Talk:Jesus for President

Categories and Projects

It seems like this topic has been placed in an incredibly large number of categories. Is the title really relevant to all of them? As far as I can tell, the list is indiscriminate and should be pared down. Looks like there's a similar problem with the use of WikiProject tags here on the talk page; are there really eleven projects interested in this article? That seems unlikely, since the tags were placed by one editor, all at once, and that editor is not substantively active in most of the projects listed. -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for expressing an interest in this article, Mike! Which categories and WikiProjects do you feel are inapplicable? Neelix (talk) 19:57, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I have revisited the categories and WikiProject notices, reducing the number of categories from 40 to 27 and the WikiProject notices from 11 to 7. Please let me know if you believe the categories or WikiProject notices to require further paring. Neelix (talk) 21:39, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

That's a start, I guess. But most of the remaining categories still seem pretty iffy. "2008 in religion" is tenuous. This book isn't about the 2008 presidential election, so "presidential in popular culutre" doesn't apply. Aside from the title, nothing in the article makes me think the book has anything to do with presidency. In fact, it was just a timing stunt to draw attention to the book's promotional tour. "Presidential elections", then, is not an appropriate wikiproject.

The "works about empires" category seems completely inappropriate; same for "imperialism" and "social justice". While this title was made into an audiobook, the article doesn't describe the audiobook aside from incidental mention so "audiobooks by title or series" is not appropriate.

WikiProject Pacifism and WikiProject anti-War are actually the same projects. -- Mikeblas (talk) 02:48, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I have removed the "Audiobooks by title or series" and "Works about empires" categories, as well as the "United States presidential elections" and "Pacifism" WikiProjects. I would recommend that "2008 in religion" remain; that category includes many other religion-related books, as do the other "Year in religion" categories. A substantial portion of this article is about how the Jesus for President book tour mimicked the presidential campaigns during the 2008 election; if the "popular culture" portion of the "United States presidential election, 2008 in popular culture" category is your concern, would you be satisfied with a replacement with the "United States presidential election, 2008" category? Imperialism and social justice are core subjects of this book, as mentioned in the infobox, so I am reluctant to remove "Books about imperialism" and "Social justice". Please let me know your thoughts on my comments. I hope we can come mutually satisfactory decisions on these matters. Neelix (talk) 01:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jesus for President/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Wugapodes (talk · contribs) 03:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

This looks really interesting so I'm going to snag it while I can. Will review in a couple hours. Wugapodes (talk) 03:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Cites reliable sources, where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

1. The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus for President Try to rephrase the sentence so the two titles aren't next to each other.

2. The images in the "Content" section are probably more of a hindrance than a help to the article. Namely, the images are not from the book which is confusing in an article about the book. They seem to be more decoration than useful encyclopedic material.

3. "the book tour was suggestive of a third party candidate campaign for Jesus." This is not cited and should be.

• "It also employs a non-standard typesetting." This may be useful to expand upon but isn't required.

Results

On Hold for 7 days. A very well done article on its way to FA status. Those few changes and it will easily pass this review. Wugapodes (talk) 04:12, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the review, Wugapodes! I have made all four of the changes you recommended. To replace the images in the "Content" section, I added an image of Dietrich Bonhoeffer along with a relevant quotation from the book. I hope you find this image more encyclopedic; I can understand the potential for confusion with regards to the former images. Neelix (talk) 20:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Listed As always, I recommend a peer review before trying for FA just to help tighten prose. I would also warn against WP:OVERCITE as some sentences have three citations between them or citations after almost every item in a series. Still, a well done article on an interesting-sounding book. Keep up the good work! Wugapodes (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement! It is good to see the article attain good status. I would be glad for advice about what to do about the citations; I don't want to push them all to the ends of sentences because that prevents readers from understanding which portions of the text are being sourced by which citations. I will be sure to contact you if I nominate this article for featured status. Neelix (talk) 19:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:Bundling has a good recommendation for large amounts of citations at the end. Footnotes may also be of use as you can expand on the points and even quote the sources. Though, unless the entry is particularly contentious, I'm not sure it's necessary to have them in the middle of the text. If they aren't controversial, and you're worried about proper attribution, I would recommend the footnote option. Wugapodes (talk) 21:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Serious overkill

Like the Tara Teng article, the same editor has created a shrine for this book. It needs a serious trim down. I started by deleting most the the lead that is repeated word for word in the article itself. Legacypac (talk) 08:03, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

The editor that wholesale undid my trimming told me to discuss here, but did not say anything in this discussion I already started. The Lead should not be near as detailed and should not repeat the article word for word. Legacypac (talk) 23:56, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi. That editor was me, but you just mischaracterized your gutting of the lede as "trimming". I did leave an edit summary. I'm sorry if you didn't read it. Here it is again: Thanks for being WP:BOLD. It left the lede too short and seems biased. Please discuss changes. Your edit made the lede too short. (See WP:LEADLENGTH) and the content you removed was arbitrary. If you're going to shorten the lede, put some thought into it and correctly summarize the article. And to counter your claim, it should repeat the points of the article. See MOS:INTRO. And again to counter your claim, it's not word-for-word repeating of the article. The lede is four paragraphs long. The article has five times that many paragraphs. If you're done with hyperbole and grandstanding, perhaps we can actually discuss the problems with the article. If you're not done yet, I suggest you take this somewhere else because I won't bother to engage further.

I completely disagree with your POV. I don't think this is a "shrine for this book". I agree with this edit, where you delete what you call puffery, and possibly the ones after when you trim the categories and add the tagging, but because you made the gutting of the lede the first edit, it'd difficult to revert only that one. Perhaps you should approach this with a WP:NPOV and WP:AGF on the part of Neelix (talk · contribs) rather than making personal attacks against the editor. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:03, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Your personal attacks against me are unwarranted. I read your edit summary and I disagree with it. You wholesale reverted my edits. I left the gist of the article in the lead. I expect you to fix it now. Legacypac (talk) 05:39, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel I violated WP:NPA. Please indicate which statements violate the policy and I will strike them and apologize for them.

I do not believe that you dd leave the gist of the article in the lede and the length is not in accordance with WP:LEADLENGTH. I explained why I reverted your edits. Did you read that part? I will fix it now. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

My impression is that there is a lot that could and should be excised, specifically in sections "Tour" (that could be brought down to two sentences, and damn the vegetable oil) and "Reception" (far too many quotes; there are no articles about blockbusters that endulge themselves so). "Content" is OK, IMO. Lede could be cut by half, mostly by removing tour and reception padding.-- Elmidae 06:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Should be cut in half or even 1/3. —Мандичка^YO 😜 07:05, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

@Wikimandia: Is that the article, or the lede? Please clarify. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:09, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Article should be 1/3. I'm chopping away as the garbage is so easy to spot. No, we don't need to hear about how the author's previous book was selling when this book came out. We don't need to hear authors gush about their special publisher, the greatest publisher in the whole wide world. We don't need a motherflipping picture of the high school where the authors met. And we certainly don't need to know what the co-author of Jamie Lynn Spears' biography thought of the book!!!!! —Мандичка^YO 😜 07:20, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we should compare your reverts to the GA version. With that said, the GA process is flawed. I have seen "good articles" with violations of multiple policies and guidelines. I also think that this article is too long (I was surprised it was created at all). As for what other authors think about the book, it is not inappropriate to include such material. My main point of contention was that the lede was chopped and was too short for an article of that size. Since both are being reduced, it should be reviewed once complete. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:42, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

My chopping the lead was just a start to the clean up required to get rid of the trivia. Legacypac (talk) 07:47, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Then why did you wait so long to get started? Actually, you never did start on getting rid of anything except the lede and the cats. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:54, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Here is the diff showing all the edits made by me and others. It's now at a reasonable 20k, down from almost 50k. Excessively flattering and unnecessary redundant information has been stripped. —Мандичка^YO 😜 07:50, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

The GA review will be gladly appreciated. It was too long and crufty. Thanks. Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:54, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I looked at the 26 September version[1] before the removals started. It looks like a bunch of the lead in that version is redundant with the beginning of the body, so the duplicated stuff could in principle be chopped from either place, but leaving it in the lead and chopping from the body seems better to me. The rest of the content looks ok as far as I could tell at a glance. So I think the downsizing going on looks overzealous. I don't want to get into the conflict directly, but I'd support reverting the bold removals under BRD and then discussing them one by one. A lot of work goes into writing these articles (even when they're not perfect) and other editors should have empathy for that. 173.228.123.250 (talk) 00:50, 12 November 2015 (UTC)