Talk:Martin Luther King Jr.: Difference between revisions
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:The real issue here is your assertion that [http://www.crmvet.org Civil Rights Movement Veterans] is not a valid source for reasons you do not explain. Obviously, I consider the site to be a valid Wiki source. The website is widely used by teachers across the country (see, for example this [http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/website-reviews/22976 review] by TeachingHistory.org). I, and others involved in the site are frequently asked to participate in Civil Rights related panels and projects by major universities and institutions including Stanford, Berkeley, and Smithsonian. Tomorrow I'm speaking at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. [[User:Brucehartford|Brucehartford]] ([[User talk:Brucehartford|talk]]) 20:10, 20 January 2013 (UTC) |
:The real issue here is your assertion that [http://www.crmvet.org Civil Rights Movement Veterans] is not a valid source for reasons you do not explain. Obviously, I consider the site to be a valid Wiki source. The website is widely used by teachers across the country (see, for example this [http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/website-reviews/22976 review] by TeachingHistory.org). I, and others involved in the site are frequently asked to participate in Civil Rights related panels and projects by major universities and institutions including Stanford, Berkeley, and Smithsonian. Tomorrow I'm speaking at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. [[User:Brucehartford|Brucehartford]] ([[User talk:Brucehartford|talk]]) 20:10, 20 January 2013 (UTC) |
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::Generally a website run by an individual, rather than a media organization, doesn't meet Wikipedia standards as a [[WP:RS|reliable secondary source]]; it's not a reflection on your scholarship generally. And it does set off alarm bells for me when an editor re-inserts his personal website into an article over the objections of an uninvolved editor. Can this information can be easily verified from a more recognizably reliable source that neither of us run? If so, let's just put that source in and resolve the issue. -- [[User:Khazar2|Khazar2]] ([[User talk:Khazar2|talk]]) 22:17, 20 January 2013 (UTC) |
::Generally a website run by an individual, rather than a media organization, doesn't meet Wikipedia standards as a [[WP:RS|reliable secondary source]]; it's not a reflection on your scholarship generally. And it does set off alarm bells for me when an editor re-inserts his personal website into an article over the objections of an uninvolved editor. Can this information can be easily verified from a more recognizably reliable source that neither of us run? If so, let's just put that source in and resolve the issue. -- [[User:Khazar2|Khazar2]] ([[User talk:Khazar2|talk]]) 22:17, 20 January 2013 (UTC) |
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:::Looking at your website again, the statements about this are reasonably footnoted to sources that are in themselves reliable sources. I still don't think this is an ideal situation, but since this isn't a very controversial claim, I'm okay with it remaining in the article for now. Thanks for your contributions, -- [[User:Khazar2|Khazar2]] ([[User talk:Khazar2|talk]]) 22:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC) |
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Revision as of 22:35, 20 January 2013
On January 16, 2012, Martin Luther King Jr. was linked from Google, a high-traffic website. (Traffic) All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history. |
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| Martin Luther King Jr. was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Slow load?
Anyone else notice the real slow load time for the article? I have recently learned that this is probably due to the extensive use of templates (particularly for citations), which every single time they're evaluated require computer processing at the secret Wikimedia bunker. I use them, too... but maybe we should try to decrease our reliance on them. Just a thought. groupuscule (talk) 14:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
- Yep, I think the problem is magnified by this article's use of multiple templates for many of the references--an initial reference, another template for the page number, a "see also" inside some of the references, and a separate listing for the bibliography. I'm going to try to corral these into a more standardized system using only 1 or 2 templates like sfn. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:50, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
A good editor needed
This article seems rather messy to me. For example, the timeline hops around. In addition, the text is rocky and could benefit from reworking. For example, why is text about King's funeral and the arrest of James Earl Ray included under the "Riots" topic? The different sections have a poor flow and readily exhibit that they were written by various people. I have no experience as a real editor, no more than many WP "editors", and am therefore not qualified. King deserves better. Thanks for your time, Wordreader (talk) 22:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Bringing to Good Article status
This one seems long overdue to be brought to good article status. The main objection in the 2008 review appears to have been that the article was 35kb of readable prose instead of a desired 50kb. Now that the article is 52kb, I think it may be time to take another run. I'll do a copyedit over the next few days, discussing any changes that seem likely to be controversial on this page. Then I'll renominate unless further research seems to be needed. Any help would be welcome! -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:10, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- One largish change that I made was to break up the three-sentence section "Sermons and speeches" to distribute into the rest of the article. The "Sermons and Speeches of MLK" subarticle is linked in See Also, the Nobel Prize is described in the awards section, and the I Have a Dream (and its audio) is also in the chronological section below, so this section appeared largely redundant, save for this block quotation:
- "All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."
- I'm not sure this is an essential enough MLK quotation that it has to be in the article, but if anybody feels that it is, maybe we can find another spot to work it back in.-- Khazar2 (talk) 13:47, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed another block quotation, which appears to have been misidentified as coming from a separate speech (it's also from "Beyond Vietnam"):
- "We were taking the young black men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. ... We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them in the same schools."
- It's a great quotation, but we have a lot of article text on "Beyond Vietnam" compared to "How Long, Not Long" or "I Have a Dream" at this point, and it seems to me to be getting a little undue. Incidentally, once I'm done with my first pass of the article, I'm going to go back and add a bit of text on "I Have a Dream"; it deserves at least a few sentences, as probably the most famous moment in MLK's life, and one of the most famous speeches in the history of the country. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed the following text from the "recognition" section, since both appear to me a bit trivial compared to the other recognitions of MLK's life (Nobel Prize, Congressional Medal of Honor, etc.):
- In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed King on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[1]
- In 2011, comparing the record of the leaderless Occupy movement in creating meaningful change with the civil rights movement, Malcolm Gladwell described King as "one of the foremost tacticians of the 20th century."[2]
- I integrated the two-sentence section "Capital memorial" into the recognition section. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed a list of actors who have portrayed MLK in films and TV as trivia; it seems to me that the 1kb of readable prose this takes up would be better spent elucidating MLK's life, providing quotations from speeches, etc. If this is a notable topic, perhaps it can be moved to a subarticle along the lines of Abraham Lincoln cultural depictions, but frankly the list seems rather meager, mostly consisting of bit parts; half of the actors on it don't even have Wikipedia articles. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:10, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed a clarification needed tag from "According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's autopsy revealed that though only 39 years old, he "he had the heart of a 60 year old", which Branch attributed to the stress of 13 years in the civil rights movement." -- the metaphor for a poor-quality heart seems to me pretty straightforward, and in any case, the source gives no further clarification. If this statement can't stand on its own, I suggest we simply remove it. I think it's okay as is, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I reduced the information about Ray's travels through the prison/legal system a bit. The important thing here seems to me the conviction and the allegations of conspiracy, not when he fired a lawyer, escaped for a week, etc. (though of course these belong in his article and the assassination article).[1] -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed "inexplicably" from a sentence about shrubbery "which had been inexplicably cut away in the days following the assassination", as it seems editorializing; it's also surely not correct to say that the cutting down of shrubs "cannot possibly be explained". -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I changed a "refuted" to "criticized" to avoid the sense that Pepper definitively disproved the opposing arguments. [2] -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I've taken the brief (4-5 sentence) criticism section and integrated it into appropriate sections of the article. [3] -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed this two-sentence paragraph for being unsourced and rather vague. It's surely true, but doesn't mean much:
- "King continues to be frequently referenced as a human rights icon. His name and legacy have often been invoked since his death as people have debated his likely position on various modern political issues." [4] -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- Just as I removed the list of films about MLK, I also removed this mention of two plays about MLK. Since neither even has its own Wikipedia article yet, they don't appear particularly notable; I'm not sure they make the cut as some of the most important details of MLK's life. The text I removed is below:
- King's life and assassination inspired many artistic works. A 1976 Broadway production, I Have a Dream, was directed by Robert Greenwald and starred Billy Dee Williams as King.[3] In spring of 2006, a stage play Passages of Martin Luther King about King was produced in Beijing, China with King portrayed by Chinese actor, Cao Li. The play was written by Stanford University professor Clayborne Carson.[4][5] -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:03, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed the mention of his winning the Pacem in Terris Award of the Catholic Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, as it's a bit trivial for someone winning things like Nobels, Grammys, federal holidays, etc. The only source was a dead link to a Quad Cities, Iowa newspaper.[5] -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
- I removed some of the more miscellaneous links from the External Links section.[6] -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I think that's it for me for today. Tomorrow I'm going to try to expand a few points, particularly adding a quotation from and 2-sentence summary of the "I Have a Dream" speech. Please let me know if anyone disagrees with my changes above--I'm glad to discuss. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
GA Review
- This review is transcluded from Talk:Martin Luther King, Jr./GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Dana boomer (talk · contribs) 19:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi! I'll take this article for GA review, and should have my initial comments up shortly. Dana boomer (talk) 19:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks in advance--looking forward to working with you. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
- It is reasonably well written.
- a (prose):
b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
- For an article of this length, the lead could be expanded (not more paragraphs, just larger ones). For example, nothing of the controversy surrounding his death is mentioned in the lead, and there is only one sentence on his interactions with the FBI, which are given a significant portion of the body of the article.
- I've expanded the lead to cover each section of the article now, I think.
- Early life and education, "An academic inquiry concluded portions" When was this inquiry made?
- Added.
- Early life and education, "(See Martin Luther King, Jr. authorship issues.)" Is there a more elegant way to integrate this link this than leaving in hanging out at the end of the paragraph in parentheses? Perhaps in a sentence about other authorship issues?
- The problem was that that article covers alleged plagiarism in his speeches as well as dissertation, so other editors objected to it being linked from the dissertation review. For now I've just moved it down to the "See Also" section.
- Basic income guarantee - this section seems very short and choppy, no where near as filled out as the other paragraphs. If this was an important part of King's philosophy, it should be expanded. If it wasn't, could it be combined with some other section of the article?
- I've actually just cut it for now. This article was the first time I ran into this information about King, and it didn't show up in the two biographies I just read. If it turns up in some secondary sources, I'll re-add in an appropriate section, but for now this does stick out to me as odd.
- SCLC, "King was stabbed in the chest..." Is there more information on this? Why did she stab him? What happened to her? How long did it take him to recover?
- Expanded on this incident with Highbeam sources.
- SCLC, "His SCLC secretary and personal assistant in this period was Dora McDonald." Why is this important?
- It doesn't appear to be. Cut.
- Albany movement, second paragraph, who is Chief Pritchett?
- added fuller title and first name.
- Albany movement, "But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail." Is there a word missing here?
- Allegations of adultery - Is there any knowledge of his wife's reaction to these affairs?
- Good suggestion. Publicly, she never let on that she cared; I added a quotation to this effect.
- a (prose):
- It is factually accurate and verifiable.
- a (reference section):
b (citations to reliable sources):
c (OR):
- Five dead links in references and external links, per this tool, and one dead link tag in the article.
- The dead links flagged there have been addressed, except for the Tikkun, which appears to me to still be live. I removed the two from external links, removed a minor claim one was supporting (an award from the govt. of Jamaica), and replaced another with a live link.
- I'm not sure what ref #46 (Extract of Pearson) is being used for. It appears to be a Google Books link to the book listed in #45, but why are they both needed to reference the same sentence?
- Cut.
- What makes ref #176 (Jones, Nate) a reliable source? The sentence it is referencing is already supported by another source, so I'm unsure of the need for a blog post.
- Replaced.
- Is there a title available for ref #182 (Newsweek: p. 62,)?
- This ref, and the two after it, don't seem to be needed at all. Replaced with one directly to the book.
- Could refs #183 and 185 (Abernathy, Ralph David) be combined?
- One was eliminated.
- Could refs #175 and 191 (Christensen, Jen) be combined?
- Done.
- Ref #216 (NAACP Spingarn Medal) needs a publisher and access date.
- Added fuller citation.
- I'm unsure of the purpose of ref #229 (The Episcopal and Lutheran Churches...), as it seems to be mostly duplicated in the article text.
- Good point. Removed.
- Several of the books in the References section don't seem to be actually used as references. Should these be moved to the further reading section?
- Done, I think.
- The book reference and page formatting is all over the board - I see at least three different styles used. While this isn't something that needs to be rectified for GA, it would be nice to have the article standardized, and it is required if you plan to take the article to FAC.
- Yeah, I started to clean this up the other day, but was discouraged from continuing by the article's incredibly slow save/load time. I think the problem is having not only 200 reference templates, but for many of them a second template to give the page number and a third to list the work in the bibliography. I think I may try to switch these all over to sfn format to see if it helps the load time issue. I'll set aside a chunk of time later this week when I can try to do it most or all of it at once.
- Cool. Like I said, this isn't necessary for GA status, but would be really nice. I concur re: the load issue - just trying to make a couple of copyediting tweaks took me a while, because the article took so long to load and save. Dana boomer (talk) 15:52, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- I'll work on it on and off today, shouldn't take too long if I put my mind to it. It'd be nice to try to ease the load time issue, and it's a good way to doublecheck all the sources at the same time. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:00, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- a (reference section):
- It is broad in its coverage.
- a (major aspects):
b (focused):
- a (major aspects):
- It follows the neutral point of view policy.
- Fair representation without bias:
- Fair representation without bias:
- It is stable.
- No edit wars, etc.:
- No edit wars, etc.:
- It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
- a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales):
b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
- a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales):
- Overall:
- Pass/Fail:
- Overall this is a very nice piece of work on an extremely influential man. I found a few prose and referencing issues that need to be addressed, but nothing serious. Overall, the article feels a little heavy on quotes, but so many of them are so powerful that I have a hard time seeing how they could be reworded. Perhaps take a look through and see what you think at a macro level? I'm putting the article on hold for now, Dana boomer (talk) 21:22, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
- At first glance, I agree with pretty much all your suggestions--thanks for the close read! While I've read a fair amount about MLK, I'm a relative newcomer to this article, so I haven't looked into all these issues in detail myself. I'll start work on the above in the next day or two. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
- The article is looking really nice. I think that as soon as the last few issues are finished (the couple of things in the prose section, the lead and the dead links, from what I can see), we should be good to go for GA status. Dana boomer (talk) 15:52, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- I think that's everything, but let me know if you see anything I missed. Thanks again for the close look. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
- The article is looking really nice. I think that as soon as the last few issues are finished (the couple of things in the prose section, the lead and the dead links, from what I can see), we should be good to go for GA status. Dana boomer (talk) 15:52, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- At first glance, I agree with pretty much all your suggestions--thanks for the close read! While I've read a fair amount about MLK, I'm a relative newcomer to this article, so I haven't looked into all these issues in detail myself. I'll start work on the above in the next day or two. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:27, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
- Overall this is a very nice piece of work on an extremely influential man. I found a few prose and referencing issues that need to be addressed, but nothing serious. Overall, the article feels a little heavy on quotes, but so many of them are so powerful that I have a hard time seeing how they could be reworded. Perhaps take a look through and see what you think at a macro level? I'm putting the article on hold for now, Dana boomer (talk) 21:22, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
- Pass/Fail:
(outdent) Sorry for taking a couple of days to get back to this. After another look at the article, I think it's ready for promotion to GA status. A couple of further comments, not related to GA status:
- Ref #231 ( "Biographical Outline of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.") is a deadlink. This information looks to be backed up by another source, so I'm not all that worried about it.
- The St. Augustine and Selma sections are quite short and choppy, and don't flow like the rest of the article. Perhaps some thought should be given to expanding these or combining them with other sections?
- The ref work you've been doing looks good, and is lowering the size and load time of the article.
- Do you have plans to take the article to FAC in the future? If so, and you'd like more comments, let me know, and I'll look over the article with an eye aimed towards FAC.
Overall, though, we're good to go for GA. Nice work! Dana boomer (talk) 17:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks so much, Dana! That's great news. I know this was a big one to take on, but your suggestions have been a big help. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
namesake streets beyond America
From the article:
Hundreds of streets in the U.S. and beyond have been renamed in his honor.
All of the streets listed in the linked article are in the U.S. While the linked article does state, "There are also a number of other countries that have honored King, including no fewer than ten cities in Italy," there is no mention of streets outside the United States, and no source is cited for the "other countries that have honored King" in that article. I think a source is needed for the "and beyond" in this article. Capedia (talk) 19:35, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
- This blog suggests that the statement is factually accurate, and the places it lists can be Googled individually to confirm their existence.[10] But since I can't find a reliable secondary source to support the information for now I'll simply remove the offending two words from the article; while accurate, it's perhaps not significant enough to mention. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:39, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Sentence from CMVets website
I removed a sentence earlier today sourced to www.crmvet.org and was startled to have it promptly restored by the site's webmaster. [11] With respect to the work that obviously goes into maintaining it, it's not clear to me that this website is a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes. Is it possible to find the information you'd like to include in a more traditional Wikipedia source--a biography, a media organization, etc.? -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:52, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
- I've again restored the sentence clause you deleted, and I ask you to stop deleting it. The clause reads: "Though the Albany effort was credited as a key lesson in tactics for Dr. King and the national civil rights movement,..." This is not a controversial statement, King himself said it, as have historians.
- The real issue here is your assertion that Civil Rights Movement Veterans is not a valid source for reasons you do not explain. Obviously, I consider the site to be a valid Wiki source. The website is widely used by teachers across the country (see, for example this review by TeachingHistory.org). I, and others involved in the site are frequently asked to participate in Civil Rights related panels and projects by major universities and institutions including Stanford, Berkeley, and Smithsonian. Tomorrow I'm speaking at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. Brucehartford (talk) 20:10, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- Generally a website run by an individual, rather than a media organization, doesn't meet Wikipedia standards as a reliable secondary source; it's not a reflection on your scholarship generally. And it does set off alarm bells for me when an editor re-inserts his personal website into an article over the objections of an uninvolved editor. Can this information can be easily verified from a more recognizably reliable source that neither of us run? If so, let's just put that source in and resolve the issue. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- Looking at your website again, the statements about this are reasonably footnoted to sources that are in themselves reliable sources. I still don't think this is an ideal situation, but since this isn't a very controversial claim, I'm okay with it remaining in the article for now. Thanks for your contributions, -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- Generally a website run by an individual, rather than a media organization, doesn't meet Wikipedia standards as a reliable secondary source; it's not a reflection on your scholarship generally. And it does set off alarm bells for me when an editor re-inserts his personal website into an article over the objections of an uninvolved editor. Can this information can be easily verified from a more recognizably reliable source that neither of us run? If so, let's just put that source in and resolve the issue. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- ^ Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.
- ^ Malcolm Gladwell (2011-12-02). "Malcolm Gladwell says the Occupy movement needs to get more Machiavellian". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2012-02-28. -- ~~~~
- ^ "The Theater: A King in Darkness". Time. 1976-10-04. Retrieved 2009-01-03.
- ^ "National Theatre Company of China Tours Atlanta, Birmingham, and Memphis". The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. 2007-02-06. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ 2007-06-23, Anthony. "Martin Luther King's Story Plays on Beijing Stage". NPR. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
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