Talk:Ghost/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Freeknowledgecreator (talk · contribs) 23:49, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

The article is about an interesting topic. Unfortunately, I simply don't believe that the article, in its current state, meets the good article criteria. I'll give you a chance to change my mind and rework the article, but in all honesty, I think it is unlikely it will pass. Probably the best thing the review can accomplish is to list the problems with the article in its current state so that it can be rewritten and eventually nominated again. I hope you find this worthwhile.

The problems start with the lead, which states, "The overwhelming consensus of science is that ghosts do not exist. Their existence is impossible to falsify, and ghost hunting has been classified as pseudoscience." That makes no sense; it is actually self-contradictory. If something definitely does not exist, that means that its existence has been falsified. If the existence of something is impossible to falsify, that means that it is impossible to show that it does not exist, not that it does not exist. Either the statement that "overwhelming consensus of science is that ghosts do not exist" must be removed or the statement that the existence of ghosts "is impossible to falsify" must be removed; it appears senseless for the article to make both those statements.

I also note that significant portions of the article do not appear to be cited at all; that definitely won't do for a good article. I'll provide more comments soon, discussing the article at greater length. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 23:59, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

The second of the six Good article criteria is that an article be "Verifiable with no original research", which includes containing "a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline". Unfortunately the article quite clearly does not meet this criterion. Sections of the article that lack sufficient (or, in some cases, any) citations include the "Terminology" section, several subsections of the "Typology" section ("Ghosts and the afterlife", "Fear of ghosts", "Common attributes", "Cultural", "Locale", "Ancient Near East and Egypt"), and at least one subsection of the "History" section ("Ancient Near East and Egypt"). In the "By culture" section, there are insufficient citations in several subsections ("European folklore", "Indian subcontinent", "North India", "Bengal and East India", "Tibet", "Austronesia", "China", and "Japan"). This is just a partial list of the problematic areas. In order to resolve this issue, you would have to either add a very large number of supporting citations, or remove a great deal of article content. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 06:30, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Overview
The six Good article criteria are,

1. That the article be "Well written". The article does not consistently meet this criterion. Much of it is adequately well-written; some of it is not. There are a number of passages of what I would consider poor writing. Though I have made some edits at the article, I have not ventured to try to improve these passages.

2. That the article be "Verifiable with no original research". Unfortunately, as noted above, the article clearly does not meet this criterion. Much of it is uncited.

3. The article be "Broad in its coverage". The article more or less meets this criterion at present, although some parts it could stand to be expanded. Unfortunately, I think it is likely that much article content will eventually have to be removed due to its being uncited, so I would not say that the article securely meets even this criterion.

4. That the article be "Neutral". I would like to say that the article meets this criterion, since much of it does seem reasonably neutral. I am not truly satisfied with it, however. See the points above about how the lead seems to contradict itself.

5. That the article be "Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute." The article does seem stable.

6. That the article be "Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio". I believe the article meets this criterion.

Iamreallygoodatcheckers, if you wish, I can place the article on hold so that you can make an effort to improve it and bring it closer to meeting the good article criteria. If you do not wish me to do this, however, then there is really nothing I can do but fail the article. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 04:14, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * With no response from the article nominator, I regretfully have little choice but to fail the article. Freeknowledgecreator (talk) 08:57, 10 February 2020 (UTC)