Wikipedia:Featured article review/FairTax/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 kept 10:02, 17 August 2007.

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FairTax

User:Feco, User:FCYTravis, User:Unfocused, User:Morphh and Wikipedia:WikiProject Taxation notified

This article presents arguments for the proposed so-called "Fair Tax", but omits essential analysis and also omits major criticism. Specifically, the impact on people with incomes above US$320,000 is not shown in the graph provided, and the analysis of impact on those with incomes above US$200,000 lumps them all together.

This is a highly contentious and politically polarized issue. It is not sufficient to quote sources with no indication of possible bias, or to acknowledge the existence of contrary views without giving attention to the arguments given for them.

FAs are supposed to be

• well written: I don't agree that this is.
• comprehensive: See omissions mentioned above.
• factually accurate: See uncritical use of references cited above.
• neutral: Hah! This is propaganda.
• stable: There have been numerous edits, and a lot of complaints on the Talk page, and there is going to be a lot more if I have anything to do with it.

Cherlin 00:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Please follow the instructions at WP:FAR, using {{subst:FARMessage|FairTax}} to notify involved editors and WikiProjects, and post notifications here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comments. Seriously overlinked (see WP:MOSLINK and WP:CONTEXT), needs WP:MSH attention to repeat words in section headings, and External links are used inappropriately (which orgs support or oppose should be referenced in the text, not included as External link farm) and should be pruned per WP:EL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comments - This user has not presented anything for us to attempt to address. We can not make up what the impact on people with incomes above $320,000 - likewise, the studies we have "lump" as he calls it. We have no data for this. All criticism that I know of are presented in the article. He has not presented any criticism that is not present in the article. He has not made a single edit to prose. Controversial articles often get pot shots, but we address points as they are brought up - I consider myself to be friends with one of the main critics on the talk page (GeorgiaTex) and we e-mail offline all the time and he said that it is reasonably well balanced. This editor wishes to have a criticism section, although the criticism is woven into the article as suggested by policy. I think we have an overzealous user that jumped right to FAR, rather then provide any discussion. One has questioned the FAC as BS. The article has gone through many reviews with many editors reviewing it. It has been described by both proponents and opponents as balanced. The article has only been FA for four months and any edits normally minor copyedits by me. I say we end the FAR - nothing has even been discussed on the talk page yet. Morphh ^(talk) 1:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Sandy - it was increased per AndyZ tool suggestions but was then decreased recently. Morphh ^(talk) 1:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

What was increased and decreased? (That tool isn't highly reliable.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The wikilinks for context / build the web. The tool kept telling me to add more, so I kept adding until the message went away. Recently it was reduced by Ground Zero but I guess not enough. :-) Thanks for your help with it. I'll continue to work on it. Morphh ^(talk) 16:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

GeorgiaTex, the guy who came into the article saying "I hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but there are still WAY too many bogus cites in this article -- all of which conveniently support the FairTax."? He doesn't seem to support the article. Furthermore, even if he did, that would mean just one FairTax opponent supporting it, as opposed to the many more against it. -Nathan J. Yoder 07:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• RemoveComment - Read my comments on the talk page. I don't think the original FAC should have been passed for various reasons. The original FAC page had 56 supporters total which seemed to be mostly FairTax supporters at that. In addition to this, I think it suffers from serious balance issues and its main proponent (Morphh) doesn't seem to understand NPOV/undue weight that well. Basically, an article needs to be balanced in proportion to the popularity of the views held (regardless of merit of the views or intelligence/knowledge of the people holding them). FairTax is a minority view...even if it had a whopping 50% support, then that would mean it would need to be divided 50/50 and this holds true even if there is more Wikipedia-acceptable material supporting FairTax than that (it would require reducing the amount used if that were the case). When it comes to keeping an article feature, the burden of the work in terms of changing/fixing/improving the article is 100% on whoever wants to keep it an FA--it's not the obligation of those offering criticisms to fix the problems their criticizing (that would imply a poor article could stay on FA indefinitely as long as no one bothered to fix problems brought up). Also, consensus on Wikipedia is clearly for criticism sections regardless of the opinions of the person above. -Nathan J. Yoder 07:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• That's not correct. See the talk page archives of the Criticism page; Jimbo specifically discouraged Criticism sections and said opposing views should be woven into the text. Separating criticism isn't NPOV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

So your only argument here is that "Jimbo said so"? Jimbo's opinions don't override overwhelming consensus. Yes, he technically can make an Official Dictatorial Declaration that overrides everything, including consensus, but nothing indicates that was the case and furthermore, even if he had, that would be against the spirit of Wikipedia (using dictatorial power to enforce a personal opinion regarding writing style instead of enforcing something on a serious issue). I have still not received a single answer as to why the overwhelming consensus is invalidated, especially considering the cited page by Morph earlier is just an essay, not even a guideline. -Nathan J. Yoder 21:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to say, I'm unaware of the "overwhelming consensus" for the use of criticism sections. Rather the reverse, in fact. Perhaps you could clear this up with some references/links? J.Winklethorpe ^talk 21:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring to my experience from reading Wikipedia. When there has been a significant amount of criticism, more often than not, it's put in a criticism section. In other words, it's a de facto consensus by virtue of current editorial choice. I just searched and can't find any places were it was discussed by a largish number of people and I can't get the search engine to search "==Criticism==" (section only); it tries to search for the word "criticism" anywhere not just as a section. -Nathan J. Yoder 21:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest that if the majority of wikipedia articles use criticism sections more often than not, that doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that FA quality articles should use them? A lot of things occur in ordinary articles that are weeded out in FAs; I believe this to be one of them. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 22:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep or Remove are not declared during the review phase, which is intended to suggest and facilitate improvements; please see the instructions at WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a really innapropriate FAR. Not much has been done to work out on the article's talk page the specifics of the criticisms of the article. Give that time, work in good faith, then come here. The original FAC had 6 supporters btw Nathan, and I don't see any evidence to support your position that most of those supporters are Fairtax proponents. Either way, the only way to improve the article is to be specific and constructive in helping improve issues that are identified. It's not "us vs. them", we're in it together. - Taxman ^Talk 14:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Remember, I'm not the one who made this. I would have waited until I spent more time on the talk page before I nominated it, but since it's done, it's done. If the original FAC was invalid, then it's a moot point as to whether or not anything was changed, because it shouldn't have been qualified in the first place. I have given specific criticisms; I simply haven't created a long detailed list, which is rather difficult to do for an article of this size demonstrating undue weight, which is my primary NPOV concern. I confused different people when I said they were mostly FairTax supporters, but I still stand by my main point. Also, I agree with others that it seems to have a lot of redundancy too and overlinking. -Nathan J. Yoder 21:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak for the other five support votes on the original FAR, but I'm entirely neutral on the FairTax. As I live in the UK, supporting or opposing it would be entirely futile. In fact, prior to reviewing the article, I had never heard of FairTax.

I would also note that on previous occasions on which issues have been raised on the talk page, they have been discussed and actioned if necessary. The short amount of time taken to discuss on the talk page before resorting to FAR is disappointing. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 20:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

(Replying here to Nathan J Yoder's 14th August comment, to avoid orphaning my 13th August comment) You query whether the original FAC was invalid. As far as I can tell, you are the only person making that suggestion, and you are basing it on the number of support comments in it. A quick survey of recent FACs shows that 6 supports and no opposes is not out of the ordinary for a successful nomination. As to whether or not your criticisms are specific, it may well be that myself and others are failing to take your points; can I ask you to work with us by expanding on your concerns? I will also note that work on the linking is currently underway. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 21:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

From my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, Nathan your main points of contention are that there needs a criticism section (instead of or in addition to interweaving the arguments) and that the article should be more then 50% criticims, since you believe it has less then 50% support by Americans. I not only linked to the eassy on criticism sections but to the NPOV policy on article structure. As to the 50% figure of Americans (which itself is your own figure - like saying 50% of people don't like Chevy because they're driving a Ford.. but anyway), this is not how NPOV works and your misreading the policy. Using your figure, 50% of Americans could oppose the FairTax for one single reason. They don't have to have criticims for every single little aspect of the plan and they don't. Most of the article is a descritpion of the bill and the research performed in particular areas. If there is criticims for any particular area or an argument on terminology (like regressive / progressive), it is included and discussed. If there is verifiable research that is critical or debates proponent data, it is included. We should not, as you suggest, cut down the article to make up for lack of publish criticism. If we are giving undue weight to a particular proponent viewpoint over a criticism, that certainly is something we can work on... but we haven't been presented with anything. I don't know what to do in regard to your statements as they deeply change the article and seem to violate the policies you claim to be defending. Also the article should keep a global viewpoint in mind, so 50% of Americans (which I dought that 95% are even aware of the plan) doesn't mean anything unless you have a study or something to include in that regard (on that note - a study has been done that shows that something like 85% of Americans informed about the FairTax support the plan, but it has not been included it in the article). This does not suggest that 85% of the article should be support - it has no relation. Morphh ^(talk) 13:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

(This is also a response to Winklethorpe regarding criticism sections). No, my point concerning the criticism section is secondary to the NPOV (undue weight) concerns I have and I only brought it up because people were asserting that it's a matter of policy that it must be written that way; it's not. It is suggested that it should be avoided in some circumstances in the NPOV article, but that's pretty much it as far as guidelines and policies go. I brought up consensus specifically to counter the point that this is some sort of mandate. If a criticism section should be discussed, it should be discussed only on its particular merits for this specific article, rather than dwelling on wikilawyering (e.g. "it's policy because blah blah blah"). I'll do that back in the article itself when I get to it.

As for undue weight, can some other people help me explain this as well? I have encountered articles where undue weight was a serious issue, especially considering how contentious the topic is. Articles on evolution/creationism and abortion are particularly susceptible to this kind of problem--and the consensus on those was basically what I said: you document something in proportion to its support in the general population. Undue weight doesn't require that the article explicitly support a viewpoint (e.g. by saying "view X is right about this"); it requires that the number of statements describing a given view or presenting evidence for it be out of proportion. In other words, if I described 10 studies supporting subject A and 5 supporting subject B, but subject B was actually much more popular in the dispute, then it would be undue weight.

If you disagree with my interpretation, please give your own and link to the relevant parts of the policy supporting it. For example, how would you address the issue of an article covering evolution and creationism? What criteria determines the weight given to each.

I will quote from Wikipedia:Undue weight: "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all. For example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth notion, a view of a distinct minority.

We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." -Nathan J. Yoder 06:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Right, we understand what undue weight means, but we need you to be more specific about how you think this article fails to meet the requirement. Pick a paragraph or section or so that you feel is problematic and give specific examples that you feel make it violate the undue weight principal. Only with that type of detail can we all work together to get closest to NPOV. - Taxman ^Talk 13:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Nathan, this article is the "except in articles devoted to those views". You will find very little on the FairTax in Taxation in the United States, Income tax in the United States, Sales tax in the United States, or even Tax reform. In regard to the views on the FairTax, what evidence do you have that the viewpoints published by opponents have significantly more prominence then proponent viewpoints? Several of the studies promoted by opponents are not even of the FairTax, but we include them anyway (this is almost bias in my view). You can't look at the entire population and say most people don't support and therefore supporting research should not be included. The vast majority are not even aware of such politics. John Linder is still trying to inform his fellow Congressmen about the plan. Lack of interest does not equate to opposition and opposition does not equate to undue weight. Undue weight is meant to help determine what is important enough to include in an article on that topic and to what degree to include it. The research and studies done by the proponents are significant to the topic. We've included opponent studies, research, and opinions that are significant to the topic as well. The evolution / creationism articles may be poor examples - I'm quite familiar with them and it's a war zone (as I'm sure that Sandy can attest to after the last Intelligent Design FAR where they started attacking her for some conspiracy against Raul654). Your dealing with a different topic over there that hits on science, pseudoscience, and religion. Morphh ^(talk) 14:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Nathan, on the criticism section, I entirely agree that it "should be discussed only on its particular merits for this specific article". And it has been, already. This exact point has been discussed on the article talk page, and consensus reached. Now, I'm not going to claim that a consensus decision cannot be re-discussed, and overturned if necessary, but I consider the fact that it's been looked at already to hold some weight. And in my personal view, the consensus reached was correct, and I would support it again. On the issue of weighting, I believe the previous two replies have covered any point I would make. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 19:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

And to follow up on your point about a lack of policy on criticism sections, please see Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Article_structure, part of the MOS and therefore mandatory for FA's: "Separating all the controversial aspects of a topic into a single section results in a very tortured form of writing, especially a back-and-forth dialogue between "proponents" and "opponents". It also creates a hierarchy of fact — the main passage is "true" and "undisputed", whereas the rest are "controversial" and therefore more likely to be false, an implication that may often be inappropriate. Since many of the topics in an encyclopedia will inevitably encounter controversy, editors should write in a manner that folds debates into the narrative rather than "distilling" them out into separate sections that ignore each other." J.Winklethorpe ^talk 19:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comments. I've taken advantage of the FAR to do some Manual of Style cleanup. Cherlin, if you have specific examples of poor writing or POV, it would be helpful to see them. So far, you haven't given specific actionable reasons for the FAR. For example, do you have some sources of over $320,000 income commentary that have not been included? Do you have some samples of the poor quality of the prose ? Do you have samples of criticism that is left out? The intent of a featured article review is to review and improve the article, so samples would help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Minor image comments—The rationale for Image:FairTaxBook.jpg is not article-specific, and I don't believe it qualifies for fair use in this article. The article is not about the actual book, and I don't see how an image of the cover helps the reader to understand the subject. Morphh, it would be appreciated if you could change the licensing of the images you've uploaded from {{GFDL-self-with-disclaimers}} to {{GFDL-self}} to improve licensing compatibility with other sites, such as the Commons. Pagrashtak 16:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the suggestion - I'll make the changes to my licensing. The book cover is the most known image of the FairTax, since the book was a NYT bestseller. The article does discuss the book and the book topic. I'll take a further look at the fair use. Morphh ^(talk) 17:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    • It's not "the most known image of the FairTax"—there's no such thing as an image of the FairTax, just an image of a book about the FairTax. The fair use rationale is still not article-specific, and there is no assertion as to what the image conveys that cannot be conveyed with text in this article. Pagrashtak 17:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Ok... it is the most widely distributed and known image associated with the FairTax plan (being a NYT bestseller). I've tried to add rationale for each article that contains the image. See if this addresses your concerns, if not - we can remove the image until it is addressed. Morphh ^(talk) 19:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comments. Please note the FA lead here, the current lead was modified by Cherlin yesterday. I've added my comments at the talk page but I just wanted to make everyone aware of the change since I beleive it added bias language and poor prose. Morphh ^(talk) 18:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• I've suggested on the article talk page that the best way to handle Cherlin's points is to restore to the prior version, and then discuss his desired changes. I'm confident that consensus can be reached. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 21:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment, reviewing the article and talk page history, there does seem to be a process issue here. Cherlin's first talk page entry was August 12 at 18:24 UTC. Cherlin's first article edit was to install an NPOV tag at 18:26, his/her second talk page entry was the FAR listing, and his/her third talk page entry was wording which didn't sound like an intent at resolution. ("I'm not accepting reverts. The next one goes straight to management. This is pure propaganda.") FAR is not dispute resolution; it doesn't appear that Cherlin attempted any resolution before coming to FAR. Some specific examples of the article's deficiencies should be provided. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• The time since being made FA is also at the low end of the minimum time between promotion and review ("Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content.") I see no radical changes in article content. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 22:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Because FAR is not meant for content dispute resolution, I'm a little leery of leaving this open. I'm struck by the fact that the nominator does not appear in the talk page history until two days ago; this indicates that there was no attempt to address the POV concerns through discussion. However, more than one person appears concerned about the content. We need to see:

• Evidence that article has changed significantly since its nomination; or
• Actionable examples of reliable sources that are being excluded and/or unreliable sources that are being included.

Without this, the review should be closed. We can wait a couple of days. Marskell 09:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds eminently reasonable. - Taxman ^Talk 12:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The only notable change made was to the section on "Revenue neutrality" in which we worked (myself, GeorigaTex, Cielomobile) to change it to a summary style that focused on the most recent and primary proponent & opponent studies and created a sub-article that expanded on the early and additional studies (before / after). GeorgiaTex (often using an IP) and Cielomobile are opposed to the FairTax. We reduced the prose in this section by about one-half. Morphh ^(talk) 18:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - I've been watching and monitoring this article for quite a long time now (since November 2006), and I fail to see any POV issues (and I still oppose the FairTax). When I first ran into this article, I sounded a lot like the nominator ("[t]he whole article is basically literature for supporters of the FairTax" and so forth), but the article has been improved significantly since then, and in my opinion, it represents all major views to the best of its ability, considering the sources that we have. The fact of the matter is that there have only been two reputable studies of the FairTax, the Beacon Hill and Brookings Institute studies, so there is not a lot to go on. If we had graphs and such for people earning $320,000 and over, I would be eager to include them, but sadly, no such graphs exist, as far as I know. The article truly is stellar; there's no need for FAR. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 03:37, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Closing. As the FAR nominator has yet to come back and specify concerns, I think this was a hit-and-run nom; we still haven't been told in any concrete way why this violates NPOV and others seem to feel that this process is unnecessary at the moment. Outstanding concerns can be taken up on the talk page, and it should only be brought back here if talk isn't working. Marskell 09:58, 17 August 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.