Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ward Churchill/archive1

Ward Churchill

Self-nom. I believe this article manages to exhibit high quality writing around a controversial figures, provides quality citations, and exhibits a good example for refactoring of related topics and academic biographies. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Object needs more inline citations eg "these claims are disputed by the United Keetoowah Band and others", " he and other local AIM leaders broke with the national AIM leadership claiming that..." etc need backing. some weaselly writing eg "Churchill has attained a certain notoriety as a visual artist. Works by Churchill, such as lithographs, woodcuts, and drawings are fairly widely exhibited in galleries of the American Southwest, and to some degree elsewhere": "certain", "fairly", "to some degree" all within 2 lines of each other? categories "american anarchist", "scholar of marxism"? dont see that mentioned in the article anywhere. the "technocrats" and "little eichmanns" line in the lead is probably sourced in one of the sub-articles but needs to be cited here also. there is incorrect tag on churchill pic. regarding reference quality: nndb is notoriously inaccurate i wouldnt rely on it; mensnewsdaily appears to be a right-wing pov-pushing publication i've never heard of, dont think its WP:RS, westword seems a somewhat tabloidy source for an article about a serious academic, the ebay link will disappear once the auction ends so this ref will still become useless in a few days. i'd also like to see some non-US sources about him, as the article is very americo-centric. all weblinks need date last accessed. the 2 summary sections (essay controversy and allegations against him) are over-summarized! these sections can be longer with more detail, as the article is very short. finally i noticed it hasnt been peer reviewed which is "pretty much" a prerequisite these days. Zzzzz 23:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
• Object. As per Zzzzz, especially regarding the issue of the over summarized sub-articles. I previously mentioned this on the talk page, but it has been difficult to add to this article as the nominator has been particularly controlling of any contributions except from editors with a pro-Churchill point of view. So, not surprisingly, the summaries of the content that was removed and placed in related articles have remained extremely brief. —Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 04:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Okay, I know in the past I have agreed that unproven allegations shouldn't be in main articles, but instead should be linked to subarticles where the issue can be emphasized. I think we should bring about 5-7kb of information about his misconduct back to the main article. Basically, I see nothing wrong with a more through examination of the issue about his ancestry...the United Keetoowah Band simply stated that he was unable to prove to them his ancestry...but he may still qualify under Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma...I would expand slightly on this, and add just a bit to his rebuttal of this issue. I would snapshot the statement by the University that race there is self proving so anything about him claiming Indian ancestry is moot anyway, as all they require is a affirmation, given verbally or otherwise. I find the General allotment act issue and the issue over his claim that the U.S. government used smallpox to deliberately kill off Indians to be only worthy of a minor mention. I would expand slightly on the plagerism issue and his rebuttal. The artwork....I dunno, seems to me that if he is drawing from a dated image that was an original deacdes before, it seems it is almost in the public domain anyway...a little snippet n this may be necessary. Now bear in mind, I am not beholden to these points, but I do think they should be touched on with a little more detail in the main article...I think the essay controversy is what made him front page. I never personally heard of him before the news coverage of his comments about Little Eichmanns...etc. I think for FA criteria, this needs more embellishment in the main article, not because I disagree or agree with his comments, but because this is what brought him into the limelight...much of the rest of the "issues" seem to be the work of bloggers trying to further villainize the man, so I can't see how that needs mentioning. Lastly, more inline cites...especially linking to his writings is in order. The article overall though is much improved since I last looked at it a few weeks ago, so if we can get a few of these issues I have commented on corrected, I can see no reason it wouldn't be featured quality. In response to others, I am not sure what international opinion on Churchills work or deeds has much to do with anything. I suppose a brief mention may be okay though.--MONGO 07:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article needs to be in chronological order for his early life section. It mentions his education, then jumps to 1990 where he gets tenure, and then jumps back twice to work in his life. I read it expecting never to be told about what happened in the years between his college graduation and 1990; this needs to be clear and in order. Harro5 10:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Several questions related to Zzzzz's comments:

• The UKB dispute is linked to another (sibling/child) article as a wikilink on the word "disputed". What would be the best way to cite the discussion, if different from this?

it should be summarized *in* this article.

• The eBay link a search on all the current auctions on Churchill's artwork. Every time I've checked, there are 5-10 auctions going on of different works, but indeed, the resource is transient, and the specific work vary. How would editors recommend describing or citing this status?
• By "over-summarized" do you mean what Doug Bell does? I.e. that longer summaries would be better? I don't particularly disagree, if so, but I would just be concerned about keeping the summaries NPOV, and not try to include the whole sibling articles.

yes longer summaries would be better. obviously keep them npov.

• I agree Mens Daily is pretty fuzzy. Westword isn't so bad: not really tabloid, more like "alternative weekly", in the mold of Village Voice. It's not an academic source, but they do real journalism.

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)