Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mars Society/archive2

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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 FrB.TG via FACBot (talk) 14 January 2024 [1].

Mars Society[edit]

Nominator(s): CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:17, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about an organization that advocate for human exploration of Mars.

I have tried to improve this article to the best of my ability since the last FAC a year ago. Given the lack of reliable sources, I do not think I can add any more content into the article. Please forgive for any mistakes/blunders I have made in the article or in this FAC. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:17, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – Harrias[edit]

  • Per MOS:INFOBOX, the infobox "summarizes key features of the page's subject". As such, nothing should only appear in the infobox (and therefore, unless there is anything controversial, nothing in the infobox should need citing there). From what I can see, the 'Tax ID no.', 501(c) legal status, and headquarters only appear in the infobox. These should either be replicated in the main body or removed. (For the Tax ID #, I'd recommend removal).
  • "The society's aims are garnering support for human Mars missions from the public.." could be more tightly phrased as "The society's aims are garnering public support for human Mars missions.."
  • Why aren't Robert Zubrin and Elon Musk wikilinked on first mention in the prose?
  • "and has chapters in Canada, Australia, Japan, Europe, etc." What does "etc" mean here? Everywhere? A few other places? Also, as the United States has not been mentioned to this point of the article, it leads the reader to conclude it isn't a US-based organisation, despite what the infobox suggested.
  • "As such, they favored alternatives that are often impractical.." Why are they impractical? Who says they are impractical?
  • "The testimony seems to be unmoving to the committee.." What?
  • It seems weird to have Background and founding after Operations and structure.
  • "..and applied to the University of Washington for researching nuclear fusion." I don't think that is grammatically correct.
  • "..and started working at Martin Marietta a year later after graduation." In a Featured article, I shouldn't need to click on a link to understand its relevance to the article, but here I have no idea what "Martin Marietta" is.
  • "at $20 billion;  one-twentieth the cost  of the Mars mission plan in NASA's Space Exploration Initiative ($250–$500 billion)." Given we have the figures, it is clear that it isn't necessarily "one-twentieth": "significantly" would suffice, though it could be written more fluently.
  • "The book's reception is positive, with over four thousand letters and emails sent to Zubrin by readers." Firstly, I can't find this mentioned in the source; secondly, the tense seems off; and thirdly, it feels pretty NPOVy.

Honestly, overall this article doesn't have the look or feel of a Featured article. In my opinion the prose consistently falls short of the "professional standard" required by WP:FACR. The article has an "as of 2017" which makes it appear six (nearly seven) years out of date. There seems to be little to no critical opinion of the Mars Society, no commentary on whether Musk is still involved and whether his space projects tie-in with the society. Unfortunately as this stage I would recommend withdrawing the article, and following the advice given during the previous nomination, to successfully nominate the article at GA, and then maybe explore either a peer review or a copy-edit from the WP:GOCE. Harrias (he/him) • talk 16:39, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you a lot for reviewing the article. I'm very sorry if the coverage of this article is a bit lacking. I've spent money and bought many books about the Mars Society and I've made use of the Wikipedia Library to access even more journal articles (that mostly talk about MDRS/FMARS). If you need to verify information in the article, I'm more than glad to email it to you. That being said, there are very few reliable and independent sources that describe Mars Society's operations, and frankly, I don't know what else to add any more other than details about MDRS/FMARS (which is discouraged by the last GAN as it distracts the reader). The Mars Society is a very obscure topic and is mostly known because of Robert Zubrin and Musk's brief stint there before founding SpaceX.
As for sending this article to GAN/PR/GOCE, I have to say that I have had terrible experiences with them. It takes forever to get a GA review/PR and if you are not a regular there, the reviewer often only does cursory reviews and even just straight up being unresponsive (see Talk:SpaceX Starship). I also asked past reviewers of the last FAC a few weeks ago, only to receive no response and no acknowledgment. The past two years on Wikipedia have been a very demoralizing experience for me. So once again, thank you a lot for giving a proper review of this article. I really do appreciate it. But I will not withdraw this FAC because I have lost patience with the GAN/PR/GOCE processes. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Harrias, me and User:CarlosFelix1 have copyedited the article. I hope that the article is now closer to FA standard and I urge you to take a look at the article again. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:13, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closing comment: sorry CactiStaccingCrane but this has now been open for more than three weeks and has feedback from only one user and that too a rather negative one. With that in mind, I'm timing this out. The usual two-week wait before another nomination will apply.
Regarding your feeling of discouragement, I understand that FAC can be a frustrating experience especially when fewer people show up to review your article. Perhaps try to review other people's nominations and find editors who have interest in similar topics to collaborate with. FrB.TG (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2024 (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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