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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 00:34, 12 December 2009 [1].

The Political Cesspool

[edit]
Nominator(s): Stonemason89 (talk) 18:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it now meets all the criteria and is a worthy addition to FA.

This article was given GA status in early October. I have greatly improved, expanded, and streamlined it since then, however, and I now think it has improved enough to "move up" to FA. Stonemason89 (talk) 18:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Stonemason89 (talk) 20:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by an odd name (help honey)

Done. Stonemason89 (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 21's link appears dead.
Fixed. Stonemason89 (talk) 20:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No dead external links. --an odd name (help honey) 20:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dates are in Month Day, Year format throughout—good.
  • See if you can expand the lead's paragraphs a bit further. (added on 19:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC))

--an odd name (help honey) 19:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Expanded. Is there anything particular you would like me to add to the lead? Stonemason89 (talk) 21:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, looks good to me now. I rearranged it to emphasize the guests and make it two big paragraphs. --an odd name (help honey) 21:18, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Stonemason89 (talk) 21:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the questionable image and replaced it with a non-deletable picture of Pat Buchanan, who has also been featured on the show and whose writings were a formative influence on the show's primary host, James Edwards. Hope that clears everything up. Stonemason89 (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Never say never (though if it ever reaches that point we'll probably just plunder the pictures, yarr). --an odd name 00:05, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fortunately they have had a huge number of guests on their show, so I doubt there'll be a shortage of usable images any time soon. If the Buchanan image gets axed, we can always go to Chuck Baldwin, and if that image gets deleted, there's always Ted Nugent, and if his picture gets taken down, there's always Larry Pratt (and so on ad nauseum, or ad Nazium in the case of Lynx and Lamb Gaede, who have also appeared on the show...) Stonemason89 (talk) 20:12, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments -
  • Current ref 12 (Why the Buchanan...) lacks a publisher.
  • Current ref 16 (The Crew..) lacks a publisher
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Both fixed. Stonemason89 (talk) 17:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose:

  • The prose is quite bloated, uses the passive voice excessively, fears pronouns, etc. I've copyedited the lead and first section, which should give you some idea of what I'm talking about. I haven't gone farther than that because, as indicated below, many of the other sections require substantive edits, so copyediting before those edits were made would be premature.
When you copyedited the lead section, you added the phrase "...believe that is promotes...". I changed that to "...believe that it promotes...". Stonemason89 (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, and my apologies for introducing the typo in the first place! This is why copyeditors need copyeditors. Steve Smith (talk) 01:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've improved the prose in the City Park section (also removing a redundancy in the process). Stonemason89 (talk) 17:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is there an article on Wikipedia (perhaps in the community portal) that gives advice on how to copyedit? That would be useful, thanks. Stonemason89 (talk) 14:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tony1 (talk · contribs)'s Wikipedia's acknowledged copyediting guru, and he's written a series of pages on the subject, beginning here.
  • There are quite a few single paragraph sections; have you considered merging some to improve flow? For example, I'm not sure "Controversy and criticism" is long enough to merit subsections, and "Association with Stormfront" seems to me to be a good fit for "Foundation and history" (apart from section length, I find it odd that the association with Stormfront isn't dealt with until so late in the article; it seems like a fairly important point).
The Stormfront section has been merged; most of it was about James Edwards personally, so I merged most of it into the part about Edwards. Stonemason89 (talk) 13:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, "Controversy and Criticism" has been consolidated into one section, with the exception of the city park incident, which gets its own subsection. Stonemason89 (talk) 14:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per WP:EL, external links should not generally be included in the body of the article.
I removed the micro1650am external link, which as far as I am aware was the only external link in the body of the article. That link was not added by me, but by a one-time user who claimed to be the owner of the radio station. Stonemason89 (talk) 13:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is the show called Political Cesspool or The Political Cesspool? The article is currently inconsistent on this point.
The show's staff have been vague on this point. They have also referred to it as "The Political Cesspool Radio Program" at times, too, so I don't think there's one standard name for it. Stonemason89 (talk) 13:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe adopt one for internal consistency? The article has generally been attached, so maybe go with that. As well, italicization is currently inconsistent.
Edited for consistency; I'm pretty sure I got all of them. The Political Cesspool it is; all mentions of Political Cesspool or Cesspool have been replaced by either the full title or simply a reference to "the show". Stonemason89 (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Parts of the article are presently somewhat under-referenced: there are no citations in the first two paragraphs of "Foundation and history", for example.
Will do. Stonemason89 (talk) 14:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Stonemason89 (talk) 14:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think information about the birth and earlier careers of the show's staff is generally useful for an article about the radio show. What would be useful is information on the views they express on the radio show, and what role they play on it. This is another section where merging subsections would probably be advisable, incidentally.
I already mention the roles they play (for example, Art Frith is the production engineer, and Goeff Melton designed the show's website). As far as views, there already are some references to that (for example, Bill Rolen has neo-Confederate views, while Winston Smith is a Calvinist, etc.) I merged the subsections on Bill Rolen, Austin Farley, Art Frith, and Goeff Melton elsewhere into the article. Thanks for the advice. Stonemason89 (talk) 13:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's still too much focus on the outside lives of the staff, epitomized by (but not limited to) "[Smith's] interests include classical guitar, woodworking, literature, and writing."
I took out that part about Smith, but left in the mention of his beliefs (Calvinism and Kinism), since these are relevant to his (and the show's) ideology. I also removed some of the extraneous detail about Miller's career in the Army (I think it is relevant to at least mention that he was in the Army, though, since it explains where he got his nickname from). Also removed excess information about James Edwards (his childhood, etc.); most of this information is already covered in his own article, James Edwards (radio host). Stonemason89 (talk) 14:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a reason that the "City Park" section is not part of "Criticism and controversy"?
Well, it's not really a "criticism" of the show. I suppose one could argue that it is a "controversy", though. Stonemason89 (talk) 13:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merged. Stonemason89 (talk) 14:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to revisit my oppose (and do some more copyediting, time permitting) if the above issues are addressed, but I fear that they may be too fundamental to be fixed during an FAC. Steve Smith (talk) 08:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further, I note that during the peer review, Brianboulton (talk · contribs) suggested that you bring it back for a second peer review after you'd addressed his points. Listening to Brian is almost always a good idea, and that piece of advice is no exception; I think you'd have done well to follow it. Steve Smith (talk) 08:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't get a second (formal) peer review from him, but I did ask him for his opinion a second time. Instead of giving the show a second formal peer review, he left some of his thoughts on the article's talk page. I acted on some of his suggestions, but others (such as ratings) I was unable to do, since there is no information on what the show's ratings are. None of the stations it airs on are audited by Arbitron. Stonemason89 (talk) 14:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing that out. I had a look at his comments, and I don't find it encouraging that he mentioned some of the same stuff as I did (regarding the short sections, the excessive detail about the hosts' personal lives, etc.). Your edits have certainly improved the prose, but there's still some copyediting to be done. Even besides that, the organization of the article is somewhat disjointed. For example, the "Guests" and "Criticism and controversy" sections appear to be lists of anecdotes with no particular indication of why those particular ones were chosen and no apparent attempt to construct a coherent narrative from them. Finally, I have some concerns about the sourcing: what steps have you taken to attempt to find offline sources as Brian recommended? Besides that, quite a bit of the article is sourced to primary sources and advocacy groups; it would be better to see more material cited to sources removed from the show and surrounding controversies (media stories if need be; books and journal articles would be still better). I'm afraid that at this point, my oppose stands; my advice would be to open another peer review, seeking particular input on some of the points I have raised. Steve Smith (talk) 11:06, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I have not cited any offline (print) sources is for two reasons:
  • They may not exist (seeing as how the subject is fairly new, founded in 2004)
  • Even if they do, I'm not sure how to find print sources; is there a Google-like search engine especially for print sources or books? Stonemason89 (talk) 17:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, since when have online sources been unacceptable? The current FAs Tropical Storm Marco (2008), 300 (film), and Rich Girl (Gwen Stefani song) all rely entirely (or almost entirely) on online sources, so I'm pretty sure having offline sources is not a prerequisite for being an FA. There are also an extremely large number of video-game-oriented FA's (such as Grim Fandango), which rely mostly on primary sources and videogame reviewers and have very few sources originating outside of hardcore video game fandom. I agree that, ideally, it would be good to have some more sources that were farther removed from the subject, offline, or both. However, this is not possible at the moment due to the limited amount of coverage the subject has received in the media. I don't believe this should preclude this article from getting FA status, though, since quite a few other articles with the same issues have managed to pass FAC.Stonemason89 (talk) 16:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"...the "Guests" and "Criticism and controversy" sections appear to be lists of anecdotes with no particular indication of why those particular ones were chosen...." The reason why those particular ones (guests and controversies) were chosen is because they have been mentioned in outside sources, making them notable to an extent that the other guests and controversies are not. Stonemason89 (talk) 17:58, 8 December 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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