Wikipedia:Featured article review/Canadian federal election, 1957/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Dana boomer 11:51, 17 April 2010.

Canadian federal election, 1957

 * Notified: Wehwalt

I am nominating this featured article for review because of major 1c issues which were not raised in the FAC. Yesterday I spent an hour standardising the references to use the cite news template in the nine instances where newspaper articles are cited, only to be reverted a few hours later (diff). This was not a controversial change, and the swift reply from User:Wehwalt drew my attention to the article history (looking for some previous conflict over citation style) and the speed at which the article has developed. I notice that in the eleven day period from 28 February to 10 March when the bulk of the article was written, there is no real pause in editing which would indicate that the references were being checked against secondary sources. I believe the author has not read through the media coverage of the election, necessary for any meaningful discussion of the campaigns and the election outcome.

There are several instances where it is appropriate to list the sources cited in each reference. For instance:
 * In the "Campaign - Progressive Conservative" section, an entire paragraph is spent quoting an editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press. There is no date given for the editorial, and no mention of whether the paper ran negative or neutral pieces about Diefenbaker's performance in British Colombia earlier that week.
 * Also in the "Campaign - Progressive Conservative" section, it is claimed that "Diefenbaker's intensive campaign exhausted the handful of national reporters who followed him." Apparently, Smith 1995 cites just one journalist in support of this claim. I know for a fact that the frenzied pace of Diefenbaker's election tour was international news. There was an article in the London Times ("Mr. Diefenbaker's Struggle For The Canadian Vote", The Times, May 13, 1957; pg. 8) which reported that after falling behind campaigning in western Ontario, there was "a brief appearance before television cameras, before the Diefenbaker caravan sped across the countryside at 75 miles an hour."
 * In the "Campaign - Liberal" section, it is noted that by April 1957, St. Laurent was taking breaks from campaigning for ten days at a time "when Diefenbaker was already actively campaigning and making daily headlines". Was he making daily headlines with new policies, or simply by drawing a crowd at each speech?
 * Also in the "Campaign - Liberal" section, it is claimed that at times St. Laurent "seemed unaware of what was happening around him" and at one stage "shook hands with the reporters who were following him, under the apparent impression they were local voters." This is an exceptional claim, which requires exceptional sources.
 * In the "Campaign - use of television" section, it is noted that a survey taken in southwestern Ontario showed Diefenbaker was the best performing candidate on television. Saying that the area is "populous" doesn't tell us the survey was conclusive.

International media coverage should be used to determine whether the following is worth including: These are my most pressing concerns. I could go on, but would prefer to read up on the topic before commenting further. Ottre 07:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * In the introduction to the "Election" section, Beck 1968 is cited on the overall mood amongst journalists covering the election. Beck is not the authoritative source here. According to a review by John Wilson in the Canadian Journal of Political Science (vol. 2, issue 1 (March 1969), pp. 132-133), there is "[nothing] in the final chapter of Professor Beck's [book] which will stand up to serious analysis, not because [his conclusions] are not well-argued, but because he simply does not have the empirical data in his earlier chapters to sustain the claims he makes." He obviously did not speak to enough journalists to make such a claim.
 * In the "Aftermath" section, it is claimed that "even in reporting the election result, newspapers suggested that Diefenbaker would soon call another election and seek a majority." This clearly fails WP:V, a Canadian newspaper should never have been used to make such a claim.


 * Request for speedy close. The FAR rules says that "Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content."  This article was promoted March 30.  I will look at the concerns in due course, but this is just silly.  You don't nom for FAR because you missed the boat on the FAC, or because you are annoyed about a reversal on citation style.  To say I wrote this from scratch in 11 days ignores my research on the Diefenbaker article, also an FA, which began in December.


 * I should note that these concerns are trivial, should have been addressed on article talk page, where Ottre has failed to engage. For example, the statement about St. Laurent's shaking hands was from Peter C. Newman's book, a very prominent Canadian journalist who followed the campaigns (and was disliked by) PMs for thirty years.  Regarding the London The Times, has Ottre obtained the name of the person who wrote the article there and checked to see if he is a Canadian journalist whose stuff was picked up by The Times (or written moonlighting) or if The Times actually had a reporter following the campaign before using it as a pretext to bring this to FAR?  As for the new election bit, almost every source, including those online says so.  Diefenbaker had a minority governmetn, the first since 1926, most minority governments in Canadian history proved unable to govern for very long (none has lasted more than three years without a new election), of course they were speculating immediately!


 * I will respond more comprehensively if need be, but Ottre's concerns are trivial and he wastes the time of reviewers at a time when the FA processes are exhausted by bringing it here. If Ottre truly has concerns, and is not nomming out of pique at being reverted, he needs to engage on article talk page.  This is ridiculous.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


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