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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 19:53, 12 November 2009 [1].

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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Review commentary

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Toolbox
Notified: Jossifresco, Jkelly, Ludvikus, Humus sapiens, Goodoldpolonius2, Wikiproject Jewish history
  • I am nominating this featured article for review because
  1. the lead section was overlong, uninformative, and confusing.
  2. Inspecting the talkpage revealed that others have acknowledged issues with the article.
  3. Inspection of the listed feature article revision reflects an article that is more readable and better follows WP guidelines.
-Verdatum (talk) 04:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose:
1) The confusion is due to the complexity of the subject matter, not the writing of the lead.
2) The article has already been edited to satisfy those "others" who raised the issue.
3) "Inspection of the listed feature article revision reflects an article that is more readable and better follows WP guidelines." Don't know what the boldface item is.
--Ludvikus (talk) 17:23, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Au contraire. The lede is too long, and—as is your style—overlinked. If other Featured Articles can get by with three- or four-paragraph ledes, there's no reason why this one can't. Please read WP:LEDE.
  2. Your "improvements" have generally made the article harder to read, not easier to understand. Try to differentiate between important information, which needs to be discussed, and unimportant trivia, which should be excised. This is an encyclopedia article for a general reader, not a specialist.
  3. What it means is that this version of the article, which is the version that was promoted to Featured Article status, is better than the current version.
  4. A few other problems I noticed:
  • Several portions of the article lack footnotes, including some entire paragraphs.
  • There are quotations without citation. See, for example, "Structure and themes" (all of which may be WP:OR).
  • Avoid editorial interjections ("the notorious Protocols").
  • Decide whether the title is "the Protocols" or The Protocols. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 21:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • [Book covers]:
  1. File:The Protocols and World Revolution.pdf and File:Praemonitus Praemunitus - The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion - The Beckwith Company (1920).jpg don't have a licence.
  2. Anyway, it is unnecessary to show essentially the same book cover three times, and as they should be free I don't see why a non-free use rationale is necessary.
  3. File:Pavel Krushevan.jpg doesn't have a source or author.
  4. File:Protocols of the Elders of Zion 2005 Syria al-Awael.jpg is at an unnecessarily high resolution for a book cover; it should be reduced in size.
  5. The non-free use rationale for File:Mexico low.jpg doesn't make sense. What has the cover of the book got to do with its contents? How does the cover illustrate the book is untrue?
  6. File:Japan low.jpg is missing a fair-use rationale.
  7. Does File:Protocols KL08.jpg need a fair-use rationale for the clearly seen book cover?
DrKiernan (talk) 14:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose:
  1. This item item was published in the USA in 1920, is in the public domain, and is the second edition of the infamous plagiarism.
  2. There's no such thing as the "same" book. There are only divers editions, produced at different times. These three Title pages are taken from the seminal, original, publications, and as such are extreme notable, unlike contemporary imprints.
  3. The source for Pavel Krushevan will be supplied.
  • Strongly support:
4., 5., 6., 7. None of these items are notable and should be deleted.
--Ludvikus (talk) 17:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree that the lede is much worse than the lede that gained FA status. The current version is far too detailed. A lede is supposed to be an introduction, a capsule, a summary of the more detailed article to follow. Instead, we find things like a typescript copy from 1919 and where it is archived. A reader has to wade through five and a half paragraphs of not very interesting dates and names before the reader even finds out what the content of the book in question is. --jpgordon::==( o ) 23:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree too. But that can be fixed I think. Unfortunately, I find not many editors around like there used to be. I find quite a bit od duplication. Also, there's too much contemporary stuff at the end which makes the article too long. However, there's been new research around in the lat few years which emphasis the circulation of the typescript in 1919. I personally may need two weeks to help restructure the article. Also, it would be nice if we could have a Wiki project page for this article. I have no experience in that. I don't know who the editors are who with to assist in restructuring the article. --Ludvikus (talk) 06:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the article currently is nowhere near FA status; for one thing, doesn't the lead usually come before the contents? Also, this paragraph appears to end in midsentence: "It also appeared in 1919 in the Public Ledger (Philadelphia) as a pair of serialized newspaper articles. But all references to "Jews" were replaced with references to Bolsheviki as an expose by the journalist and subsequently highly respected Columbia University School of Journalism dean, [15]". I applaud the Herculean efforts of Ludvikus; perhaps the article can be cleaned up before it gets demoted (though that is where I think it is headed). Mario777Zelda (talk) 23:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - Future participants in this review, you don't need to support or oppose anything. This is just to evaluate what aspects of the article could be improved, and what aspects fail the Featured article criteria. If appropriate, a discussion to delist this article is started after this step. This process of featured article review is detailed at WP:FAR. -Verdatum (talk) 05:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this discussion should proceed to the next stage, Featured article removal candidate. After a week of intensive editing, some major issues still exist, in my opinion.

  • I still think that there are too many images at the top of the page (though this point has been addressed previously).
  • Large portions of the lead consist of very awkward, if not unreadable, prose. The lead is also overly long (and even with its length, may not summarize the article fully).
  • The first paragraph of the first section after the lead still ends in midsentence.
  • The shortened version of the title is inconsistent: it's seen as the Protocols, the Protocols, and The Protocols (at least).
  • The article is poorly organized. The section "The Times exposes a forgery, 1921", for example, is sandwiched between discussions of the book's imprints in various languages.
  • The lead sentence of the "Fiction" section reads: "As it turned the text a plurality of literary source besides Maurice Joly." What?
  • Some sections require further references, including the "Title Variations" section and the "Middle East" and "Eugene Sue" subsections.

Mario777Zelda (talk) 00:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose, structure, citations, lead, images. Also note the recent change to the criteria requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:10, 28 October 2009 (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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