Wikipedia:Featured article review/Voluntary Human Extinction Movement/archive1

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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 delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 4:31, 30 September 2023 (UTC) [1].

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement[edit]

Notified: Mark Arsten, Mitch Ames, Philologia Sæculārēs, Skyeking, Bri, WP Death, WP Oregon, WP Organizations, WP Alternative views noticed on 2023-07-19

Review section[edit]

As noted by Vaticidalprophet, this 2012 promotion suffers from tone, POV, and sourcing issues. Hog Farm Talk 03:30, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I don't think this is really fixable within the FAR context; it's a very marginal group that mostly gets "look at this guy saying X" coverage, which is difficult to spin into a comprehensive article without playing word games with "comprehensive". The whole talk history is an insightful read. I'll quote my bulletpoints from there for an idea of the scope:
  • Significant coverage concerns. The "Ideology" section makes up a substantial proportion of the article (~700 words to a ~250 word lead and ~1000 word remainder across three sections), making the largest part of the article by weight an uncritical and uncontextualized summary of the group's positions. "Reception" is structured as to lump virtually all incorporated negative coverage in a single paragraph, pulls incredibly cherrypicked positive quotes from articles that in some cases (like the former) barely discuss the subject, and "rebuts" criticisms with quotes from the movement's founder.
  • Significant tone concerns. This mostly ties in and overlaps with the previous section -- the cherrypicking is particularly egregious -- but several examples stand out as especially tone-related, like the footnotes (A and B in particular) and the huge quotebox girding "Ideology".
  • Scope problems. The only (extremely outdated) estimates in the article for "how many people are actually associated with VHEMT" are a couple hundred people. The movement is (and is backed up by both included sources and more up-to-date ones) essentially a nom de guerre for Knight. This is shoved into the "Organization and promotion" section and quickly moved away from in favour of a self-promotional statement of "millions of people" -- Knight's guesstimate for "how many people are childfree"? The article tries very hard to present a mailing list as a mass movement, but it's disrupted by the actual numbers.
Vaticidalprophet 03:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. I agree that this is a very tricky topic to write a FA on, and agree that cherrypicking and accuracy are major concerns. That said... just as a general principle for when covering fringe, disliked groups... there's something to be said for having a section that presents their beliefs standing on their own and as they see things. Doesn't apply to just VHEM, but also, like, some new form of astrology or superseded scientific theories or the like. Basically I'm saying that having something like an "Ideology" section isn't strictly a bad idea, even if secondary sources are dismissive of it. To use the example of superseded scientific theories - it's okay to have a section that's "Okay, here's how they thought it worked", and then another section with "And here's why almost nobody buys it anymore." (But all the other problems are pretty big and certainly worth a FAR.) SnowFire (talk) 18:26, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC, larger sourcing issues unaddressed. Hog Farm Talk 01:55, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section[edit]

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and neutrality. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist no edits since August, concerns about sourcing remain, and I would add a concern about currency. Z1720 (talk) 02:02, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Not being worked on, tone and neutrality issues. SnowFire (talk) 00:44, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per above. Hog Farm Talk 03:09, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:31, 30 September 2023 (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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