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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 Dana boomer 23:48, 21 April 2012 [1].

Roe v. Wade

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Review commentary

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Roe v. Wade (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Notified: Andrew c, Atlant, Severa, and all active WikiProjects listed here

I am nominating this featured article for review because I think that it no longer meets the FA criteria, specifically that of 1a, 1b, 1c and 2a. I have not been the most significant contributor to the article, but I have done some work on it recently. The primary author of the page (User:Anythingyouwant) has retired from Wikipedia and has been banned from the topic, so I don't think I should inform him of this FAR. I will notify the next three editors by number of edits though, and will also notify WP:SCOTUS and the other WikiProjects which have claimed this article about this filing (I asked at WT:SCOTUS last week if people thought bringing the article to FAR was a good idea, and two people said yes).

Some of the issues I have with the article is that the prose isn't particularly brilliant at this time. That can be fixed by a good copy editor though, so I'm not particularly concerned about that. I'm more concerned with the other matters in criteria 1. The first four sections are built using relatively few scholarly works and far too many primary sources for my liking. That issue is somewhat better once we get into the "Controversy" and later sections, but those sections have a whole host of other problems. The controversy and Public opinion sections are poorly organized and need to be rewritten from scratch. There needs to be a deeper analysis of the overall legal thought about the decision, not just selections from a few authors. I also believe that the "Role in subsequent decisions and politics" is far too long—it gets too far into into the recent history of abortion in the United States. We don't need to recap every single matter that has happened in the past forty years.

Some of these issues might sound like a simple content dispute, but I think they are actually underlying structural problems. If the article still had active editors, I think that we might be able to solve the issue just on the talk page. But it doesn't, and I'm bringing it to here in hopes that we might be able to repair the article.

Best, NW (Talk) 16:21, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment
    1. "far too many primary sources for my liking" == WP:IDONTLIKEIT
    2. "poorly organized"? In what way?
    3. The analysis of the legal decision seems fairly comprehensive. I'm not a lawyer, so you'll have to elaborate here.
    4. The "Role in subsequent decisions and politics" does not seem overly long, and certainly does not cover "every single matter that has happened in the past forty years"
  • You'll have to do more to convince me that what is underlying is structural and not political. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the first issue (too many primary sources) is something that should be looked at and improved on for this article. I don't see it as WP:IDONTLIKEIT, rather asking for sources that can lend a stronger foundation for some notes in the text. This is especially true for a controversial subject like abortion; that only increases the need to ensure the article is neutral and supported in the literature.
And...after a look at the article, there seems a large reliance on Linda Greenhouse's book to interpret the decision itself. As to sources discussing post-Roe politics and legal issues, that is likely fine. Lord Roem (talk) 21:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. WP:PSTS seems to cover this fairly well. Some of the primary sources, I have less of a problem with some of the sourcing, but I think that the "Prior history of the case" should be sourced by secondary sources, especially considering the political activity of Norma McCovrvey in the past several decades.
  2. Poorly organized: See Talk:Roe v. Wade#Controversy section—User:Noleander and I will try to work on that soon.
  3. I wrote much of that section about two months ago. I'm not a fan of its comprehensiveness, and I'm not entirely sure if it is a comprehensive and accurate summary of the decision and its history before the court. I would also feel much more happy if it didn't rely on a single source. The section on the dissents needs to be looked at as well.
  4. It does rehash the cases to attempt to give a complete history of abortion before the High Court since the article. Over 20% of the body of the article is dedicated to it.

I'm also somewhat amused that you think that this is political. All I can do is try to assure you that it is not. I hope that you can accept that based on my editing record. Best, NW (Talk) 19:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No need to check your editing record. Your word is enough for me. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I concur that this article in general is not very well written. Not bad, but not great. It also appears quite biased on the pro-life side; it gives quite a few examples of dissatisfaction or disapproval of the decision, with not many in support. This does reek of political bias and a violation of the neutrality of Wikipedia. The data is also outdated, and only one poll (Gallup) is cited. Because of this, I also agree that it's also not very comprehensive in original sources. Gimmethoseshoes (talk) 06:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - Apart from a need for copyediting, the only major problem I found is that the Legal section is completely devoted to legal criticism of Roe v. Wade. It doesn't even discuss Blackmun's defense of his own decision. This doesn't seem to meet NPOV. Kaldari (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria mentioned as items of concern in the review section include sourcing, prose and structure. Dana boomer (talk) 15:22, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cirt, I apologize for taking so long to respond to this. The answer to your question is "both". The last FAR was in 2007, and standards have changed since then, with the high-quality reliable source provision being added, as well as image, source and copyright checks being made standard. Also, the article has changed quite a bit since then, as can be seen just by looking at differences in the ToC between the two versions. Are you interested in working on this? Dana boomer (talk) 17:03, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the reply. Not interested myself in working on it at the moment, but it certainly is a valuable, educational, and encyclopedic article on this project. — Cirt (talk) 16:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: It looks like the general prose of the article was an issue in the initial review above. I'm not an expert on such standards here, but I'm curious whether NW or others have attacked that in their recent rewriting/reworking of the article. Lord Roem (talk) 14:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's look at a block of text, for review in terms of prose:

The Court issued its decision on January 22, 1973, with a 7-to-2 majority vote in favor of Roe. Burger and Douglas' concurring opinions and White's dissenting opinion were issued with along with the Court's opinion in Doe v. Bolton (announced on the same day as Roe v. Wade). The Court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, thereby subjecting all laws attempting to restrict it to the standard of strict scrutiny.[1]

  • That text is taken directly from the article, and I think it highlights the prose issue. There seems to be a lack of focus. The paragraph starts with the decision but then goes right into the concurring and dissenting views. Its a bit hard to see what the Court actually decided -- in a succinct way -- despite this being the 'Supreme Court decision' section. Lord Roem (talk) 14:33, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
  1. ^ Although abortion is still considered a fundamental right under current jurisprudence, subsequent cases, notably Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Stenberg v. Carhart, and Gonzales v. Carhart have affected the legal standard.
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