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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Michelle Obama/archive1

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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 16:28, 11 April 2009 [1].

Michelle Obama

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Nominator(s): TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it has improved greatly and its wide audience continues to refine its editorial content. TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. I appreciate the effort that has gone into keeping this article relatively condensed and on point, but there are still many prose issues. In several sections, particularly at the end of the family and education section and throughout the career section, there are way too many short, broken paragraphs with insufficient transitions. I also believe the 2008 campaign section could be reorganized to have a better flow and greater adherence to summary style. Individual interviews, appearances, etc., should only be referenced if they are needed as examples to support specific points in the article or if their greater importance can be illustrated by secondary sources. Indrian (talk) 05:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have right-sized the paragraphs in the two problem sections by merging content.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • That certainly takes care of my first issue, but I stand by the second. Note that I am not necessarily advocating cutting any material; its just that right now I feel the campaign section does not have a strong narrative thrust and is mostly just a chronological listing of various appearances and comments without much attempt to tie them together to reveal the big picture. Indrian (talk) 15:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments. The chronology of the article jumps all over place. The "Career" section seems badly underweighted compared to the rest of the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I believe that this article is structured topically instead of chronologically, with intended chronology holding by topic. Topical structure is accepted at FAC as I learned when I voiced some objections to William D. Boyce. Do you feel that it is out of chronological order within any topics.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:27, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I realize that some people prefer topical organization, but this treatment leaves me with no sense with how she's developed as a person and how she got from there to here in her life. As for your question, the topic granularity seems to be below the section level, so I can't really tell the boundaries. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image comment. Is the fair use rationale for File:March 2009 Obama Vogue cover.JPG really valid? I thought we could only use magazine covers in the article about the magazine itself. If this one is okay, there are a bunch of Vogue and Time covers that would be great to add to other BLP articles ... Wasted Time R (talk) 16:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • According to Wikipedia:FU#Images #8, Fair use is permitted for "Images with iconic status or historical importance: As subjects of commentary.". She is noted in sources as becoming an icon largely for stylistic reasons. Nothing serves as a better commentary of her budding iconic status than a cover appearance on the world's pre-eminent fashion magazine. I will update the FUR for this rationale.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is, and it screams WP:RECENTISM Fasach Nua (talk) 17:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is not recentism. Recentism is editing "articles without regard to long-term historical perspective". In this case we have a woman who by the sources cited in the article is becoming a fashhion icon and a woman who has been compared to Jackie Kennedy for some time. This is the type of woman for whom an appearance on the cover of the world's pre-emininent fashion magazine is a fairly central topic and for whom that topic is not likely to be a short term one.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. While the effort gone into raising this article to a higher standard is commendable, I'm concerned by the disproportionate size of the 2008 campaign when compared to the rest of her life. Since I don't have a clear solution as to how to address this (I'm hesitant to suggest condensing it and also unsure about ways to expand everything else), I won't mark this as an opposition but more as a general concern. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 17:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep in mind that she was not a WP:N person prior to the campaign by most WP guidelines. The wife of a U of C law school professor is not notable. Neither is the wife of a state senator. Unlike Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton, none of her prior professional roles were subjects of normal WP articles. Also because of the prominence of females in the campaign that included Sarah Palin, both Obama, Jill Biden and Cindy McCain became much more important to the race. Thus, the article elaborates on the first notable role that she had. I don't think there is much encyclopedic info missing from pre-notability times. The question is just how much to retain from the campaign section. I had hoped some other editors more knowledgeable in politics might jump in with this at FAC. However, I will attempt to winnow things down a bit tonight if no one else steps forward.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • For starters, I think there's way too much on her convention speech. In the scheme of things it was important but not that important, and it's not necessary to give the views of 20 different commentators on it. Maybe some of this should be offloaded to 2008 Democratic National Convention#Monday, August 25? Also, it's odd that National Review's opinions are given so much emphasis regarding the speech, when the most famous National Review treatment of her – their "Mrs. Grievance" cover story earlier in the campaign – isn't mentioned anywhere in the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:59, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments

Prose needs significant cleaning up. I've read only the lead and first section, and it clearly needs attention throughout. It's well worth it, since this topic is thoroughly deserving of promotion. We need to do her justice. Here are a few random examples, just from the top.

  • "Michelle can trace her roots to pre-Civil War African Americans"—Her first name alone is way too informal, except in the context of her as a child in the family.
  • "The family ate meals together"—you're kidding me. "and also entertained together as a family by"—Redundant "also". I hope it's not a feature of this text. "and by reading" ... they read together? Reading was encouraged by the parents? Can you recast this whole sentence, or put it in a footnote, or something ... I know you don't intend it, but there's a sense of triviality in this bit. "skipped the second grade"? Why? Needs to be logically wound into this summary account of her early years. (Like "despite her skipping .... because of ..., she joined a gifted sixth grade class at ...). Tony (talk) 06:58, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A response about the use of the first name: we do use "Michelle" occasionally, when it is felt that "Obama" could be misunderstood to mean Barack Obama. This came up in the FACs for Nancy Reagan and was discussed here and here - I am not finding discussion about the further changes to this section of MOSBIO text, but maybe I'm missing it. I think we should evaluate each use of "Michelle" and see if "Obama" would be confusing - and if so, stick with "Michelle" or "Michelle Obama". It may not be precisely according to MOSBIO, but clarity should trump guideline, especially when there's no particular evidence of discussion or consensus on the current MOSBIO wording. In other words, despite the guideline, the far worse offense would be to imply something about Barack which was actually about Michelle - so I think, as I thought for Nancy Reagan, that we should use the first name where needed. As for your specific example, I re-worded it as "The Robinson family can trace their roots...". Will have to look at other examples, but I don't agree that it is necessarily the right thing to replace all "Michelle"s as, again, clarity should be our goal over strict adherence to rules. Tvoz/talk 09:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Happyme22 (talk · contribs) has undertaken a much needed industrious copyedit. It seems that text was removed in a rather haphazard way with relevant citations disappearing. Was any attention paid to the citations when the copyedit was performed. See as an example the following change: She has also sent representatives to schools to encourage the personal development of the students.<ref name=MIFOTS/> She has also advocated for public service.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/188270|title=An Army Of Changemakers|accessdate=2009-04-06|date=2009-03-07|work=[[Newsweek]]|author=Alter, Jonathan}}</ref> --> She has also sent representatives to schools and advocated public service.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/188270|title=An Army Of Changemakers|accessdate=2009-04-06|date=2009-03-07|work=[[Newsweek]]|author=Alter, Jonathan}}</ref> Obviously, a citation has disappearred. Much of the diff is difficult to follow in the markup and I can not confirm how many refs were recklessly abandoned. I see that AnomieBOT has found at least one. It seems like the copyedit was pretty good and I don't want to revert. I am tempted however.

I also noticed that some images were removed. Following this talk page request, I added the following image: File:Michelle Obama at Notre-Dame de Strasbourg 4-4-09 2.jpg. I know that meeting the Queen of England is important. It may be somewhat more important than entertaining with the spouses of the entire G-20, but not to the point that it should replace such an image. I think both can be included and have readded this one. I am also disappointed that File:March 2009 Obama Vogue cover.JPG was removed, but am not sure how much support there is for its inclusion.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Happy's a very good editor with mucho experience in First Lady articles, so I would definitely AGF here. His edits aren't that difficult to follow if you look at them one by one. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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