Wikipedia:Featured article review/History of Greenland/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 17:12, 18 December 2007.

Review commentary

 * User:Jao‎, User:Rmhermen‎, User:HansHermans‎, WikiProject Denmark‎, WikiProject Greenland‎, WikiProject Norse history and culture notified

This article badly fails criterion 1b, it is not comprehensive at all. It is, in fact, so woefully deficient in what should be its central focus that it could be said to fail 1d as well by not being neutral.

Greenland is an actual country inhabited by an actual nation, an Inuit one. This article should be largely devoted to telling the story of that nation. It almost completely fails to do so - instead putting all its emphasis on European-descended people. What historical figures does the article mention? That would be Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, Erik the Red, Leif Ericson, Hans Egede, William Scoresby, Knud Rasmussen and Robert Peary. Not one of those people was an Inuit. Not one of them was born in Greenland. Think about that for a second - this featured article about the history of Greenland doesn't see fit to mention a single person born in Greenland.

Skipping the lede, the article starts with a short section on prehistory entitled "Early Palaeo-Eskimo cultures". This is okay, as far as it goes. Then there's a substantial section titled "Norse settlement". Then there's a huge section titled "The demise of the Greenland Norse settlements". Then there's a section titled "Late Dorset and Thule cultures" - you might think that one actually deals with Inuits but there is still a heavy focus on the Norse. Then we get a "Colonization and exploration" section, still dealing a bit with the Norse but finally giving some of the information which I would expect to the mainstay of the article - the history of the nation currently living in Greenland. Next we get a section on the "Strategic importance" of Greenland, very much from the point of view of non-Greenlanders. The last section, "Home rule", at long last is reasonably on topic. It is, however, woefully short.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have information on the Norse settlement of Greenland or that we shouldn't have information on the strategic importance of Greenland etc. but the balance in the current article is completely out of whack.

It's almost an afterthought but I should mention that the article is poorly sourced (and none of the books given as references deals with the modern history of Greenland - it's all Norse or prehistoric stuff). It's not exactly well written either, the bloated "The demise of the Greenland Norse settlements" section is especially bad and seems to have degenerated into some sort of back-and-forth debate. Haukur 23:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Haukurth, please follow the instructions at WP:FAR to notify involved editors and relevant WikiProjects with History of Greenland and leave a summary of notifications here as in this sample. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 07:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I checked who the top contributors were and notified them. Feel free to post more notifications. Haukur 07:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness and focus (1b and 4), and referencing (1c). Marskell 07:38, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Practically nothing has happened since I brought the article here so I'm afraid I'm going to have to recommend removal of FA status. Haukur 22:40, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Remove; the nominator cited 1b (comprehensive) and 1d (neutral), but the article also fails 1c (almost completely uncited). No progress during FAR.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 06:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Remove- per Sandy. --Peter Andersen (talk) 10:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.