Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012/archive2


 * 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:GrahamColm 21:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC).

Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012

 * Nominator(s): Casprings (talk) 13:47, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because this article has faced repeated controversies over WP:SYN, WP:Coatrack, and WP:OR. However, the article is at a clear consensus over those issues. Two important discussions on this can be found here and here. During the last WP:FA nomination, one actionable issue involving the other controversies section was brought up. Basically, it was stated that it was WP:Coatrack. This was also addressed with another RfC. In sum,I think there is consensus on these issues. Moreover, I think the article was improved by the last WP:FA nomination process. In my opinion, I think the article is now at a WP:FA level and wish to put it forward for another nomination.Casprings (talk) 13:47, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - I applaud your efforts to create an encyclopedic topic about a very controversial topic, and that's great! Referencing seems all there, it has free use images, a nice length, well sectioned, well written. I had some questions, but kept reading and found the answers. Great job overall! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 15:36, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support. Casprings (talk) 22:48, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Support - per previous FAC.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 12:53, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support. Casprings (talk) 13:07, 4 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Do not support. The previous FAC nomination was declined on 4/13/2013 stating that remaining issues should be resolved prior to another nomination.  But it does not appear that anything has been addressed and basically Casprings simply renominated the article.  My basic opposition also remains; that this article is little more than a collection of events presented solely to attack Republicans, and still includes the opinion that this had a significant impact presented as a factual statement.  (Obama's share of the women vote went down in 2012 compared to 2008).  Arzel (talk) 14:24, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As mentioned in my opening statements, I have addressed the issues brought up in the pervious FAC by gaining concensus. The links to those discussions are in that opening statement.Casprings (talk) 14:51, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You have refused to allow the sourced aspect that Obama received more of the women vote in 2008, so I would say that you have continued to not address it. As I have said numerous times, if you wish to write a research paper, do it, just don't present your research on WP as fact. Also, considering it has only been a couple of weeks since the previous close of the FA nomination and that there has been no discussion on the talk page by you I fail to see how you could possibly have addressed those issues.  Arzel (talk) 14:40, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The article follows what is established community concensus.  If you want change, I would suggest you try to provide a conceiving argument that sways others.   Wikipedia offers many tools to do this and get feedback for what others think.   However, simply restating arguments that don't have concensus doesn't work.  I would suggest a RfC, for example.  Casprings (talk) 15:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Arzel, how many forums have you now made this argument in? No one agrees with you that the article will only be neutral if your original synthesis is added. FAC is not designed to allow a single user to stonewall a process because of a personal grievance. Stop beating the dead horse. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:59, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Your desire to push this is well demonstrated. The fact that it is not original synthesis has been well presented.  I will not stand idly by while you and Casprings attempt to put forth an article which promotes a view which I have already shown to be untrue with reliable sources.  WP is not a place to promote your personal research and advocacy, I really wish you would stop.  Arzel (talk) 01:18, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Arzel may somewhat overstate what can be divined from the actual statistics, but the general point that stating that "women" (in this case, using the word unmodified must apply to the general class) voted FOR Democrats as a result of these gotcha campaign battles flies in the face of the lower statistical level. Nasty politics generally supresses votes, particularly of moderates, and only rallies the base. While speculation on what may have explained election results might fly on election day, statements of causality now need factual statistical and nonpartisan analysis. This article fails on this point, regardless of whether Arzel's analysis is in or out of articlespace. --Anonymous209.6 (talk) 03:48, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is not my analysis. I have presented the RS's numerous times which clearly state that the effect of the women vote may not be attributed to these events.  Casprings and Roscelese seen to be adamantly against including this information supported by reliable sources.  Ironically, they already use some of those same sources to promote their own original research.  If Casprings and Roscelese believe that the % of women vote for Obama in 2012 is an important statistic to support the general theory then it is extremely disingenuous to leave out the statistic showing (via RS's) that there was no statistical effect.  This is not to say that there was no effect, but Obama's % of women vote simply does not support this theory and should not be used in a FA to promote this theory when it can so easily be shown to not be true.   Arzel (talk) 01:18, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Apologies to Arzel, he is correct, my comment was out of date. In a prior debate, he was comparing the immediate spin post-election implying effect, and the contradiction of those narratives by later actual statistical data. While I agreed that his analysis was obvious, it was HIS analysis. I neglected to check that, subsequent to Arzel's posting of statistics, with elementary analysis but no secondary WP:RS, WP:RS have been found which also make the same conclusion. This now becomes a debate about whether data or speculative post-election narratices will be used. Sorry.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 04:08, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And the source that connects the 2008 data to the subject of the page is? Casprings (talk) 15:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Among the many WP:RS already cited, the present source of the 2012 gender gap numbers you wish to include ALSO refers to the 2008 and other elections to state that the gender gap is longstanding (and thus unrelated to election-specific issues). Please actually read the references you cite.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 15:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * THis has been dealt with. The article has analysis made by WP:RS.  If a WP:RS makes the case, it is in the article. Casprings (talk) 02:14, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * How convenient that you would leave out additional information from RS's that do not support that implication you are trying to make. You do realize that your source of the %'s does not make the case that you are trying to make, yet you include them without any context leaving the implication that you are trying to prove.  If anything this supports the argument that this article is little more than your personal research paper and I continue to suggest that you submit your research to an actual journal rather than try to use WP for this purpose.  Arzel (talk) 06:34, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * They use the exit poll number in context of post election analysis. Those analysis also mention Akin comments.  I am doing little but providing the same context as the news articles.  No RS I have seem has said, "well he actually got a a percentage less than 2008, so these issues had no effect.  That said, if you can find that, less include it.12:32, User:Casprings 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * But they don't tie Akin's comments into the vote % that Obama received in 2012. I have never said that there was no effect, only that none of the RS's say that Obama's % of women vote in 2012 was a reflection of these events in 2012.  The closest any of the sources get to any connection, that I have seen, is that the % of women voters went up in 2012, and because of this Romney's advantage with men was unable to close the gap against Obama.  Arzel (talk) 19:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and started an RfC, here. In either case, we are talking about one sentence. That, in my opinion, should not hold back the article from WP:FA.Casprings (talk) 02:35, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Do not support. Should never have been made even a GA. Questionable WP:RS, plus virtually every paragraph has mis-attribution or fraudulent attribution of spin or opinion to vague sources. Has nothing but a one-sided spin and the documentation of such, NPOV issues abound, as do due weight issues. Unfortunately, there also seems to have been a lot of well-intentioned work to fix every minor technical issue, such as grammar and reference format, but none to address glaring problems with content. extreme fail.
 * Is there any specific issue you can actually cite, that is not already at consensus? This seems to be a string of statements without providing any mention of what is actually in the article.  Casprings (talk) 03:51, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As stated, too numerous to mention in a FA review. Even machine-generated scan flags this article for weasel words, and excessive use of passive voice. --Anonymous209.6 (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So, the problem is "weasel words, and excessive use of passive voice"? But in your pervious statement, you said that "there also seems to have been a lot of well-intentioned work to fix every minor technical issue" and that the problem was " virtually every paragraph has mis-attribution or fraudulent attribution of spin or opinion to vague sources."  I am confused.  Some examples of text that are problematic would be very helpful.Casprings (talk) 12:40, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As would evidence of questionable sourcing, as from a quick run-through I didn't see any glaringly obviously non-reliable sources. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment I would note that both Anonymous and Arzel are not uninvolved in the article.Casprings (talk) 04:02, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * you "would"? why? comment on editor not edit? --Anonymous209.6 (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * To point out to other reviews that you and Arzel have reasonable deep involvement in the article. That would be important for anyone reading this to know.   I pointed that out in a simple statement.Casprings (talk) 12:40, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You might also point out that you have an even deeper involvement in this article. Arzel (talk) 01:18, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Doesn't that fall into the no s**t category? I have nominated the article for WP:FA status.Casprings (talk) 01:56, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The nature of a FA review is that you have to address the substance of the comments to the best of your ability and not the person making them. The delegates will judge how reasonable the comments are. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for re-iterating the inappropriate nature of the purely personal comments that started this. I would add a minor correction, though; FA guidelines have behavioral requirements of the NOMINATOR, and failure to abide by the behavioral guidelines, such as personal attacks, being argumentative, filing of nuisance noticeboard actions, canvassing, failure to respond constructively, all disqualify the nominator, and thus the nomination.--Anonymous209.6 (talk) 15:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This article is an embarrassment for Wikipedia. It's based almost entirely on news sources and other fleeting political comments and pamphlets. One might as well feature Israel-related animal conspiracy theories. For a sense of balance, in a country far, far away there were literally hundreds of press articles and dozens of hours of TV shows about a single incident in the 2009 presidential election, debating whether Băsescu did or didn't hit a boy (and there was international press coverage too). If one were to scribble in Wikipedia every single opinion published about that, a FA-length article would be trivially attained. The substantive article for the topic proposed in this review is actually pregnancy from rape, to which the latest US political spat is (justly) just a footnote. 5.12.68.204 (talk) 13:05, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Is this a real topic?
I'm cross-posting this from a couple different discussions. This article was brought to my attention at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tea Party movement/Proposed decision. I can't help but wonder if "Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012" is a real topic, or the product of WP:OR and WP:SYN from primary sources to cobbled together to create a topic that doesn't actually exist. IOW, I'm not sure that this article passes WP:GNG. Can someone more familiar to this Wikipedia article point me to a few articles from reliable sources about this topic? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This conversation may reveal some of the logic behind the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rape_and_pregnancy_controversies_in_the_2012_United_States_elections. The rational behind the article and the justification for keeping is there.Casprings (talk) 00:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Comments: I do applaud the article creators for working hard to get this sort of article, which is in one of the most controversial topic areas, to FAC, regardless of passing. I do have some issues, which I feel should be actioned on:
 * "Some American pro-life activists favor the medically inaccurate contention that pregnancy is less likely or does not result from rape." →&rarr; My first point is from personal aesthetics: I don't particularly like citation marks in the middle of sentences. Secondly, I think it would be much easier, and less synthetic, to find papers that test that hypothesis directly. Note that I do personally believe that pregnancy from rape is just as, if not more likely than pregnancy from consensual unprotected intercourse, I have issues with the way the footnote is presented which makes it look like OR. synthesis.
 * "According to Charles Babington of the Associated Press..." → either Huckabee did or didn't criticise establishment Republicans.
 * Roscoe Bartlett section → I don't see any NPOV issues here, but the quote block needs fixing.
 * There seems to be a "multiple sources foo bar.[1][2][3][4]" issue. If possible, I would refrain from doing this and limit to one or two top-tier sources, with expanded commentary on them.
 * In short... I wouldn't promote it as-is. It may be possible to fix these issues in the course of this FAC, but I'd wait a few months, get a disengaged copyeditor in, and come back later in the summer. Hope this helps, Sceptre (talk) 03:23, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review. I will work on fixing those issues.  I will also ask for another peer review and copy edit.Casprings (talk) 03:33, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 1. I agree with the aesthetic point.  I moved it to the end.  I don't agree with the other.  To me, it just simply references several relevant studies, all found in the article pregnancy from rape.  These are the studies that are cited to show that rape can cause pregnancy.  They are the most relavant.Casprings (talk) 04:13, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 2. Agreed.  Plus it isn't in a good spot.  Moved it.Casprings (talk) 04:17, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 3. Block quote is fixed.Casprings (talk) 04:20, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 4. I hesitate to take sources out, given the level of controversy.  That said, I will start going through the article and combining or deletion where I can.Casprings (talk) 04:23, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Graham Colm (talk) 11:44, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.