have one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      The "serious avaitor" is necessary because until then, as the article describes, he had not been very serious. As for Operation Rolling Thunder, it's just about everyone's opinion that it was a strategic failure, with interfere from Washington a key reason. Read our article on it. Heard stories about LBJ reading over maps of North Vietnam and picking out targets? That's this. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Nevertheless, infamous is an expression of opinion. Even in Rolling Thunder, it would be better to give the evidence; here, silence and the link is better. (Churchill did similar things; but he had a better war.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Footnote 77, which is McCain's own story in two different versions, is the sole source for most of McCain's time in Hanoi. This really does require the confirmation of a secondary source, whether or not a less reputable version has one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      This is a valid concern, but one without easy answers. McCain was in either isolated interrogation settings, isolated hospitals, or solitary confinement, for much of the time the events here are described. We do have independent confirmation of some things, such as his injuries and poor medical care there (since American doctors examined him upon return), his refusal to accept out-of-order release (since the North Vietnamese mentioned it at the time to American officials in Paris) and his "confession" (since it was later broadcast). There are some memoirs by other POWs that confirm other fragments of McCain's story, and I can try to cite those more. McCain's mistreatment is consistent with the handling other POWs got; indeed, others were often treated even worse. Given all this, his biographers and mainstream journalists have accepted his account as true, and on the same basis we do as well. Thanks for your comments here. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, I realize that all that is a problem, and it is why I did not say "independent", I said "secondary". If his biographies (for this, especially hostile biographies) accept this, cite them; then it's not just our judgment.
      Journalists depend. Many news stories are not reliable sources on things like this; they haven't exercised independent judgment on McCain's background, they've looked up his autobiography (or our article, God save the mark.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I chose to cite the U.S. News & World Report more often than Faith of My Fathers or the biographies because (a) it was freshest, being written weeks after he returned rather than decades, (b) it was unfiltered by his later political career, which might cause him to shade the account (although in practice, it doesn't), and (c) it's freely available online, which allows more readers to check it for themselves and get the more in-depth story (since, for example, I've cut the description off above the level of the different interrogators such as the Cat, the Prick, Slopehead, Soft Soap Fairy, et al). Rather than jumble the cites around, perhaps I should write a footnote explaining the situation as I did above. As for hostile biographers, there aren't any that I know of for this period (Matt Welch and, I gather, David Brock are hostile to his later "maverick" political persona). Wasted Time R (talk) 00:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Compelling prose and good citations (although, as Carabinieri said above, some non-autobiographical support would improve it.) This is also the most stable of the McCain series, so there shouldn't be any problem with that part of th FA criteria. Coemgenus 15:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Several people have suggested less reliance on McCain's own autobiographical statements. Maybe one way around this would be to simply attribute statements or characterizations to McCain in the text of the article, if he's the one that's cited for making them. That way, someone reading through the text of the article will easily see (without consulting the footnotes) what's from McCain and what's not.Ferrylodge (talk) 01:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I strongly object to this suggestion. We have sentence-by-sentence, sometimes clause-by-clause citing in this article for a reason, so that everybody can see exactly where every statement comes from. Adding in-the-text attributions is completely redundant, clutters the article even worse, and gives undue weight to the notion that McCain is an unreliable narrator (a notion that no WP:RS supports). I'm willing to continue swapping out McCain cites for biographer/journalist cites that are really equivalent (I already screwed up one case where they weren't, and had to revert), but that's it. And there will still be a good number of McCain cites left in the article: direct quotes, representations of thought, pieces of mundane chronology that no one else supplies. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I can understand your reluctance, but I strongly believe that negative statements in the text of the article about McCain, that were uttered by McCain himself, ought to be attributed to him IN THE TEXT (not just the footnotes). It is well known that his mouth is often considered a "WMD" (see Wasted Time R's discussion of that very point in the sub-article on McCain's image).[1] If he turns that WMD on himself, which he occasionally does, this article should say so in the text. If he says that he was a little jerk, then we should not simply make a statement like that in the text of the article as if it were an objective fact, but rather should explicitly attribute it to McCain IN THE TEXT.Ferrylodge (talk) 14:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It's very well-researched and well-written, thanks to WTR's efforts. And, he has been amenable to a few tweaks here and there that I think improve it. It's not perfect, but seems to meet FA criteria.Ferrylodge (talk) 02:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not going to withdraw my support at this point, but I do disagree with some recent edits by WTR (e.g. these). I appreciate that WTR has made some other edits to the article that address some of my concerns. Also, it is possible that my disagreement with these particular edits is overblown or unjustified, in which case I hope other people will say so. The problem here, as I see it, is that information from McCain's autobiography constitutes primary source material; such material can be used in Wikipedia, but should be used with special care. See WP:PSTS. In this instance, info from the primary source was properly presented in the text of the article as McCain's own characterization, rather than as objective fact. However, the attribution to McCain has now been relegated to the footnotes. I disagree that attributing McCain's own characterizations to himself in the text somehow implies that those characterizations are dishonest; rather, it simply alerts the reader that those characterizations have not (to our knowledge) been confirmed by a reliable biographer who has consulted sources other than McCain's own autobiography. As Wasted Time R has noted in an edit summary, McCain's memory is not perfect,[2] and it is well-known that he is prone to self-deprecation,[3] as well as controversial remarks.[4] This article already attributes many things to McCain, so I do not see why the same cannot be done in the few instances in question.[5] McCain recalls that he was frequently disciplined for fighting in school; we do not know whether a biographer would say the same thing after interviewing his classmates (e.g. a biographer might find that it happened occasionally instead of frequently, or that many of the fights were started by other students, et cetera). Likewise, McCain has said that his relationship with Nancy Reagan turned cold for a while following his divorce from Carol McCain, but that eventually the friendship with Mrs. Reagan (who employed Carol) returned; we do not know whether a biographer would say the same thing after interviewing Mrs. Reagan (e.g. a biographer might find that she characterized the relationship as strained and awkward, rather than cold and unfriendly). Anyway, I will not withdraw my support at this time, because it's generally a very good article, and WTR has tried to address my other concerns.Ferrylodge (talk) 16:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My responses to this are all on the talk page, I won't repeat them here. (Although I object to Ferrylodge's characterization of my edit summary — that's not what Timberg was getting at.) If I ever get past discussing this issue, I will continue my sweep through the article to eliminate McCain cites as much as possible. I also now plan to augment the footnote for each remaining McCain cite with an explanation for why it's being used. Wasted Time R (talk) 17:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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