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Revision as of 13:32, 11 May 2008 editTonyTheTiger (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, File movers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers401,059 edits →Hillary Rodham Clinton: comment← Previous edit Revision as of 13:39, 11 May 2008 edit undoQuirkyAndSuch (talk | contribs)411 editsNo edit summaryNext edit →
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*'''Oppose''' -- The stability issues above are a concern, but the article also could be improved with respect to overall flow. There also seems to be some inconsistency with regard to paragraph sizing - some paragraphs are way too large and should be broken apart, and there are some that are way too short to be a stand-alone paragraph. There is a one-sentence paragraph at the end of "Early Arkansas years" that should either be merged somewhere, or perhaps elaborated on. "1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign" could also be expanded. Subsections "Health care and other policy initiatives" and "Whitewater and other investigations" both could also delve into a bit more detail. First of all in the Health care and other policy initiatives, this is again an instance where the first paragraph could be expanded, and then broken apart. There should certainly be more detail about the actual Health care plan itself, and some more detail about the chronology of events surrounding that issue and debate. The subsection Whitewater and other investigations, also leaves me wanting to know more about the various investigations. The second paragraph is quite large, it should be split apart, but also expanded. Certainly some more background and history behind "]" would be helpful, the 2 sentences doesn't really cut it. The "Lewinsky scandal" subsection could also use a bit more, perhaps some examples of public appearances Hillary made during the scandal, in what capacity, etc. The "Political positions" subsection seems a bit choppy, compare to the article ], which uses a paragraph format. That would be preferable. "Writings and recordings" - could include info on how the works were received (not just how they sold), positively/negatively in book reviews. ] (]) 10:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC) *'''Oppose''' -- The stability issues above are a concern, but the article also could be improved with respect to overall flow. There also seems to be some inconsistency with regard to paragraph sizing - some paragraphs are way too large and should be broken apart, and there are some that are way too short to be a stand-alone paragraph. There is a one-sentence paragraph at the end of "Early Arkansas years" that should either be merged somewhere, or perhaps elaborated on. "1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign" could also be expanded. Subsections "Health care and other policy initiatives" and "Whitewater and other investigations" both could also delve into a bit more detail. First of all in the Health care and other policy initiatives, this is again an instance where the first paragraph could be expanded, and then broken apart. There should certainly be more detail about the actual Health care plan itself, and some more detail about the chronology of events surrounding that issue and debate. The subsection Whitewater and other investigations, also leaves me wanting to know more about the various investigations. The second paragraph is quite large, it should be split apart, but also expanded. Certainly some more background and history behind "]" would be helpful, the 2 sentences doesn't really cut it. The "Lewinsky scandal" subsection could also use a bit more, perhaps some examples of public appearances Hillary made during the scandal, in what capacity, etc. The "Political positions" subsection seems a bit choppy, compare to the article ], which uses a paragraph format. That would be preferable. "Writings and recordings" - could include info on how the works were received (not just how they sold), positively/negatively in book reviews. ] (]) 10:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
*:Thanks for your comments, and I'll try to explain the rationale on some of these points. Paragraphs are as long or as short as they need to be to cover the topic at hand, and there's a school of thought that says varying paragraph lengths make text easier to read (less monotonous in visual appearance), not harder. The end of "Early Arkansas years" has a two-sentence paragraph: one is Chelsea being born, which is a momentous development in HRC's life and deserves a text break, and the other is Bill being defeated for re-election, which closes the section and signals one of HRC's turning points (it was after this that she adopted "Clinton" as her last name, for instance). You're absolutely right that lots of material could be further expanded on, but there are already overall length constraints on this article, and generally other articles is where the expansion is done. So ] goes into much more detail about HRC's role in the areas you mention. So ], ], and ] each cover HRC's role in those controversies in greatly added detail. You are right that the last of these (Filegate) gets the least amount of coverage here; that's because it was the one where per the Independent Counsel, the charges against HRC had the least merit. Lewinsky scandal is a tough one, since our article on it doesn't cover HRC's role much; I'll see if I can add something. Regarding "Political positions", there is a whole ] article on it. For length and fairness reasons, a decision was made not to try to summarize that content here — we'd end up with superficial, boiled-down versions of her positions that would mask complexity, nuance and contradiction. And many of her most important positions (e.g. Iraq War, supreme court justices) are already covered via the "United States Senator" section's bio material. Regarding the books, again, the articles ] and ] cover reviews, ghostwriting controversies, and more. I guess the bottom line on all this is that Misplaced Pages doesn't have one Hillary article, it has many. Sometimes I think that if we pulled all the HRC material on WP out of where it is and into one place, we'd have a book-length treatment! ] (]) 12:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC) *:Thanks for your comments, and I'll try to explain the rationale on some of these points. Paragraphs are as long or as short as they need to be to cover the topic at hand, and there's a school of thought that says varying paragraph lengths make text easier to read (less monotonous in visual appearance), not harder. The end of "Early Arkansas years" has a two-sentence paragraph: one is Chelsea being born, which is a momentous development in HRC's life and deserves a text break, and the other is Bill being defeated for re-election, which closes the section and signals one of HRC's turning points (it was after this that she adopted "Clinton" as her last name, for instance). You're absolutely right that lots of material could be further expanded on, but there are already overall length constraints on this article, and generally other articles is where the expansion is done. So ] goes into much more detail about HRC's role in the areas you mention. So ], ], and ] each cover HRC's role in those controversies in greatly added detail. You are right that the last of these (Filegate) gets the least amount of coverage here; that's because it was the one where per the Independent Counsel, the charges against HRC had the least merit. Lewinsky scandal is a tough one, since our article on it doesn't cover HRC's role much; I'll see if I can add something. Regarding "Political positions", there is a whole ] article on it. For length and fairness reasons, a decision was made not to try to summarize that content here — we'd end up with superficial, boiled-down versions of her positions that would mask complexity, nuance and contradiction. And many of her most important positions (e.g. Iraq War, supreme court justices) are already covered via the "United States Senator" section's bio material. Regarding the books, again, the articles ] and ] cover reviews, ghostwriting controversies, and more. I guess the bottom line on all this is that Misplaced Pages doesn't have one Hillary article, it has many. Sometimes I think that if we pulled all the HRC material on WP out of where it is and into one place, we'd have a book-length treatment! ] (]) 12:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

*Cirt - I think the variations for paragraphs makes more sense esp from a neurology students perspective, variations in text help to give each section more to differentiate between them which helps users find information they had remembered being in the article. If they have both section titles and physical differences such as text length it's easier to mentally categorize them, which helps to find information. And there is no policy that says we need sections to be alike in size, that would be really counter productive because it would mean we have to either delete relevant information to match smaller sections or add useless information to smaller sections! Your "reasons" seem very odd, as if you're trying with all your might to find something wrong with a good article. I think the fact that you would compare the ] article to the ] so quickly shows a conflict of interest in you being here. Just because I voted for ] doesn't mean that I'm going to nominate his article instead of the Hillary one ... I nominated this one because I felt that it was a really good article and should be featured despite my personal preference. ] (]) 13:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Revision as of 13:39, 11 May 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Toolbox

previous FAC

Support I feel that this article has improved so much since last year that it should be featured. It already has "good article" status, but I think it's a great article. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 01:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Article stats:

Wasted Time R 1527
LukeTH 656
Tvoz 227
K157 137
Restart: old nom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. I think all of the MoS, sourcing, citing, etc. issues raised in the nom before restart have been addressed. I believe the article shape is appropriate and the article will be stable unless and until she is elected president (unlikely to happen as it stands now), at which point we would deal with it accordingly. In general I believe the article merits FA status. Wasted Time R (talk) 18:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: The image issues originally posed were addressed. I'm not sure about Image:Hillary Clinton first lady portraitHRC.jpg, as a work merely commissioned by the federal government might not necessarily be properly considered a "work of an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States", as it's tagged (the source website disclaimer asserts the artist retains copyright). I, however, don't have sufficient information (i.e. I don't know of the statute defining "employee of the EO") to make a firm assertion one way or another. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 18:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
EXCELLENT POINT! This is NOT a work of an employee of the Executive Office. This picture needs to be replaced in the article and the copyrighted image removed from Misplaced Pages. — BQZip01 —  18:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Just about every First Lady article I've seen includes their official White House portrait. Why is this one considered different? Or do they all have to go? Wasted Time R (talk) 19:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I all depends how those are used, how they were acquired, etc. Those who were before the advent of film have little other way to illustrate their image and most of those copyrights ended a long time ago. Others may have been works of a government employee and, therefore, are public domain. Others still may simply have not elected to maintain their copyright on the images. I don't know specifics about the others, but this one needs to go IAW Misplaced Pages policy. — BQZip01 —  19:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I found a long discussion of this issue from a couple of years ago at Misplaced Pages:Possibly unfree images/US government portraits. Resolution was unclear, but none of the portraits they were talking about have been deleted, as far as I can tell. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
If this discussion is going to continue (which is certainly fine), let's take it to the talk page so the FAC is kept to comments germane to this article. Analysis of other images is getting too tangential. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 20:50, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Concur. Image has been deleted from commons. — BQZip01 —  03:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually BQZip01, you are wrong. Hillary did serve as an executive official in the whitehouse. It's called executive privilege (the idea that the president can say some things in private with other political officials they hire due to security reasons) ... in the "Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. v. Hillary Clinton" case of 1993 they questioned whether this applied to Hillary Clinton. This case was made to see if the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) applied to the health-care-reform panel chaired by then First Lady Hillary Clinton. And that question depended on whether Hillary was an executive official or not. The court decided that the first lady is in officer or employee of the government and that FACA didn't apply to her. So, you can't object that she's called an executive officer because the law interpreted (and upheld) that she is. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 20:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I never said she was or wasn't an executive official. What I stated was that the creator of this painting was not an executive official and he is the one who actively maintains a copyright on this image. It is not a public domain image. — BQZip01 —  21:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
lol - my bad! I misread that comment you wrote. I thought you said "She is NOT" instead of "This is NOT". QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 21:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Images in this article do not meet sizing requirements IAW WP:MoS. Please fix. — BQZip01 —  18:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
fixed Granted, the removal of the image sizing for the gallup polls makes them virtually unreadable and may actually be exempt from the MOS per my interpretation of WP:MOS#Image size. --Bobblehead 19:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the MoS "other cases where a specific image width is appropriate include (but are not limited to) images with extreme aspect ratios, detailed maps, diagrams or charts" exemption is why I was using the fixed px size for all the charts. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
No icons per WP:FAC instructions, please. There was a time when I bothered pointing out MOS size issues, but FAC (unfortunately) has been apathetic and dismissive in the past. Indeed, images with particular detail, dimensions, etc. which would be impaired at 300 pixels or less are exempt. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 19:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Concur completely with pixel sizing as stated by WTR, but please use the UPRIGHT switch for portraits where applicable. — BQZip01 —  19:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, re-fixed so the Gallup polls are back to the original px size. The upright switch is being used in all instances where the image would benefit from the switch. The only MOS issues I found were the lead image being smaller than 300px and the soon to be deleted portrait had a px size and was not using upright. --Bobblehead 19:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Fine by me! — BQZip01 —  19:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
This is a new FAC; per previous isn't actionable. Please state actionable objections per WP:WIAFA based on the current article, so nominators can address them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
see hsitory for this comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BQZip01 (talk • contribs) 18:12, May 1, 2008 (UTC)
Restored deletion made per WP:POINT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. Uh, this is not a new FAC since you actually deleted the old one, but kept the same name (another problem I have with this "restart" nomination you and Raul seem to do whenever a discussion gets long...why not close the previous nomination as failed and then start a new one so all the discussion remains?!). I have no problem starting over, but if this is a new FAC, then where is the old one? Why is this not attempt #3?
  2. My objections were perfectly actionable, but you deleted them. Quite frankly, I am quite disturbed by this aggressiveness and deleting of others' comments. I'm not saying it should have passed. I'm not saying it shouldn't have passed. But you shouldn't delete anyone else's comments period. Again, I have no problem starting over, but the previous discussion should not have been removed as it gives an improper view of the discussion.
  3. Not to harp on it too much, but please restore the old discussion and make it accessible to all. I have no objection to someone else making the nomination (including you or Raul), but this was not the same article that was nominated by QuirkyandSuch. You restarted this and deleted the old stuff. Please restore. — BQZip01 —  03:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    The old FAC is clearly linked and bolded at the top of this page. This is a new FAC; current opposes should be actionable and based on the current article. If you want to discuss the method that Raul has always used to restart FACs, please take it to the talk page so this FAC isn't disrupted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    Just because Raul has always done it this way doesn't make it right. For those interested further discussion is contained here: Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates#Restarts. — BQZip01 —  05:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. My comment "Article is not stable by any means. It is currently semi-protected. With over 500 edits in the past 40 days, many not related to this FAC, I feel this is a perfect example of an unstable article." was never addressed by anyone. I even proposed a solution for it with no feedback. — BQZip01 —  17:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    Response here not addressed: "Precrime deparment? This article has been discussed at GAR a couple of times, and the meaning of "stability" has been subjected to much debate partly as a consequence. Those opposing this article because they believe it will become unstable once the presedential elections take place this fall are effectively creating a FAC precrime department. The question is whether the article is stable now. If it gets promoted and becomes unstable at a later date, take it to FAR. Unless you want precrime to become a valid objection as part of the FAC process, you need to provide arguments and evidence that the article is inherently unstable now.I've reviewed this article and its edit history in depth several times, and have not found any such evidence. Geometry guy 21:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
    To the contrary. I don't think it is stable now (see my comments above). I also do not believe it will be stable for the foreseeable future. — BQZip01 —  03:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
    Please sign your posts, even when copying from a previous post. The above was added at 19:09 (UTC). Please see my comment below, posted over an hour earlier. Geometry guy 19:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - In my view the article merits FA status at this time. The FAC process has helped us clean up some inconsistencies in references and other such details. The article is widely watchlisted and closely monitored, and I believe it is within FA guidelines for stability, length, references, comprehensiveness, neutrality, accuracy, and quality of expression. It is easy to navigate, is set up logically, and utilizes sub-articles as needed; the images illustrate different stages of her life effectively. I believe we will be able to maintain its integrity and quality no matter what turn her career takes, as has to happen for all FAs about active subjects. Tvoz →talk 00:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Article is inherently unstable as subject is currently running for president of the United States. Let us at least wait to see if she becomes the nominee. If she were to actually win and become the first female president of the United States, her page would change drastically. Awadewit (talk) 02:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, fails 1e (stability). As we get closer to the elections the article will change significantly and chances are we'll be back in FAR in three months time. -- Naerii 03:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • What will change? Her life story, her biography will not change. The presidential campaign section may need to be updated but we have a whole legion of editors watching and maintaining this page, so I'm not worried about it. I say, promote it now and if it becomes of a significantly lesser quality in the future (for whatever reason, election or not), then we can come back and de-feature it. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 18:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment on stability. I had a look again to see if the article currently has stability issues. There's an amusing incident of a vandal correcting a typo in their own incoherent string of profanities, but apart from that just good old fashioned incremental improvement. Here is one diff which shows the many improvements made since 21 April (the day before it was nominated) and here is another diff showing the changes over the previous month or so, when the article was developing due to ongoing primaries. I see no evidence of instability here.
I'm not sure why the crystal ball-gazers continue to believe that "it may become unstable at some point in the future" is an actionable objection. I sincerely hope Awadewit is wrong when she suggests that the "page would change drastically". Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, not a news source or fan site. Most of the material that would go into an encyclopedic article on a newly elected president is already there: her background, history, politics etc. The lead would need to change a bit, and the campaign section would evolve and shrink to maintain its focus, and there would be a new section on her presidency, which would evolve with reliably sourced coverage of that presidency. It won't necessarily be easy to maintain a high quality article in the face of such ongoing events, but all the evidence I have seen, both in the recent edit history, and in all my interactions with the article, is that the main editors of this article are well up to the job. Geometry guy 17:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think I am wrong. Look at any FA article covering a past US president. The articles are dominated by their presidencies. Moreover, if Clinton became the first female president of the US, I imagine that would take up a fair amount of the article. Awadewit (talk) 05:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I did: the most recent is Ronald Reagon, which does indeed have a substantial section on his presidency, but also a great deal of other biographical information. Reagan was elected in 1980, 28 years ago. So, yes, I agree that if Hillary Clinton is elected, her article will be very different in 28 years time. In fact even if she isn't it probably will be: the article on any sufficiently notable living person is likely to change significantly over such a time period. I'm even willing to concede that if she gets elected, then in 5 years time the article will have a substantial section on her presidency/first term. I fail to see what this has to do with the article's current stability.
I obviously don't have a very good imagination, because I can't think of many ways of stringing out the words "first", "female" and "president", until there are reliable secondary sources analysing the effect on American culture/politics etc. of such a presidency. That will take time.
When I say I hope that you are wrong, I mean precisely this tendency for Misplaced Pages biographies to overemphasise the recent news and current sensation ("U.S. elects first female president!!!!!") , in place of a more objective and encyclopedic treatment of the life as a whole. This tendency should be resisted, and the team at HRC are doing rather well in my view, e.g. pruning out minor campaign scandals which will have no long term significance. Geometry guy 13:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that editors won't wait for reliable, secondary sources. However concientious, they have not done that now, I might add. There is an abundance of news stories and less that stellar scholarly works used as sources. That is apparently the standard for biographies of living people, however, and the editors are not to be faulted for following that standard. If Clinton became the "first female president", analysis would begin the day she was elected and those news stories would inevitably be used, hopefully replaced by better news stories as the analysis became more sophisticated. However, this demonstrates just how unstable the article would become. I share your concern that biographies overemphasize the recent news. It is a hard tendency to avoid, however, and considering the article relies on news reports rather than more analytical sources now does not lead me to believe that tendency would change or even could change: Should the article wait to mention her presidency until scholarly works are written? (Actually, a difficult question, in my opinion.) All I am asking is that we wait to see if she becomes the nominee. The fact that there is a tag in the middle of the article stating "This section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election. Content may change as the election approaches" should alert us to a problem. Awadewit (talk) 18:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Awadewit, apart from the debate about stability, I'm interested in your comments about quality of sources. Yes, material related to the 2008 campaign relies upon news stories, because at this point there's nothing else. But as I see it, much of the material regarding the rest of her life relies upon a variety of well-known published biographies, and most of the material in the "Cultural and political image" section relies upon scholarly sources. Excepting the 2008 campaign, what parts of the article do you feel need to use better sources? Wasted Time R (talk) 18:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Wasted Time R's response is much more important, so I will be brief. Yes, of course news sources will be used before more scholarly sources become available, but they will be confined to a relatively small proportion of the article as they are now in the campaign section. This won't "take up a fair amount of the article", and it will improve as the sources improve: that is not instability. Geometry guy 21:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Are the crystal ball votes going to be considered valid or not? QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 20:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Don't worry too much about process: it will work out. I've argued that those comments are not reasonable or actionable. Please see if my comments are challenged. Geometry guy 21:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
      • I concur that the those who object because of something that may or may not happen in the future are wrong, BUT, my !vote concerns the current state of the article. That said, until this nomination business is settled, it likely will not calm down and stability will not be maintained until such a time. — BQZip01 —  21:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
        Indeed your !vote does, but the only argument you have given is semi-protection, 500 edits in 40 days and a "feeling", which isn't particularly convincing. Geometry guy 13:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments The prose is uneven. Some passages flow nicely, while others feature awkward, unclear phrasing. Some examples:
    • "That election marked the first time an American First Lady" Why the "American" qualifier here? Statement also needs a source, either here or later in the body where it is repeated.
      The "American" is there because it's happened in other countries (and we were accused of America-centrism without it); indeed Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina has recently done what Hillary's trying to do now. I've added a cite for first FL US to run for office in the body of the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
    • "which is also located in Cook County." What's the purpose of this awkward addendum? The sentence is already tortured by numerous commas.
      No good reason for it. I've chopped it, and also broken up the run-on sentence. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
    • "was involved in many activities at church", "earned many merit badges as" "Many" is one of those generic adjectives that just begs for more specificity. What does "many" mean in these instances anyway? I'd suggest recasting ("was active in church and extracurriculars at her public school...").
    • "while her father, otherwise an authoritarian traditionalist, held the modern notion for the time that his daughter's skills and opportunities should not be limited by being a female." Wordy. "held the modern notion for the time" -> "held the then-progressive notion" (progressive works better than modern there IMO). "not be limited by being a female." -> "not be limited by sex." Opportunities is fine, but how exactly can skills be limited by society? "Authoritarian" is a somewhat loaded adjective. Are we sure we want to use that here? If that's how he is described in sources, I'd suggest using quotation marks.
    • "who got her to read" This can be better phrased. Sentence is also far too long (try reading it out loud).
    • "with the minister she saw" Comma necessary for "disambiguation"
    • "organization. and with them supported " Small typo; I tried correcting this myself, but my eyes buggered out trying to decipher the text from the citation templates in the wikicode. Why "and with them"? What does that mean? Led the group in supporting them?
    • "She proclaimed herself " Context? In a speech? In writing?
    • "then-popular radical actions against the political system" Quite generic phrasing here. What does this exactly mean? Most problematic is the nebulous definition of "radical" and its inherit conflict with "popular".
      I've made changes to deal with the rest of the above items, good points all. Of the parts I've haven't changed: "many" regarding Brownie/Girl Scout awards is due to descriptions that her sash was overflowing with them; "authoritarian" is the kindest way to describe HR's father, as both Morris and Bernstein consider him to have been psychologically abusive to the family in exercising his dominance; and "radical" is necessary to differentiate HR's "work within the system" approach at the time, out of favor with many of her fellow students. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Another copy-edit would probably be helpful. BuddingJournalist 21:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    One sin of the article has been, as you spotted, long convoluted sentences; I've broken a bunch down in subsequent sections. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
    Budding, thanks very much for your comments, the more the better! It's good to have fresh eyes on the article. I'll respond in more detail this evening. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Support, I supported the first time it was FAC and I will support it now even more because of the major overhaul that has been done. Tony the Marine (talk) 21:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment, the following need a disambig: David Brooks, Henry Holt, merit badge, Micheal Barone. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.247.148 (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    All fixed, thanks for spotting. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, Unstable and fails criteria 1e. As the elections approach there will be significant changes. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 04:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose only on stability grounds, until she is off the front page every day. There's still a reasonable chance she'll make the nomination and be elected president, in which case the article would need to undergo a major change. — brighterorange (talk) 13:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. Oppose (See below.) I have no problems with the article's so-called instability. In general I think this is an impressive piece of work, and I am close to supporting. There are a few issues with the prose, but I hope to go through some of them myself and bring any issues back here. In the meantime...
  • I've now done some copy-editing of the first two sections (to 1992), and will try to return to this later. I do also wonder whether parts of the article are over-referenced, though I recognize that this is in part my own pet peeve, when individual statements are supported by multiple citations. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    I'm okay with almost all of your wording changes, and I appreciate the effort you're putting into the copyedit. But, I've got a strong issue with some of your edits that are marked as "consolidating references". In some cases, you're pulling footnotes that mark specific parts of a sentence out to the end. This makes it harder to the reader to understand what is being used as a cite for what. Remember that this is a controversial and contentious biographical subject. All these cites are in here for a reason; during the three years that I've been working on the article, almost every single statement or claim in it has been challenged at one time or another. So the close citing has a rationale. In other cases, in order to reduce the number of footnotes in the main text, you're folding multiple citations under one footnote. This doesn't seem like a great idea to me, and in some cases you're cloning newspaper article citations in order to make this work. That seems like a really bad idea; it's double maintenance if the cite has to change (and it frequently does, as recent FAC editing should indicate). The whole WP citing system is set up to consolidate multiple uses of a news source to one citation instance in the notes; that's the reason for the <ref name="foo"/> syntax and for the lower-cased-letter backlinks from the citation to the main text. What is your rationale for doing it against this system? Please discuss here before propagating more of these changes into the article. Thx ... Wasted Time R (talk) 04:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    Again, I may have to reconsider my first appraisal that stability was not an issue here. It may be, if contentiousness is militating against readibility. Because this is the main problem: the multiple footnotes, especially mid-sentence, break up the text and impede legibility. Perhaps this means that a contentious subject really can't become an FA? Ideally, not. But usually it is easy enough to figure out which reference refers to which fact; where it isn't, that can easily be clarified, and less obtrusively, in the footnote itself. To take an obviously example, previously there was a note immediately after the very first word ("Hillary") of the first sentence of the first section after the lead. What a disruption! I consolidated that note with the one that was at the end of that sentence, with no loss of precision, and plenty (I'd argue) gain in readability. The second sentence was likewise interrupted by a footnote, which I consolidated with the following one, which referred in any case to the very same text, two pages later. Perhaps there are times when my changes have been more arguable, and I'd be happy to reconsider if you provide examples. But on the whole, I'd rather say I hadn't been zealous enough, rather than that I've been two zealous. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    Can you point me to the WP rule or guideline that says that FA articles can't have footnotes in mid-sentence? I have never seen any such thing. As to your "obvious example", I agree it's perfect. The origins of the name "Hillary" are controversial. You may think the matter is silly, but it's there; much editing has gone on in this article over it, which I guess you are unaware of. A footnote after just "Hillary" tells the reader that something about this name requires further explication, and increases the chance that the reader will find it. A footnote after the full "Hillary Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois" sentence tells the reader that a source for her being born in Edgewater Hospital is supplied; not very interesting, and very unlikely that the reader will be motivated to check the note. That footnote placement gives no indication that something needs explication about the name "Hillary". I believe strongly that we need to associate footnoting with the precise text involved in cases like this. This position is based on three years' experience with this article and knowing what works and what doesn't. If this loses your support for FAC, I understand and respect your position. But I would much rather the article fails FAC than it becomes unglued on its sourcing. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    Obviously, there's no rule that says that FA articles can't have mid-sentence footnotes. But the first criterion for FA is that "the prose is engaging, even brilliant." I submit that sticking a footnote after the very first word in the first sentence of the article body makes for problems of readability, let along engagement. Again, it may be that in an article of this sort, which deals with such a contentious subject (as you say), the need to be cover one's ass so minutely therefore militates against engaging prose. If that is so, then we should accept that these articles will not reach FA standards. I'm suggesting a middle way, in this case for instance by consolidating the information from that footnote with the note that's at the end of the sentence, a mere ten words later. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    I am trying to engage the reader, by cluing them in as to exactly which material needs further explication. The "ten words later" makes all the difference in this case (there's editors who want the name controversy to be in the main text, not even a footnote at all; there is a balance here that I do not want to upset). I don't consider this "middle way" middle at all; my goal is to satisfy WP:V and WP:BLP and WP:NPOV much more than it is to satisfy WP:WIAFA. If everyone agrees with you that mid-sentencing footnoting flunks the FAC prose requirement, so be it. I'm going to revert this footnoting change, as I don't think it's acceptable. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • And however much I recognize that the current text is the more or less battered and bruised survivor of much edit warring, I still think that at times it is over-referenced, though I don't have easy access to the sources to check this out. Look for instance what is currently footnote 26, in which two references are cited (yes, I consolidated them) to back up the claim (and don't tell me it's all that contentious) that "In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science." Now, in this case both references are online, so I can follow them up. Actually, they're both kind of crappy references for the purpose, as it happens. (What, incidentally, are "departmental honors"? The phrase certainly isn't justified by either source.) One would have thought that one of the biographies has, on just one page, the vital information needed that she graduated in 1969 with a BA Honors in Political Science in 1969. Piecing things together like this is both a bit sloppy and overkill. NB I know that this is a Misplaced Pages weakness on the whole. It'd be nice to try to avoid it in Featured articles. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    Piecing together things like this is necessary in places. I've never found a definitive source for what kind of honors she got, nor one biography that has this all in one page (and I've read/looked at nearly a dozen). But regardless of this piece of text, I find cloning of news articles in references (25 ^ Dedman, Bill. "Reading Hillary Rodham's hidden thesis", MSNBC.com, March 2, 2007. Retrieved on March 2, 2007. 26 ^ Hillary Rodham Clinton. The New York Times. Retrieved on April 13, 2008.; Dedman, Bill. "Reading Hillary Rodham's hidden thesis", MSNBC.com, March 2, 2007. Retrieved on March 2, 2007.) absolutely ill-advised. This is a maintenance nightmare. I would much rather have two footnotes here, and I believe that two footnotes rather than citation cloning is the standard practice across WP. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    On this particular point, I am surprised. A quick google gives me this page, which is not a particularly good source, but which does provide in one place all the information that these two rather tangential sources are being used to provide: that she graduated with a BA Honors in Political Science from Wellesley in 1969. (Here's a rather better source, FWIW.) I still don't know what "departmental honors" are (and the phrase is not used in those sources). Again, I really do think that similar issues affect other places where there are multiple sources. And again, I know that this problem is, as you say, endemic to WP. Featured articles should try to do better, however. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    Furthermore, since footnotes take up less space than citations, your strategy of duplicating citations to save on footnotes will drive up the HTML size generated for the article, which we have been at great pains to reduce during this FAC process. With all due respect, I don't see why your "pet peeve" should outweigh longstanding existing practice here, and I really think that such a wholesale change to the footnoting approach of the article should be discussed here or in Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton first, before being unilaterally implemented. Indeed I believe that WP:CITE generally discourages citation style/format/approach churn unless there's a clear consensus in favor of a switchover. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    I said "in part" a pet peeve. In the meantime, if the problem is the HTML size, then it would be adviseable to change the article outright to a Harvard or MLA system. But I'm not, of course, suggesting anything like such a wholesale change or switchover (though I do in fact think it would be a good idea). If I were, I would of course raise the issue first, as you suggest. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    The <ref name="foo"/> approach does a good job of reducing HTML size; it is used often in WP articles. I don't see what you have against it. And I think undoing uses of this approach is a wholesale change, one that no one has ever advocated here other than you. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    Which is why, as I say, I'm not suggesting it. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    But you are undoing <ref name="foo"/>-type uses, with this edit and this edit and this edit for example. This citing style has been used by all editors to this article, and I strongly object to this type of changes. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:27, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    OK, one final comment, on one of these three edits. The original sentence in question was this: "That summer, she interned on child custody cases at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, which was well-known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties, and radical causes; two of its four partners were current or former communist party members." One sentence with seven footnotes. This is surely overkill. What's more, and contra your suggestions earlier, it's really not clear what information each of them can be providing. Presumably, footnote has the detail that she was working on child custody cases. Then are both footnotes and needed to provide the name of hte law firm? Or does one give its location, the other the name? All of them are off-line sources, so I can't check them. I find it hard to believe that the three of them can't be replaced by one source that includes the two (three?) pieces of information that she worked on child custody cases for firm X in place Y. Then we have three footnotes at the end of the sentence, one of which ironically does bring together more than one source, in a manner that I have in fact been proposing.
    I may perhaps here have been over-zealous in simplifying the sentence as follows: "That summer, she interned on child custody cases at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, which was well-known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties, and radical causes; two of its four partners were current or former communist party members." I would submit, however, that this is far more readable prose, and that all the necessary information and sourcing can in fact be provided by two footnotes. At least, not seven! But it's true that to make sure of that, and really to reduce the over-referencing, I'd have to go through the sources myself, which I'm not in a position to do. In the meantime, however, I have not eliminated a single reference, enabling someone else to go through and sort out the problem, while ensuring that the sentence is not obstructed by a barrage of numbers in square brackets. Again, we may differ on this. I am speaking only as a reader. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    I agree that citing was overdone on this passage; my bad, due to accreting new material (the New York Sun articles) into existing material (various book refs) without fully revisiting it and rewriting the material in question. I've done that now, and there's a lot less citing. And I've avoided cloning the New York Sun article. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • You reverted two of my suggested changes:
    • Here on the basis that "African American" is "an anachronism." I don't think that washes. Should we be saying "negro," then, which likely as not was the language at the time? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Here on the basis that is is "clunky and superfluous" to indicate that the article has shifted from a discussion of Hillary Rodham Clinton to Hillary Rodham. I'm not sure it's either. In fact, there's quite a bit of to and fro between calling her Rodham and calling her Clinton in the sections dealing with her life to 1992. At times, this even threatens to become confusing, or at least makes the reader work to distinguish her from her husband. Anything that makes the reader work is problematic, I think, especially in what is already a relatively demanding article. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
      • The article refers to her as "Rodham" consistently until she started using "Clinton" during Bill's 1982 regain-the-governorship campaign (the beginning of the "Later Arkansas years" section), then it refers to her as "Clinton" consistently. This is the standard practice that biographies of her take. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
        • There is to and fro if you take the footnotes into account. I can see the logic, but again I suggest that any help that you can give the reader is worth providing. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
          • The footnotes are also consistent, and go by the date of the source, so a Living History cite to a 1969 event shows as "Clinton 2003" since she was Clinton when she write the memoir. Again, look at the published biographies by Bernstein, Gerth/Van Natta, Troy, etc.; they do it like this too and their readers have managed. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
            • Yes, I figured that out. Look, all I can do is provide you my response as a reader. A reader with very little brain, perhaps, but I'm not the only one out there. This is an article that's read, usually at speed, by many hundreds of thousands of people. Some of them have ideological axes to grind, sure, and it's important that the references are there, and are solid. Of course, the majority who are looking to grind their axes won't be happy any which way. So I'd argue that a WP article should at least spare a thought for the more or less casual reader, too, and make his or her life a little bit easier. And that's why the number one criterion for FA status is prose that "is engaging, even brilliant." If the axe-grinders prevent it from being so, then there is, moreover, something inherently unstable about the article, and I'm going to have to oppose its nomination. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
              • OK, I respect your position on your interpretation of the criterion. FYI, I'm going to go through your reference consolidations on a case-by-case basis. Ones that are innocuous I'll leave in, but any that involve citation cloning or important loss of context for the footnote I'm going to undo. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
                • Jbmurray, although I'm glad you're trying to help I feel somewhat that your suggestions are based more on subjective preference. No article is 100% tilted towards anyones preference in style, it's all about finding a good common ground for everyone. And I feel that you're asking for the article to be dumbed down too much. Terms such as "fish sliming" aren't obsolete or unused, and it would be unfair to pick out things in an article you personally don't know about. And saying she's a "teacher favorite" suggests very strongly the meaning, and you'd have to be very unsure of yourself to qustion it. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 05:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment "She has subsequently opposed the administration on its conduct of the Iraq War, and has opposed it on most domestic issues." -> twice "has opposed" in one sentence 131.111.247.148 (talk) 15:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Article meets FA requirement as much as Barack Obama wiki page. The instability in the article due to edit wars has been addressed in the GAR. --Kalyan (talk) 11:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Just because the topic of the article is of major interest right now, does not necessarily mean that it is unstable and should not be a FA. The article is well written and extremely well referenced. --Splette :) 22:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Object based on Stability as mentioned above. HRC's article is likely going to be edited repeatedly as the campaign continues, and that does not meant the extensive new edits will be of high quality on par expected at FAR. Recommend waiting until after November election. Guroadrunner (talk) 21:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Guroadrunner, WP:NOTCRYSTAL. This article has not shown to be unstable, and we can't assume it will be in the future. All these comments about being unstable are based on assumptions into the future and are against wikipedia policy. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 01:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- The stability issues above are a concern, but the article also could be improved with respect to overall flow. There also seems to be some inconsistency with regard to paragraph sizing - some paragraphs are way too large and should be broken apart, and there are some that are way too short to be a stand-alone paragraph. There is a one-sentence paragraph at the end of "Early Arkansas years" that should either be merged somewhere, or perhaps elaborated on. "1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign" could also be expanded. Subsections "Health care and other policy initiatives" and "Whitewater and other investigations" both could also delve into a bit more detail. First of all in the Health care and other policy initiatives, this is again an instance where the first paragraph could be expanded, and then broken apart. There should certainly be more detail about the actual Health care plan itself, and some more detail about the chronology of events surrounding that issue and debate. The subsection Whitewater and other investigations, also leaves me wanting to know more about the various investigations. The second paragraph is quite large, it should be split apart, but also expanded. Certainly some more background and history behind "Filegate" would be helpful, the 2 sentences doesn't really cut it. The "Lewinsky scandal" subsection could also use a bit more, perhaps some examples of public appearances Hillary made during the scandal, in what capacity, etc. The "Political positions" subsection seems a bit choppy, compare to the article Barack Obama, which uses a paragraph format. That would be preferable. "Writings and recordings" - could include info on how the works were received (not just how they sold), positively/negatively in book reviews. Cirt (talk) 10:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
    Thanks for your comments, and I'll try to explain the rationale on some of these points. Paragraphs are as long or as short as they need to be to cover the topic at hand, and there's a school of thought that says varying paragraph lengths make text easier to read (less monotonous in visual appearance), not harder. The end of "Early Arkansas years" has a two-sentence paragraph: one is Chelsea being born, which is a momentous development in HRC's life and deserves a text break, and the other is Bill being defeated for re-election, which closes the section and signals one of HRC's turning points (it was after this that she adopted "Clinton" as her last name, for instance). You're absolutely right that lots of material could be further expanded on, but there are already overall length constraints on this article, and generally other articles is where the expansion is done. So 1993 Clinton health care plan goes into much more detail about HRC's role in the areas you mention. So Whitewater controversy, White House travel office controversy, and White House FBI files controversy each cover HRC's role in those controversies in greatly added detail. You are right that the last of these (Filegate) gets the least amount of coverage here; that's because it was the one where per the Independent Counsel, the charges against HRC had the least merit. Lewinsky scandal is a tough one, since our article on it doesn't cover HRC's role much; I'll see if I can add something. Regarding "Political positions", there is a whole Political positions of Hillary Rodham Clinton article on it. For length and fairness reasons, a decision was made not to try to summarize that content here — we'd end up with superficial, boiled-down versions of her positions that would mask complexity, nuance and contradiction. And many of her most important positions (e.g. Iraq War, supreme court justices) are already covered via the "United States Senator" section's bio material. Regarding the books, again, the articles It Takes a Village and Living History cover reviews, ghostwriting controversies, and more. I guess the bottom line on all this is that Misplaced Pages doesn't have one Hillary article, it has many. Sometimes I think that if we pulled all the HRC material on WP out of where it is and into one place, we'd have a book-length treatment! Wasted Time R (talk) 12:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Cirt - I think the variations for paragraphs makes more sense esp from a neurology students perspective, variations in text help to give each section more to differentiate between them which helps users find information they had remembered being in the article. If they have both section titles and physical differences such as text length it's easier to mentally categorize them, which helps to find information. And there is no policy that says we need sections to be alike in size, that would be really counter productive because it would mean we have to either delete relevant information to match smaller sections or add useless information to smaller sections! Your "reasons" seem very odd, as if you're trying with all your might to find something wrong with a good article. I think the fact that you would compare the Hillary Clinton article to the Barack Obama so quickly shows a conflict of interest in you being here. Just because I voted for Dennis Kucinich doesn't mean that I'm going to nominate his article instead of the Hillary one ... I nominated this one because I felt that it was a really good article and should be featured despite my personal preference. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 13:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)