Wikipedia:Featured article review/When God Writes Your Love Story/archive1

When God Writes Your Love Story

 * Notified: Neelix, Example WikiProject

This particular article seems to have been promoted without careful scrutiny as to whether it was really the best possible article that could be written on the subject. Over the last few weeks, or so, myself and a number of other commentators have expressed our dismay that this article was promoted and continued to be listed as "one of the best articles" of Wikipedia when it is so poor. In particular, it lacks any sense of balance with regards to the subject and I have placed the POV template tag on the article to indicate that the article is suffering from a conflict over the way it is discussing the subject, giving greater weight to Christian devotional literature over scholarly publications, and ignoring context of the article. While working on trying to fix issues with the article, the main author and self-nominator of the featured article has not been entirely helpful in acknowledging or addressing these issues in a straightforward manner.

I, in particular, believe that the article lacks the following:

1b) Very little context for this article is provided and, indeed, there seems to be significant resistance to providing this context in the text of the article.

1d) Because the article over-emphasizes Christian opinions and does not give the proper WP:PROMINENCE to the two scholarly monographs on the subject of the book that are being used, this article is not neutral.

I also think it is important that we consider whether or not the article was written in a competent way, that is, I think the author has done an admirable job jumping through the hoops required to navigate the bureaucracy at Wikipedia, but there does not seem to be an outcome that a high-quality article has resulted. This is simply not a particularly good article, and I question whether Wikipedia guidelines as stringent as they are would ever allow it to become a good article.

I am not alone in this evaluation. Others have expressed similar concerns and while I was hoping we could come to some conclusion quickly through normal talkpage processes, it has become apparent that this is not going to be possible in a timely manner. The article needs help. The issues need to be addressed or, I'm afraid, I think we should move towards removing it from the list of featured articles.

jps (talk) 18:32, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * This was promoted to FA status on 31st July. We are therefore only about 6 weeks from promotion.  The usual minimum time for an FAR, absent extenuating circumstances, is 3 to 6 months.  What are the extenuating circumstances here?  And has talk page discussion really got to the end of the road?  I doubt it.  Also, throwing around links here and on the talk page to an essay called Competence is required is very derogatory of those who helped write and review the article.  It's an essay that is more often used as an explanation for why X should be blocked on the basis that they cannot understand Wikipedia enough to be able to edit usefully (through language or mental health difficulties, for example), not to lambast the good faith efforts of people who have written and reviewed something that has been adjudged as an FA (even if you don't agree with that label). I recommend a speedy close to this nomination and suggest that discussion continues on the talk page. BencherliteTalk 19:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, this is an example where Wikipedia is seriously failing. I blame the featured article reviewers for promoting an article that fails on the basis of your own criteria, and frankly, defending them not doing their job is not a very good argument. I don't doubt the Wikipedia writers' and reviewers' good faith, I doubt whether they have actually written something that is worthy of being called the best that Wikipedia has to offer. I think this may be evidence that the featured article process may be broken. jps (talk) 21:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * You have provided no specific rationale for your comment except to cite bureaucratic issues. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. There are serious issues with the article version which was accepted at FA leading to questions about the process. I will provide more details on the morrow. You have noted your concern for "rubbishing everyone involved with the article", now perhaps we can move beyond that to the specific issues. For me the issues in the FA article are one of tone, writing style (evangelical perspective rather than NPOV) and sources (evangelical only). IRWolfie- (talk) 00:07, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Speedy close Agree completely, I was about to say exactly the same thing. Aside from being insulting to people like myself and Ian Rose (we don't support poor articles for FA), I really detest this sort of ordeal for FA contributors, its bad enough to put a lot of work into a GA and have people kicking you in the teeth but to go through FA and then have somebody do this within a very short period is not on. I'm sure that if certain sources have been overlooked and your concerns are valid talk page discussion and article improvement is the way forward. it's funny how all these people who think the article is shoddy were not around at the FAC.♦ Dr. Blofeld  20:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If you supported this article then you supported a poor article for FA, in this editor's opinion. I don't think this is an "ordeal" at all. The article just happens to be pretty poor and it is subject to many problems as documented on the talkpage and in the nomination above. So addressing these problems in particular would be helpful rather than carrying on about being mean to editors who really ought to be subject to higher standards. If the FA people failed in catching it, that's on them. jps (talk) 21:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * You have provided no rebuttal of the arguments raised but rather acted because you view it as an attack on yourself. Perhaps it would make sense in this context to focus on rebutting the specific arguments raised by Josh? Also, it is not that surprising that people who were not at FAC are here. The article was on the main page; that attracts much more attention than the regulars of a specific process to a topic.IRWolfie- (talk) 00:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree. We should continue on the talk page. —Cliftonian (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * There's no reason we can't do both, but right now the article is claimed to be "featured" and it clearly fails on two counts. jps (talk) 21:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia articles are never finished or perfect, there is generally room for improvement (except on "my" FAs of course ), but turning up and labelling the primary author and everyone else involved with this article's promotion as "incompetent" and the entire FA process as "broken" is not the way to win your narrower argument about whether this particular article can be improved to your particular satisfaction. Just because you believe it to be "pretty poor" doesn't mean that it is "pretty poor", y'know. BencherliteTalk 21:09, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If you are going to use the argument that there are no "extenuating circumstances" and that people worked very hard at the FAC, and that procedure needs to be followed because it works, and so forth, to turn around and then say I should not comment on these externalities is pretty poor form. We can start over, if you'd like. I have seen evidence on the talkpage that there is more to these issues than simply being hamstrung by the lack of good sources. What I'm seeing are arguments that range (without getting into specifics) from the needlessly pedantic to the outrightly ignorant. Let's figure out what's going wrong and try to fix it. What I see right now is a lack of recognition about what the problems actually are and a lot of argumentative behavior that is not lending itself to actual improvement at a pace to where I can see an endpoint. I mean, we're not even to the point where the article is okay, let alone an example of the "best" work. If you disagree with my assessment, you should explain what in particular you disagree with rather than wikilawyering about procedural speedy closes. jps (talk) 21:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps if you were to set out on the talk page, in one place, all that you currently think is wrong with the article and all that needs to be added / removed / reduced / better cited / reworded, those trying to keep up with your complaints would have a better chance of addressing them. The impression (rightly or wrongly) I've got from my watchlist is that you're more inclined to tag the whole article or a sentence than you are to do something appropriate to fix it.  For example, this attempt at a sub-heading is awful, and it took me (an uninvolved editor) virtually no time at all to find out that this tag was wholly unjustified. And since launching this FAR you've raised an entirely new thread on the talk page about the images.  How is everyone meant to keep up? BencherliteTalk 21:34, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'm amenable to trying to reorganize, but just so you're aware I came to this article because it was featured and was on the main page. I have, in the past, been happy to say to others that featured articles tended to be examples of good content on Wikipedia. I have also, in the past, been involved with both the promotion and demotion of articles from this "featured" status and was pleased with how those processes went. Since I am a volunteer here and the level of content is what I care about the most, I was very displeased to see what I considered to be a subpar article featured on the main page. Offering some beginning suggestions was met with a lot of resistance and as I keep digging I find more and more problems. Now, I'll be the first to say that this article's subject is not in my area of expertise, though I have taken a passing interest in the sociology of religion from time to time. I have learned a lot from editing the article and while I'm sure I'm not perfect and have made mistakes as your diffs suggest, I don't think that I've been particularly harsh or out-of-line with my suggestions about content considering this is a featured article. But if your main criticism of me is that there are too many complaints about the article, then I'm surely at a loss because that's my entire point in starting this FAR. If you want me to enumerate my issues one-by-one in some sort of TODO list, I'll be happy to do that. Just say the word. jps (talk) 21:47, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not criticising you for making complaints per se, merely for rubbishing everyone involved with the article unnecessarily in the process - this is only going to increase resistance to your comments, whether they are valid or not. I know you have made a lot of complaints; that doesn't mean they're all valid, of course. I don't know which ones are still active and which ones have been resolved. As for a "TODO" list, that's exactly what I was after, if it wasn't clear already. BencherliteTalk 21:59, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Delegate comment: I'm closing this FAR as out-of-process given that only a short time has elapsed since its promotion. I make no comment on the merits of the specific issues raised by the nominator, and encourage him to continue trying to address these concerns appropriately on the article talk page. If in a couple of months these discussions have not resulted in the concerns being addressed, the FAR may be re-initiated. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:38, 11 September 2013 (UTC)