Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pizzagate conspiracy theory/archive1

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) 17 May 2019 [1].

Pizzagate conspiracy theory

Nominator(s): Money emoji

A strange, morbidly fascinating conspiracy theory involving democrats, Alex Jones, a secret society, social media trends, a restaurant, and of course, pizza. The bizzarenes of this conspiracy always fascinated me, and the fact that an article born out of chaotic conspiracy theories actually became rather stable overtime, leaves me to believe that it deserves to be a featured article- pending review, of course. 💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 19:22, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose This is a good subject for an FA, but the prose needs a thorough overhaul to be ready for FAC. A few of the things picked up on a relatively light reading include the following:

Lead

"Pizzagate is a debunked[2][3][4]". Now, refs are supposed to cover all the information that goes before. Here we have three citations supporting four words without it even saying it is a conspiracy theory. I'm not a fan of refs in leads, but I suspect you've added them here to nail the point home because people will challenge it, but I'd move these to the end of the first sentence.
moved.
"discredited and debunked" telling us it's been debunked in two successive sentences isn't great.
removed debunked.
"In the fall of 2016": See MOS:SEASON
Changed to "In march 2016" since thats when the emails were initially hacked, and then added that they were leaked in November of 2016.
"In addition," This just looks like an add-on of something previously forgotten.
Changed sentence structure so the "in addition" makes sense.💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 15:32, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Genesis

"@DavidGoldbergNY" quote. No need for the direct link to the source at the end of the quote: that is what the source does well enough
Removed.
"This conspiracy theory emerged": Given the second sentence starts with a date when it started, this sentence is superfluous
removed sentence, agree that it was unnecessary.
"a white supremacist Twitter account" is there such a thing as this, or is it a Twitter account registered to a WS, or a Twitter account that publishes WS material?
It was a fake troll account that pubished the expected racist propoganda, so I think the third choice if the best one.
"lawyer in New York included": comma after New York
comma'd.
"included a display of a claim that" or just "included a claim that"
Shortened down just to "claimed" since the image itself wasn't all that essential (He essentially just said an abridged version of what was included in the image)
"On October 30, 2016, a white supremacist Twitter account that presented itself as belonging to a Jewish lawyer in New York included a display of a claim that the New York City Police Department, which was searching emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop as part of an investigation into his sexting scandals, had discovered the existence of a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party." This is way too long and contains just too much information. It needs to be broken down into at least two sentences and rephrased for clarity
Trimmed down to: "On October 30, 2016, a Twitter account that posted white supremacist material that presented itself as belonging to a lawyer based in New York, claimed that the New York City Police Department discovered a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner's emails." Tell me if you think I could change it more.💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 16:14, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"Internet users reading John Podesta's emails released by WikiLeaks in early November 2016". Put this in chronological order and rephrase ("It was released onto the WikiLeaks website in early November 2016. Some users speculated…")
Rephrased.
"Internet users" and "Proponents": you need to give some indication as to who these groups are ("Internet users" covers such a large proportion of the world nowadays that it needs to be defined down to a manageable number)
Good point. I think "proponents of the theory makes more sense in context, so I changed it.
Overlinking of "New York Police Department" and inconsistent naming format. Name fully at the first time as "New York City Police Department (NYPD)" and use the abbreviation thereafter.
done.
The second paragraph is clunky and unwieldy and needs re-writing.
Rephrased.💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 16:51, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This needs a good going over before coming back again, and I see it hasn't gone through a peer review first. I think I'd recommend withdrawing this nom, proofing it, getting it copy edited, proofing it again and the, just as you're about to take it to PR, proof it again. I think you are a first-timer at FAC (forgive me if I'm wrong), but if you are, I'll bring your attention to the part of the FAC instructions: "Editors considering their first nomination, and any subsequent nomination before their first FA promotion, are strongly advised to seek the involvement of a mentor". Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 15:09, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild

If this is being withdrawn, then can I recommend putting it through the GOCE Requests service to tidy up some phraseology and make it MOS compliant. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:46, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

There having been no further commentary since the concerns raised by Schro and Gog, I'm going to archive this nom and echo their advice re. copyediting, PR and mentoring. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:08, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 15:08, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.