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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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 2014-09-25 [1].

Michelle Obama

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Nominator(s): TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:47, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Notified
Projects: WP:OBAMA, WP:BIOG, WP:FASHION, WP:ILLINOIS, WP:CHICAGO, WP:POLITICS, WP:WMNHIST, Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government
Leading editors: User:Tvoz, User:Loonymonkey, User:Bobblehead, User:Happyme22, User:HughD


This article is about the First Lady of the United States. Now that she has been in office for 6 years, there have been a lot of eyes on the article and there has been a lot of refinement since the last nomination 4.5 years ago. This is a very odd nomination. Among the 18 people with at least a dozen edits to the article, no one has edited the article since November 2013. Thus, we can see that the article is now very stable. I think it is greatly improved over the previously nominated versions. Although I remain the leading editor in terms of number of edits, the vast majority of those were prior to FAC1. Nonetheless, I will take the lead on this nomination.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:47, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Noahcs

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Comments - Several things stand out to me when I read this:  Noahcs  (Talk) 15:40, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - It's a tough subject to write about because so many things overlap with her. This article has to balance information about Michelle, Barack, her role as first lady, his presidency, and their family as a whole. I think the nominator has done a good job, but I'm not sure about Featured Status just yet  Noahcs  (Talk) 20:19, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The main problem is that it just jumps around a lot without relying on summarizing issues. It's just not tightly edited. This section in particular is a mess. It talks about her hiring Jackie Norris then goes to military families then to criticism of her being a "feminist nightmare" and then to Sasha and Malia in China?  Noahcs  (Talk) 03:56, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from WereSpielChequers

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Comment This version

  • On March 20, 2012, Michelle Obama said her husband's Supreme Court nominees will weigh in on decisions that will determine whether Americans can "love whomever they choose." "Jarrett, Michelle Obama pushed for gay marriage". Washington Wire. 5/9/12. Retrieved January 22, 2013. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) That link is to an unrelated photo at Time. The date 5/9/12 is ambiguous and should be turned into prose.
  • On her first trip abroad in April 2009, she toured a cancer ward with Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Do we need this? What does it tell us? Mr Stephen (talk) 11:14, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support I've made a few tweaks, hope you like them, if not its a wiki. I've checked prose and a couple of the sources. This is broadly there, glad you didn't trivialise this. But I have a couple of queries. I think there is a clash between "As the wife of a Senator, and later the First Lady, she has become a fashion icon and role model for women" and the later bits about her being the least known candidate's spouse. She may still be less well known than Hilary Clinton's spouse, but there were other candidates in that race. Do you have sources for her being a fashion icon as a senator's wife, or would it be more accurate to say something like "As the wife of a presidential candidate, and especially as First Lady, she has become a fashion icon and role model for women". "Obama advocated of her husband's policy priorities by promoting bills that support it." may make sense in American English but to me it jars "Obama advocated for her husband's policy priorities by promoting bills that support it." would I think be slightly better; if it means that she lobbied Senators and Congressmen to support certain bills then I would prefer that you say that. ϢereSpielChequers 23:36, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SNUGGUMS

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Oppose I'm sorry Tony, but this is not FA-material.....

Infobox
Lead
Family and Education
Early life and ancestry
  • Unlink Fraser Robinson III since he doesn't have his own article
  • "Her grandfather Fraser Robinson"..... either this is missing "Jr." or you forgot "great" before "grandfather"
  • "Irish and other European roots"..... be more specific than just "European"
  • "son of her grandfather's sister" would be one's "first cousin once-removed", not "first cousin"
  • "The family enjoyed playing games such as Monopoly and reading"..... how is this significant?
  • I think if her father was an alcoholic who left his family or beat his wife, it would be encyclopedic. This is a rare statement of the opposite, depicting a close-knit family. I picture them getting in a wood-grained panelling station wagon and doing all kinds of things together as a family. It paints a very clear picture for me and thus I view it as quite helpful. I have played scrabble with my grandparents, but I don't recall playing board games with my parents. I have a distinct feeling about her family from this statement.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:24, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Craig should link to "Craig Robinson (basketball)", not "Craig Robinson (basketball coach)"
  • Why did she and Craig skip second grade, exactly?
Family life
  • "The couple's first date was to the Spike Lee movie Do the Right Thing"..... trivial
  • "for their two children"..... daughters, let's be more specific
  • "Now, Jarrett is" → "Jarret is now"
  • "However, despite their family obligations and careers, they continue to attempt to schedule date nights"..... is "date nights" really the best term to describe their time together?
  • I think that term is O.K. My problem with this content is that it is from a pre-White House source. We need to make it clear that this was a statement about their pre-White House life. I have added the phrase "while they lived in Chicago". If we were talking about their White House lives, time together might not be regarded as date nights. I think what they probably had in Chicago amounted to date nights.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:59, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Info on Malia and Sasha's education would belong on articles about them, not Michelle
  • The entire fourth paragraph simply doesn't belong- info on Malia and Sasha's education would belong in their own articles rather than Michelle's, the other bits are trivial
Education and early career
  • "took advanced placement classes,was a member"..... needs a space after the comma
Religion
  • I'm not convinced this warrants a separate section. Her Methodist upbringing could perhaps be mentioned in a previous section, but the rest doesn't really seem needed. In any case, such a subsection doesn't belong under a section for "family".
Career
First Lady of the United States
Let's Move!
  • Unlink Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Barack Obama
Public image and style
  • The fifth paragraph is fluff, and the last two sentences of the first paragraph are trivial.
  • It seems that WP tends to be a pop culture focused encyclopedia and FLOTUS articles seem to have a lot of ligher fare. The content that you are asking to have removed seems to be consistent with the more popular content elements of WP and the generally accepted practices for FLOTUS articles.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
References

There's simply too many problems right now, better luck next time. I suggest withdrawal and taking to peer review before renomination. Snuggums (talk / edits) 08:19, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Designate

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Comment Were any of the full-length biographies consulted for this article? All of the inline citations are to news sites. One of the criteria is "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". —Designate (talk) 14:09, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Crisco 1492

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  • Oppose for now. If there are three full length biographies of the subject, yet they are not referenced even once, and the main contributor has not consulted them, how can we say that this article is comprehensive? Even if the current article is a reasonably thorough look at events in her life (possible; it looks reasonable), the three biographies likely include analysis which is useful for improving on the causality of events, and discussion of how her actions as First Lady (and before) have been seen by others. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:08, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment -- Not only does the article eschew the biographies as sources, I couldn't see clear evidence of any books being used as sources. Articles and online sources of course aid in spotchecking, but they don't offer a level of comfort that a broad range of references has been employed. The article isn't suffering from excess weight at the moment so I think further sources could only be a benefit, and that should take place away from the FAC process (I might just add that even given its current length the lead seems light on). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:43, 25 September 2014 (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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