Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/September 11 attacks/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 Karanacs 14:43, 30 August 2011.

September 11 attacks

 * Nominator(s): Tom Harrison Talk 13:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because following discussions and peer review, this article has stabilized and I think it's pretty good. As we come up to the tenth anniversary I'd like to see it one of our featured articles. I look forward to your comments, and the resulting improvements. Tom Harrison Talk 13:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Former featured article, has not been on main page. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 13:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, even after three weeks, there was *not* a peer review (what there was on that page was a series of misstatements about citations in the lead, but no review): at minimum, I see numerous MOS issues that will need attention. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 13:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose just on a read through, I see quite a few uncited paragraphs. Please do not ask me to withdraw the oppose until the MOS issues are taken care of.  Once that is done, I'll take another look.  Thank you for trying to bring quality to an article which gets many hits and will get many more in two weeks, and please see my oppose as a way of pushing you in that direction.  I certainly have no intention of standing in the way of promotion, but we ain't there yet.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Comments on prose, just covering the lead section. - Dank (push to talk) 14:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * "(often referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/11, in combination with the attacks' side effects on that day)": "in combination" dangles; see WP:Checklist.
 * "Qaeda", "Qaida": consistent spelling needed
 * "upon the United States": The bigger the event and the greater the passions, the more important it is to simply describe what happened before getting into the interpretation. Nineteen guys didn't launch an attack on the entire United States that day, even though that's an accepted interpretation; what actually happened was, they destroyed two buildings and damaged a third, killing around 3000 people. "in the United States" would be my call, but if reviewers disagree, Chicago  prefers "on" to "upon" unless the word is followed by an event.
 * "commercial passenger jet airliners": IMO this could be tighter; 4 words, and we still don't have a clear picture of the scale. I'd probably go with "jet airliners carrying x passengers", where x is the total number of passengers.
 * "thousands of those working in the buildings": more accurate would be "thousands in and around the buildings"
 * "U.S.", "US": consistency needed.
 * "The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror, invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda members, and by enacting the USA PATRIOT Act.": I'd delete "and by enacting the USA PATRIOT Act", both because it's impossible to give a quick, neutral description of it suitable for the lead, and because a war isn't in the same category as political blather.
 * "the first phase of construction is expected to be ready for the 10th anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2011": That's a few days away ... will it be ready or won't it? - Dank (push to talk) 14:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I've now skimmed the first couple of sections.  When there are this many prose problems (and other problems noted above and below), it doesn't work well to try to fix them at FAC.  I'm sorry WP:PR didn't work; for this article, I recommend the military history project's A-class review. - Dank (push to talk) 20:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose, unfortunately - I admire the tenacity of contributors trying to engage with such an article, but it's not yet at FA standards. In addition to the undercitation noted by Wehwalt and the prose issues identified by Dank, there are MOS issues (overlinking, consistency issues, etc), image problems (stacking/sandwiching, caption issues, etc), and inconsistencies in reference formatting. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:19, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

MOS: ellipses, nbsps, MOSNUM attn needed at minimum. Prose issues are evident everywhere, here's a sample:"In the 1998 fatwā, al-Qaeda identified the Iraq sanctions as a reason to kill Americans: 'despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million ... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres," Yes, it's a direct quote, but it is easy enough to figure out how to shorten that quote to avoid three uses of "despite" in two lines. And is it really "once against"? Is that part of the quote? If so, a "sic" is needed. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 14:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose Having followed the evolution of this article for some time, my impression is that some editors who have recently been on the winning-side of some content-related issues are now trying to solidify these achievements by getting the article designated as a featured article on the project. (There are also some hints pointing to this interpretation in the rather voluminous talk page archives.) A number of uninvolved editors have pointed out a rather large number of issues that should be dealt with before the article could be promoted to featured article status. I share these concerns, and I would add the overuse of references in the lead section as another issue which should be addressed. Cs32en  Talk to me  22:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Personally, I am not aware of that, but the project is large and my time is limited. Can you back the first part of that up with links?--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * - "the issue will arise again and again and again...it is one reason why this article is not likely to ever be FA level." Archive 55
 * - "Plainly put...the CT section has to go if this article will ever be FA potential" Archive 54
 * Cs32en  Talk to me  22:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * So you're opposing because the article doesn't detail the conspiracy theories? The Rfc's made it clear that the CT's were to be removed...what part about that did you miss?--MONGO 00:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * A number of editors have pointed out several reasons why the article's current version does not meet the Featured Article criteria (see above). I generally agree with their analysis, and I've given another reason (overuse of references in the lead) why the article, in its current state, should not be classified as a Feature Article. Cs32en   Talk to me  00:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Our reasons are actionable. FAC should not be used to beat a dead horse revisit issues disposed of at RfC.  As for references in the lede, they aren't necessary and I don't consider doing that the best practice, but I don't think it's worth an oppose.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:37, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment It's obvious that a good deal of work has gone into this article, which given the highly emotional context, especially for Americans, is very commendable. It's equally obvious from the comments above that it has some way to go to get through FAC on this occasion. Even if it had been perfect, it would have missed the 10th anniversary, so why not withdraw now, get all the help you can to address the issues, and bring it back in the middle of next year. If it passes then, it would be an obvious contender for the 11 September 2012 TFA  Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  06:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe that its best to leave it up and allow some editors the opportunity to use the advice and suggestions to get it to FA...there are a few of us that will have (such as myself) a lot of time to dedicate to this article this coming weekend. I feel confident once we address the finer points made by commentators here that if invited to revisit the page say on September 5th or the 8th, the opposition may reconsider their opposition.--MONGO 10:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


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