Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bob Barr presidential campaign, 2008/archive3


 * 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 Karanacs 15:49, 22 September 2010.

Bob Barr presidential campaign, 2008

 * Nominator(s): William S. Saturn (talk) --JayJasper (talk) 18:26, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I nominated this article earlier in the year and it failed due to a wide range of issues. These issues were addressed and it then underwent a Peer Review. I nominated the article again in June, but withdrew due to a lack of feedback. I am now co-nominating with JayJasper, who frequently contributed during the article's development.William S. Saturn (talk) 20:21, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I co-nominate this article with William S. Saturn. Per his above remarks, the issues that hindered the earlier nom. have been addressed. The article is extensively and credibly sourced, vastly informative, and written in a readable and encyclopedic style.--JayJasper (talk) 18:23, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment—no dab links, but a dead external link to http://www.barrhq.com/general/write-a-letter-to-the-editor/ . Ucucha 19:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have removed the above link.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Image review—all images are public domain or Creative Commons licensed.  Imzadi  1979   →  21:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 1c/2c review: Please fix fn22 urgently. I have strong misgivings about ^ Bovard, James (1998-03). "The Fires of Waco Are Still Burning". Future of Freedom Foundation. Retrieved 2010-05-07.'s reliability for facts, it is additionally miscited as it comes from a source purporting to be a daily news presentation (cite as a newspaper, Freedom Daily with publisher listed). fn15 (Vejnoska) fails to indicate the publisher / newspaper.  Footnotes 7 & 8 support material which implies analysis (significance of such a vote, it is connected to his later running as a libertarian) without the cited material being able to substantiate analysis.  fn12 lacks a location (there is more than one Reason magazine in the world),  fn20 includes a publisher whereas other journals don't, and for no good reason (style consistency).  fn22 is deceptively and misleadingly cited as it is a website for which an individual takes editorial responsibility; and as a result may well be bad sourcing, might not be though.  fn21 fails to load. fn53 is miscited, fn80 is published by an extremely dubious source (single editor, non commercial, partisan line).  fn82 includes a publisher for no good reason (it is a newspaper with a singular name).  Fifelfoo (talk) 08:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please see Future of Freedom Foundation and James Bovard as well as Ballot Access News and Richard Winger. These are reputable publications.
 * Footnotes 7 & 8 show that Barr voted in a such a way. There is nothing implied in the text it covers.
 * Footnote 22 is hosted by George Washington University.
 * The remaining reference issues have been fixed. Thank you for your input.--William S. Saturn (talk) 17:42, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Continued comment: Hosting is not publication, but that footnote seems to have disappeared. Re 7&8, if it is trivium why is it present, if it is present as fact in relation to analysis, where is the analysis (and its own citation).  They are facts which contribute to the argument "criticized by Libertarians who opposed his efforts in Congress" (lede), but no mention of criticism occurs in the "background" section.  Winger's publication is not subject to commercial or peer review and he is a partisan, take it to RS for an opinion (or note previous RS opinion) or remove it.  FFF is a partisan political body whose newspaper is not subject to commercial review, take it to RS or remove it.  Additionally FFF is still miscited, it comes from their newspaper, not an organisational press release.  Reason magazine is still miscited as there are multiple Reasons around the world. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:43, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I added the place of publication for Reason Magazine, and it's already linked. The background section is a quick summary of Barr's political past, the affect of his votes on his campaign can be found and sourced elsewhere in the article. In regards to FFF and Ballot Access News, please see the last paragraph in WP:SPS.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer: see WP:BLP#Reliable sources." ? you may wish to remove those two and locate alternate sources then. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is not an article about a living person. This is an article about a political campaign. Expert sources such as these are permitted.--William S. Saturn (talk) 03:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments


 * Why is it important that he is wearing Prada glasses in the image?
 * For clarification, this is in a caption. Prada glasses are a status symbol that may be hard to read in the image itself.


 * "Barr attempted to tap into Ron Paul's resources and supporters to raise funds, and used the same company that Paul used, Terra Eclipse, to design his campaign website..." - These seem like a poor example of tapping into Paul's resources.
 * Note the word "and". --William S. Saturn (talk) 03:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * "winning the largest percentage of votes for his party since Harry Browne in 2000" - could this be reworded to indicate that he merely beat Michael Badnarik?
 * Done.--William S. Saturn (talk) 03:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Is Jim Bovard's lawsuit important? Andrew Keenan Richardson 02:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Jim Bovard is notable, and the lawsuit gives insight into the former campaign's financial status.--William S. Saturn (talk) 03:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Any chance of getting more info one which types of states he got his better/weaker results in and relation to policy stances? Apart from his unsurprisingly homeboy vote that is common in most elections anywhere  YellowMonkey  ( new photo poll )  08:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. I am currently working on this.--William S. Saturn (talk) 13:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose It's increased by a sentence in 12 days. This rate of fixing on the run isn't fast enough  YellowMonkey  ( new photo poll )  01:34, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Concerns.
 * I'm starting a prose and MOS review, and it generally seems to work out fine if I just make the edits, but feel free to revert any time. The usual plan is to keep going and support after concerns (if any) are addressed, but if there's too much, I'll stop ... looks good so far, though.
 * Some folks really like to repeat the article name in the first sentence, but I just want to point out that this would be slightly tighter and say the same thing, use it if you like: "Bob Barr, former Republican Congressman of Georgia, began campaigning for the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination on May 12, 2008, after months of grassroots draft efforts." - Dank (push to talk) 02:46, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to keep the link you're using for fiscal constraint, the phrase "fiscal restraint" is much more common. A quick Google search suggests that "fiscal constraint" is a neologism in related senses. - Dank (push to talk) 02:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "Although Barr campaigned throughout the nation, many of the campaign's activities took place in court, notably ...": it's the "although" that doesn't work for me here, because there's no contradiction in or tension between the two elements. Take your pick on how to fix it; breaking this into two sentences would work for me. - Dank (push to talk) 03:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sort of a WP:WORDS issue: do you have a source that supports "the media acknowledging a movement on Facebook encouraging the former Congressman to begin a campaign"? All I'm seeing is "Activists have started a Facebook campaign" in the Washington Times; "movement" would be the wrong word, and the usually plural "media" wouldn't be the best choice unless you have other refs. - Dank (push to talk) 03:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Per WP:MOS, see if you can reword to lose a few of the many links inside quotes, or move the links outside the quote marks. - Dank (push to talk) 03:33, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please check your quotations to make sure that if there's no period inside the quote marks in the original, you don't put the period inside the quote marks here. Although this practice largely contradicts American style guides, I understand that it's more common elsewhere, and Chicago allows it (or did allow it ... just got the 16th edition, haven't gotten that far!) in cases where you're trying to be very faithful to the original ... as we are here.  See WP:LQ.  In the first quotation in the first section that had a period, you put the period inside the quote marks where the original had a comma.  I've fixed it. - Dank (push to talk) 03:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "Within two days, the committee reported that $25,000 had been contributed." That's damning him with faint fundraising, although if that's your goal, that's fine; maybe a little "clever" though. - Dank (push to talk) 03:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not sure: WP:% says to use "percent" rather than "%" except in "scientific or technical articles, in complex listings, and in articles where many percentages are reported." My position is that "%" is right here, since you've got a lot of percentages, and I left it alone. - Dank (push to talk) 03:57, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Always give the source of polling data. In this case, the source was Barr's exploratory committee ... it makes a difference. - Dank (push to talk) 04:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "chronicling the Libertarian Party and the potential candidate's run": "chronicling" doesn't mean "discussing", it means "giving the history of" ... except he wasn't running yet, so there wasn't any history of the run itself. I would have changed it but I'm not sure whether you were talking about chronicling his efforts up to that point, or discussing his future candidacy. - Dank (push to talk) 04:06, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Without commenting on George Will's writing style, I'll say that using words that 99% of the readers will have to look up isn't the writing style we're looking for here, unless the rare word has traction as a technically accurate word. "Fitting punishment" (no quote marks) would be so much better than "condign punishment" ... and there's a link inside quote marks again. - Dank (push to talk) 04:17, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, on the upside, it's in better shape now, check the edit summaries for more information on changes I'm suggesting. On the downside ... that took a while for just the lead section and the next 3 paragraphs.  I think this one is maybe going to need more copyediting than I have time to give it.  If you can find a wordsmith, please do, I'll check back later. - Dank (push to talk) 04:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.