Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Illegal prime

Illegal prime

 * Article is no longer a featured article.

See that article's Talk page for the kind of objections that I see. I don't see the content as at all either well-written, nor a true topic that is fit for inclusion into an encyclopedia. It seems so contrived to fit a specific POV. - 65.119.52.66 22:40, 10 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Support removal, though for different reasons. (I think it's a perfectly good topic for inclusion in this encyclopedia, and while the idea of an illegal prime is propaganda for a certain viewpoint &mdash; it's to make DMCA look ridiculous &mdash; the article isn't grossly POV). My objection is simply that the article isn't of dazzling quality, and it seems that more could be written (the referenced external links go into greater detail and explanation). &mdash; Matt 08:47, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Object to removal. It's not clear how one can write in a dazzling fashion about this topic. That such a prime could even exist is an illustration (and something that deserves inclusion in an encyclopedia, of coding theory). That the motivation for discovering it was political is perhaps also a topic for an encyclopedia, at least for one that purports to cover current topics. The halflife for this particular political difficulty is probably considerable, so by the time it's 'cooled' enough for inclusion in a traditional encyclopedia, the entire matter will be moot. Readers deserve more from WP -- this is neither current news nor traditional encylopedia fare. But then, WP is not a traditional encyclopedia. ww 20:09, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit confused; you say, "it's not clear how one can write in a dazzling fashion about this topic". Featured articles should be dazzling, that's their purpose; if an article isn't great quality it surely shouldn't be held up as an example of the best of Wikipedia? &mdash; Matt 20:25, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Matt, Having been dodging WP downtime, I've only just been able to get to this. Sorry about that.  On the question of dazzling writing on this topic, I was trying to point out that prose which adequately describes a substantially circumscribed technical topic is unlikely to be capable of the artistry which is normally meant when speaking of great writing or dazzling prose. Metaphor, simile, allusion, etc (tools of the writer's craft) are often -- rightly -- thought to be confusing and so inappropriate in technical writing, thus making dazzling prose about technical subjects unlikely as the writer has been disarmed, if eschewing these tools. In the present instance, prime is a rather unmetaphorizable topic, and the legal tangle created by Congress with the DMCA, though hugely metaphorizable, would be so mostly only in a NPOV fashion. So, in this case, featured status must rely on other criteria. Clarity (which this article has), relevance to important concerns (which this article has), completeness (which in a limited sense on a limited topic, this article has), interest (as a result of the relevance to odd effects of important public policy enactments), etc... No article I can envision would be able to do much better, I think, so within the limits of the possible for this article, it does just fine. Does this sufficiently clarify my comment? ww 15:06, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Support removal. Insufficient explanation, deatial, and length. Acegikmo1 17:58, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * Oppose removal - David Gerard 00:26, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Support removal. It does not discuss why this is essentially a very trivial discovery, and it has an overtly political slant (which I agree with) that does not belong on Wiki Greglocock 23:21, 15 April 2006 (UTC)