Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mumia Abu-Jamal/archive2

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 02:59, 8 October 2007.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal

previous FAC

Recently promoted to be an A-class article. Next step to FA - this nomination. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AboveTheClub (talk • contribs) 11:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Activist, Father, Broadcaster, Convict, Author.
An African-American journalist convicted of murdering a police officer and imprisoned in Pennsylvania since 1981. He has so far survived two death warrants, three changes of counsel, and the judge who ordered his execution and who also recommended denying his petition for a retrial. Will we ever hear from the him being crossexamined in the witness box about his claim of innocence? Will there be a final victory for the international movement dedicated to achieving his release or for those who most want to see him silenced forever? And which witnesses are -you- willing to believe?—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

• Comment. Haven't read through the article, but there's a lot of irrelevant wikilinks. "Murder, arrest, and trial" has the following words linked: shoot, kill, evidence, prosecution, jury, trial, assault, back, wound, face, death, gunshot wound, custody, cartridge, hospital, injury, (and so on). Only link what is relevant.-Wafulz 20:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed some of these but do also consider that schoolchildren read these articles and the links help them to understand things such as the meaning and significance of legal terms such as assault and prosecution. Those whose first language is not English may also benefit from the hyperlinking of terms of which you or I may surmise "who wouldn't know what -that- is".AboveTheClub 13:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand- I agree with the edit you made to remove some links.-Wafulz 15:49, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. This article needs a lot of work to meet the WP:MOS guidelines. Karanacs 15:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I concur with Wafulz: there are way too many wikilinks. The MOS recommends that fewer than 10% of the words be wikilinked. In the lead, there are 270 words. I counted only distinct links (so Black Panther Party counts as 3 words and 1 link), and found that there are over 33 links in the lead. This is extremely distracting.
  • Please wikilink full years (that's the exception to the wikilinking policy), so it would be July 18, 1971 instead of July 18, 1971).
  • THe paragraph on his marriages and children is not straightforward; It needs to be expanded and mention when the children were bron, and when he was married to each, if possible. Is Jamal the son of one of those wifes? Was Lateefa the daughter of one of those wives?
  • The prose needs work overall. For example,
    • Many of the sentences begin the same way; the first paragraph of the early years section has lots of sentences that start with "He", for example. Try to vary, if possible.
    • Many sentences are short and stubby.
    • There are too many one-sentence paragraphs.
  • Don't include (see...) in the body of the article. Use a see also section at the end of the article, or incorporate the term into the sentence.
  • Be consistent with your citations. See info about Robert Chobert in controversion of prosecution witnesses section and the section following.
  • I think the article needs to be reorganized. The section on the arrest and trial does not flow well.
  • Short quotations should not be offset, but should be part of the paragraph, per WP:QUOTE.
  • Need a citation directly after the quotes by Abu-Jamal in last paragraph of physical evidence section
  • Almost all of the images are on the right, and that makes the article look off a little. Can you vary the placement more, please?
  • Many of the sections are very short and should be combined.
  • External links should not be in the body of the article, but should be in the external links section
  • Citations need to be properly formatted, including the author, date, access date, and publisher. Dates need to be appropriately wikilinked.
  • Use named references <ref name=mynamehere>citation text or template</ref> then subsequently call <ref name=mynamehere/> That will clean up the references section a lot so you don't have so many duplicates.
  • The external links section needs to be shortened.

Karanacs 15:24, 5 October 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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.