Talk:The Christian Manifesto

Pre FAC
I saw your name at Mentoring for FAC and since I am seriously concerning nominating this article for FAC, my first, I thought I'd ask your opinion on whether it stands a chance. Seeing that you advertise yourself as an expert on "areas of recent political history that don't receive much attention", you sound like the perfect candidate and this article definitely fits the bill. I don't know if your expertise covers Chinese political history or Christianity in China (I know a couple of experts in these fields, so no worries), but you seem to be interested in the 1950s. If you could have a glance at the article, and who knows, even read it – you might actually find it fascinating – I would be much obliged. I've got 12 GAs, 1 A, and 1 GA review under my belt, so I am not a total stranger to reviews (and this article got a pretty thorough GA review a few years ago), but an FA is an FA for a reason. Yours – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 11:20, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm happy to leave some comments, but it may take me some days, as I'm rather busy both on-wiki and in real life at the moment. Based on a very quick look, there's two things you could try to address right away. First, check whether you have supplied sufficient context for a reader unacquainted with the subject; I think there's several places where additional context would be useful. Second, some copy-editing; there's a few grammatical errors, and some heavy use of editorial voice, which can be an issue particularly with contentious material. Best, Vanamonde (Talk) 16:54, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much . Please, take your time with your other on and off-wiki responsibilities. I'm not in a hurry with this. I'll probably ask someone who knows nothing about this subject to give it a read so that I can identify bits that need some context. I'll also have to take a look at the grammar with someone who is a native English speaker, since I'm not. Editorializing is a bit more difficult and I might need your help with that. Again, thank you, and don't feel compelled to make this article your top priority. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 10:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Okay, circling back to this. I don't have the time to do a detailed copy-edit at the moment, and in any case that should be the final step. Here are some notes, that are a little garbled, because I'm writing them as I read. This is all I have for the moment. I think you have made a reasonable start towards getting this to FA status, but it isn't quite there yet. I would begin by adding any available detail, especially about analysis; and then trying to organize it thematically. After that, someone should review the prose to make sure my above concerns, and issues with grammar, are addressed. I could be that person, but that will depend on my workload when you get to this point. I hope this is helpful. Best, Vanamonde (Talk) 03:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The first thing is to check that all relevant literature (or a representative sampling, where everything isn't reasonable) has been searched. I am not an expert in this respect, and if we have experts on Wikipedia they should be consulted. I did a sweep for searches; I wonder if this, and this, and this, will prove useful.
 * Editorial voice; there are many statements that make me raise my eyebrows because I'm not certain they represent the scholarly consensus. Examples include:
 * "its inherently foreign character" (why inherent?)
 * "the Communist Party of China (CPC) was compelled to draw up a plan to persecute Christians" (why compelled?);
 * " This casts some doubt on his stated rationale" (why?)
 * "think that it sold out Christianity in China to the political elites (both colloquial and heavy editorial voice: also, how so?)
 * Another issue is jargon; the article needs to be accessible to a reader who is not familiar with Chinese history or with Christian theology. Instances include:
 * "Chinese Church" (is this a single body, or is it generic term?)
 * "its confession was fundamentally at odds with the communist ideology" (why? what is the confession, here?)
 * what is the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries?;
 * Some miscellaneous notes:
 * What is a "convicted Marxist"?
 * The number of signatories is confusing; if 400,000 were half the number of protestants, how is an additional million possible?
 * There's substantial content about impact and persecution in the "signatories" section
 * Many individuals are named but not glossed, and the reader needs to click a link to find out who they are; a gloss is necessary.
 * The text frequently mentions that the text is controversial, but does not discuss in detail why this is so.
 * The analysis section is quite scattered, and raises many issues without going into them in detail. I'd say this section needs substantial expansion to meet the comprehensiveness criterion at FAC: it's too brief for a document that seemed to have a very large impact.
 * Similarly, some impacts denoted in the lead, especially about the TSPM, aren't discussed in the body.
 * Thank you, . I'll definitely need to address those concerns, and more, when I find the time to do so. I'll make use of some of the fine experts we have here. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)