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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 Laser brain 14:54, 7 February 2011 [1].

A Journey

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A Journey (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): wackywace, TheRetroGuy, 21:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC) [reply]

In September last year, British newspapers were filled with the scandal and gossip of a new book—the memoirs of arguably one of the most contraversial people to have lived in the past few years. It was initially thought the book would be an apology, or at least an explanation for the decisions he made during his time in power. But although he offered some reasoning for Iraq—which he describes as a "nightmare"—Tony Blair discusses how Gordon Brown, his successor as Prime Minister, tried to blackmail him; how Elizabeth II wore rubber gloves to wash up at a garden party; and how he predicted his predecessor would die less than a month before he did so. I myself have an opinion of Blair—after all, who doesn't—but I have put them completely aside in writing this article, which, undoubtedly, details a disputed and contraversial topic. Myself and TheRetroGuy have spent several months writing and then rounding this article, and after a GA review from MartinPoulter and a copyedit from Diannaa, we believe it is ready. Have at it! wackywace 21:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Images File:A_Journey.jpg contains no new information, it shows what the author looks like, and we have many images of the author which are available under a free license, as for the text on the cover this is already included in the article, so the images fails wp:nfcc and this the article fails FA criterion 3 Fasach Nua (talk) 11:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly believe the image is needed in the article because of how recognisable it is. The front cover was shown on television and printed in national newspapers around Britain on the day the book was launched, and therefore it is an incredibly important image and is required to show what the book looks like. wackywace 12:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You may be interested to see the opinions of other editors regarding the use of non-free cover images in this RFC. - hahnchen 14:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Media review: The use of the book's cover in the infobox is proper and standard for an article on the book. Fasach Nua is simply wrong, as the RfC mentioned by Hahnchen—of which Fasach Nua is well aware, as he participated in it—has reaffirmed beyond a shadow of doubt. The sort of baseless "image review" Fasach Nua keeps pushing here is nothing but tendentious and disruptive at this point.

The rationale is good. The book cover is the only item of non-free media in the article. There are five Commons images in the article, all of good quality. In four cases, the free-use license is well supported. In the fifth case, the image of Princess Diana, I find the claim very dubious. There are several good pictures of Princess Diana on the Commons with much better supported free-use licenses.—DCGeist (talk) 14:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I've changed the Diana image to File:Princess diana bristol 1987 01.jpg, for which the licence is much better. wackywace 15:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on sourcing/WP:V - No problems with formatting, sources seem reliable. The Bookseller links redirect to the site's main page - is there a non-redirecting link available?
  • Earwig's and Coren's tools found no plagiarism. However, a spot-check found a few instances of close paraphrasing: "in what publishing experts believed was an attempt to make the book appear less self-important" vs "in what publishing experts believe is an attempt to make the long-planned book appear less self-important";
  • "Roger Bacon, whose son was killed by a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq in 2005, said he found it difficult to believe that Blair, who was "unable to say sorry" at the Chilcot Inquiry, was donating the funds "with a good heart."" vs "Roger Bacon, whose 34-year-old son Matthew was killed by a roadside bomb in 2005, said he found it hard to believe a man who was "unable to say sorry" at the Chilcot Inquiry was donating the funds "with a good heart";
    • Changed to "The father of a soldier killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq said he did not think Blair made the donation "with a good heart," but because he had a "guilty conscience."" wackywace 18:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Blair was heckled and jeered at by anti-war protesters" vs "the former prime minister was heckled and jeered by anti-war protesters".
    • Changed to "On 4 September, when Blair arrived for his first book signing at a leading bookshop on O'Connell Street, Dublin, demonstrators opposed to the Iraq War heckled, jeered and threw eggs and shoes at him; none of the objects hit him." wackywace 18:24, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also noticed problem with misattribution and misinterpretation of the sources: "best recipient" is purportedly a quote from the BBC article (ref 9), but those words do not appear in that article;
  • you mention that Blair was in DC for peace talks and a dinner, but the source only supports him being at the dinner;
  • the article claims that "it became the fastest-selling autobiography of all time", but the source specifies for a specific bookstore chain; the article claims more than 10,000 members in the Facebook group, but the source says only "over 3,000".

Nikkimaria (talk) 22:31, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further instances of problems:

  • "The families of soldiers killed under his leadership and activists opposed to the war called it "blood money"." - your source only supports the former, and only in a specific case
  • "where it sold more copies in one day than Peter Mandelson's The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour had done in its first three weeks after publication in July" - that can't be determined using only the source provided, as it doesn't provide sales figures for Blair's book
  • "92,000 copies of A Journey had been sold in the United Kingdom in less than a week, the best opening week for an autobiography since the company began keeping figures in 1998" vs "92,000 copies in hardcover in less than a week — the company’s best opening week for an autobiography since it began keeping figures in 1998."; "Blair's visit to the United States was a coincidence, and not an attempt to be out of the United Kingdom when the book was published" vs "His visit to the US was a coincidence, not an attempt to be out of Britain when the book went on sale"; "he concedes that the aftermath of the invasion was a "nightmare"" vs "Mr Blair concedes that the aftermath of the war was a "nightmare""
  • "Protestors clashed with Irish police and tried to push over a security barrier outside the shop" should be ref 20, not 19
  • Facebook numbers should be ref 28, not 27
  • "[h]ad not abandoned the strategy of WMD [weapons of mass destruction], merely made a tactical decision to put it into abeyance" - this quote is not present in the cited source
  • "Of the situation in Iraq, he writes that some problems require a "resolution" and fester if left unattended" - not supported by source, and "resolution" is used only in regards to Kosovo, not Iraq

You need to go through your referencing again and check for both close paraphrasing and that the source actually supports the article. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:20, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disambig/External Link check - no dabs or dead external links. --PresN 01:50, 1 February 2011 (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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