Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl/archive1


 * 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 by User:Maralia 14:07, 27 November 2013.

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

 * Nominator(s): GregJackP   Boomer!   19:38, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that this article meets the criteria for a featured article. GregJackP  Boomer!   19:38, 15 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment: is it a good idea to be bringing this to FAC now, given that "further appeals by her biological father were said to be likely." FAC is a slow process these days—I wonder just how stable this article might be if it took, say, two months for the review to close. Curly Turkey (gobble) 14:14, 16 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I thought I had already added this, but the father has announced he's dropping all appeals. I'll find the ref and add it.   GregJackP   Boomer!   15:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. GregJackP   Boomer!   08:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment from Hamiltonstone
This looks good; as someone who heard about this case because it touches on aspects of my work in Australia, the description and coverage of it seems carefully put together and balanced, noting however that I haven't read the cases. I had the same reaction as Curly Turkey regarding that line in both the lede and at the final section on "legal developments". I would be a bit reluctant to stamp it as FA if significant aspects, such as appeals, were still up in the air, though i certainly think the article is of very high quality. I await GregJack's tweaks as foreshadowed above.
 * I picked up a typo and also tried to clarify a sentence. Check my diff. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Works for me.  GregJackP   Boomer!   08:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. Not being American, I'm curious how quality a source is Tulsa World? Do we have any nationally significant news report outlets confirming that story? Or is TW pretty good? hamiltonstone (talk) 10:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The Tulsa World is one of the two major newspapers for the state of Oklahoma, the other being the Daily Oklahoman. I could have also pulled a regional paper from South Carolina (Post and Courier) or one of the national American Indian news outlets (Indian Country Today).  I would consider the World being the most recognized of the three.   GregJackP   Boomer!   19:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * This is far outside my subject of expertise, so I'll stick to some minor issues. The picture of Sotomayer is going through the headers for "Subsequent developments" and the text is not large enough to avoid the whitespace. This seems to be a landmark case and the claim that "Coverage in the mainstream media was extensive." should indicate that more sources and commentary should exist. For legal analysis on the case's future impact... is there anything written by prominent lawyers? The section is not clear. "On September 25, 2013, the Charleston County Family Court began contempt proceedings against Brown and the Cherokee Nation for withholding Veronica in the face of the South Carolina adoption decree, which was finalized in July. Both parties may face financial sanctions..." The first sentence here is not sourced and the second seems to indicate the situation is not resolved entirely. Several other sentences also are lacking the inline citations in this paragraph as well. 209.255.230.32 (talk) 14:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Addressing:
 * I reduced the size of the Sotomayor image and moved it to take care of the whitespace issue.
 * It probably will turn out to be a landmark case, but it is fairly recent. As of today, there is only one law review article on Westlaw, a pre-decision piece by Zug in the Michigan Law Review; Lexis only has two, a statistic study on how the justices voted/grouped together (Harvard Law Review) and a no-bylined article covering the decision (also in the Harv. L. Rev.) (and likely student written, given the normal process).
 * Comment: I've worked on the article too much to be a reviewer, but will note that this is the first time that SCOTUS has addressed ICWA since Holyfield that alone is significant!  Montanabw (talk) 01:16, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll come back later and clean the rest up.  GregJackP   Boomer!   23:41, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Question. I read the introduction. Only the introduction.
 * The very last sentence says "Brown later dropped his appeals."
 * Who on earth is "Brown"? No-one by that name has been mentioned in the first three paragraphs.  There is no indication whatsoever that the non-custodian father's name is "Brown" until the very til end of the final paragraph of the introduction. If you are going to name him in the introduction, then he needs to be named as soon as he, personally, becomes a player i.e. while talking about a point of law he is "a non-custodial Indian father" but the minute that he takes action, he needs to be named.  Amandajm (talk) 06:55, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of issues just in the lead regarding grammar, clarity, and prose. For instance, in the lead sentence, "several sections" do not apply (rather than "does"). Later, the tenses would match better when you say the procedures "do not apply when the child has never lived with the father" or "did not apply when the child had never lived with the father", but not "do" and "had". As regards prose variation and style, the first paragraph (which only contains four sentences) says "do[es] not apply" three times, and "required" or "requirement" four times. If the father "won in both trial court and on appeal", this wording implies that he "won in on appeal", and so it should be reworded as "won both in trial court and on appeal". As Amandajm mentioned, Brown needs to be introduced before being mentioned in the last sentence of the lead. Commas are needed after "rights under the ICWA" and "lifted in September 2013". In an issue of clarity, the lead claims "the South Carolina trial court finalized the adoption... but this was prohibited in August by the Oklahoma Supreme Court" &mdash; the reference "this" is not clear, but if it means that the adoption was prohibited, that doesn't seem fully backed up by the article (which says that the OSC stayed an order to transfer the child, which it later lifted, but doesn't say they prohibited the adoption).
 * Comments from Quadell

I didn't get further than the lead, but I would recommend a thorough copyedit by a good proofreader before continuing. – Quadell (talk) 15:48, 27 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you're right. I'll withdraw this, get it past a GOCE review, and resubmit.   GregJackP   Boomer!   16:59, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.