Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States v. Wong Kim Ark/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 promoted by Ucucha 00:37, 23 February 2012.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark

 * Nominator(s): — Rich wales (talk) 21:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because it discusses a landmark US Supreme Court case on birthright citizenship — one which has increased in prominence in recent years because of renewed controversy over birthright citizenship for US-born children of illegal immigrants. The article covers the topic clearly and comprehensively, and after two peer reviews and a prior FAC (which came close but not quite close enough), I believe it is now in suitable condition to be recognized as a Featured Article. — Rich wales (talk) 21:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC) [with additions to statement — 00:13, 16 December 2011 (UTC)]


 * Restart, link to previous comments. After receiving a significant amount of attention and re-working, this nomination seems to have stalled in recent days, and the nominator's final comments indicates some weariness.  It's hard to tell what has been addressed and where everyone now stands, so restart for a fresh look rather than close for lack of consensus.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Support on criterion 3 only as per before restart. —  Andrew s talk  01:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Update: Newly added image File:Horacegrayphoto.jpg is OK. I changed the licence tag for File:Melville Weston Fuller Chief Justice 1908.jpg from PD-old to the more appropriate PD-US (my support on images stands). —  Andrew s talk  07:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment — Everyone please note that there's been [ a lot of new work] done on this article over the past several days — so you'll all probably want to go through it again and see what you think about it now. — Rich wales 03:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC) Oppose for the time being ... Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * (extended discussion moved to talk page; please go here to find and add to this discussion)

Support: I have re-read the article, which has improved considerably during and since the previous nomination in which my detailed concerns were discussed and addressed. I find the reasoning behind Calliopejen1's oppose incoherent; this is not a legal journal paper, it is an account intended for laypersons of a case and the law surrounding it, and I think it does this job well. Brianboulton (talk) 11:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Support: Largely per Brian above, I find Calliopejen1's comments a bit vague (and maybe not even relevant to the standards). Using Roe v. Wade - the only FA court case article at the present - I think this article passes far ahead in content; specifically the significant development sections and the analysis of the Opinions itself. Also, I think a strong kudos is in order to Richwales who has worked extraordinarily hard on getting this article to where it is now! Best regards, Lord Roem (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments, still leaning toward oppose ... Savidan 21:51, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * (extended discussion moved to talk page; please go here to find and add to this discussion)

Additional note; I have read the extensive notes on the article's talkpage. Calliopejen1 has not visited the discussion since 23 January; I still cannot fathom the reasoning behind his/her oppose, which I suggest has no basis in the FA criteria. The nominator has I think gone to great lengths to meet the concerns raised by Savidan, and has resolved many of them. Of those that remain it is not clear which are being considered as critical. Savidan has been away from the page for some days; what I would like to see is a short, pithy listing of the specific outstanding points on which h/she is maintaining an "leaning to oppose" stance. Brianboulton (talk) 20:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments — I think the intro sentence should be clearer and more to the point. "X v. X, cite, was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held ______." Then you can get into the importance of the decision for whatever area of law and discuss precedents and subsequent developments and adjacent case law. But the first sentence really ought to be a summary of the case, I feel.

Standard convention has been to have "Opinion of the Court" be an == h2 ==, as the article is about a United States Supreme Court case, so the opinion (of the Court) is a major component. Maybe the biggest component. There are plenty of cases at the district court and appellate levels. The reason this case/decision is written about is that it reached the U.S. Supreme Court and it set the law of the land. The Court's opinion should be highlighted as such while a reader navigates the article. The two paragraphs under "Supreme Court" should moved to "Background" or just put directly under "Opinion of the Court," in my opinion.

I can't remember if it was ever decided to use "Dissent" as a header or use a specific person's name ("Fuller's dissent"). I think case article vary on this, so it's not really a big deal.

Personally, I think having both "Notes" and "References" sections is awkward, but it's hardly uncommon.

Also not a huge fan of the "Gallery" section. I'd rather have a shout-out to Wikimedia Commons for a gallery like that. Or have the images incorporated into the article. Not sure how common it is for featured articles to have baked-in galleries, but I think it's weird and cluttery.

And please don't use multiple columns for references. It makes the mobile browsers cry. :-(

Hope some of this has been vaguely helpful. Feel free to ignore part or all of these comments if not. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:31, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for these comments. I've reworded the opening of the lead section to (hopefully) make it crystal clear what this case is about.  I foresee a small possibility that opponents of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens may object that the new intro sentence is POV, but I believe the sources used in the article make it very plain that this is the mainstream consensus interpretation.


 * I was uneasy as to how best to handle the material about the oral arguments before the Supreme Court (material which Savidan insisted must be included), and it was in this context that I attempted a slightly different sectioning for the Supreme Court stuff. I've gone back to a more accepted convention; hopefully the result is clear enough.  Since there was only one dissenting opinion in this case, I don't really see any pressing need to change the "Dissent" subsection heading — though I'm certainly open to other comments on this issue.


 * I went with both "Notes" and "References" for the very specific reason that several of my secondary sources are cited multiple times in the article. Repeating the citation info again and again for a multiply-cited source is (IMO) unreasonably cluttery and error-prone — and it's my understanding that we're advised not to use Ibid or op. cit. in footnotes because these can be easily broken when material is rearranged.  I continue to believe that the way I'm handling the citations here is the most appropriate way to do it for this article, but I'm open to alternative suggestions.


 * I'm using   for the footnote list — the 25em parameter is supposed to enforce a minimum column width.  I personally believe that not using a multi-column list would make the footnotes hard to read, and would also be wasteful of space (given that many of the cites are very short).  And it's been my understanding that multi-column footnote lists are fully accepted for Wikipedia articles.  Hopefully it won't come down to your being unwilling to support promotion of this article solely on this one issue.


 * As for the gallery, it's been my understanding that this was acceptable (even for FA's). If there is a need to lose the gallery, a couple of the images are (IMO) particularly relevant and could certainly be incorporated into the body of the article.  I do believe it's advisable to have a good photo of Wong Kim Ark himself as the first image in the article body (for Navigation Popups if nothing else).  For the moment, I'm going to leave the gallery in place, but I'm certainly open to doing something different if there is a policy issue involved, or if the gallery is going to make the difference between promotion and archival for some other reason.  —  Rich wales 21:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Lead is better now (I had the same problem as MZMc), but I don't see the reason for the gallery either. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think "United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that virtually everyone born in the United States is a citizen." is significantly clearer and better.
 * Rich: I wasn't actually planning to vote at all, as I haven't read the article entirely and I'm not really familiar enough with the featured articles process that I feel very comfortable doing so. Having skimmed the comments on the talk page, it looks like this article has made a good amount of progress and is getting closer to being ready for promotion. I don't think a third featured article candidate nomination should be necessary; it seems more than doable to knock this out during this round. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. I've removed the gallery, and moved two of the gallery images into the main body of the article.  These images were already part of the article (in the gallery), so I assume it's not strictly necessary to have Andrew  reaffirm his earlier OK of the images.  Note that the article already had a Commons link, so anyone who wants to see the rest of the images should be able to find them.  —  Rich wales 22:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I tweaked the lead for WP:OVERLINKing (I think everyone knows what China and the US are), and to merge the single sentence into three paragraphs, conforming with WP:LEAD.
 * There is still a bit of WP:OVERLINKing in the article. See my sample edits, and see WP:MOSLINK.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Are there sources which address the social context of Chinese immigration during the period to expand the "Citizenship of Chinese persons in the United States" section? Specifically, is it true that while Chinese immigrants came to build railroads and then stayed, had this decision been otherwise, those immigrants' descendants' status would be a mess in the US?
 * BTW, there's an overuse of the word subsequent in the article ... are they all needed? Can you instead use alternate words like later or rephrase to use the word since?  However and subsequently are frequently overused among many of our FA writers :) :)
 * Sandy Georgia (Talk) 16:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I did some more rewording of the second paragraph just now.

There can certainly be a lot more said about the social context of Chinese immigration during this time. I believe I need to be careful, of course, to keep the article focussed on its topic, but I can add a bit more. I haven't read anything suggesting that the political/social establishment was worried that the status of US-born children of Chinese immigrants "would be a mess" if Wong Kim Ark had gone the other way; if anything, the worry was that recognizing these children as citizens would lead to increasing (and undesired) influence by Chinese in the western US.

I'll be happy to go through the article and look for ways to reduce the overuse of the word "subsequent". I may not have time to make the changes today, but that may be just as well, because I've spent so much intensive time on the article recently and could probably use a break of a day or so. :-) —  Rich wales 16:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I went through the article and changed many of the occurrences of the words "subsequent" and "however" (but not all occurrences — these words are in the English language for a reason, and it's not always feasible to replace them). Now I'm going to look for a bit more to say about the social context of Chinese immigration. Expanding on something I said the other day, concerns about the status of US-born children of immigrants being "a mess" seems (as I read the sources) to have been one of the big points made by supporters of Wong Kim Ark; they wondered what might happen to US-born children of European immigrants who had already been assumed up till then to be US citizens. — Rich wales 04:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I added some material about the motivations for Chinese immigration to the US and the roots of anti-Chinese popular sentiment. I'm hesitant to add much more, since this is an article about the Wong Kim Ark case and shouldn't get turned into an all-encompassing history of Chinese immigration (or of the Citizenship Clause, birthright citizenship, illegal immigration, etc.). But hopefully what I've added will help fill in the background and provide context for the reader to aid in his/her understanding the events of this time as they relate to Wong and his court fight. — Rich wales 04:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The context you added is just what the Dr ordered-- not too much, not too little, let's the reader know the context necessary for understanding the case, thanks. Please review my edit summaries on WP:OVERLINKing. (Speaking as a reviewer, since my resignation as FAC delegate is now effective.)  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks re: context of Chinese immigration and anti-Chinese sentiment. I'm OK with removing the wikilinks, except that I still believe that there needs to be a link associated with the first (and only) reference in the text to the Philippines — many readers may not be aware of the Philippines' historical status as a US territory, or of the grounds (legitimate or not) under which some people from the Philippines have tried to argue that they were entitled to US citizenship.  I'm not sure which of several Philippines-related articles would be the best place to direct readers, but I do think there should be some link.  —  Rich wales 22:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, that's fair, but they're not going to get that from a country link. IF it's that important, it needs correct linking and direct explanation.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I rephrased the part about the Philippines slightly, and added a link to History of the Philippines (1898–1946). —  Rich wales 07:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, the article is stable now. I recently pinged several people (and some projects) in search of more input here. If anyone has more suggestions or whatever, please feel free to speak up. — Rich wales 05:19, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. (Also, I was *not* canvassed.)  Article seems complete, accurate, and well-written.

I ran the article past a lawyer friend of mine, and his main potential criticism is that the article portrays the "children of illegal aliens" issue as perhaps more up in the air than it really is. Wong Kim Ark applying in that case is considered pretty non-controversial in most quarters (regardless of whether this is a good thing of course). Then again, apparently Judge Posner thinks Wong Kim Ark might not apply there, which is a pretty good source, so maybe writing that much about the controversy is reasonable.

As a side, purely optional comment from me: I realize the terms are wikilinked already, and people can click on them if they want to know more, but I'd try to squeeze in the Latin meanings of "jus sanguinis" and "jus soli" if possible, somewhere. "Right of blood" is much more resonant than "inheriting citizenship from a parent", IMHO, and not everybody will know this.

As another purely optional comment... the "Notes" are mostly references at the moment. If there was a separate "Footnotes" section, I'd move the bit about McKenna not being on the court when the case was heard into it. That bit of info is questionable for the article itself, I agree, but seems more important than being buried with the pile of references. SnowFire (talk) 21:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Response: Thanks for the above comments. I've [ added] translations for "jus soli" and "jus sanguinis".  I originally split the references into "Notes" and "References" sections because many of the references involve multiple separate cites to a single work, and "short citations" are considered preferable to ibid. or op. cit. (see WP:IBID and WP:CITESHORT).  I'm certainly open to restructuring this material if experts would like to suggest a more appropriate way.  As for doing a separate "Footnotes" section, this sounds reasonable, and it appears to be technically possible (see WP:REFGROUP), but I confess I've never done it before, and I don't think it's currently used much on Wikipedia — though I'd be open to expert opinions on this as well.  —  Rich wales 00:34, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


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