Talk:Religion in Minnesota/GA1

GA Review
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Nominator: 17:19, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 14:38, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello! I'll read this article over the next few days and see where it stands against the good article criteria. The big ugly alien ( talk ) 14:38, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

, I've read the article in detail, and it has a pretty strong foundation. But there are still some significant issues that need to be resolved before this can be classified as a GA. The main issue is that the sourcing doesn't really lend itself to proper coverage of the topic. Most of the sources just show that groups have websites or that they exist, without actually telling us if they're significant active groups or if they've been covered by any secondary sources. There are also some structural issues with the lead and the history section, some statements that don't have sources, some gaps in the coverage of indigenous religions, and some questions about whether the sources support everything they're supposed to. The overall coverage of the article is pretty good, but these things need to be addressed. I've written a full review below. You can renominate the article whenever you think all of the points below have been addressed, and it's pretty common for an article to come back and pass easily after some fixing. If you want more feedback on writing the article, you can put it up for peer review for more general feedback outside of the good article process, or you can ask more specific questions at the teahouse. For now I'm going to close this nomination so you can keep working on the article at your leisure. The big ugly alien ( talk ) 22:46, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

General:
 * Is there any data on general religious demographics more recent than 2014?
 * Can more be said about indigenous religions? They get a few sentences, but it would be helpful to know more about what practices were common in pre-Columbian Minnesota and what still remains of them today in religious practice or local culture. What did the indigenous groups of present-day Minnesota actually believe?
 * Besides Native American religion, there's enough info here to cover the good article requirements. But as a general suggestion, I like to suggest taking advantage of each source to get everything you can out of it. Just something to keep in mind for the future.
 * The word "however" can pretty much always be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence.
 * Avoid relative time references. Phrases like "recent", "today", and "the last few decades" should be replaced with more definite time periods.
 * Make sure all percentages and other statistics have years associated with them.

Lead:
 * The lead should be a summary of the body, with no original information of its own. There shouldn't be any facts in the lead that aren't also found below.
 * This is more of a personal preference so feel free to ignore it, but I try to avoid putting statistics in the lead. I prefer to give a general summary and then go more in depth later in the article.
 * primarily the customs and spiritual practices of the Native Americans – This makes it sound like there were other religions prior to European colonization besides those of Native Americans.

History:
 * The layout of this section is confusing. There's a "European settlement" section that covers the 19th and 20th centuries, but there's also a "19th and 20th centuries" section.
 * There are a few points throughout this section where it's unclear what time period they took place.
 * It would be nice to have a little more info about how Christianity became more common, like what denominations and how quickly they grew between 1731 and 1850. But if it's not in the sources then don't worry about it.
 * escaping intolerance by the Church of Sweden is kind of vague. Could the article specify a little more about what that meant?
 * Similarly, what sort of repression did the Native American religions experience?
 * The Jewish community, with a history dating back to the late 19th century – Is there a reason this isn't mentioned alongside the information about Christianity earlier in the history section?

Christianity:
 * Since these subsections are so short, it might be simpler to remove the subheadings and just have a single "Christianity" section. Try to avoid paragraphs that are only one sentence long and avoid sections that are only one paragraph long.
 * The image caption lists "LCMS", but that's not defined anywhere in the article.
 * The statistics for Catholicism are unsourced.

Other religions:
 * There's some historical info about the development of religious populations here. Consider incorporating some of it into the history section, which is mostly just the history of Christianity right now. Then this section can be reserved for current statistics, where different groups are active in the state, and anything else that makes them distinct.
 * Executive Order 13780 – Should clarify this was by the federal government and not something Minnesota enacted.
 * led to more Muslims arriving in Minnesota as refugees – It's unclear whether this means that Minnesota specifically became a hub for refugees, or if it was just one of many states affected by the influx.
 * Muslims in Minnesota are politically active – This doesn't really say anything. Lots of groups are politically active in every state. The part about CAIR is good information, but just listing politicians who happen to be Muslim doesn't add anything unless there's additional context about why Muslims in politics are distinct in Minnesota compared to other states.
 * It might help to clarify that the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party is Minnesota's state affiliate of the Democratic Party.
 * Eastern religions is a broad category. Maybe it should be named Indian religions or the equivalent Dharmic religions.
 * Statistics about the Jain Center and the Baháʼí Faith are unsourced.
 * Is George Floyd at all relevant to the Baháʼí Faith?

Irreligion:
 * This makes it the fastest-growing "religion" – Avoid scare quotes. Maybe call it a religious demographic or something like that.
 * it's important to note – Avoid editorializing. If something should be noted, then just note it.

Religion in prison and jails:
 * Is the religious make up of inmates important enough to be included, let alone put in its own section? There are presumably lots of groups that have a different religious breakdown, and it seems like this was included just because a source happened to be available rather than because it's significant to the topic. Personally, I would remove the first paragraph of this section and then move the second section up to the history section.

References:
 * One thing I'm noticing here is a lot of primary sources. The existence of several organizations is just cited to the websites of the groups themselves, as opposed to an independent source that covers the churches. This presents major problems regarding what should be covered and doesn't give us any info about how significant each group or denomination is in the broader scope of religion in Minnesota. It only verifies that they technically exist.
 * The claim about Oriental Orthodox Christians is cited to three Google Maps links, which don't actually discuss religious demographics in any way except showing that a building is in a certain place. I suggest either removing this or finding a source that covers the group and shows that they're active.
 * religionsmn.carleton.edu was down when I checked both yesterday and today. Is the website totally dead? If it is, archive links should be added to the citations so the referenced content can still be verified.
 * Is the Islamic Resource Group a reliable source? It doesn't look to be an established publisher or anything like that. Since there are other sources citing the same sentence, I'd suggest just removing this one.
 * Wikipedia does not consider the Jewish Virtual Library to be a reliable source.
 * Is Sahan Journal a reliable source? It's especially questionable since the source is a TikTok post which doesn't necessarily have the same editorial oversight as articles, so it should probably be replaced or removed either way.

Source spot checks:
 * [6] MNopedia – Both uses are good.
 * [18] Hopfensperger (2018) – Where does this article explicitly state that the non-religious number is growing and that it's at the same rate as national trends?
 * [34] Nelson (2022) – This says that there are Ukrainian Orthodox in Minnesota. It doesn't say that they're a significant portion of the Orthodox population, and I don't see anything about Russians being in Minnesota.
 * [35] Walsh (2017) – Does this actually say that Minnesota has a significant Orthodox Syrian population? I just see mention of Syrian groups, and "conspicuous shortage of Christian refugees coming from Syria" seems to suggest the opposite.
 * [59] Buncombe (2023) – Good.
 * [95] Jain Center of Minnesota (2019) – Confirms the 1989 establishment. It says that "three moorties will be consecrated on July 22, 2007". This isn't the same thing as what's said in the article, and since it says that they will be consecrated, it doesn't confirm that they actually went through with it.