Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States housing bubble/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 not promoted 01:11, 7 July 2007.

United States housing bubble[edit]

previous fac

This article is independently getting very high praise and pointers from professionals in the blogosphere. E.g., here is Jonathan Miller at Matrix, "Housing Bubble Goes All Wikipedia On Us,"

Wikipedia adds an incredibly thorough entry on the whole housing bubble phenomenon called United States housing bubble. Hat tip to Calculated Risk.

It lays out much of the events associated with the end of the recent housing boom. Its long, but its a good read.

Here are some of the topics:

  • Controversy
  • Mania for home ownership
  • Widespread belief that housing is a risk-free, growth investment
  • Popularity of home purchasing in the media
  • Speculative purchases of homes
  • Crash of the dot-com bubble
  • Historically low interest rates
  • Differential relationship between interest rates and affordability
  • Interest-only and adjustable rate mortgages
  • Predictions and status of a market correction

Its makes a pretty strong argument for Wikipedia as a resource.

[italics added]. I think this independent blog entry by a professional real estate analyst pretty much says it all. Since these comments have been made, this ongoing story has evolved with the correction of the U.S. housing bubble, including the subprime mortgage collapse and the reaction of the U.S. Senate, and the spread of the subprime problems into near prime mortgages. No one knows how long or how far housing will fall, but history shows that no one should be surprised if this story continues for a decade or more. Waiting a decade for the last part of this history to be written is not in keeping with the "wiki" in Wikipedia, so I'd like to propose that this article appear as a featured article now. It's received much independent praise, it satisfies Wiki's FA criteria, and it's a very timely article on a hugely important subject. Frothy 19:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A sidenote - I'd like to add, regarding this article's first FAC nom, in all the years I've been FA director, that FAC nom was probably the one I hated to fail the most. Raul654 19:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For those of you out there who have yet to read (or haven’t read lately) the Wikipedia page dedicated to the United States Housing Bubble, I would strongly recommend that you do so.

To say that the page is thorough would be an understatement.

It has been meticulously edited and formatted with many of the most compelling and pertinent data including housing cost and P/E analysis, charts, and discussion on the media and overall cultural factors that influenced the housing mania along with an abundance of exacting footnotes.

It is truly a living document dedicated to what may, in the end, be one of the most compelling stories of our time.

Thanks Frothy (and to the others) who have done such a superb job authoring this great Wiki page over the last nine months.

As noted above, this article now contains several huge new developments in this subject since that time. Frothy 19:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Image:Time Magazine June 13 2005 Cover.jpg [1], Image:Lereah BookCover 2005.jpg [2], and Image:LereahNotBust.jpg [3] need fair use rationales. -Bluedog423Talk 20:26, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
 Done on Time magazine cover because fair use covers illustration of "the publication of the issue of the magazine in question"—the appearance of this cover is cited as the peak of the bubble. Also,
 Done on Lereah Book Cover #1 because fair use covers "an article discussing the book in question", which the United States housing bubble does explicitly.
 Done on Lereah Book Cover #2 because fair use covers "an article discussing the book in question", which the United States housing bubble does explicitly.
Frothy 21:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Frothy, if I understand Bluedog423's comment correctly, the request is for fairuse rationales to be added to the images themselves. See This Is The Sea image for an example; it is used in This Is the Sea, and there is a statement of fair use at the image page itself. Mike Christie (talk) 21:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This article is very important as it identifies major economic factors in the lives of millions of our readers using top quality sources and explanations. As a example of wikipedia article making it is top notch. Frothy has done a wonderful job and many others have helped. WAS 4.250 21:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Despite excellent relevance and references, the first and most important criteria for featured article status is good writing. This article goes off on tangents regarding the collapse of subprime and alt-A without really describing what these are let alone why these matter. Some of this content needs to be split off into other pages or presented differently. The section that refers to rising interest rates seems genuinely misleading to me as it hypes the "blood bath" angle without bringing up the fact that interest rates are historically low, which oddly enough would support the bubble hypothesis. The remarks about proposed bail outs are extremely serious, but appear to be addressed here with a total lack of seriousness and even levity. Specifically, what Rep. Schumer and others have proposed is important, but described here in an intentionally misleading way. Do you want to have a featured article or a political campaign? You have to choose one or the other because you cannot have both! -- M0llusk 22:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure what to make of your comments. Senator Schumer's proposal is discussed in the following context:

    "Moreover, Democratic senators such as Senator Charles Schumer of New York are already proposing a federal government bailout of subprime borrowers in order to save homeowners from losing their residences. Opponents of such proposal assert that government bailout of subprime borrowers is not in the best interests of the U.S. economy because it will simply set a bad precedent, create a moral hazard, and worsen the speculation problem in the housing market. [cited]"

    How could anyone think that does this lacks seriousness or contains levity?! How can you say that these statements constitute a political campaign?
  • And there's an entire section on low interest rates called "Historically low interest rates" explaining their relevance to the bubble. The fact that interest rates are rising is logically relevant to the section in which this subsection appears, "Status of housing market correction", whether or not rates are historically low.
  • Therefore, contrary to what you have said, the examples you cite show the article is well written. Frothy 23:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The proposal by Schumer is not progressing. I think it was withdrawn, but in any case there is no serious risk of a bailout plan going anywhere. According to this account there is an active proposal being pursued that might result in a bail out. The reality is that Schumer's plan got shot down hard. The only proposals that are making progress are those that provide a way to resolve exploding loans for homes that banks don't actually want to take back and may have been fraudulent in the first place. This section has heavy handed political points of view with little practical information. As it is written the purpose is clearly to distort, not to accurately reveal.
    • The section on rising interest rates at the end is an incoherent mess. Interest rates go up, therefore home prices fall? NO! That depends on many other factors. Then we have a Great Depression? That was driven in part by industrial and economic collapse in Europe. Is Europe currently in a state of industrial and economic collapse? So this time we get all the way to a Great Depression just through interest rates going up? Then there are some remarks about subprime funds blowing up. With more information about context that might be interesting, but wrongly valued funds blow up all the time. Exactly how rising interest rates were the sole factor causing house prices to lower thereby causing subprime funds to blow up is not sufficiently established. Maybe the rising interest rate section should discuss interest rates instead of immediately levering a weak conclusion about the relationship with house prices? And the blood bath rhetoric is inflammatory and entirely unhelpful. What blood? Who bathes? You aren't making any sense!
    • Why is there a "status of alt-a" section? That information has no direct relevance. The macroeconomics would spell bubble with or without any "alt-a" distinction. Is it a bubble or isn't it? All of these controversies can be solved by splitting out stuff. Make a Legislative Responses section and split the bailout paranoia to that if you are serious. Make sections for the details of the run up and the correction if you want to talk about alt-a. In any case, I still think this article is a mess with confusing information and stuff that does not belong. -- M0llusk 04:36, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You appear to have confused what the article says with what people quoted in the article say. In the case of the "blood bath" quote that concerns you, this is the opinion (unambiguously represented as such) of a PIMCO executive, an opinion that carries significant weight, coming as it does for an executive of an organization having US$0.64 Trillion in assets under their management, and whose influence in the MBS/CDO markets cannot be underestimated. Please take it up with them, not with us—whether you like it or not, this is a highly relevant opinion for housing, which is directly affected by these mortgage markets. Frothy 12:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose All of this time at FAC and between FACs, and the first issues raised still haven't been addressed. Please see WP:MSH regarding section headings (shortening them, avoiding repeition, and correct capitalization). The article has almost as much content in footnotes as in the article, and extensively relies on quotes. The article still has stubby sections: "Crash of the dot-com bubble" is two sentences. If it warrants a section, the content should be expanded. Please see WP:LAYOUT wrt See also—relevant links should be incorporated into the text to the extent possible. A red link in See also ??? If we remove the lengthy footnotes, quotes, and See also, how much content is left? The concerns from the first FAC remain. The lengthy footnotes give the impression that the text isn't well written, and that much of that content should be included in the article. Footnotes are still not correctly formatted (please see WP:CITE/ES for examples). External links is a link farm and should be pruned per WP:EL, WP:RS and WP:NOT. Would you mind not cluttering FAC with those boxes—FACs aren't promoted based on flashy marketing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • SandyGeorgia, your comments about the reference format are simply wrong. These notes conform to The Chicago Manual of Style’s format, which states:

    Quotation within a note. When a note includes a quotation, the source normally follows the terminal punctuation of the quotation. The entire source need not be put in parentheses, which involves changing existing parentheses to brackets and creating unnecessary clutter.

    This is entire consistent with Wikipedia's policy Wikipedia:Citing_sources. Frothy 19:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I got a talk page note regarding this comment; the response above has no relationship to my Object. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • And that's not a fair account. We addressed all of these: the annotated footnotes were, by consensus, felt to be essential in a subjective controversial article such as this; and the links to relevant blogs quoted by major news organizations are also essential—not the "link farm" you call them. I could go on, but instead I invite anyone to review the record to see that these subjects have been discussed at length and resolved by consensus, a consensus with which you obviously disagree. Others continue to go out of their way to praise this article. From designing better futures:

wikipedia article on the house price bubble. It is surprisignly thorough and filled with data.

From Mr. Moderate:

Wikipedia has an excellent article on the housing bubble in the United States. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Frothy 00:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Fair use of the magazine covers seems a bit questionable to me. In Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Examples_of_unacceptable_use, #7 says that using a cover merely because it depicts the subject is not acceptable. Since a cover is usually connected with an article, using a cover merely because the issue contains a relevant article doesn't seem much different. As I understand it, fair use of a magazine cover only works if the cover itself is notable, such as the 2006 Time Person of the Year cover, or the cover art itself is discussed critically. Gimmetrow 03:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please read the fair use rationale: "the appearance of this cover is cited as the peak of the bubble." The cover is not used incidentally; it manifestly conforms fair use policy as it is used in the article because it's appearance shows a mania for home ownership in the U.S., as explained explicitly in that section. Frothy 09:41, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"7. One-article minimum. Non-free content is used in at least one article."
It's used in at least one article (because 1≥1), so it qualifies.
I referenced "unacceptable use #7", not "fair use criteria #7". Gimmetrow 22:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"8. Significance. Non-free media is not used unless it contributes significantly to an article. It needs to significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic in a way that words alone cannot."
The use of this magazine cover to illustrate the mania for homes in 2005 contributes significantly to the article in ways that words cannot, hence it qualifies.
Your objections just appear to be grousing and do not withstand the scrutiny of the reading of fair use policy. Frothy 20:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see how the magazine and book covers significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic more than words alone. Please explain, precisely, what would be lacking to the article if, say, three of these four images were removed? Or all four? Unacceptable use #7 says
An image of a magazine cover, used only to illustrate the Wikipedia article on the person whose photograph is on the cover. However, if that cover itself is notable enough to be a topic within the article, then "fair use" may apply
This is illustrating a topic rather than a person, but otherwise seems very similar. Gimmetrow 22:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Asked at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Use_of_magazine_covers_to_illustrate_a_topic. Gimmetrow 02:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the use of non-free images in this article, all of them seem to be unacceptable. The magazine covers themselves are not significant (I can understand the text just as well without their inclusion -- see WP:NFCC #8). Ditto for the book covers, which are only there for the purposes of identification (the sentence "The book was published in 2005 and again in 2006 with a different title" is not really critical commentary). Lastly, the WaPo "bubble bench" photo is a clear violation of NFCC #2 as well as #8. The article doesn't discuss the bench at all or what is so important about this specific photo (as opposed to other possibly obtainable free photos of the bench). By not using the bench photo in a transformative manner, we are potentially encroaching on the WaPo's commercial opportunities -- in other words, any other media outlet that was publishing an article or book about the housing bubble would probably have to license the photo from the WaPo; why should Wikipedia be exempt? howcheng {chat} 16:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - very confusing to read for the layperson. This is a good start, but the topic needs to be laid out in a clearer way. The lead section, and the article, uses the term "bubble" a lot, without ever really explaining what a bubble is. There are links to various other articles, but most readers will have to go and read those articles first to have a chance of understanding this one. Wikipedia articles should link to other articles, but they should also be self-contained to a large degree. It is very annoying to have to break off and go and read another article before coming back to this one. One final point, the article doesn't seem to have a proper ending or conclusion. It seems to end in mid-air, with the rest of the story left untold. Either pick a cut-off date and stick to it, moving the recent "news" stuff to a new article, or wait until the story is finished before writing the article. Carcharoth 13:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't you simply read the fair use rational under this image itself? Frothy 19:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Counter suggestion? Instead of being antagonistic about this, how about you modify the fair use rationale to be something more akin the format we have come to expect here? Example: Image:AcornComputersLtdLogo.jpg. We do not need a several pages long fair use rationale. Forgive me that I didn't read pages on pages of this rationale. --Durin 22:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The existence of the blog photo shows that the use here is replaceable, but where do you see that the blog photo is freely licensed? Gimmetrow 15:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      Beneath the image on the blog it says "The image can be freely copied to other sites as long as credit is given to this blog" While that is not a specific release under a specific free license, it's highly likely that the rights holder could be contacted to clarify the release license. --Durin 16:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      OK, don't know how I missed that. I think it might be good if someone contacted the blog about releasing the image under a license allowing derivative works, such as CC-by-SA. Gimmetrow 16:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Image:PHX inventory July2005-March2006.png says source is from Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, yet Frothy claims rights to release (and releases). Conflict of rights here.
  • Many of these problematic images were uploaded by User:Frothy. I'd recommend a thorough review of all of his image uploads.
  • Also, the scrolling box for the "References and notes" section is very unappealing. Further, when you attempt to print this article that section does not print properly due to the scrolling box. --Durin 13:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
These criticisms are absurd—as it states clearly on all their respective pages, I generated these plots myself based on the publically available sourced data, then released the copyrights of this "particular expression of an idea or information" under the appropriate copyright license. And how can you say that the other images have no fair use rationale when such is given explicitly and unambiguously on their pages??! I ask you to retract these all these unsupported claims unless you can back them up with explicit criticisms using the language provided on each page. Frothy 18:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps my language above was a bit abrupt with regards to your image contributions. Nevertheless, the points remain. You claim that there are valid fair use rationales for the images where I said there are not. With respect, you are incorrect. Take for example Image:Time Magazine June 13 2005 Cover.jpg. This image does have a fair use rationale, but it is not a valid fair use rationale as it is not indicative of how this image contributes significantly to this particular article. All images must have a fair use rationale for each use. Please see our policy on this at Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria item #10(c). So, the fair use rationales as noted above need to all be updated to reflect how and why they contribute significantly to this particular article.
  • As to Image:Shiller IE2 Fig 2-1.png, I don't find my assertions here absurd. You've indicated on the upload that the original copyright holder has released rights under GFDL (since it's not gfdl-self). Yet, there's nothing on the image to indicate this release or on the image's discussion page. Further, the existence of Image:Barrons shiller 06-20-2005.gif as being marked as a copyrighted image is in conflict with your GFDL assertion. Since my position is, by your account, absurd on this would you be so kind as to provide the GFDL release from Robert Shiller or his designated agent? That would be most helpful to clear this up.
  • As to Image:EconomistHomePrices20050615.jpg in the image description you state "I recreated this image from the original graphic" A recreation from an original counts as a derivative work. As such, not all rights transfer to you, and the magazine The Economist retains rights to this graph. Could you please contact them and obtain release of their rights to this image under a free license? Instructions for doing so are at Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission.
  • With the book covers, the information on them is replaceable by text. Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria #8 states that images must "increase readers' understanding of the topic in a way that words alone cannot" The titles of these books are already discussed in the article, and that's what is relevant about the book covers, not the artwork or anything else on them...just the titles. Thus, text can reasonably replace the use here.
  • With Image:WaPo Bubble Bench.png, I demonstrated how a free license image of the same bench is most likely available, making this image replaceable fair use. See Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria item #1. Thus, this image fails that criteria.
  • And lastly, with Image:PHX inventory July2005-March2006.png there is indeed a conflict of sources. You indicate release of the image, but also indicate the source is Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. Which is it? Alternatively, if you mean the *data* is from them, the source needs to be clarified to indicate that.
  • These are not absurd issues. They are real issues that need to be address to bring these images into compliance with our policies here. This is why I made the assertion as above; if you believe these images are correct, then indeed an evaluation of all your image uploads might be helpful to clear up other problems. --Durin 19:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One more time: I created these plots from numbers given in the sources cited. You can't copyright numbers. You can only copyright their representation, and as stated on these pages already, I released the copyright to the representations of these numbers that I myself created. I rewrote the wording of this release to make it extra special clear to people. As for the WaPo photo, I requested, but did not obtain, permission to get this article from the blog you mentioned. Therefore, this image from the WaPo is the only one available and constitutes fair use for the reasons provided on this page. I also clarified the rationale for the Time cover, which clearly qualifies under the language provided in it's copyright statement. They and the book covers are used to illustrate the mania for home purchases in the press, which constitutes fair use. Frothy 20:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done, thanks for pointing that out. Frothy 21:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
US copyright law certainly can apply to numbers, and if the data from which you constructed your graph was copyrighted, then you need their permission to represent that data in your graph. If the only copyright is on the Economist's graph, then you're in the clear. johnpseudo 21:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the copyright article before venturing forth on this subject: "Compilations of facts or data may also be copyrighted, but such a copyright is thin; it only applies to the particular selection and arrangement of the included items, not to the particular items themselves." Frothy 21:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)©[reply]
  • I have Shiller's original plot in front of me, and, in spite of "slight differences", Barron's plot is essentially the same, whether or not we shoose to call it "derivative". It's the same data set that Shiller published—he represented it one way, and his plot is copyrighted, Barron's represented it in a slightly different way and their plot is copyrighted, I represented a slightly different way yet, and released the copyright on my representation. It's that simple. The fact that you can identify that it's a different representation of the same data is all that's necessary. Frothy 12:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you generated a new plot, with your own colors, format, etc. that would be one thing. In this case, the plot you generated is virtually identical to the copyrighted one. That constitutes a derivative work. No, you can not copyright fact. You can copyright the format of the presentation of those facts. Some companies have entirely geometric designs for their logos. You can't copyright a circle. But, the format of that circle with other geometric designs can create a copyrightable work. Such is the case here. What you've created is a virtual clone of the original copyrighted data. This makes it a derivative work, and as such the original copyright holders retain rights. --Durin 14:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A Cartesian plot of data is not copyrightable. For your argument to have force, there would have to be something distinctive in Barron's representation of this data that was copied, and there simply isn't. No one can copyright the representation "I used a red curve for such-and-such XY data and a blue curve for another." As you observed, the representations of the data are different, and therefore one's copyright does not apply to the other. Frothy 15:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll be placing your version of the image for deletion as a copyright violation sometime in the next week. There isn't any reason to be treading this deeply into grey area vis-a-vis copyright concerns. --Durin 02:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I see no reason why this wouldn't be a featured article. This article is certainly much more detailed than Wikipedia articles about other economic bubbles, such as the dot-com bubble. I pretty much echo what all the supporters of the article have said. I disagree Carcharoth; this article should be very easy to understand to the layperson, especially if you read the article in its entirety. Of course it seems to end in mid-air, because this event is still ongoing and will most likely be updated with new information over the next couple of years as the situation plays itself out. It doesn't mean that an article shouldn't be written about it. However, it is made abundantly clear that the housing bubble is still in the process of bursting. In the intro it describes what a bubble is in the first place before going into very detailed explanations about how the housing bubble came to be. Great info about the role of subprime mortgages and how they contributed to the bubble. Clinevol98 15:41, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Citations are needed for all the financial calculations on the right. What does "N" stand for in the "Differential relationship between interest rates and affordability" section? Prose problems:
  1. "markedly declining 2006 market data, including...rising inventories" (declining = rising?)
  2. "deny the existence" (POV choice of words)
  3. "citing consistently rising prices since the Great Depression" (awkward)
  4. "expected increasing demand by the Baby Boom generation" (awkward)
  5. "The investment motive for purchasing homes should not be conflated with the necessity of shelter that housing provides" (I don't think it means conflated, but I don't know what it does mean)
  6. "The manager of the world's largest bond fund PIMCO, warned in June 2007 that the subprime mortgage crisis was not an isolated event and will eventually take a toll on the economy and whose ultimate impact will be on the impaired prices of homes." (weird comma and awkward end of sentence)
  7. The "The bursting of the 2001–2006/7 US housing bubble" and "The Subprime Mortgage Industry Collapse and Senate Hearings" sections are much too long, wordy, poorly illustrated, and have no flow- they seem to just be a LONG list of separate facts, events, and quotes. johnpseudo 16:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
From the article itself:

Assuming a home cost of P dollars, yearly interest rate r fixed over N years, …

Yes, rising inventories are generally indicative of a declining market. And how can it possibly be POV to write that someone denies the existence of something when they say explicitly that they deny it's existence?! The use of conflated is correct; please consult a dictionary. Frothy 18:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
By referring to "the existence" of a housing market bubble in the phrase "deny the existence", you are writing from the point of view that a bubble exists. A more NPOV way of phrasing is to say "deny that a bubble exists". I have consulted a dictionary (conflation- blend: mix together different elements). The sentence in the article is "The investment motive for purchasing homes should not be conflated with the necessity of shelter that housing provides; an economic comparison of the relative costs of owning versus renting the equivalent utility of shelter can be made separately." At the very minimum, the use of the word "conflate" is inaccessible and ambiguous. In the last half of the sentence (which presumably is telling us how NOT to conflate the two), the investment motive is still "blended" with the necessity of shelter- in fact, the "economic comparison" being suggested seems to consider the two simultaneously. johnpseudo 19:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And I see what you mean about "declining"- I guess you mean to say "data of a declining market", but it is currently structured to read "market data which is declining", which is contradictory to "rising inventories"- an example of data which is NOT declining. johnpseudo 19:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
johnpseudo, I deny the existence of leprechauns. Is that POV, or written from the perspective of someone who believes in their existence? Frothy 19:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not making the claim that the meaning of the words is any different. I'm just saying that the word 'denial' draws to mind unintended psychological connotations when the words 'disagree' or 'dispute' would do just as well. johnpseudo 19:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(section break)

  • Comment. I was asked to comment on United States housing bubble and am submitting these comments in response to that request. I do not know much about this topic, so my comments reflect the naive reader. I am not an economist or real estate mogul.

The article seems well-referenced, mainly to popular news sources. Since the article covers a current event, the lack of academic studies on it is understandable. My overall opinion is that it is a good article that would be easier to absorb if some of the tangential material was cut, putting more clear focus on the existence and timing of the bubble per se. The article lead speaks of the bubble as an assumed fact, using terms like "This bubble is..." but the text of the article says that there is controversy about the existence of this bubble. It may be good to summarize the controversy in the lead.

The graphic used at the top credits Robert Shiller, and I see that there has been controversy on the talk page related to this graphic. Since I had never heard of him before, his name did not ring a bell and I was unsure why he was being mentioned until after reading the article. Is there a more institutional source for this information rather than citing one economist?

The section '"Controversy over the existence of a housing bubble" includes other material such as the collapse of the subprime market that does not seem to directly relate to the question of the existence of the bubble. Probably these things connect, but for the non-specialist it seems that we must put it all together in some way that is not clear. The section does not have clear quotes that are current stating that no bubble exists (or existed). Instead there are statements that continue to assume the existence of a bubble such as "Based on markedly declining 2006 market data, including lower sales, rising inventories, falling median prices, and increased foreclosure rates, some economists have concluded that the correction in the U.S. housing market began in 2006." I did not see any statement clearly denying the existence of a bubble. The section on "Status of housing market correction" held my attention much more than the sections that precede it, and this section seems to settle the question of the existence of the bubble in favor of believing that there was one. I think this section should be moved up to follow the lead, with the analysis sections following it.

The section title "The bursting of the 2001–2006/7 US housing bubble" conflicts with the Timeline section, which lists "2005-ongoing" as "market correction". Pick one or the other cutoff date and make the section titles map to the timeline. The word mania, as in the section "Mania for home ownership" is a loaded term that left me wondering about bias in the article. I would prefer to see a more neutral term used. The citation for "mania" appears to be one article in Time magazine, which does not seem sufficient to make such a general statement about a societal attitude. The use of weasel words such as "it is also widely believed" (that home values will yield average or better-than-average returns as investments) with no citation for this statement are suspect.

I did not understand why the sidebar "Approximate cost to own mortgaged property vs. renting." detail was in the article, used as supporting detail for refutation for the idea that home ownership is a guaranteed road to wealth. The article is about the existence of a housing bubble in the United States, and this seems extraneous to that point. The information in that sidebar is unsourced, contains a math formula that I find incomprehensible, and may or may not reflect an accurate economic model of the issue it claims to summarize. What is the source, and why is it needed here?

The sidebar for "Equivalent price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio for homes" seems somewhat more relevant and is cited to Fortune magazine, which seems like a plausible source.

The section on "Historically low interest rates" includes several unsourced sentences detailing the math issues, which made me glaze over. I would have preferred to have a simple summary of the point, with a citation to a WP:RS.

The sidebar on "Differential relationship between interest rates and affordability", which contains math which I cannot understand, takes up a lot of space. I would prefer a one-sentence summary of whatever point the material is making.

The information on "Subprime, interest-only, adjustable rate, and stated income mortgages" also seems to be going into a lot of detail that does not directly pertain to the existence of a bubble. I would prefer to read about that issue as a detailed article, and just a short summary in this article explaining what these are relevant to the bubble question. For each sentence in this section, ask: What does this have to do with the bubble issue?

In the section "The Subprime Mortgage Industry Collapse and Senate Hearings" the quote from Bill Gross is just too long, giving disproportionate weight to his views, which are unencyclopedic in tone.I does not read like objective analysis, it reads like a polemic. I would expect a refutation to balance something like this. His use of sexist language such as "hooker heels" and "good looking girls" left me somewhat offended.

I did not check the references closely, but at least some of them appears to be blogs, e.g. [5] , [6]. Blogs are not considered as WP:RS. I would enforce a hard-line policy of getting rid of all links to blogs and self-published web sites. I understand that some blogs are very useful, but credibility of the article will improve if you avoid them. If something is important you would expect to be able to find a reference to it in a WP:RS.

Joint Center for Housing Studies, Kara Homes, and Mark Zandi are red links, which I dislike seeing. Buddhipriya 22:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Fair use rationales for magazine covers are invalid. The article does not lose anything by replacing the images with the text "The appearance of a cover story on the bubble on Time Magazine was taken as a sign of its peak." etc. Valid use of magazine cover would be, for instance using the O.J. simpson Time photo here to illustrate the controversy when Time Magazine darkened Simpsons' portrait on the cover. With the flimsy rationale given here for the Time and Economist covers, virtually every Time cover would be valid. Borisblue 00:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments.

(1) Raul, why bother to have independent reviewers here at all? Why don't you just sit in isolated judgement, unmolested by these pesky people who insist on professional writing and complain about issues of logic and completeness, as I did last time this came up. Yet again, you compromise your position as director, since you are meant to be seen to make disinterested decisions about promotion at the end. You're spectacularly failing in this.

(2) Nominator: you might have succinctly pointed out the blog-approval, but these large, intrusive boxes shit reviewers and make you look defensive from the start. Let us judge with open minds, please.

I'll return later to review the article. Tony 14:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, in your first point, are you explicitly referring to Raul's comment: "in all the years I've been FA director, that FAC nom was probably the one I hated to fail the most"? If so, I agree that that comment was unfortunate. It might be interesting to get an idea of what you think about the failed noms, but as the person who ultimately makes the final judgement, starting off with a comment like that may unduly influence things (either way). I certainly read the article with that comment in mind, but couldn't understand it. By the time I'd finished reading the article, I knew I would be opposing. Maybe it was partly because Raul's comment made me hypercritical? Who knows? Further discussion on the general point of this should probably be taken to a different venue. Carcharoth 16:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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