Wikipedia:Featured article review/Elizabeth II/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 5:31, 14 January 2023 (UTC) [1].

Elizabeth II

Notified: Rockhead126, WP Bio, talk page notice 2022-09-20

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are serious problems with comprehensiveness and misuse of sources and there seems to be no appetite among regular editors to fix them. John (talk) 06:19, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll post some sample issues below.

  • Comprehensiveness: We skate across the awkwardness of her second son paying out a millions-of-pounds settlement to a woman he claims he never met; yet we omit to mention that she paid at least some of the settlement for him? Why's that?
  • Factual accuracy: "Throughout her lifetime, support for the monarchy in the United Kingdom remained consistently high, as did her personal popularity." sourced in part to this source, which has the title "Poll: Dramatic decline in support for monarchy in decade since Diamond Jubilee". This gives the appearance of dishonesty or at least bias.
  • Neutrality: "The number of her realms varied over time as territories gained independence and some realms became republics" while this statement as written is true, as countries formerly part of the Empire became independent members of the Commonwealth, then often became republics, I think the choice of "vary" is somewhat deceptive as it implies that the number of her subjects went anything but down. If I am wrong and the number of subjects went up, that would also be interesting. This just seems very weaselly and dishonest as it stands.
  • Neutrality, again: This is how the article covers the death of Diana:

    In August 1997, a year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris. Elizabeth was on holiday with her extended family at Balmoral. Diana's two sons, Princes William and Harry, wanted to attend church, so Elizabeth and Philip took them that morning. Afterwards, for five days the royal couple shielded their grandsons from the intense press interest by keeping them at Balmoral where they could grieve in private, but the royal family's silence and seclusion, and the failure to fly a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, caused public dismay. Pressured by the hostile reaction, Elizabeth agreed to return to London and address the nation in a live television broadcast on 5 September, the day before Diana's funeral. In the broadcast, she expressed admiration for Diana and her feelings "as a grandmother" for the two princes. As a result, much of the public hostility evaporated.

    "Dismay"? Is that the best word to use? Here's an interesting source which could be used to improve this. Indeed, there is no shortage of good sources, if there was a willingness to rewrite this as a normal neutral Wikipedia article.
  • Over-comprehensiveness: *"While touring Manchester as part of her Jubilee celebrations, Elizabeth made a surprise appearance at a wedding party at Manchester Town Hall, which then made international headlines." Given what she did for a living, almost everything she did would generate headlines. What was so special about this?

(more detailed version at Talk:Elizabeth II#Article quality, where there has been a bit of agreement about the problems but no great willingness to address them, hence this process.) John (talk) 15:13, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I think this article still had plently of room to be worked out in its talk page, as editors there did discuss with John in a thread more than 3,000 words long. There was a suggestion to wait out the page rush due to the death of the Queen (its viewership spiked from an average of 60,000 views a day to more than EIGHT MILLION —wow!).
Around 5 October the views came back to normal. After that, on 9 October, John asked if there was progress in the issues John listed. I think it would have been good if there was an attempt to continue working on the issues. Piecemeal in their separate subsections for order and legibility's sake. Then, start the countdown of three weeks to bring it to FAR from there if things didn't work out.
But I will point out that I support delisting the page from FA, because it doesn't comply with item 1.e. of the Featured ARticle criteria, stability. Just in 3 days it has had over 100 edits. That's hardly stable in my opinion. Thinker78 (talk) 22:59, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notifications to be done: DrKay, GoodDay, Miesianiacal, Peter Ormond, Keivan.f, Neveselbert, WP Royalty, WP Commonwealth, WP Caribbean, WP Polynesia, WP Australia, WP Canada, WP UK, WP New Zealand, WP Politics, WP Politics of UK, WP Women's History, WP Women.

John I've put above a list of notifications needed; are you working on those or do you need help? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Thank you. John (talk) 15:13, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
John you may have missed the list of editors I added to the front of the list above ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, I did. Done now. John (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All good! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:36, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this FAR archived? GoodDay (talk) 22:19, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@GoodDay: - are you referring to the /archive1 in the title? If so, that's part of the standard FAR naming format. Hog Farm Talk 23:29, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see :) GoodDay (talk) 23:32, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:John has kindly listed some 'sample' issues. Are we going to get a comprehensive list of all issues, or do we have to figure them out as we go along with the review? Because when featured article candidates are nominated, a detailed list of all issues is usually provided. I was wondering if the process is a little bit different here. Keivan.fTalk 21:52, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let's take it as we go. I've given you some pointers towards my thinking, and some of these were picked up at the FAC but not actioned, so they have been there a long time. That they have been there such a long time suggests there is a community of regular editors who think the article is just fine, and who have not commented in article talk in the three weeks they have been there, presumably because they think the article is just fine as it is. If we begin by addressing some of the sample issues, that will give us an idea of how we can best progress. What do you think about the wording "Throughout her lifetime, support for the monarchy in the United Kingdom remained consistently high..."? Is the factoid about her visit to a Manchester wedding party germane on a top-level article about a major historical figure on whom many books have been written, more so than her paying Andrew's settlement? I think there are some problems of balance and bloat in this article. John (talk) 22:15, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, the bit about her personal popularity or more importantly the monarchy's popularity, is an irrelevant addition in the page. The British monarchy (AFAIK) is in no danger of being abolished, any time soon. GoodDay (talk) 22:41, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the information about popularity has a separate encyclopedic value than possible future events (which are not Wikipedia's role to predict). US Congress is not very popular, polling at something like 20% approval—which is encyclopedic information, regardless of the likelihood of its abolition. However, I would rather see information on Elizabeth's personal popularity than the monarchy as an institution. (t · c) buidhe 17:29, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody votes every two or six years on who the British monarch should be, however. GoodDay (talk) 06:00, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with buidhe, in that I would rather see information on Elizabeth's personal popularity than the monarchy as an institution, given the context of the article, i.e. an individual's biography. Regarding GoodDay's response: The members of the US Congress are determined by voting every 2 or 6 years, but the institution is more enduring than that. (It isn't as long-lived as the British monarchy, but it has existed for over 200 years.) Its popularity at any given point in time isn't determined by one or even a dozen of its members; thus, I believe that buidhe's point is valid.--FeralOink (talk) 09:21, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would support removing the mention of the Queen's Manchester tour and maybe Prince Andrew's lawsuit. Regarding the paragraph about Diana's death, I think we need to decide carefully about removal, as I think that was an important time in Elizabeth's public life. Векочел (talk) 23:23, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Diana's death was a low point, if not the lowest point of her reign. So I would keep that part. I think the bit about Andrew needs to remain as well. There was a discussion about it and the community was in favor of keeping it. As User:John suggested, we could also mention that Elizabeth herself might have assisted her son, though we need to look more into it as details about the the provenance of the money paid by Andrew were never publicly revealed, and I think it's already mentioned in either Andrew's article or in the article on the lawsuit that the money could have come from the sale of his Swiss chalet. We need to avoid adding speculative info to a featured article, and even though the subject is dead, her relatives are alive and WP:BLP could apply in some form. Keivan.fTalk 00:27, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think the Daily Telegraph is quite a good source. I was not suggesting removing it but expanding it. It's a remarkable piece of history, and by omitting to mention it, the article is not comprehensive. John (talk) 15:56, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Concerns about the longevity of the British monarchy are valid. About a week ago, Queen Margarethe of Denmark made controversial cuts to the number of royals. This received quite a lot of press attention. There has been speculation about whether King Charles will similarly reduce the number of British royals. That is hardly the same as "abolishing" of course. Yet I believe that it warrants mention somewhere in the article. A single sentence about Elizabeth's popularity and a (well-sourced) statement about possible change/reduction in the role of the monarchy in the future perhaps?--FeralOink (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do we think of this story? Should the article mention it? Why, or why not? John (talk) 21:49, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close without FARC. I find the claims of lack of comprehensiveness and verifiability to be without merit. In a summary style article like this one it is necessary to restrict the article to an overview, using one or two illustrative examples. On the sample issue for comprehensiveness, Andrew's lawsuit is mentioned and the details can be found elsewhere. One editor above wants it removed, others want to expand it. Consensus is to include a brief mention. Adding further detail would unbalance the article since it would be necessary to include the wide-ranging estimates of the alleged loan given by the Queen, which vary by at least 9 million pounds, and the dispute over whether the supposed loan was for the Swiss chalet or the lawsuit. And by the way, Andrew doesn't deny meeting Giuffre; he said he didn't recall meeting her, which is hardly surprising given that she was a nobody and he was meeting thousands of people a year. On the sample issue for verifiability, that the Queen was widely popular in the UK is almost self-evident and any statement to the contrary would be pandering to a minority fringe view. On the sample issue for neutrality, the statement is neither dishonest nor bias; it is strictly accurate and factual. DrKay (talk) 15:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close without FARC, nothing new for two months, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:23, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close w/o FARC per Sandy, this doesn't seem to be going anywhere and I'm not seeing a consensus that these are major issues. Hog Farm Talk 15:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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