Wikipedia:Featured article review/Down syndrome/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 removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 01:50, 1 November 2010.

Review commentary

 * ''Notified: Neurology task force, WikiProject Psychology, WikiProject Psychology, User:Fvasconcellos

Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 01:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Choppy prose. Many sections have one-sentence paragraphs, such as the first section of "Signs and symptoms," "Congenital heart disease," "other complications," last paragraph of "Cognitive development," third and fourth paragraphs of "History."
 * [Citation needed] under "Infertility" section.
 * "Screening" section is mostly unsourced.
 * "Examination at birth" section is mostly unsourced.
 * Outdated statement ("Current research (as of 2008) has shown that Down syndrome is due to a random event during the formation of sex cells or pregnancy.") in "Epidemiology" section.
 * Many refs are missing authorship info.
 * Notable individuals contains several unsourced entries and would probably be better as prose than list.
 * "Portrayal in fiction" is also a big unsourced list.
 * "Research" section is unsourced for first several paragraphs. We really should have a source to verify Arron et al's research.
 * European Down Syndrome Association is a redlink — is it notable enough for inclusion here? The only source for it is primary.
 * TPH, please see WP:RED for information. Red links are not parts of the FA criteria. JJ98 (Talk) 07:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I saw this listed on WikiProject Disability. After I read the intro, my reaction was: Wow, they wrote all those intricate technicalities in the introduction, but failed to mention that it's the most common genetic cause of mental retardation? See for a ref. It almost seems it was deliberately written in an impenetrable fashion. Tijfo098 (talk) 05:41, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The Research section seems to start the article anew with another defintion etc.; rather weird. Also, the two different citation styles used in that section are a bit distracting, but TenPoundHammer errs when he writes that there are no references for the first part of that. They are given in the "Research bibliography" section, starting with Arron et al. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:45, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm more concerned with the amount of "against abortion" material in the article relative to the opposite POV. The abortion rates for this condition are over 90%, but 2/3 of the ethics section is dedicated to impeaching that option. Most of those arguments are repetitive in nature, and appear to have been selected for the shock value of their formulation. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, the whole Research section should probably be removed. The Genetics section has more than enough high-level coverage, and it defers to a sub-article Genetic origins of Down syndrome for details. The Research of Down syndrome-related genes article should definitely be merged with that one. I appears to be "POV fork", although the "POV" here seems to be just that one article discusses strictly the causes for the syndrome, while the other also explores what else can go wrong if those genes get messed up, and makes some connections with other syndromes based on that. I don't see a good reason to keep these separate. Tijfo098 (talk) 09:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed re all of the above. The issues pointed out here should add up to a rejection of the proposal for featured article status for this article. It is nowhere near ready, and it would not be ready by the time wikipedia admins are apparently thinking of moving it there, so we should speak loudly against such an action. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 03:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Kikodawgzzz, I'm a little confused by your comment. This is not a candidacy asking for featured article status. The article already is a featured article - this discussion is to decide whether it should retain that status. Also "would not be ready by the time wikipedia admins are apparently thinking of moving it there": Moving it where? And what admins? And what time frame? Dana boomer (talk) 13:52, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I seem to have confused the words of User:Otters Need Attention where s/he says that the article has been nominated for potential retention of featured-article status, to have meant that the article is being considered for the first time to gain featured-article status — which I now see from your clarification is not the case. That being said, I still definitely do not see any significant reason why Down Syndrome should retain its featured-articles status, nor do I think it ever should have had it to begin with, if the errors detailed by other users here have indeed been there the whole time (have they? or has someone been messing with it to make the article somehow worse than it was when it was definitively at 'featured' status?). Kikodawgzzz (talk) 04:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The original editor is gone, and unless someone shows up to work on this, it may as well proceed through FARC, because it's in very bad shape. It was written before WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS, so needs to be updated to rely on secondary reviews.  It has taken on a lot of cruft since it was promoted in the Notable and Fiction sections.  There is an abundance of uncited text, and MOS issues.  There are numerous unformatted citations, and many more with missing publishers.  I looked back in the history to see if there is a better version we can just revert to, but I don't think that will do the job-- the article is in pretty bad shape, as happens when the original editor moves on and no one maintains it. If anyone wants to attempt some improvement, even if it won't retain FA status, this is how it looked when promoted, but it still needs to be update to conform to MEDRS.  Too much for me to fix, and Casliber, who might help, is already hard at work on two FARs here (unfortunate that Tasmanian Devil and Lion are here at the same time), while Colin is helping on a FAC.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 20:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * FA criteria of concern include sourcing, POV and prose. Dana boomer (talk) 23:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Delist, agree with FA criteria of concern identified in this sect by . -- Cirt (talk) 04:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Delist per my concerns and Dana's. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 05:02, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.