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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 00:36, 5 March 2008.

John McCain

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I'm nominating this article for featured article because it is very well developed, and i believe it meets WP:FA criteria. 8thstar 17:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: the nominator has never edited the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: As the principal author of the article, I told Sandy when I saw it nominated that I had nothing to do with it being put up and that I didn't think the article is ready for FAC (there are content issues in spots, it needs a prose tightening run, and if nothing else, it needs the fun format work for non-breaking spaces, consistent footnote style, and all that), but that I was interested in seeing other editors' reactions on the "big" issues, such as stability, organization, content in general, etc. And other than the stability question, which I realize there will be sharp disagreement on, I've been encouraged on that count. However, if keeping the FAC open is a burden to the FAC folks, she has my blessing to close it out. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
New Note: The article is in the process of undergoing a significant reduction in size, with material being split out to new subarticles. This is due to complaints on its talk page (and a couple here) about load time issues and WP:SIZE. I would think that this FAC was about to be closed out as "not promoted" anyway, but I believe any FA consideration of the new main article, once finished, should be part of a new FAC. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article stats:

Wasted Time R 443
Ferrylodge 84
Jasper23 83
Satori Son 64
Rjensen 51

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Those allegations are over 8 years old, they were bandied about in 2000, liberal media is just regurgitating old news and calling it a scandal. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 20:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's an election year, and he could well go on to serve two years as US President. In the circumstances we'd be mad to think this article was going to be stable enough to remain featured article quality in the foreseeable future. --TS 20:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2 years as US President?? Nishkid64 (talk) 21:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect Tony meant two *terms*. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 22:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah well, I just wanted to make sure that Tony wasn't a clueless git. *grin* Nishkid64 (talk) 23:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful to know if TS intended an oppose, support or comment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak support. The article is very interesting and informative. Very well cited but I also am unsure if it can stay stable enough to remain featured article quality in the future.--CPacker (talk) 21:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It has been edited about 75 times in the past 24 hours because of the New York Times story. ---CWY2190TC 22:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While the article is well written and definitely well sourced, the article currently fails the stability measure for being a FA. Even if you ignore the kerfuffle from the NY Times article, the article has averaged over 20 edits a day this month and that's two months after the major rework/rewrite by User:Wasted Time R. The article also has 82k of readable text, which is quite a bit outside size guidelines. The should really have less than 50k of readable text before it should be considered for FA. There have been several requests (including one by myself yesterday) to start discussion on the creation of child articles in accordance with summary style guideline but so far nothing has come of it. --Bobblehead (rants) 22:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose! Good fu__ing grief. This is "FA criteria opposite".Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 00:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose - Interesting article, but it is just unstable and will most likely continue to remain so for quite some time. It is well written and cited, however, and I applaud the editors for all their efforts thus-far. Best, Happyme22 (talk) 06:06, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for the purpose of moral support. I have tremendous respect for this effort. It is extremely comprehensive and I believe modern biographies should be held to a higher standard for comprehensiveness with the ease of finding sources on the internet. The article is so long I may have only read half of it so far. I am enjoying learning about this man. However, I am disappointed in the objections thus far as they are generally unconstructive and unappreciative of this effort. I did not read the article with a grammatical interest, but rather an encyclopedic resource interest. I jumped in at a few places to see if it told me as much as I think I should want to know and it did. We certainly don't want New York Times Bestseller length biographies on wikipedia. However, someone threw out an 84k number. That sounds huge and it is. This is the longest biography I have really tried to dig in to on WP as a reviewer of any sort. The problem with the objections is they don't really give good guidance on shrinking the article. They don't point to anything excessive in detail or unencyclopedic in content. There is no stylistic guidance either. If an article is filled with a lot of interesting stuff and is under 100k, I think we should review it for editorial content instead of just saying take a hatchet to it until it is 50k. For this reason, I support until there is a compelling reason not to. I do not think this article fails WIAFA 1(e) which reads "Stable" means that the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and that its content does not change significantly from day to day, except for edits made in response to the featured article process. Many articles of prominent people are tweaked daily by numerous people taking an interest in improving an important page. 20, 75, or 200 edits a day does not preclude an article from FA unless there is edit warring. An active article is still eligible for promotion as WP:GA or WP:FA ( Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton come to mind). My only problem with the breadth and depth of this article is it will make me feel bad no matter what I do over the next few weeks because I am in Buffalo on personal business and will be attempting to improve Jack Kemp toward WP:GA and maybe Seymour Knox II while I am in town. I don't think I will be able to make Kemp look as thorough even with hours and hours in the Buffalo Library while I am in town.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 08:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This article is ready by far. It is well-developed, and exceeds expectations for FA. Meldshal42Comments and SuggestionsMy Contributions 13:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, nice article, but fails the stability criterion. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 16:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now. 1(d). On the one hand, Bush switched his label for himself from "compassionate conservative" to "reformer with results", as part of trying to co-opt McCain's popular message of reform. is the language of a blog, not an encyclopedia. This is by no means alone; it would be a useful experiment to trim out all adjectives and adverbs, unless they contained absolutely no tinge of judgment. Please read WP:Peacock. The article could be much worse than it is; unfortunately, it probably will worsen as the campaign continues, so we should lean over backward now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Where's the judgment? In politics as elsewhere, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; this is not a knock on Bush. This passage — which is directly supported by old-fashioned Arizona Republic and New York Times article cites, nary a blog involved — simply describes a direction the campaign took. Is "popular" the term you are identifying as peacock? That's just a referent back to the New Hampshire results. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Switch" is a small knock; and yes, popular is peacockery in effect; if it is intended as an analysis of the New Hampshire primary, that is neither clear, nor (as far as I can see) sourced; newspaper punditry would be a weak source for this sort of thing anyway, and they seem to report the switch, without mentioning NH. Famously is also peacockery; it is redundant with the quote which follows. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Excellently written article. Stability concerns are irrelevant; Barack Obama, the Democratic frontrunner, is also an FA, so at some point the community decided that current presidential frontrunners can meet the stability criterion. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Mainly, the article is very well referenced. Basketball110 what famous people say 00:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, not stable in an election year and with recent controversies. KnightLago (talk) 01:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I have not read the article and do not plan to oppose or support. However, I wanted to comment that my understanding is that Raul has in the past made it clear that ongoing events related to the subject of an article do not make it "unstable" in the sense intended to invalidate an article for FA. I believe that that criterion is intended to eliminate articles which are undergoing edit wars, and which are about topics too recent for the article to be plausibly stable (e.g. an article about a mass killing less than a week or two in the past). Hence I think some of the opposes above may be mistaking the intention of the stability criterion. Mike Christie (talk) 02:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is the comment I had in mind. Raul doesn't directly address the issue of political candidacies, but he does comment that "active" articles are not necessarily to be eliminated from consideration. I'd interpret this as not eliminating articles about active political figures such as McCain. Mike Christie (talk) 03:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for providing that link, Mike. Again, there is talk page precedent for a significantly principle editor to withdraw a FAC that has been nominated by someone who has never edited it, if that is done early on and before there are significant declarations. Since Wasted Time R didn't opt to withdraw earlier, and this FAC is well underway, reviewers should focus on WP:WIAFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:53, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just want to note that Raul is not God. He's the FA director for some weird reason that nobody has ever really explained and he'll stay there because nobody dares to put this into question. But his opinion about what "stability" means is as important as everyone else's. If people are concerned by this issue, well, they're concerned! and it's ok for them to oppose on these grounds. If Raul isn't concerned, then good for him but he can't ignore the community's sentiment. Pichpich (talk) 04:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pichpich is 100% correct. It gets too esoteric when editors start talking about other editors' "intentions". The recent and likely continuing commotion (and edit removals) about the Vickie Iseman connection is an example of instability in my opinion; if someone else wants to call it stable development, that's their right, but I won't be agreeing. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 21:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose for all its qualities, the fact is that it's not realistic to hope that the article will be stable. I can't even understand why the nomination was not withdrawn or closed early. Matters will be even worse if he manages to win in November. I can see hope for FA if he loses though (keep your fingers crossed everyone). Pichpich (talk) 04:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—1a, 1d, and 1e. WRT 1a, I spot the following problems in the lead, which suggests the entire text needs a copy-edit:
    • The first paragraph is only one sentence.
    • "Both McCain's grandfather and his father were Admirals in the United States Navy." "...and his father" suggests that the person is McCain's great-grandfather.
    • Several missing commas, such as "In late 2007(,)" and "In 1982{,}".
    • In general, some of the sentences are structured awkwardly, such as "In late 2007 he staged a comeback, won several key primaries during January 2008, and by the end of that month was the Republican front-runner once again – a status solidified by his Super Tuesday gains in early February and the subsequent withdrawal of his closest competitor, Mitt Romney." and "In the 2008 presidential election cycle, McCain was the Republican front-runner as the cycle began, but suffered a near-collapse of his campaign in mid-2007 due to financial issues, and due to his support for comprehensive immigration reform."
    • WRT 1d, there are a few sympathetic statements, such as "He then endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war," and "...delivering an emotional, impassioned speech about his time as a POW...". This doesn't seem to be a major issue.
    • However, the main issue at hand is criterion 1e — stability. McCain is a presidential candidate, which means two things: first, the neutrality and comprehensiveness of the article are sure to be the subject of edit wars as new and/or controversial information is released; second, the article will naturally evolve as the election continues. The nomination should wait until at least the end of the election. — Deckiller 05:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for the comments. I've fixed your second, third, and fourth points in the lead. Regarding the first point, this lead uses the same style as FA Barack Obama: first paragraph is a one-sentence basic identification of the person, while second through fourth paragraphs present chronological summary of person's life. Regarding the fifth point, I'll fight for "endure" as accurate, but I'll look to see if the "emotional, impassioned" should be toned down or second-cited. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose at present - This article has improved a lot but it's a work in progress - it is not yet stable, and the nit-picky work needs to be done, as Wasted Time R points out above. I also wonder if it should go through GA before FAC: whether or not that is required, I've seen that the GAC process usually reveals areas that need work and make the eventual FAC more productive. A word on stability: I don't agree that just because this is an article about someone running for President it is necessarily unstable or that candidate articles should be precluded from getting FA status. This is an article about this individual's entire life and career - the presidential race is a small part of it; the overall article is still in need of editing and fixing up, but in principle does not have to wait for the election to achieve FA. Tvoz |talk —Preceding comment was added at 05:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose until 2009 at the earliest. This is precisely why we have the stability criterion. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Recent news coverage over the New York Times report and being a candidate for President of the United States. Article fails to meet stability criteria. Hello32020 (talk) 04:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • 99% of the article is stable. John McCain's life story, his work in the Senate and his political career won't change dramatically. The stability clause has two aspects: edit wars, which this article is not currently involved with, and significant day-to-day changes. While McCain's article will change, it will not do so from day-to-day, and it will not be significant in size or scope. I reiterate that Barack Obama, a FA whose subject has far more press coverage and is in a much greater political battle at the moment, shows that public figures can have stable FAs. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 20:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. Support This article should be able to make it into FA status in the near future. I seem to have become #2 in number of edits to this article, but Wasted Time R has done vastly more than me. I've merely proofread the "Early life and military career," and I hope to get to the rest of the article before long. I'm particularly curious what people think about the list of "controversial quotes" in the section on "Cultural & Political Image." It seems to be a collection of the dumbest things McCain's ever said, and this stuff might be more suitable in Wikiquote than here. At least one person (not me) has objected at the McCain talk page. Wasted Time R's response to that person included the following:


This is an intelligent response to the criticism, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced yet. I was certainly entertained by reading McCain's dumbest remarks. However, couldn't we just as easily say that he's shot off his mouth a lot, without quoting the ten greatest hits? I'm not sure. What do you folks think?Ferrylodge (talk) 23:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The examples are more verifiable, and more neutral, than the generalization. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And shall we remove Obama's article from featured status because it fails to list examples of his platitudes? See this Chicago Tribune article titled "Analyzing Obama's stump speeches; Yes, they are filled with platitudes, but they discuss policy as much as his opponents' speeches do". And this is kind of funny too (not that I'm being partisan, of course).  :-) The columnist Charles Krauthammer gave further example of the platitudes, here. Ferrylodge (talk) 00:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't suggested that the Obama article use the word "platitude" but rather that it give examples. You said that "examples are more verifiable, and more neutral, than the generalization."Ferrylodge (talk) 00:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I haven't suggested that the Obama article mention Krauthammer at all. I've suggested that the Obama article should list a bunch of the Obama quotations like the ones that Krauthammer has listed. As a matter of fairness, why should Wikipedia list McCain's biggest gaffes, without listing Obama's biggest platitudes? See the analogy?Ferrylodge (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Only as an example of comparing apples with oranges. This article does not call them gaffes; it reports that McCain said gook, as he did. (I have not checked whether this is adequately sourced; but I believe it to be readily sourceable.) The conclusion that this is racist rhetoric seems fairly obvious; but it should be attributed or removed if it is not consensus.
Platitude, however, is entirely a matter of judgment (and one to which McCain's speeches are not immune; few politicians' are). To simply quote Obama on hope would itself be neutral, and pointless; his stump speech belongs on Wikisource, not here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
McCain's remarks are well known for a certain coarseness at times. And Obama's are well known, as the Chicago Tribune put it, for “airy rhetoric”. I see no reason to recite a catolog of McCain's coarseness without also cataloging Obama's airy rhetoric. It's both or neither as far as I'm concerned, and I lean toward neither.Ferrylodge (talk) 01:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As for your concerns with another article, they are noted and logged. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really not a big fan of this whole line of analysis. We are not creating a voter information website like the League of Women Voters does; we are writing biographies to be read a year from now and ten and fifty years from now. I don't think that these two articles have to behave in the same fashion. Do you expect the Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson articles to look the same? Wasted Time R (talk) 02:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent)I have not made up my mind, and was interested in hearing what others might have to say. I thought the analogy to the Obama article might be helpful, particularly since that article is FA. But apparently that analogy is deemed disruptive. I would sincerely prefer if others would please try to simply disagree, rather than make unwarranted accusations of disruption. Anyway, let's consider the list of "controversial" McCain quotes on its own merits. Check out this template:

{{Copy section to Wikiquote}}

Why should this template not be applicable to the list of quotes in the McCain article? I have concerns that the list of quotes is currently discussed in a less-than-encyclopedic manner, and I'm unaware of other biographical articles that include lists of quotes. Why is it preferable to not integrate quotes chronologically into the article text? And why is it not undue weight to emphasize controversial quotes by listing so many of these?

Also, I am inclined to think that several items on this list of quotes are given undue attention. For example, there's this paragraph about the word "gook:


That's six footnotes, and 105 words! How about, "Until the year 2000, McCain used the term 'gook' in reference to the individuals who had tortured him in Vietnam, and most Vietnamese Americans did not find that use offensive." Same goes for the other listed quotes.

And here’s 120 words about McCain joking on the Daily Show that he brought back an IED for Stewart:


How about, “McCain coarsely joked on the Daily Show in 2007 that he brought back an IED for host John Stewart.” Why do we need to cite an anti-war Democrat making partisan hay out of that incident? The exchange with Murtha was typical partisan sniping.

I also have difficulty understanding the concept attributed to John Karaagac in the first few sentences of the “Cultural and political image” section. If the notion is that McCain has institutional loyalty to the military which may interfere with his duties as a civilian leader, then that could be phrased much more clearly (and backed up with facts). Also, the following setence in that same section is much too long, and convoluted, and I don't understand what much of it means:


I'll be glad to try to re-write that “Cultural and political image” section of the article if there's some consensus about how it ought to be improved.Ferrylodge (talk) 02:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'll give it a try, and you all can switch it back if you would like.Ferrylodge (talk) 03:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm done. If people decide to keep a list of quotes, I think it's now more concise, less bloated. Plus, the Karaagac and Welch material is now cleaned up.Ferrylodge (talk) 05:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will give Welch another go at some point. He is the most serious analyst with a contrarian viewpoint on McCain, and his perspective likely needs more representation in this article. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The topic is inherently unstable at this time since the subject is the presumptive Republican nominee for the president of the United States. If he is elected, the article will become even more unstable. If he is not elected, we can revisit the issue. Awadewit | talk 01:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you aware that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both featured articles?Ferrylodge (talk) 01:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect. Hillary Clinton is not a featured article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the correction. It was nominated but not promoted. And thanks for formatting the template, I didn't know how to do that.Ferrylodge (talk) 02:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Support When looking over these comments I expected the worst, but the article in question appears more than ready to become FA, aside from the stability issue (which would likely become more evident in the coming months). If the nomination does fail (which is a strong possibility at this point), then perhaps the article should wait until the 2008 election is resolved, or even until sometime in early 2009 when current events can be viewed in retrospect, before another attempt.  Comandante Talk 02:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object per the most recent events. Blnguyen (photo straw poll) 04:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, Article is entirely too long – see WP:SS; “early life and military career” and “political career” sections are long enough to be articles themselves – the “political career” section an especially good candidate (no pun intended) for a split. I’m also concerned about NPOV. Sentences such as “He did not take well to those of higher rank arbitrarily wielding power over him…”, although sourced and no doubt true, are made, in this case, in the context of discussing his “rebellious” nature and run-ins with authority (typically negative comments), but end up being backhanded compliments. This may certainly not be the intent, but an article satisfying “brilliant prose” should not leave a reader doubting the authors’ motives. Additionally, displaying the ribbon icons for his military decorations is over the top. By all means, discuss them (prose > list, too), but this isn’t a trophy case, folks. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 16:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The author's motivation is establishing the biographical subject's lifelong character. The guy that got the demerits in school is the same guy that gave the finger during the North Vietnamese propaganda show, that makes rude or politically incorrect remarks, that is a maverick on issues, that has ticked off talk radio and movement conservatism. If you read any of the McCain biographies (the two Timberg books, the Alexander book, the Arizona Republic multi-part series, McCain's own books), you'll see the same character theme established. These aren't "negative comments" or "compliments", they are just McCain. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral It is not easy to make an FAC - let alone on a presidential candidate.

  • Sections under political carrer are first: U.S. Congressman and more children, U.S. Senate career begins, Keating Five, A "maverick" senator, And then a series of years - I'd like to see consistency.

--Kiyarrllston 03:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. In the last few days, the article has been undergoing a large-scale reduction in size, per WP:SIZE, WP:SUMMARY, and load time complaints, with much material being sent out to a series of subarticles. This process is not yet done, and may take awhile to settle out. The article that all the above reviewers commented upon no longer exists. In addition, the formatting work for an FA-quality article was never done. Doing a reduction of this scale is non-trivial and it is quite possible that the essence of the subject has been lost. I would want a period of smoothing and watching for opinions as to what was left in and what was left out, before another FA were to be attempted. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:33, 5 March 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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