Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John McCain

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 promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 04:26, 18 August 2008 [1].

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John McCain

Nominator(s): Ferrylodge (talk)

previous FAC (00:36, 5 March 2008)

This article was nominated once before, in February, and that was a so-called "drive-by" nomination. Since then, we've worked to make the article FA-quality, including making it much more concise. This article then became a "Good Article", went through "Peer Review", and then went through "Good Article Review". Generally speaking, this article has been very stable in recent weeks. Inevitably, the Barack Obama article will be compared to this one, and I think this article merits the shiny little gold star too. I hope that Wasted Time R (who has helped tremendously with this article) will pitch in here to address any outstanding questions or concerns.Ferrylodge (talk) 06:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support, as the other principal editor of the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

WTR is too modest. I merely edited his edits. The only reason I have a higher edit count is because I have a nasty habit of dividing what should be a single edit into a bunch of itty bitty ones (not sure why I do that).Ferrylodge (talk) 01:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

comment - Im not convinced about the licence for Image:McCainPork.JPG, it appears to be the property of the subject, not the US federal government Fasach Nua (talk) 10:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

There's really no question that that image is public domain. Detailed info about that image is here. It's clearly an image of McCain's official Senate web site. According to the Senate,[2] "Information presented on this site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested." So, the image is definitely okay. Were it not, then zillions of images from the Senate web site would have to be deleted from Wikipedia, including other images from this article.Ferrylodge (talk) 18:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that Fasach Nua (talk) 10:50, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment: - This appears to be a good article, after skimming over, but one of the criterion for FA is stability. With him being one of the most well-known people in America (and making news worldwide), I'm not entirely sure the article would be incredibly stable, especially with the election looming. Calor (talk) 17:15, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

It should be taken into consideration that Barack Obama is a featured article. JonCatalán (talk) 18:32, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, Calor, and I'm glad you think the article looks good. There's no question but that the article has been very stable in the past and in the present. Your legitimate concern is about future stability. Here is the stability criterion: "it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process." Clearly, there are not any ongoing edit wars, and the content is not changing significantly from day to day. Even if we consider the future (and it's not clear from the criterion that we should), this article probably won't change very much in the next year or so, because this article is written in chronological format. Stuff about his early life won't change. In fact, one of this article's seldom-visited sub-articles (which dealt with a period in McCain's past) was recently promoted to featured article.[3] Finally, as JonCatalán mentioned, it's probably worth noting that the article on Barack Obama has been very turbulent, and yet was recently kept as a featured article because it was deemed to satisfy the stability criterion.[4]Ferrylodge (talk) 18:42, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Another consideration regarding future stability is that this main article is already in full WP:Summary style form, meaning each section here is already backed by a longer, more detailed daughter article. Thus if it becomes necessary to trim the current contents more after events in November/January (to make way for a growing amount of new content), all that needs to be done is to edit out a level of detail in the current main article sections; none of that material needs to be moved anywhere else, since it's already covered in fuller detail in those daughter articles. That editing out will not necessarily be trivial, of course, but it's easier given that the summary form structure already exists and that, as Ferrylodge indicates on the FAC talk page, this editing down process has already been done once in the past. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support User:Ferrylodge and User:Wasted Time R have dedicated so much time and effort to building this article, which I strongly and honestly feel is among Wikipedia's best. Ferrylodge asked me to take a look at the article back in March of this year and give comments, so I copyedited the article and prepared a list of recommendations—call it a mini-peer review. Many of my suggestions were implemented, only boosting my high opinion of this article and those who have worked to make it great. Of course amidst this election, the stability criterion will always be brought up. As someone who keeps this article on his watchlist and has been able to monitor it daily, I know for a fact that this article has been very stable, in the past and in this present time (especially considering that he is a presidential candidate). Therefore, per the FA criteria, I give my full support to this article. Best as always, Happyme22 (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support: The article is very detailed and in-depth, but not dull. Also well-written. Ferrylodge and JonCatalan have convinced me that the article's stability is a no-factor, especially in relation to McCain's democratic counterpart, Barack Obama (whose article is an FA). The star definitely belongs in the corner for this one. Calor (talk) 23:26, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. The current formatting of publications in the cites is kind of rough. Some have the wrong or informal name, such as Money Magazine should be Money, while some newspapers don't the have the 'The' that goes in front of their formal names (The New York Times) while others are handled inconsistently (both Arizona Republic and The Arizona Republic; the latter is correct). Some book titles are clumsily abbreviated (Worth the Fighting for Worth the Fighting For), others abbreviated for no apparent reason (American Odyssey for An American Odyssey, note this is different from using the short title of the book, which is a good idea). This article is not in a space crunch, so I don't see the need to scrimp on full titles. Linking of publications in the cites is inconsistent: we can either do it every time, never, or on first use, but I don't think any of these schemes is being followed consistently. Some cites use wire services such as Associated Press (like current fn 192 and 193); this should never be done unless the reference is to the wire service website, which is not the case in most of these, as each publication uses pieces of the wire service story and may further edit them. I'm willing to do some of the fixup work on these, if there is agreement to use full newspaper names, full (short) book titles, and some defined scheme for publication links. (I like every use, because it's easier to maintain that first use; I don't like never, because publication links are valuable when evaluating or further examining sources.) Wasted Time R (talk) 00:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

That generally sounds okay (especially the part about "I'm willing to do some of the fixup work on these"). My thought was to wikilink publications on first use, just like wikilinks in a section of the article text, but I have no objection to wikilinking publications every time. If you'd like the short title of Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir to be changed to Worth the Fighting For then that's fine with me. I have no objections to putting "The" at the beginning of a newspaper name if that's the official name of the newspaper. If a story is published in a newspaper, but is credited to a wire service, then I think the wire service ought to be mentioned along with the newspaper. WTR, do you have the tool for editing the footnotes separately from the text of the article? It seems like that would be the easiest way. (I don't have it.)Ferrylodge (talk) 00:33, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll see what I can do on this, later tonight or early tomorrow. No, I don't have that tool, but global replace will get me fairly far. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll pitch in on this - I just went through and changed all of the NYT refs to The New York Times. Will do some others next. Tvoz/talk 07:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Did The Washington Post throughout. Tvoz/talk 07:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

And The Arizona Republic and CNN Tvoz/talk 07:49, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pitching in! That covered a lot of the job. I've done a bunch now, although not as systematically as you. Will continue. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Tvoz & WTR.Ferrylodge (talk) 15:05, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome - I think we've got them all now (famous last words...). Tvoz/talk 20:45, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Per article talk, I've begun restoring some of the exact dates that are milestones in McCain's life (marriages, shootdown and release, that sort). Part of the reason they were taken out was to reduce blue links. But this was unnecessary; as I understand it, autoformatting of dates is on the way out anyway, especially in FAC. So we need to decide if we'll junk autoformatting in this article. I was initially skeptical, but the Early life and military career of John McCain FAC convinced me that autoformatted dates are ugly, poorly designed, and don't work anyway for a large majority of users. Thus I recommend we junk them. Nobody has cried foul on the Elmc article with their disappearance; practice is to put a big comment at the top of the article, to warn other editors off reintroducing them. (Autoformatting in cites is a different issue, which can be dealt with separately; I'm just talking about the main text for now.) Wasted Time R (talk) 01:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to removing the wikilinking of exact dates in the main text. However, please go easy on inserting exact dates in this summary article. Providing an exact date is often distracting to a reader, because the reader will be trying to figure out why the exact date is important, and/or will be trying to memorize the exact date (presuming that we're giving the exact date because it will be important later in the article). Just month and year is often sufficient.Ferrylodge (talk) 01:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• Very Weak Support: Nothing against the article or those that have worked on it, but given that he is a presidential candidate stability will be an issue, as well as any appearance of bias in his favor (yes Obama was, but that was some time ago). If it does become a FA the sooner the better preferably before September, much longer and I will drop my support. Arzel (talk) 02:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support. One of Wikipedia's finest articles. Stability is not an issue. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 07:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support. This is a fine article that clearly deserves the FA star. Between the previous FA nom and the constant attention of editors from the left and the right, this article has been refined to NPOV perfection. There is nothing unstable about it that is not unstable about any living person's article -- there are no ongoing edit wars, and the possiblility that McCain will have a new job in 2009 does not constitute a lack of stability. Coemgenus 14:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: All the images check out, except for Image:FaithOfMyFathers.jpg. It needs a non-free use rationale (unless I misread policy) for the John McCain article. The rationale only exists for Faith of My Fathers. Calor (talk) 17:45, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I have inserted the rationale there, and subsequently expanded the rationale. I'm also not sure that it needs a rationale since it may not be eligible for copyright protection at all.[5] Anyway, assuming it is protected by copyright, I think the expanded rationale is okay. I also reduced the resolution of the image.[6] Note that the Obama article was kept as a featured article on April 15, 2008[7] at which time an image of a book cover was included.[8] It's very typical for book cover images to be included in Wikipedia articles. For example, see Rachel Carson, Robert_A._Heinlein, Bruno Maddox, et cetera. However, I deleted another book cover image (Worth the Fighting For) from this McCain article because it was not discussed in the text and was not of great value to the article.[9] Note that this book cover image (for Faith of my Fathers) was previously discussed during the peer review for this article,[10] and more recently there was an objection to this image at the article talk page.[11]Ferrylodge (talk) 18:26, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• what makes http://www.skyhawk.org/3e/va46/va46p.htm?

Otherwise sources look okay, links checked with the link checker tool. Note I'm on the road the rest of this week, so replies may be delayed somewhat. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking as always Ealdgyth. Regarding the Skyhawks cite, I think it is reliable, but it's moot because I realized it wasn't needed here. McCain's combat assignment worked in two phases, one for Skyhawk training and then the Forrestal assignment, and the Elmc article uses this cite to help bound when McCain joined Forrestal, but here in the main article this level of granularity is not needed, so I've simplified the text and removed this cite. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

• comment - there is an extensive article on Carol McCain and this article should link to it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.66.87.240 (talk) 04:16, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Good point. There were actually two links, but both were under "Carol Shepp", her unmarried name. I've changed the infobox one to "Carol McCain", since that was her name as a spouse, and I've added a link when Carol appears again later on in the "Commanding officer, liaison to Senate, and second marriage" section. So now there's three links total, two under "Carol McCain". Wasted Time R (talk) 04:37, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support - and I'm actually impressed that both of the candidate's articles have kept stable. Sceptre ^(talk) 00:57, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

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