Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Salem witch trials/1

GA Reassessment[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

I am reassessing as I do not believe that this article meets the current GA criteria, especially for factual accuracy and verifiability.

Well-written? - No notable concerns here.
Factually accurate and verifiable? - This is the biggest problem. There are entire sections that are completely unreferenced and include possible OR. See:
1. Background
  1. "Local context"
  2. "Economic context"
  3. Paragraphs 1 & 3 of "Religious context"
  4. Social context
2. The Events
  1. "The initial events" - particularly the following sentences: Sarah Good was homeless and known to beg for food or shelter from neighbors. Sarah Osborne rarely attended church meetings. Tituba, as a slave of a different ethnicity than the Puritans, was an obvious target for accusations. All of these outcast women fit the description of the "usual suspects" for witchcraft accusations, and no one stood up for them.
  2. "Accusations and examinations before local magistrates" - paragraphs 1-3
  3. "Formal prosecution: The Court of Oyer and Terminer"
  4. "The Superior Court of Judicature, 1693"
3. Legal procedures used
  1. "Overview" - last paragraph
  2. "Other evidence"
4. Aftermath and closure
  1. Memorials by descendants - last paragraph
Broad in its coverage: yes
Neutral: for the most part, except perhaps the background section
Stable:fine
Illustrated, if possible, by images:fine

Verifiability is by far the worst issue. The article will be on hold for a reasonable amount of time, awaiting response and changes. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 21:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest offering some specific comments on sections, even drilling down to the level of sentences where possible. Part of the GAN and GAR process is the provision of helpful criticism--meaning what specifically needs to be changed about the article in order to make it a GA in your eyes. This is much less formal than the FAC/FAR process where you must provide specific comments with a concrete path for resolution, but it is good guidance nonetheless. As for the article, I left a brief comment on my talk page regarding the quality. While I would not pass the article outright as a GA today, I also would not fail it. So the review should focus on resolving major issues with content and presentation, which can hopefully be surmounted by interested editors. I will try to look through the article itself and offer a more clear and detailed articulation of the strengths and weaknesses later this week. Protonk (talk) 19:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I completely agree with that, specific problems need to be pointed out, not general observations. Like you I wouldn't pass it in its current state either, but neither would I fail it. Malleus Fatuorum 19:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I appreciate both of your opinions and suggestions. I will post more specific comments on the article as soon as I have time to compile them. I welcome comments from both of you about improving the article. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 18:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Salem witchcraft trials/Salem Witch Trials Task Force was designed to deal with this issue. Is there some sort of reason you chose to do this in this way ? Did you dislike the idea of actually doing work and instead prefer to throw stones ? This is perhaps the wrong time and clearly overkill. If you find fault with this article it may just be possible that you could add the source citations yourself. John5Russell3Finley (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's an individual GAR, not the end of the world. This is just an editor with an opinion about the article, an opinion which will hopefully be substantiated by specific suggestions for improvement. There is absolutely no call for this kind of response. Protonk (talk) 18:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that there is a task force to deal with this, however, I felt that the article is not up to current GA standards, an opinion that has been seconded by Protonk and Malleus. My hope was that the review would prod editors into improving the page. I have not just demoted it, which I could have done. I do intend to help work on the article, but I have neither the time nor resources to complete the type of work it needs. I am in no way throwing stones, but trying to point out areas that could be improved from an objective viewpoint. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 18:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The opinion is "thirded" by me. I have an interest in improving the article, but keep meeting with this sort of resistance to change, which has discouraged me from continuing. According to SpinningSpark the SWT Task Force is "moribund" (please see my talk page); as far as I know, only one person is active (see above and his talk page) and is hostile to "outsiders." The page has needed an objective viewpoint for some time, as well as a good kickstart, as it's on a very important subject. I am willing to take it on to some degree, if the work I've done so far is not immediately reverted (again). I have some problem with simply editing it as it stands, as there are many inaccuracies and some sections are so badly written I cannot understand what is being expressed well enough to simply re-write it. (see SWT talk page) There's lots to do. Support (of the moral sort) would be appreciated, as it may reduce the number of confrontations. The measured sanity of Protonk and the Princess is a much-needed antidote to this reactionism. --TEHodson 23:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I make four. The lack of citations for whole sections, and whole paragraphs, is a serious, significant, problem. I wish I had time to work on the article myself, and I can try to find some other encyclopedic sources tomorrow, to see what they say and how much weight they give material, but I have quite a few things to do right now and that might be about all I can do in the near future. John Carter (talk) 16:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'sounds like we have a group of willing folks ! I hope to see a lot of progress here soon ! I montitor this page and a number of other related pages and will do what I can to help, however I do not usually have more than 1 hour per day for this, and have already used up most of that returning correspondence and doing the usual anti vandalism stuff. We had a lot of trouble about Upham, of which I have a copy and can check facts against it, however I can't recommend using it as a source since a few folks still out there will not like it, personally I like Upham. There are a number of good websites, but I still have not learned how to link to them, so if you want to know where we need the most help that is a very good place to start. Another area that is related to it is giving Mrs. Scott her own article.John5Russell3Finley (talk) 17:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Given the lack of response and improvement, I'm going to delist the article. I hope in future it can be improved again to Good article status, but right now, that is simply not the case. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 16:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- I'm sorry about not going through with the work I intended to do, but I just did not have the stomach for the personal battles that seemed to come with the job. Life is too short for unnecessary dramatics, and the work of re-writing an article too hard in itself to be attended by extra-curricular tasks such as ego-stroking and arguing ceaselessly about the same things again and again. This whole affair has soured me on Wikipedia editing in general, which I have pretty much ceased to do. Sisyphus himself would refuse to take this on. --TEHodson 22:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I understand, and I don't blame anyone, but I just figured it was time to close it all up. Dragging things on wasn't helping anything. I hope you find some joy in working on some other parts of the 'pedia and stick around. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 02:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]