Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Omar Khadr/archive1

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 04:58, 11 May 2008.

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Omar Khadr

This article represents the collaborative work of a number of editors (myself included), from a variety of backgrounds with some diametrically-opposed viewpoints on the case. However it has been torn apart with a fine NPOV comb from both sides, leaving it a strong article without even a whiff of POV remaining.

It is timely, as Khadr's military commission is scheduled to begin very shortly - and is the only Guantanamo-related article that nears Featured Article status. Close collaboration with sources, including the family of the subject, the author of a book on the subject, the Department of Defense (and yes, JTFGTMO staff at Guantanamo themselves) means that every single photograph (31 of them!) has been released into the public domain, every letter that the subject has written has similarly been released, Wikisource has all the trial documentation of each of his trials in the past six years (linked from the WP article), as well as a number of Public-Domain news releases about the case (chiefly from the DoD, with one coming from The Wire as I recall).

With 249 citations, spanning every single statement in the article, an effort has even been made to double tap references and provide at least two references for each fact.

The article is long (although fits within the maximum size dictated by Wikipedia:Article size), and has been carefully vetted and had sentences, paragraphs, even entire sections pulled out to keep it as concise as possible. Some have been moved to the articles on other family members (see template at the bottom), while others have been moved to the fork Canadian response to Omar Khadr. Nary a stray word should still exist in the article that isn't necessary - we've boiled down six years of news articles, a full-length novel and a number of documentaries, into a single Wiki article. Modesty aside, it is a marvel at how much information is contained within.

Since April it has undergone a Peer Review and passed GA-status, and now it only awaits the necessary mechanism to become a Featured Article.

• Support, as nominator Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 03:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Nominator is the significantly principle editor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Per article stats:

Sherurcij 678 11/12/2005 02:09 05/08/2008 14:36 32:12 h

Geo Swan 89 03/27/2005 23:24 05/03/2008 08:01 12.9 d

Dlafferty 23 03/22/2008 22:16 04/19/2008 08:26 29:52 h

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: There are a large number of images in the article that result in "breaking" the text into blocks with lots of whitespace. Many of these images are similar to others, for instance, the three images of "the building". Many of these images should be removed, or moved into a separate gallery. Maury (talk) 03:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I assume it's an issue of screen resolution - is it just the shots of the compound that are "breaking" the article layout for you? If so, I'll move the three left-aligned shots to a Commons-link in the footer. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 03:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Update, three images removed to Commons, CommonsCat link added. Article layout should not be 'broken' anymore. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 17:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• Comment There are a large number of images. Some are perhaps unnecessary and redundant, such as the multiple photos of him as a child, and multiple shots of the destroyed buildings. Perhaps if you could rearrange and reduce the photos it would be easier to read. If you have a large screen resolution try reducing the size of the window to simulate a smaller screen size, or just change your entire screen resolution in your system settings. I'm on a laptop with 1440x900 and the images were rather crowded and produced large white spaces. I only gave the prose a cursory glance but the multitude of images made it hard to read. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 05:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Images should be fixed now, yes? Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 07:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Not quite, so I took the liberty of fixing it myself. I removed some of the photos which I thought were unnecessary. If you object to the removals, you can always put a gallery or a link to a commons gallery (which is more the standard)... otherwise, photos should not crowd the article. As a general rule, there should not be more than one photo per two or three paragraphs, and photos should not be on both sides of the page at once, which tends to squeeze the text between them. Photos should not have pixel sizes unless it is necessary to display a photo at larger sizes, they should be determined by user preferences by default. Also, I fixed the table which had some coding errors and I centered it because there just wasn't enough room for it to have text floated around it. Another issue, the introduction is awfully short for such a long article. It should be expanded to provide a more thorough summary of the entire article. I found multiple violations of the Manual of Style so I'm reserving support for a more in-depth analysis because this is a hefty read. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 09:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Wow, I think perhaps you were a little over-the-top in removing photos. It's important to the context of the article for somebody reading it to see the photos of the helicopter medevac, or when it says "The Vice-President's office released an image of Khadr planting landmines", to show that image. I've restored the photos themselves, but you're right about the sizing issue - so I've taken your advice there and removed the default sizes in favour of user-supported thumbnails (with the exception of Image:KHadr5.png which requires a default size to show any detail). In addition, your comment about the number of photos doesn't take into the account the fact the article text has seen 2 or 3 paragraphs merged into one throughout it, in an attempt to condense the size. There are over 300 sentences, with only 31 images, making it an image per ten sentences. And finally, the only 'profile' images which could be argued to be unnecessary, are in those sections that don't otherwise have many photos. Yee and Begg are the two most obvious candidates that could be moved...but since those sections would otherwise have no images and they're Public Domain, I don't see that there's much point. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 14:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

(undent) sorry, but I think re-adding the images was a bad idea, the "breakage" is back and I'm on a second computer. I stand by my first comment: many of these images are redundant. Khadr as a young child. is a good one, but we certainly don't need Khadr at the Metro Toronto Zoo., which is both poor quality and shows the same topic. We then have Khadr was known as his mother's favourite and An early photo of Khadr's mother which have similar problems. I suggest keeping only the first and last of this set. Moving on, I can see no purpose to One of Khadr's colleagues seen in the video, The 57th Medical team that ran the MedEvac. Almost as weak are "Another view of the buildings, A new tent-city, Supreme Court of Canada, Fred Borch, Col. Morris Davis or The interior of the courtroom, The trailer where CSR, which have almost nothing to do with the topic. This is an article about Khadr, not Gitmo. Maury (talk) 19:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• • Oppose I think everyone is in agreement that there are too many images. Yes, lots of them are relevant, but that doesn't mean they have to be in the article. I'm sure I could find ten thousand photos of cats, but that doesn't mean they all belong in the cat article. It doesn't matter how much the text has been condensed, you can't cram that many photos around such a small amount of text like that, it looks horrible. Either make a gallery or remove the photos. Also, you reverted my changes to the table.... and the first row of the table is unreadable. You should place <small> tags instead of the <sub> tags as it lowers the row of text into the middle of the next row and makes it unreadable. Perhaps you should read the Manual of Style and come back when this article is in better shape. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 20:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment (ec) Many images were licensed under the public domain by Zaynab Khadr (talk · contribs) (Zaynab Khadr) here. Do we actually know that this person is indeed the real Zaynab Khadr? It would be better if the Khadr family sent an e-mail through OTRS explicitly saying that they wanted the images licensed under the public domain. I also agree with Maury; there are way too many pictures all around the article ("Early life", "Capture", "The firefight" and "Aftermath" have a lot of whitespace). Some of the pictures are unnecessary, like the four images of the building. There are also MoS issues, such as the placement of references before a comma (it's supposed to be placed after the punctuation mark) and the incorrect linking of dates. "March 31" by itself would be linked, as would "March 31, 1992". "1992" by itself wouldn't be linked, though. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 05:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think any of the images were licensed by the Wiki user (although it is indeed Zaynab Khadr), but through personal contact with the family. I can certainly have an OTRS ticket created this week however, not a problem. Again, I'm not sure how any of them other than "Aftermath" have whitespace - any chance you could toss a screenshot? Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 05:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Update, the referencing issue has been resolved (I also double-checked sequential numbering on multi-refs). If you find me the MoS quote about linking years, I'll fix that as well - but last I heard from MoS, years were never to be linked. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 07:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support -- disclaimer, I worked on this article, but not recently.
  • disclaimer2, I never participated in an FA discussion before.
  • This article has been improved to a remarkable extent. My hats off to those who made the recent improvements.
  • Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 05:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose, a decent start but a long way off.
  • Way, way too many images. "Khadr at the Metro Toronto Zoo."? "American soldiers standing outside the compound."? Significant work required to reduce the images to what actually lend comprehension to the article. Free images being available is not a reason to put them all in the article.
  • The formatting/layout are a mess due to the number and placement of images.
  • The lead is much too short for an article of this size. It does not adequately summarize the article.
  • The prose is not up to professional standard in many places. Example: "He claimed his vision of Jannah involved a swimming pool filled with Jell-O." Seemingly random statement unconnected with the preceding statements. Is that supposed to illustrate his being smart?
  • Passive voice obscures or eliminates subjects, even when the subject is required for understanding. Example: "Returning to Pakistan with his family, Ahmed was arrested in 1995 after it was alleged that he had connections to the financing of Ayman al-Zawahiri's bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan."
  • Vague statements require clarity. Example: "During their stay, the family often visited the compound of Osama Bin Laden, and the children of the two families played together." What two families?
  • Citations are frequently malformed and required information is absent. Example, the book Guantanamo's Child is oft-cited but incorrectly formatted in the References section. Page numbers are not cited, making verification nearly impossible. --Laser brain (talk) 16:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I'll fix the citations in the references section although I don't think it's practical to list a separate page number for all 45 of the references to the book, etc. WP:LEAD is clear that four paragraphs should be the maximum for a lead, I'm not sure which parts you think aren't properly summarised or how the lead should be expanded? If anything, I would expect the opposite argument, that it's too long. Also, not all statements of facts are required "to illustrate his being smart" or anything similar, such a thing would border on POV - the statements exist because they are true and lend context to understanding the person, not to advance a particular belief that the subject is/isn't smart. I'm also unclear how images photos of the battle are not useful to understanding the battle. I've removed three images, and I've said I could understand removing one of the childhood images - but I really don't see that removing photos of his capture would "help" the article in any fashion - quite the opposite I think they would decrease understanding. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 17:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Update: The book citation has been fixed, and the example of "passive voice" and "vague statement" have been rewritten. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 17:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
      • It is not fixed - still malformed. Citing page numbers is not practical now because you didn't do it as you were writing, but it's still needed. There should be separate sections of Notes and References so you can cite the page numbers in notes and then cite the book in the References section. See Ima Hogg for an example. WP:V, non-negotiable. The lead not anywhere near four full paragraphs and doesn't mention much of what the article discusses. The entire body of prose needs work, not just the examples. The photos continue to clutter the entire article - each need a careful examination of what understanding it is providing. The issues with this article will not be solved by a few pokes and prods here at FAC - it needs lengthy and careful examination by copyeditors and other editors. Suggest general peer review or relevant WikiProjects for help. --Laser brain (talk) 17:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It's been through a peer review, two wikiProjects and Good-Article status. WP:V says nothing about page numbers being "non-negotiable", in fact it doesn't even say they are necessary. I don't mind rewriting the intro to be longer if that's the remaining issue, although I think it currently fits WP:LEAD perfectly. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 18:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Please review my issue list again. The lead is far from the "remaining issue". Quick fixes will not be sufficient here. I will check back in 1 or 2 days to see if substantive work has been done allowing closer examination of the text. --Laser brain (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose: I just can't help but feel this is not FA and contains way too much information that has little to do with the topic at hand. The article is 20 pages long on my screen. Contrary to the comments in the lead here, the article is absolutely filled with verbiage that could be removed: for instance, I really don't think we need to know how fresh the straw was, or that the gate was green. More to the point, I would argue that the vast majority of the "firefight" article simply doesn't belong here, if anywhere. Many of the details sections following strike me as completely trivial. Am I wrong in thinking that, given the topic matter, an article about the length of Mumia Abu-Jamal is appropriate? Maury (talk) 19:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

While a second "Oppose" is pretty much a death knell sealing any chances to working towards FA - I'd like to respond anyways to point out that readers of the Mumia article are told only that "On December 9, 1981, Philadelphia Police Department officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop of a vehicle belonging to William Cook, Abu-Jamal's younger brother. In the altercation Abu-Jamal was wounded by a shot from Faulkner, and collapsed on the sidewalk." - that's really not enough contextual information to offer any detail on the event. Was he shot with a rifle? shotgun? revolver? Was it a legal firearm? Who was driving the vehicle, Mumia? His brother? Someone else? Who fired first, Faulkner or Abu-Jamal? The simple lack of information makes the article worse than the Omar Khadr article. There is no reason that known information shouldn't be included if relevant to the subject. Whether a granary is full of fresh straw, or an abandoned outbuilding is relevant, the fact that O. J. Simpson's Ford Bronco was white is relevant, if a detail is known I can't think of any logical reason to let it fall from the history books. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 19:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - It's too much. I agree with too many images, many sandwiching text, making it hard to read. The entire article, but particularly Time at Guantanamo, needs a thorough copy edit to make it easier to read. There is no reason for an article about a teenager to have over 200 citations, numbers 13, 20, 27 used that many times. The citations need a cleanup. It's clearly well-referenced, but it needs a lot of work to make people want to read it. --Moni3 (talk) 22:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments - a number of websites in the references are lacking publisher and last access date information. Even more websites in the references are lacking either publisher or last access date. Being on the road and with limited wiki editing time, I just can't take the time to read through 136 references double checking them. I'll try to get back to this later when I'm home or they are fixed. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. This is simply not yet FA material. Here are some objections:

• Over-illustrated. Concur with reviewers above.
• Cites/refs. These are (IMO) messy and complicated. Consider the "short cite/full reference" system (Hamlet or Emily Dickinson as models) which is clearer, neater and less duplicatory.
• Comprehensiveness/factual accuracy/neutrality (1): this article glosses over the Khadr family's links to terrorism. Omar's father has been linked to Al-Qaeda; his late brother was apparently a suicide bomber. In the murky world of the "War on Terror", this is enough for indefinite detention. It also goes a long way to explaining the Canadian government's reluctance to take up the cudgels on his behalf. This article needs to tell the whole story, including family background, for context.
• Comprehensiveness/factual accuracy/neutrality (2): bowdlerisation of the reasons why the family moved to Pakistan. The source says it was to "spare them from 'drugs and homosexual relationships' ", which has become "animus for western social influences". Khadr's mother holds views that some western liberals might find unattractive (though many Christian evangelists, for example, would agree wholeheartedly with them) but so what? They are part of Khadr's founding influences.
• Comprehensiveness/factual accuracy/neutrality (3): The article fails to lay out the US' point of view for continued detention. Guantanamo is meant to be beyond the normal rule of law. Therefore, being caught in arms (or in close proximity to arms); coming from an apparently Al-Qaeda poster family, etc is sufficient justication for detention of itself. Sure this is all circumstantial stuff – rumour, innuendo, confessions under duress, and guilt by association – but that's the way Guantanamo was meant to operate, with drumhead court-martials to punish malfaisants.
• Comprehensiveness/factual accuracy/neutrality (4): The emphasis on exoneration about the hand grenade in the lead sets the scene for what is essentially a "release Khadr" sub-text.
• WP:UNDUE on the shoot-out and capture.
• Copy: longwinded. As noted above, it needs vigorous pruning. Find a hardnosed collaborator to cut it back to essentials.
• WP:COI concerns: I raised these at the peer review but they were dismissed out of hand. I don't think you have the distance necessary to write a featured article on a profoundly difficult subject. Find an uninvolved copy-editor to steer a middle course.

--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

• One brief comment -- it is a mistake to criticize the article for not reporting that one of Khadr's brothers was a suicide bomber -- because none of his brother's were suicide bombers. Geo Swan (talk) 12:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Rejoinder: I said apparently a suicide bomber. This allegation is reported in the sources cited here and therefore needs covering, along with any suitably sourced rebuttal. It goes to the heart of Khadr's upbringing and cannot just be airbrushed out. What was the Jesuit saw? "Give me the boy and I will give you the man."?

As further evidence of the atmosphere in which Omar Khadr was raised, the excellent Rolling Stone article cited here says Ahmed said Khadr, Omar's father, always said he did not want to die in bed. He wanted to be killed. When his children were very young, he told them, "If you love me, pray that I will get martyred." Three times he asked Omar's older brother Abdurahman to become a suicide bomber. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

• What you wrote was: "...his late brother was apparently a suicide bomber..." In an article on the moon landings there is no requirement to say "the landings cast doubt on the theory the moon is made of green cheese". Similarly, since the only brother to have passed away did so on infancy, because of a heart defect, there is no reason to address misinformed comments on his late brother's suicide bombings. Geo Swan (talk) 13:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The info came from one of the article's sources. Are you saying the source is unreliable? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 03:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Perhaps you can offer your sources for your assertions about the "US point of view", over on the article's talk page? Contrary to your assertion it is official US policy that the captives are not being "punished". Without references none of the material you assert is missing could be placed in the article, without violating WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Geo Swan (talk) 12:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Rejoiner: At a very basic level, Rumsfeld's notorious "worst of the worse" speech is a good place to start. I haven't suggested that the detainees are being "punished": the Guantanamo ethos is preventative detention. Millions of words have been written on this including Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules (ISBN 0-670-03452-5) and Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law (ISBN 978-1846140082]], both by Philippe Sands. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

• I am going to address your comment on "punishment", on Talk:Omar Khadr. Briefly, I think your comment shows an unfortunate conflation of the US Government and elements of the Bush Presidency. Geo Swan (talk) 13:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Erm, that one goes right over my head as Rumsfeld and Bush were Secretary of Defense and President/Commander-in-chief respectively at the time and were certainly not acting in a private capacity. Anyhow, to drag this back to the point, I think the article, to be comprehensive, needs to contextualise Guantanamo as part of the War on Terror. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 03:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

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