Talk:Culture/Archive 5

GA Sweeps Review: On Hold
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. However, in reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that need to be addressed. I have made minor corrections and have included several points below that need to be addressed for the article to remain a GA. Please address them within seven days and the article will maintain its GA status. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted. If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. If you disagree with any of the issues, leave a comment after the specific issue and I'll be happy to discuss/agree with you. To keep tabs on your progress so far, either strike through the completed tasks or put checks next to them.

Needs inline citations:
 * 1) "Attentive to the theory of evolution, they assumed that all human beings evolved equally, and that the fact that all humans have cultures must in some way result from human evolution." ✅ by linking to Franz Boas, who is well known for holding this attitude. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) "According to evolutionary psychologists, the diversity of forms that human cultures take are constrained (indeed, made possible) by innate information processing mechanisms underlying our behavior" ✅ removed entirely; replace w appropriate ciations --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) "In order to fully understand culture we must understand its biological conditions of possibility." ✅ gone --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) "In dealing with immigrant groups and their cultures, there are essentially four approaches:" ✅; replaced "essentially four" with "various". Each term below links to an article that is supported with citations, so I left those alone.
 * 5) "In any case, most of Polynesia is now strongly Christian." ✅; though this is undoubtedly the case, this was removed in my earlier round of edits --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 6) "Dominant influences include ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Christianity, although religion has declined in Europe." ✅; rmv in earlier edits --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 7) "The Middle East generally has three dominant and clear cultures, Arabic, Persian and Turkish, which have influenced each other with varying degrees during different times." ✅; rmv in earlier edits --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 8) "Christianity was the dominant feature in shaping European and the New World cultures for at least the last 500 to 1700 years." ✅; replaced w "Christianity has been important to European and New World cultures for at least the last 500 to 1,700 years."  --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 9) "Islam's influence has dominated much of the North African, Middle and Far East regions for almost 1500 years, sometimes mixed with other religions." ✅; replaced with "Islam has had influence..." --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 10) "This concept is mirrored in other cultures, such as in the case of the Great Australian Dream, although this refers more closely to home ownership by the same means." ✅ deleted --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 11) "Most, however, reject the identification of culture with consumption goods. Furthermore, many now reject the notion of culture as bounded, and consequently reject the notion of subculture. Instead, they see culture as a complex web of shifting patterns that link people in different locales and that link social formations of different scales." ✅ deleted, though I think it's generally correct; replace with citations --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 12) "Currently, a debate is underway regarding whether or not culture can actually change fundamental human cognition. Researchers are divided on the question." ✅ gone --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 13) "For example, the end of the last ice age helped lead to the invention of agriculture, which in its turn brought about many cultural innovations and shifts in social dynamics." ✅ gone --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 14) ""Stimulus diffusion" (the sharing of ideas) refers to an element of one culture leading to an invention or propagation in another. "Direct Borrowing" on the other hand tends to refer to technological or tangible diffusion from one culture to another" ✅, the citation above discusses this as well, so I made that clearer --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 15) "Sociologists and anthropologists believe that a holistic approach to the study of cultures and their environments is needed to understand all of the various aspects of change. Human existence may best be looked at as a "multifaceted whole."" ✅; deleted--Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Other issues:
 * 1) I usually have to tell editors to expand the lead, but for this article it needs to be condensed down. It's currently at 10 paragraphs and at most it should be four. Merge some together and take out some of the information that doesn't summarize the information within the article itself. If some of the information is only mentioned in the intro, insert it into the text of the article. See WP:LEAD for guidelines. (✅, assuming no one objects to my attempt at surgery here --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 16:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC))
 * 2) Although it's great that there are all free images being used in the article, is it possible to include some images that aren't paintings? I'm sure for the topic of the article there are some related photographs of culture in progress that can be added. ✅; I don't deal w images much, so I hope I didn't mess this up. Nonetheless, please find some photos in appropriate spots.  --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 18:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) "See Stephen Wolfram's A new kind of science on iterated simple algorithms from genetic unfolding, from which the concept of culture as an operating mechanism in can be developed on Friday," What does developed on Friday mean? (✅; deleted this--poorly written, seemed tacked on --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 02:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) "Many regional cultures have been influenced by contact with others, such as by colonization, trade, migration, mass media and religion." Single sentence shouldn't stand alone. Either expand on the infomration present or incorporate it into another paragraph. Fix any other occurrences within the article. (✅; this section had no references and a problematic use of the culture concept; unnecessary with subarticle --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 02:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) "...and the immigration of Europeans, especially Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, German, Irish, Italian and Dutch." Wikilinks should be provided for these ethnic groups. (✅ --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 15:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC))
 * 6) "Eurocentric custom to some extent divides humanity into Western and non-Western cultures, although this has some flaws." What flaws are being referred to here? Does "Western culture" right below it have flaws also? ✅; not entirely sure what this means; deleting --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 02:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

This article covers the topic well and if the above issues are addressed, I believe the article can remain a GA. I will leave the article on hold for seven days, but if progress is being made and an extension is needed, one may be given. I will leave messages on the talk pages of the main contributors to the article along with the related WikiProjects so that the workload can be shared. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 06:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Since some of the issues were addressed, I will leave the article on hold for another week for the issues to be addressed. Please let me know if you finish before then, and I'll re-review it sooner. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 02:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: Pass
I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. Good job on addressing the issues. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. It would also be beneficial to go through the article and update all of the access dates of the online inline citations and fix any dead links. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 06:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

attack of the deletionist!
I am shocked to see that a deletionist swept through and removed EVERYTHING that was lacking citations. Obviously the deletionist is not familiar with the content, and therefore could not help improve the article, but was arrogant enough to say "I'm sure this is correct, but it is not cited and therefore must go." It truly makes me angry...how can Wikipedia be improved if the lacking parts are simply removed instead of improved upon? To me, to remove enormous parts simply to keep it from being unsourced is a gross misinterpretation of Wikipedia's intent. This is the ever-growing encyclopedia that is supposed to be held up to standards; deleting huge parts of articles does not make the article better, it makes it worse! The citations request tag is for this very purpose. Somebody would have come along and added them. I restored the bit I wrote. Quickly, everybody restore what you wrote and grab what resources you can before this jerk comes back and ruins the article more. This was a good article...let's put it back that way.Elle (talk) 07:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, first of all, I was trimming a LOT of assertions that were unsourced, unclear or just wrong in order to keep this article listed as a good article. You may wish to refer to the discussion directly above that has been going on for the better part of a month.  Secondly, you have to source your contributions if you don't want them deleted.  That is your job, not anyone else's. Finally, WP:CIVIL. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 14:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * First of all, I'm a long-time contributor to Wikipedia and I know the rules. I have made many valuable contributions to articles and they ARE sourced. Note what I wrote above: "everybody restore what you wrote and grab what resources you can." I thought it was pretty clear I was suggesting that everybody throw in with sourced contributions. Do not accuse me of asking anyone else to add sources for me. Secondly, I admit my tone may have been confrontational, but WP:CIVIL does not prevent one from being angry. I don't like the way the "sweeps" are conducted; that is my opinion. But clearly we are all interested in improving the article: assume good faith on my part and don't accuse me of asking others to do my dirty work. Note the changes I made to the article; I didn't just leave a comment here and do nothing to help. For the record, that unsourced sentence I restored, which you removed, as mentioned in the discussion above (see, I did read it) due to being unsourced, was not one I added. You removed all of my content around it, but I added it all back and even found a source. In other words, I did someone else's job for them. No thanks are necessary.Elle (talk) 15:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You both seem to have the best interests of this article in mind. Newsroom hierarchies has done yeoman work in responding to the observations of the GA reviewer. Many of those sections he removed had had "citation needed" tags on them for some time. Given the GA review, we needed to either source them or get off the pot (so to speak). In any case, the article passed the GA Sweeps Review, in no small measure due to the work of Nh. Many thanks! Sunray (talk) 15:58, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * And, of course, the "deleted" material still resides intact in the article's page history, where it can be replaced at editors' leisure with the proper sources. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 16:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * @Elle--as far as rules go, you can't stroll in after all of the sweeps work was done by someone other than you, call the person who did that work a "deletionist" and a "jerk" and then play the WP:AGF card. I mean, you can, but it runs afoul of some pretty basic norms in Wikipedia-culture (or any culture, really).  I'll probably leave our exchange at that, but I'm a little disappointed at being spoken to in this way. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 16:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of sentence from subtopic Abrahamic religions
I have deleted the following sentence which appeared right at the e3nd of the subtopic Abrahamic religions, because it is nothing to do with that subtopic. I have not moved it to another location in the article because I am not exactly sure what the writer was trying to say.

"The mainstream anthropological view of ‘culture’ implies that most people experience a strong resistance when reminded that there is an animal as well as a spiritual aspect to human nature. " --AlotToLearn (talk) 06:36, 22 December 2008 (UTC)