Wikipedia:Featured article review/Milgram experiment/archive1

Milgram experiment

Review commentary

"Brilliant prose" promotion, Psychology notified. Sandy 07:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

From the list of articles lacking citations, I did all I could trying to clean this article up, but I've hit the wall, and don't think it's FA material. Most alarming, there were several important inaccurate facts in the article (which had been there for years), so every source needs to be located and checked. I found and read a PDF copy of the original study and also verified the same numbers from another source: the numbers had been altered (a 26 to a 27, 65% to 67.5%), the article was reporting that an "actor" had been hired, when it was an accountant instructed to act the role in the experiment, and the article reported that Milgram polled psychologists, when he had polled Yale Senior psychology majors. Hence, every fact in this article needs to be verified and checked; it appears that most of what is missing may be from the Blass book. A large portion of the article is unreferenced. There is a large pop culture section. I didn't attempt to fix the prose, which is dull, but not worth working on if it might be inaccurate. Further, even if the facts are verified and the prose is polished, the current content is neither comprehensive nor compelling: based on some of what I read in one of the book reviews on the topic, there is much more that can/should be said about this experiment by someone knowledgeable in psychology. The article fails 1a) compelling prose, 1b) comprehensive, 1c) factually accurate (not fully cited, but more importantly, every fact needs to be checked), and 2a) lead, which I didn't attempt to rewrite because I don't know how much of the article is accurate. Sandy 07:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment An awful article, it's caught my attention from time to time but I've never gotten around to FAR nominating it - I'm glad someone has. Sandy has highlighted in depth all the problems with this FA, all which are serious problems that need immediate action - 1a, 1b, 1c and 2a are expected FA criteria. Huge work this needs. LuciferMorgan 16:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • And what you're looking at now is *after* I've added inline cites, and eliminated some OR and adverts/external jumps. Sandy 17:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment.The lead is not actually a lead. A listy section and an obvious problem with referencing. It's clear this article is right now far away from FA status.--Yannismarou 06:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Are you a one man band over the Science/Medical type Wikiprojects Sandy? Just curious. Many Psychology AS/A level textbooks cover the Milgram experiment, though I'm unsure if they would constitute a reliable source or not? LuciferMorgan 09:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I've been trying to enlist help for about six months over there: help is beginning to appear :-) I realize I could find the basic info to describe the experiment in my library, but what I can't do (without a psychology/medical background) is comment intelligently any further than that, which is what is needed to write the heart of the featured quality content that is missing - consequences and fallout and critical commentary. I can repair the article to a certain extent, but if some professionals don't weigh in, it's never going to be stellar. If someone doesn't weigh in, I'll get to the library to do what I can. Sandy 17:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - The "In popular culture" section would need a vast cleanup from its listy format into cohesive, flowing paragraphs. Also the section would need a brief intro which'd tie the whole section together. LuciferMorgan 09:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - The use of the word "participant" for subjects is inappropriate. It's insider jargon, and worse, it is intended to mislead readers as to the role of the subject. --Yath 21:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are factual accuracy and referencing (1c), dull prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), and sectioning (2). Marskell 13:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove The "In popular culture" section needs conversion into prose (1. a.), while other patches of text still need inline citations (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 11:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Referencing problems, listy sections and a problematic lead with a huge quote.--Yannismarou 13:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Has been bad for a long time - I tried correcting [1] some errors already two years ago. Haukur 20:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)