Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Henry Kissinger/archive1

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

The article was not promoted 20:17, 9 January 2007.

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Henry Kissinger

I'm adding article Henry Kissinger to the Featured article candidacy list because:

• It is A-Class biography of living person
• It meats Wikipedia:What is a featured article? requirements
• It has been stable lately
• Henry Kissinger is important and controversial personality; he has influenced U.S. politics and international politics as well; he's a Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Please add your objections or general feedback.--Pethr 03:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comments - Please make your references consistent in style and complete - sometimes you include author after the article name, sometimes you include it first, sometimes you put last name first, sometimes you don't - sometimes your pub dates are in parentheses, sometimes they're not - please pick one style and stick with it:
  • (This needs a publication date) Transcript of the BBC Sunday AM Interview "US Policy on Iraq" (and uses a different style than your other cite news)
  • (This is missing publication date and author - scroll to the bottom) Transcript of the BBC Sunday AM Interview "US Policy on Iraq"
• Some of your websources are missing last access dates.
• External links may need pruning - (if this one is important enough to be mentioned in External links, it should be used to reference something - I doubt it's that important, and should be deleted) Marcus Gee. "Is Henry Kissinger a War Criminal?", Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada), June 11, 2002. You have Kissinger's NobelPrize bio in External links, but also listed as a footnoate - sources used as references shouldn't be listed in External links.
• (Why does this need four references?) Kissinger confirmed in recorded interviews with Woodward that the advice was the same as he had given in an August 12, 2005 column in the Washington Post: "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."[25][26][27][28]
• Prose problems (and unencylopedic - why is this included?): In 2006, Kissinger appeared on the Colbert Report as a guest during Stephen Colbert's shred-off with the Decemberists. It showed a lighter side of Kissinger than the American public has been used to.
• copyedit needs (see Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971)
• A bit more serious cleanup, copy edit, and attention to detail, and I'll have another look. Sandy (Talk) 04:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Object. For the following reasons:

• Minor: The lead does not constitute a comprehensive summary per WP:LEAD.
• Important: The article is under-referenced. Whole sections (not just paragraphs) are uncited. I also saw at least one . Why aren't these things fixed?
• Important: I believe Kissinger's role in Vietnam, and especially his key negotiations with Le Duc Tho, the events that led to the Nobel Prize Award, are under-developed. I would like to see more details about the difficult Le-Kissinger relations (they concluded a peace agreement, although they disliked each other - How did this happen?), and about the controversies and criticisms on Kissinger's decisions and recommendations to the President (such as the Cambodge bombardment). What about the fierce Republican criticisms during the 1970s (even from Reagen) about Vietnam and even the US-Chinese relations?--Yannismarou 08:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Reply - Thank you both for comments. I'm fixing Sandy's objections. It will be a little more challenging than I thought. Nonetheless, I'm willing to work on this one but it will take some time. I will also ask for help at Politics and Government Work Group. (Sandy, thank you very much for various remarks about replace.js, it will save me light years!)--Pethr 15:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yikes, I don't know anything about replace.js, but I've been mixed up with another editor lately, which is really irritating (?). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object—1a throughout, and 2a. Here are examples from the top.
  • "appearing at social occasions with many of America's most celebrated beauties"—Um, does "beauties" refer to women, does it? If so, I think it's sexist. And it's a kind of strange thing to say, apart from that. Celebrities I guess I can cope with, but not beauties.
  • First para: "later" then "latter".
  • "still continues"—redundant clanger at the end of the rather short lead.
  • Stubby paragraphs.
  • See if the occurrence of "Kissinger" can be minimised. His naming is a little inconsistent in places.
  • Is the cartoon copyright OK? WP seems to be tightening up on fair use. Tony 13:38, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply - "Later and "latter" doesn't mean the same thing. "Stubby paragraphs" isn't real objection, is it? Please try to be more concrete. Thank you for the rest, I addressed the first and third objection. Cartoon copyright seems OK, I added more information to better comply with fair use. I will look into it later since the real source of this image isn't perfectly clear.--Pethr 19:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Object. The ToC is very messy - needs a bit of reorganization, or at least some sub-sections need to be merged or removed. Image sizes are inconsistent throughout the article, makes the layout look horrible. 1971 Indo-Pakistan War and 1973 Yom Kippur War sections are too short, consider merging? Africa section too short, as well. Several paragraphs throughout the article are unreferenced. Otherwise looks good. — Wackymacs 14:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.