Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Wail al-Shehri


 * 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 User:SandyGeorgia 04:21, 31 December 2008.

Wail al-Shehri

 * Nominator(s): --Aude (talk) 

I mostly wrote this article about one of the 9/11 hijackers at the end of September, but have come back a bunch of times (with "strategic distance") to work on copyediting and MOS. I believe it's now ready for FAC, and as always, happy to address any issues. Please review! The article is not overly long (but not super short either), so hope that reviewing won't take too much of reviewer time. --Aude (talk) 22:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment can it be explained what a "muscle hijacker" is? I presume a guy who does the fighting to take over the plane, but couldn't fuind it in the Wikipedia article on hijacking.  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 01:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the comment. You are correct.  I took that detail out of the lead, since the term is undefined there.  I also adjusted the wording in the article to define "muscle" hijackers as the non-pilot hijackers. --Aude (talk) 02:08, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I added a wikilink to Hijackers in the September 11 attacks, though that article is only what I consider start-class. That will be the place to define the hijacker roles in further detail. --Aude (talk) 02:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Dabs, pls check the toolbox. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 04:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Thank you for reminding me. --Aude (talk) 04:50, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments -
 * Newspapers titles in the references should be in italics. If you're using cite news, use the work field for the title of the paper, and the publisher field for the name of the actual company that publishes the paper.
 * Please spell out lesser known abbreviations in the references, such as NEFA.
 * Current ref 40 (Confusion ...) the author name should be at the front of the reference like all the other references for consistency.
 * Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for reviewing the references. I have made some adjustments. --Aude (talk) 15:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Well done, overall. –Juliancolton Tropical   Cyclone  18:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * The two Shehri brothers then traveled to Afghanistan in March 2000, where they ended up at an Al-Qaeda training camp. - Remove "Shehri" and "then".
 * As well, many young people in the region idolized Osama Bin Laden, who had family ties to Asir. - "As well" is a poor way to start a sentence.
 * Details on how the non-pilot ("muscle") hijackers were chosen for the September 11 attacks are vague, though they appear to be selected by senior al-Qaeda leaders in 2000 from the thousands of recruits at training camps in Afghanistan. - This sentence is slightly confusing. When I first read it, it seemed like "they" referred to the details that are mentioned in the beginning of the sentence.
 * Once Wail and the other muscle hijackers completed their training in Afghanistan, they received $2,000 so that they could return to Saudi Arabia to obtain clean passports and visas. - Remove "tjat".
 * Some time in late 2000, Wail traveled to the United Arab Emirates, where he purchased traveler's checks presumed to have been paid for by Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. - Remove "some time".
 * Upon check-in, Wail al-Shehri was selected by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), as was his brother Waleed, and Flight 11 hijacker Satam al-Suqami, while Mohamed Atta, the pilot hijacker on Flight 11 had been selected in Portland. - This sentence needs to be reworded, as I'm not quite sure of what it's trying to say.


 * Thank you for the comments. I have adjusted the text, per your comments. --Aude (talk) 21:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Image review: The two images that have been released by As Sahab - how was that permission given? Is it explicit in the website sources? --Moni3 (talk) 15:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * As-Sahab has been posting videos on archive.org, where there is the option of posting them under creative commons licenses or releasing into the public domain. As Sahab has selected public domain for the videos, including the one that the two images/screenshots are taken from.  --Aude (talk) 18:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok. I see it. Thanks. Images appear to be fine. --Moni3 (talk) 15:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I read a good chunk of the article and fixed a few grammatical and expository errors. It needs a couple more hands to look for other things to fix, but the content is sufficient to warrant featured article recognition. Crystal whacker (talk) 02:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. I did a little copyediting throughout the article. This certainly appears comprehensive and neutral. Good work! Karanacs (talk) 19:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The copyedits look good. Thank you for taking time to review. --Aude (talk) 19:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Support. A couple of very minor points: -- Mike Christie (talk) 01:40, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * "In the aftermath of the attacks, some news reports mistakenly identified Shehri as a trained pilot and son of a Saudi diplomat. The Shehri family in Khamis Mushait has spoken to the media, denying those early reports and saying that the Shehri brothers had disappeared." I found this momentarily confusing, thinking that the disappearance was cited in support of the denial of Shehri being a pilot and the son of a diplomat.  Is there another way to phrase this?
 * "His treatment involved verses from the Qur'an read by a sheikh"; can you be more definite than "involved"? Presumably they were read over him?
 * Do you mean "World Gym" or "World Gyms"?
 * I have adjusted the article, per each of your points. Please let me know if anything is still not clear, or you find anything else for me to address. --Aude (talk) 19:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Support with a few comments:
 * Does teachers college require a possessive (teachers' college)?
 * Here: In March 2000, he left for Pakistan with Waleed, as well as with Ahmed al-Nami; - how about just a simple "and"?
 * Will all readers know what is meant by a clean passport?
 * What is a Florida state identification?
 * Have you got a source to support the calling of the prostitute?
 * Some attention is needed here: Men named Wail and Waleed were both reported to have been found alive by a BBC News article on September 23, 2001,[37] as well as a number of other news reports in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. how about "Men named Wail and Waleed were both reported to have been found alive by a BBC News article on September 23, 2001,[37] and other in news reports."
 * Why the apostrophe here 'Asir ?
 * The last sentence is too long: In response to 9/11 conspiracy theories surrounding its original news story suggesting hijackers were still alive, the BBC issued a response in 2006, explaining how confusion arose with the Arabic names that were quite common, and that the BBC's later reports on the hijackers superseded the original story.  - Try splitting it. Graham Colm  Talk 15:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the suggestions. I have made changes, except I think teachers college does not take the possessive (e.g. ) and the FBI timeline source covers the prostitute sentence. --Aude (talk) 03:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Support - This is a comprehensive and very informative article on the life of one of the 9/11 hijackers. The bio is comprehensive and neutral, it satisfies WP:FACR. AdjustShift (talk) 18:12, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Support the writing. But I noticed a few things at random.
 * "Shehri was highly religious, and attended Al-Seqley Mosque" – "deeply religious and attended ...".
 * also also – I'd remove the one before "idolized".
 * "had been friends with Bin Laden's father" – more formal to use "was a friend" or "was friendly with". Tony  (talk)  15:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Adjustments made. Thank you for reviewing. --Aude (talk) 18:08, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.