Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jehovah's Witnesses/archive1

Jehovah's Witnesses[edit]

This article deals with a relatively controversial subject in a balanced way. It is well referenced. In the few months I've been working on this article (and others related to it), this article has improved tremendously due to the hard work of many people. This is a self-nom. joshbuddy^talk 03:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object Although this article tries to be balanced, it seems to be strongly influenced by prejudice against Jehovah's Witnesses and their teachings. A quick read of other comments will show that the author is not alone in his/her opinions - but Wikipedia is not the forum for these disputes. Many statements give a clear view of the teachings, however there are a multitude of biased references and comments, particularly the sections detailing schisms and the section on future reading. To contrast this with an article that seems unbiased, compare the article on the Catholic Church and the relative lack of disparaging comments there to those that appear in this article. Should we assume that there has been no controversy over the Catholic Church? Of course not. How about the article on Islam? Also a contraversial religion. Yet, that article tries to explain the beliefs fairly without citing all of the negative controversy surrounding it. Generally I have found articles in Wikipedia to be unbiased, but I'm afraid this falls short. At the very least, you might consider confining the controversy to the controversy section, instead of peppering it throughtout the article. Ttime22 07:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)TTime22[reply]
Support of course, it's come a long long long long x 10^999 way -- Tawker 03:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: I noticed that one of the sections uses {{main}} three times, whereas another uses {{mainarticles}}. I've changed these other sections to reflect this. The {{Jehovah's Witnesses}} template knocks the main text of the article, along with the picture, down a bit--any chance that this could be changed? Some of the references are punctuated strangely, as well. Reference number [26] appears to be unspaced, as "Membership" seems to follow it immediately, without a space. I'll see what I can do to fix them... Jude (talk) 03:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Object. Due to image crowding, a lead section that is too short, and many stubby sections barely more than a line in legnth. Should be reffered to Peer Review before resubmitting. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 03:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Instead of single sentences ending with a footnote, sections should contain cohesive paragraphs of at least five sentences in length. The lead section could touch on more of the contorversies surrounding the church, and should be two or three paragraphs, comprising 8 to 12 sentences, in length. Specifically, the subsections under "critical views" are most in need of expansion. Also, the images in the history section are crowded, but I can fix that myself. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 04:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - I will take a look for these stubby sections. joshbuddy^talk 05:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - I've made improvements in these areas. joshbuddy^talk 18:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - The lead section is much better now, however, the paragraphs trhoughout the article, and the "Beliefs and practices" section especially, require unification of small paragraphs. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 19:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - Got it. ~~Will fix shortly.~~ Fixed this up. Thank you. joshbuddy^talk 19:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment—Apart from a passing sentence about patriarchy, there's nothing about the role of women in the church. Tony 04:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- The roll of women in the church is minimal. joshbuddy^talk 05:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Woman are included in the congregation teaching programs programs however. They also preach often and pioneer. They are highly respected in the organazation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Felixboy (talk • contribs) .

Women—I guess I was referring to women in relation to power, or lack thereof. I'd like a little more information in the article about 50% of the flock, and 50% of our readership. Tony 05:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object before I even read the article throughouly there are many problems

Fair use images, without rationales, and some that could be replaced easily with free alternatives. It is very unclear why Image:Ctrussell2.jpg is labelled as GFDL, and other image issues.

- This was bizarre. I reverted the image's licensing. The other images are as free as possible, and three of them were created by me. I'm not sure what could be more free than it currently is. joshbuddy^talk 22:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The size of the futher reading section is out of propotion to the rest of the article and violates WP:NOT

- I have fixed this. joshbuddy^talk 22:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See alsos and main article templates are a mess
Lead is not a summary of the article, completely avoids discussion on critisims and opposition which domainate the later parts of the article.

- I have fixed this. joshbuddy^talk 22:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The aricle is really pretty short if you take out the giant list at the bottom, is it actaually comprehensive.

- I assume this is a question. I believe the article is fairly comprehensive. joshbuddy^talk 22:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Captions on the images are not adequate

--Peta 04:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The images remain a probelm, please read WP:FU and WP:FUC.--Peta 02:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I believe this has all been dealt with now. joshbuddy^talk 05:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object- Needs more information about the use of literarure specifically the Watchtower and Awake. Should have a category about the New World Translation, Witnesses view of apostates and how they define apostates. Should include something about the Witnesses and thier involvment in disaster relief work. Not enough info about their assemblies and conventions or the branches of their world headquarters. Needs more about the Witnesses home study program and thier different programs they have at the meetings. More about the baptisimal process. This article is good but much more information can be added. Felixboy 18:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- How would you achieve this while keeping the article of an appropriate length? joshbuddy^talk 18:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Quite frankly I think its hard to a make featured article about many religions. Many are complex with long lists of belifs and practices. I think expnding the beliefs and/or practices section to include the things Felix mentioned would be fine enough. Felix mantioned some good points but we really can try to sum them up in just a few sentences. 4.247.170.181 13:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Commrnt. The references section could be better organized, for instance, when citing the same source multiple times, put name ="name" in the ref tag and on subsequent refs simply put <tt><ref name="name" /></tt>. Also, a works cited section where you have full bibliographic information (Harvard referencing, MLA format, or whatever) with the references section giving the citation such as "Franz, 44". Speaking of Franz, some places (namely p. 202, 203, 204) could be more efficiently combined into "Franz, 202-204" since I assume they came from a section about that aspect of the church. For that, if several sentences in a row come from the same cite, a citation after the last one is sufficient in all referencing systems I'm familiar with. Don't get me wrong - well done article, just could use some tweaking. Moulder 20:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- This is a fair comment. I will fix this up in a bit. joshbuddy^talk 20:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Sections using {{main}} &c. should summarise the content of the main articles they point to, no more and no less. I'm not sure that the section "Controversy and opposition" (which you must admit will be a section that will get a great deal of attention) adequately summarises the 3 main articles it points to. --kingboyk 11:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object The article is not balanced and I do not believe any sort of balance is possible on such controversial groups on a project such as Wikipedia. The article is far too sympathetic in every summarized section and demonstrates a clear lack of NPOV all around. Why not stick to safer subjects—such as Edible salt? :) - Cestus ^Cd 05:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Considering your recent spate of vandalism, I think you can be safely ignored when it comes to matters of NPOV. [1] [2] [3] [4] How would you like to make the article balanced? joshbuddy^talk 06:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object; more work to be done. Citations need to be consistent and in accordance with WP:FOOTNOTE,^[1] like this.^[2] Note that they always follow punctuation and that there aren't any spaces. In one place, five citations appear in a row (from 51-55); are all of them necessary? Complete dates should be fully linked, not just the month and day. I also found an inline comment "need to find reference for this, and also reference for striving to be good citizens or members of community". Resolve this. Short paragraphs (of which there are many) should be combined. Sentence structure is often constant and uninteresting—"Jehovah's Witnesses are politically neutral. They feel that their allegiance belongs to God's Kingdom (government). Thus they refrain from saluting the flag of any country or singing nationalistic songs. They believe that such an act would be tantamount to worshipping an idol." The "Critical Views" section is woefully inadequate—there are tons of critics; don't just quote one guy's opinions. More research needed there. Evangelicals have written so many books attempting to debunk JWs that it borders on ridiculous; use some of their arguments. I agree that this needs a section on the NWT and how it was translated (though from what I understand this information is kept secret), and its critics. --Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 05:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- Thank you for your comments. I agree with everything you've said here save needing a section on the NWT bible. There is already a separate article that deals with it, I'm not sure why so much information would be needed here. joshbuddy^talk 07:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - As per Vengeful Cynic (below), the discrepancies between the NWT and traditional translations are heavily debated. "the Word was a god" (John 1:1), the crucifixtion on a cross vs. a stake, the use of the word Jehovah, etc. Admittedly, the NWT article itself needs some work on the controversy side of things (again, prominent evangelical scholars attempting to rip it to shreds over translation methods and perceived attempts to manipulate the text to justify JW doctrine). But all this should be covered here as well, though perhaps not in great detail. A couple paragraphs would probably suffice. I'm not sure where would be the best place to put it—perhaps in its own level 2 section, perhaps in the controversy section as a level 3 section. --Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 21:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Per Felixboy, I am concerned about a lack of information on the theological literature and bible translation produced by The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. While I am certainly appreciative of the difficulty of keeping down page length, I would note that as the New World Translation is central to much controversy and discussion surrounding the Jehovah's Witnesses and probably merits a bit more mention. My only other concern about the page is a complete lack of sourcing in the Controversy and opposition section. If the New World Translation were addressed and that section were sourced, I can find only minor issues with the rest of the article, many of which are on their way to being addressed. As an aside, I would like to compliment Joshbuddy in taking this article from the POV-ridden monstrousity that it was and transforming it into an article that is almost ready for Featured Article. --Vengeful Cynic 16:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object: I still feel the article does not offer a fair and balanced view of all the issues and shies away from exploring criticisms of the religion. How this could be incorporated and still be of an appropriate length however I do not know. --Anonymous_liverpool_uk --82.0.16.248 11:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]