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	Che Guevara is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 18, 2006.
Article milestones Date Process Result August 3, 2004 Featured article candidate Not promoted September 3, 2004 Featured article candidate Not promoted December 16, 2005 Peer review Reviewed December 19, 2005 Good article nominee Listed March 10, 2006 Featured article candidate Promoted Current status: Featured article

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Featured article review

Discussions leading up to the featured article review are contained in Archive 14. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm putting the dead link checker at the top of the page, as it may be needed often: Check external links SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Planned article revert

Consensus has developed on the featured article review that the article should be reverted to one of these versions:

• Featured version, March 10, 2006 (42 KB readable prose)
• After main page appearance, June 19, 2006 (46 KB readable prose)

and rebuilt from there.

Please discuss and develop consensus here for which of the two versions is the best revert target. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Several questions/clarifications: you state "consensus has developed" ... exactly how was that was achieved, how many people were consulted, and when/where did it take place? I am aware of the fact that 3-4 people (1 overtly bias and one who arose out of nowhere) had mentioned that they felt the article had contained POV issues, but that was before Matisse and Polaris did extensive cleaning up. Has the article been examined recently? Also under what/whose authority has it been decided that a revert will be the course of action? Redthoreau (talk TR 19:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Have you read the FAR page linked above? Your questions are answered there. As of now, you are the only editor opposing a revert. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Also noting that the FAR has been up since 23 February and all involved editors and relevant WikiProjects have been notified. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:02, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Choice of versions

My preference would be for the earlier March 10 version because it is 10 kbs shorter and the writing cleaner. I think the POV has started to set in by the June 19 version. That version ends with the view of Che Guevara as "Jim Morrison with an assault rifle." This is the sort of statement I feel does not belong in the main article, as it represents a narrow global view and is culturally bound to a certain political view and even a particular age group. Mattisse 17:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I am in agreement with Mattisse. -- Polaris999 (talk) 18:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll accept either of the two versions, but agree that the brevity of the earlier version provides the cleanest starting place. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree as well.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 02:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Steps to restore

Several questions were raised on the featured article review. No, reverting doesn't affect the talk page, and no, a sandbox version of the original featured version isn't needed (it's in the article history). Someone may want to save a sandbox version of the current version, so that anything you later want to retrieve from it can easily be found. I offer to do the initial steps in the revert, including an {{inuse}} tag as needed until I'm finished, once the version is decided. Steps to restoring will include:

• 1. Revert to the chosen version. (I offer to complete all of the steps in 1)
  • 1a. Reinstate infobox from current version
  • 1b. Reinstate from current version categories, interwikis, nav templates at the bottom of the page, persondata; in short, everything in the current bottom of the article from {{Che Guevara}} down.
  • 1c. Reinstate sister links from current version
  • 1d. Review for current WP:MOS standards, add ISBNs, do basic ref formatting cleanup to a consistent ref style (thru 1c will take me a few minutes once I start; 1d could take me a full day)
• 2. Before any other changes are made:
  • 2a. Recheck all hatnote template links at tops of sections
    • This step includes making sure any new daughter articles (created since the featured version) are linked somewhere in the article; perhaps begin now to make a list of daughter articles?
  • 2b. Verify that all external links in sources are still live, some may need to be retrieved from the internet archive (www.archive.org) or from the current version. Restore and update all dead links: Check external links
  • 2c. Verify that all wikilinks are still accurate (this will be time consuming, regular editors may want to divide up the work and go through each section, checking on old links that may have changed or new articles that may have been added and need to be linked). Be aware of WP:MOSLINK and WP:OVERLINKing.
• 3. Once it is determined that the article is completely restored, further work needed before content changes begin:
  • 3a. Scan the article and identify any outdated info, such as anything beginning with "as of".
  • 3b. Review for citations needed
    • Note: Zleitzen's version (rightly) used scholarly sources that may not be available online.
  • 3c. Decide which images to bring forward from current version
• 4. Begin content revisions
  • 4a. Review for POV
  • 4b. Discourage addition of any new cruft that isn't specifically justified, for example, per WP:EL or content that is already included or should be included in daughter articles.
  • 4c. Update as needed.
  • 4d. Review again for current WP:MOS standards

I believe those are the steps; please indicate anything I've missed so I can add it in. I also suggest allowing a few days to be certain consensus has formed before beginning this work. Discussion of the article should be on the article talk page; as the FAR moves along, others will be reading that page, and it isn't helpful to fill it up with unnecessary chatter and detail that can be dealt with on the article talk page. The FAR page should be used for determining whether the article meets or not featured standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much time to help, but I just had a glance at this; it looks reasonable. Should we make a workspace page for sorting out problematic links, or should we just plan on fixing them in place? I would think a workspace page would be useful, because it would allow a complete list of all the links that had issues and then make it clear what has been done about each of them. - Jmabel | Talk 20:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to you! If you think a workspace page would be useful, then that is fine with me. I have never been involved in such a major project as this revert, so any advice/help from you is welcome. Polaris999 will be very happy. Your method sounds like a good way of organizing this. Mattisse 21:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Jmabel -- It is great to see you here!! -- Polaris999 (talk) 22:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I have been involved in several undertakings of this nature (the most difficult, Asperger syndrome remains featured and is a fine article). In one case, because a revert to a much older version was done without advance notice, without cooperation, and without a plan, the article ended up defeatured. If everyone isn't on board, the endeavour will not likely succeed and is not worth attempting. Unless there is concurrence, the article should just remain tagged and be defeatured. Civility and cooperation over the very long haul are key. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Are we settled over who will do what? As I understand it, SandyGeorgia will do Step 1 tomorrow (Thursday). After Sandy is done, Polaris999 will handle template problems and such, while Jmabel will have the list of the links on a workpage and check them. I am willing to do the hatnote links. I can check the wikilinks. Then, at Step 3 I believe we should reconnoiter and gain consensus before deciding on images, quality of replacement sources, etc. Is this to your understanding, Sandy? Mattisse 13:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Sounds good. I'm busy most of today (Wednesday), intend to do all of Step 1 tomorrow (Thursday) unless consensus changes, and btw I have jury duty beginning (and hopefully ending) on Friday. I'll leave most of the rest to all of you, and weigh in as needed, mostly watching that MoS is followed, refs are clean, consensus is respeced, and so on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Work on article

It seems to me that Step two is fairly uncontroversial and any problems can be brought to the talk page. I am certainly willing to list hatnotes and check wikilinks. I know some of the external links to sources are dead. Polaris999 probably has the off line sources Zleitzen had (I'm guessing), and he probably is best for replacing dead reference links. Also, searches of standard sources such as BBC News will probably due for standard biographical stuff. Polaris999 and I are adamant that only sources meeting WP:V and WP:RS be used. We can discuss any problems on the talk page. Polaris999 has said he will do the template stuff. As far as citation style, I am used to WP:CITE but will use what ever is preferred for the article.

At step three, we will discuss issues of image and vet all citations on the talk page. At step four, of course, we will have to discuss. My view is that Guevara had been dead for over 50 years. Overly detailed descriptions, controversies, and legacy issues can take place in daughter articles. Much of the controversy now about Che has little to do with him as a person, in my opinion, and more with our collective state of mind today. My view is that if we cannot settle on a consensus regarding wording, then leave whatever it is out.

Hopefully, by concentrating on the task at hand we will quickly develop a good working group so that POV issues can be rationally discussed, allowing for differing view to arrive at compromises. Mattisse 19:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I hope there will be an attempt to avoid citing the popular press (BBC for example) when better scholarly or academic sources are available. Also, the featured version did not use cite templates, I personally hate them since they chunk up the article size and loadtime so badly, and if you intend to use them, you'll have to switch over all of the existing citations, which would be very time consuming. Since WP:CITE says not to mix citation styles, and not to switch the original style used (specifically, not to switch to cite templates), I highly recommend sticking to the citation method established by Zleitzen. WP:CITE guidelines dictate the same, unless there is consensus to change. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, I will use whatever others are using for reference formatting. As far as sources, I only have a few books on Cuba, and none specifically on Che Guevara. I will have to count on Polaris999 then. Mattisse 20:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I myself have almost every book on Che Guevara in print (20 +) and will be willing to look up issues in the ones I have. Also Matisse how much have you ever read or researched about Che Guevara? I ask because I would contend that context and point of view can only truly be judged with an in depth understanding of the subject matter, and would encourage everyone interested in formulating the new article, to first independently research the man in question. It could only enhance the final product. Redthoreau (talk TR 21:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, upon looking at the references in the version of March 10, I have all the print books Zleitzen uses. Mattisse 16:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it was Jmabel and I who introduced the WP:CITE system into the CG article. At that time, "Che Guevara's Involvement in the Cuban Revolution" already existed as a separate entity and I did not convert its footnotes. Later when Zleitzen started working on it and expressed frustration about the deplorable state of its footnotes, rather than converting them all manually as I had done in the main CG article, I ran User:Cyde/Ref converter on them, with very satisfactory results. That discussion, and the results of running the converter can be seen here. If others are in agreement, I would favor using User:Cyde/Ref converter on whatever footnotes may need to be translated into WP:CITE style as a "first pass"; we can then refine the output as necessary. Mattisse, re finding needed citations in books I own, I will certainly be glad to do so, and am pleased to see that Redthoreau also has volunteered. -- Polaris999 (talk) 22:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey! I did the same thing for Zleitzen when we were working on the Fidel Castro article! Mattisse 23:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Only I did it by hand -- that was the olden days. Maybe you will shown me your automated way. Mattisse 23:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

That's funny! Certainly I will show you. You might start by reading the link under "here" above. Actually, there is not much more to it than that ... -- Polaris999 (talk) 00:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no "here" under "here". Did you mean to leave a link there? Mattisse 00:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

And now that I've read that link, I believe Polaris is confused. The CG article already uses the cite.php system, and there is nothing to be converted. No wonder his info confused me, as I also used cyde in the olden days, but we are beyond that. This article does use cite.php, and it already has ref tags. What it doesn't use is cite templates (WP:CITET), which is a method for formatting citations within the ref tags. I STRONGLY oppose switching styles (unless you all override me) because the cite templates chunk up the text, making it hard to copyedit and hard to read. Please go back to the featured version and look at it in edit mode to see the refs it already has; there is no reason to waste time changing them to a clunky citation method. I'll wait til you all catch up to undo the changes I did in the steps above. Having to manually convert perfectly good citations to horrid cite templates will be a huge waste of time, IMO. I can clean up the ref formatting as part of step one, and we can continue with the same citation style used by Zleitzen, which is already in cite.php format. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the Converter says all the footnotes are in the WP:CITE style, so no need to do anything except update them as a first step, I guess? Or provide better sources when available? -- Polaris999 (talk) 00:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Right. Some of the ref formatting in the featured version is inconsistent although complete. During Step 1, I will do the basic kind of ref cleanup I always do, leaving one bibliographic style in place that we can then follow throughout. (Things like, journal names are italicized, newspaper title are in quotes, all authors with last name first, and so on.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Great. I will wait for you to assign me a specific task. -- Polaris999 (talk) 06:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

ugh, OK, I will add that step in the list above, which will be a factor that will slow things down. Polaris, are you going to handle that with Cyde? I'll add it in above, and then we'll have to check that all is in order before moving forward. That will change the order of things above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, it won't slow anything down -- I can do it myself and it will take about 30 seconds! -- Polaris999 (talk) 23:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok. I added that step in above, but we should make sure everything checks out before moving forward from there. That means I'll have to do basic ref cleanup and ISBN additions after you convert. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Problems with March 10th version to address

If there is a tidal wave to revert then I may not be able to stop it, and thus will accept it. However from reading the March 10th version I noticed some glaring issues that would have to be addressed, I believe in the new article, (Which I would want to be a part of crafting)

Problems with March 10th version that must be addressed ...

- “Revolutionary, politician, and Cuban guerrilla leader.” – no mention of him being an author ? He wrote more books during his lifetime than most authors. Also no mention of his contributions as a military tactician or social theorist ? His ideas involve philosophy just as much, if not more, than military theory.

- “Arbenz’s Social Revolution” ? Huh ? That is about the worst way to describe the systematic changes that Arbenz was attempting to implement.

- “Guevara Died at the hands of the Bolivian army” ... what kind of wording is that ? Were they cradling his head as he passed away from old age ?

- Inclusion of the fact that Che “pawned jewelry” when money was tight ? How is this relevant and significant ? Especially when other minute details are considered “overbearing”.

- “Guevara met Fidel” – sounds like they attended the same soccer game and bumped into each other. Raul (Castro’s brother and current Cuban President introduced Che to Fidel)

- 4 lines on Che’s role in the Play “Evita” ? There should be 0.

- The entire criticism section is for lack of a better word “crap” and certain non credible parts would have to be removed to another article. Also what is with the shout out to Chemart.com ? Are we going to also link the article to Che-lives.com as well and offer discounts on T-shirts? This particular criticism section does not belong in the new article whatsoever and if people desire it, it should be a sister article. Also citing Álvaro Vargas Llosa makes the article laughable. He is a self-identified partisan hack.

With that said ... I believe that the March 10th version could be morphed into a good article with the work of several people. I myself would want to take part in the process as I consider my knowledge on the issue considerable, and I have the desire to put in the effort and will cede final decisions on my contributions to Polaris ... whose judgment and objectivity I trust. Redthoreau (talk TR 21:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Red, if the revert is decided upon, will you agree to follow the steps above? That is, will you wait for steps 1 to 3 to be completed before beginning content revisions? If not, the job will be very complicated; everyone will just get in each other's way if content changes begin before the article is fully restored. And no, criticism can't be removed, as that violates POV forking at WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Will you agree to proceed in an orderly manner so the article can be restored before it is changed? This could take, perhaps (not sure) a few days to at most a week. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Response I understand that a section on Criticism is ‘par for the course’, but not that particular laughable one. Filled with innuendo, hyperbole, unfounded accusation, and product placement. Also the size should be kept to a reasonable length and should not be any longer than any of the other article sections. -------- Moreover, if the revision is decided upon, I would agree to wait the week or so for the article to be ready for edits. Also I would insist that the images in the present article that meet Misplaced Pages standards remain included, along with the post prose book/film references etc – which I believe are much more complete than the March 10 version. Also on matters where people believe I am inserting POV, I will cede to the judgment of Polaris. Redthoreau (talk TR 21:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It is unlikely that all of your demands will be met, as almost everyone else disagrees, but each item can be discussed in due course, recognizing consensus. The central question is if you are willing to proceed according to consensus and let the restore work happen before work begins on the items you mention so that we don't get crossed up before the article is restored. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I am willing to compromise, cede my wishes when showed actual wiki policy which contradicts it, trust the objectivity evaluation of Polaris, and yes will wait the week or so, for the article to be restored to a state that can be edited. Redthoreau (talk 65.13.71.158 (talk) 21:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that, Red. Mattisse just left (today) FAR notifications at all relevant WikiProjects, so I suggest we wait a bit more for consensus to develop. In the meantime, people might want to begin reviewing ahead on the steps, to see what they can work on in Step 2, once I complete Step 1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello Redthoreau -- Thank you very much for your vote of confidence which I truly appreciate, but I had already opted out of POV matters via the following message on the FAR page, i.e.:

"Hello, Mattisse. I am a bit of a "templater" and would be glad to work with others, or on my own, to update those as needed. It is mainly the POV issues in which I do not wish to participate. -- Polaris999 (talk) 18:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)"

In any case, all decisions here need to be taken collectively and I have no doubt that working together in a calm, deliberate and respectful manner we will be able to achieve our common objective of creating an excellent article. -- Polaris999 (talk) 22:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

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