Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Voluntary Human Extinction Movement/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 promoted by GrahamColm 20:03, 10 March 2012.

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

 * Nominator(s): Mark Arsten & Mitch Ames

At the risk of causing the extinction of the human race and—even worse—the end of Wikipedia, I am co-nominating this article for featured status with Mitch Ames. The content disputes that dominated the talk page (and spilled over to ANI) for a while have finally been resolved, and the article has passed GA, been copyedited, and been peer reviewed. I think we've found virtually all of the coverage they have received in quality sources, and I believe that the article is now as neutral as is possible. I hope you agree that it meets the FA criteria. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Support: My comments were addressed at the PR. Good luck! Res Mar 05:14, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you were a lot of help at the peer review. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:52, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments'
 * "Knight, however, believes that even if humans become more environmentally friendly, they could still return to environmentally destructive lifestyles and thus should be eliminated." – Perhaps I am missing a point in American usage, but I'm pretty sure that the 'thus' should be 'hence' or 'therefore', as the sentence otherwise would mean that humans should be eliminated in this way – ie. a dead end/garden path.
 * There are quite a few consecutive sentences in the 'Ideology' section which all start with 'He'. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, but it certainly makes the prose somewhat repetitive.
 * "Philosophers Steven Best and Douglas Kellner view VHEMT's stance as extreme, but they note that the movement formed in response to what the group sees as extreme anthropocentrism." – I have no idea what this sentence is trying to tell me.
 * These are all my quibbles; it's a pretty well written and sweet short article. Regards, Eisfbnore  talk 11:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments, points 2 and 3 were a bit tricky, but I had a go at them. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:13, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments This is an interesting and comprehensive article on a rather odd topic: nice work. I have some comments though:
 * The comma in the first sentence is unnecessary
 * "that calls for the human race to abstain from reproduction" - surely they call for 'humans' to not reproduce
 * " VHEMT argues that human extinction is preferable" - preferable to what?
 * "who became involved in the environmental movement in the 1970s and thereafter concluded that human extinction is the best solution to the problems facing the Earth's biosphere and humanity." - 'is' should be 'was', I think
 * "Knight publishes the group's newsletter and serves as a spokesman for the movement." - 'Knight publishes the group's newsletter and is one of its spokesmen' perhaps? (including both 'group' and 'movement' in the same sentence is confusing)
 * "Many commentators view its platform as unacceptably extreme, though some have applauded their perspective." - who's applauding who here? (read literally, this says that some commentators have applauded other commentators views)
 * "a VHEMT newsletter" - were there others at this time?
 * "In the newsletter, he asked readers not to procreate, to further human extinction." - second comma not needed
 * The lead says that Knight is 'a spokesman' but the article says that he's 'the spokesman'
 * What's an 'outreach' in this context?
 * The 'ideology' section makes it appear that this 'movement' is really a one-man band as there's almost no coverage of differing views within its members. Is this correct? (though there probably isn't much room for debate in an organisation with such a clear cut - and absolute - goal!)
 * 'The paper admits that Knight's support for reduction of the human population' 'admits' is rather non-neutral
 * The 'reception' section's focus on what various writers have said about the organisation seems to miss the point that the organisation appears to have had no impact at all on the general public, and is hugely unlikely to ever have any. Nick-D (talk) 03:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Alright, thanks for your comments--you have a good eye for prose issues. I think I made all of your suggested changes. As far as the "one-man band" goes: basically yes, there are a few other members, but Knight pretty much runs it all. The only thing I could find about differing views is the quote by Ormrod in the second paragraph of ideology. As far as your last point goes, I've added a couple statements from Knight where he says that the group hasn't gotten a great reception/is unlikely to succeed. I'm not too sure what else to put there, most sources tend to take it for granted that they're not having much of an impact. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:25, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Reception" and "impact" are not the same thing. For example, if they received a lot of publicity, so that a large percentage of the population knew about them, there might be a significant reception, eg everybody laughing at them and/or accusing them of being nutters, but virtually no impact because nobody agreed with them so everyone kept breeding. I'm not aware of specific references that indicate what sort of impact they are having - ie whether a significant (relative to the entire human population) number of people have chosen not to breed because of them. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:41, 8 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I disagree with both of Nick-D's statements that the comma is unnecessary. Both sentences to which he refers have the same general form, with the comma in question indicated here in angle brackets:
 * "... calls for the human race to abstain from reproduction to cause ... extinction ..."
 * "... asked readers not to procreate to further human extinction."
 * In both cases, without the comma the sentence could easily be misread as implying (using the words of the first sentence here, but it applies to both) that reproduction causes extinction, ie with the last clause ("cause extinction") being bound to "reproduction" rather than being bound to "abstain from reproduction". With the comma, that incorrect binding doesn't happen. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Source review - check formatting on FN 14, otherwise fine. Spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Those changes look good to me, though a clearer statement on the movement's lack of success would be helpful, though as you note this is obviously self-evident. As another comment though, I'm going to take issue with the statement that "Voluntary extinction is seen as a laudable goal by The Economist". This is a fairly extraordinary claim, and is referenced only to a tongue in cheek speculative article from one of magazine's Christmas issues (which traditionally include several such lighthearted articles). I've been reading The Economist for well over a decade, and have never seen any references to such a position (in fact, The Economist generally advocates larger populations in developed countries and is relaxed about population issues in general). This and the following sentence should be dropped unless you can find a secondary source which states that this is the magazine's actual position. Nick-D (talk) 06:03, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I removed the bits about The Economist and the laudable goal and so on. (I was actually unaware of the Christmas issue thing, my mistake.) I'll ping Mitch and see if he can think up a good way to put it. Mark Arsten (talk) 06:10, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Support All my comments (including those below) are now addressed. Nice work with this article. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all your detailed comments! Mark Arsten (talk) 17:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow, only one. I'm getting a lot better. I changed the formatting a bit, hope it's better now. Mark Arsten (talk) 05:12, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Spot checks
 * Reference 1a: the article says that Knight lives in Portland, but not that he's a native of this city. References 1b and 1d check out. 1f: the references says the researcher counted "close to 400 people on Mr Knight’s mailing list", when you say that there were 'around 400'. I suggest changing this to something like 'just under 400' Please also note the above comment in relation to 1k.
 * I don't own the same edition of Weisman as what was consulted in this article so I can't verify the page numbers, but the statements attributed to this book in refs 5a, 5c and 17 check out to my 2008 Virgin Books edition (5a,c to p. 242 and 17 to p. 243). I'm not sure about 5b though; my edition says that he "posts charts" at "Earth Day fairs and environmental conferences", but not that he speaks at them (which implies that he's been invited to speak as part of the conference program), so please double-check your copy.
 * 6a and 6b check out
 * 8a and 8d are fine (and the Fox News story is more reasonable than its hysterical headline implies!)
 * 13a and 13b check out
 * Reference 18: The article says that VHEMT's aim is "in many ways laudable" when you've just used "laudable". He doesn't 'question' "whether compassion for the planet can drive humans to voluntary extinction", but actually describes such a notion as being absurd (particularly the voluntary component of this). All up, this article is a bit more negative towards the group's aims than the quotes make it out to be.
 * Reference 19 checks out
 * Reference 22 is also fine
 * There were no problems at all with close paraphrasing in any of the above spot checks. Nick-D (talk) 06:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks for the spotcheck. I rephrased the information sourced to 1a, 1f, 1k, 5b, and 18 in light of your comments. Mark Arsten (talk) 07:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I should also note (as a image review) that the article's only image is used under an appropriate fair use claim. It might actually be a free image though, as the organisation's website states that "Except where noted, works on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License" and no exception for this image is identified. Nick-D (talk) 00:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Huh, interesting, thanks. I've changed the licence on the picture's page. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Very well-written article about an interesting subject. -- Supernova Explosion   Talk  10:57, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'm glad you kept pushing me to nominate this :) Mark Arsten (talk) 17:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Crisco 1492 comments
 * (Resolved comments by Crisco 1492 moved to talk page)


 * Support -- Short and to the point; great for an article. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. Interesting and engaging, has my support. GRAPPLE   X  16:28, 8 March 2012 (UTC)


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