Talk:2008 California Proposition 8/GA2

GA Review

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Initial comments

I will be undertaking this review. While there are reasonable references and balance in this article, I have raised a topic for discussion regarding a possible quick fail of this article at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations. This discussion relates to whether the impending court decision means that events are moving too rapidly on matters central to the article to allow it to be a valid GA at this time. The article will not be quick failed without a consensus to that effect on the page where I have asked for comment on this issue. I will review other aspects of the article regardless. Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Lead and first para

• The lead should be a summary of the complete article, rather than an introduction to the topic. In turn, there should be a first para of the main article that states / repeats with citations the content of the first para of the lead. This could firm an extended first para under the current heading "history of the ballot initiative", and that heading might just be revised to simply "The ballot initiative". More comments another day. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Petition to remove proposition from ballot

• I am unclear what is the implication of the following sentence: "As a general rule, it is improper for courts to adjudicate pre-election challenges to a measure's substantive validity". Is this a point that critics of the supreme court made - are they saying that the court acted inappropriately in adjudicating this case? If so, this should be spelt out, drawing attention to a reliable source where this argument was made.

Challenge to revised title and summary

• This sentence seems out of sequence: "California Attorney General Jerry Brown explained that the changes were required to more "accurately reflect the measure" in light of the California Supreme Court's intervening In re Marriage Cases decision". Unless i am misreading the article, it should come after the sentence: "The ballot summary read that the measure "changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.""
• I am inclined to think this whole section goes into too much detail, but revising it to become more concise (perhaps just one or two paras) is not needed for GA, and is perhaps better done when a little more time has elapsed. More later. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

"Whether You Like It or Not" advertisement

I would be inclined to drop the long quote, and its intro sentence, from this, or at least move it to a footnote (or archive it as a resource on the talk page). The article is already pretty long and the quote pretty much just confirms what is (well) summarised in the paragraph it follows.

Proponents - religious organisations

• This sentence needs a citation: "Farrow was promptly suspended from his duties by Bishop John Steinbock."
• Some citations used in this section need the footnote detail improved eg:

54 ^ "The New Religious Right".

55 ^ "Preserving Traditional Marriage and Strengthening Families" (PDF)

These need organisation names / publishers, and dates if they are news items etc.

• I don't know what other editors think, but I would worry about reliability if a news org that would be expected to be aligned as anti-proposition 8 (The Advocate) was the only cited source for reporting details of the campaign of a pro-proposition 8 organisation (LDS). For this reason I'd like to see some direct, independent (or LDS nased) refs for the following sentences:

"The First Presidency of the church announced its support for Proposition 8 in a letter intended to be read in every congregation in California. In this letter, church members were encouraged to "do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time.""

Opponents - political figures

This sentence definitely needs a reference or deletion:

Then Illinois Senator Barack Obama opposed what he deemed 'divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states.'

CNN Exit poll

This table of data is far too extensive and disrupts the flow of the article. I suggest it be moved to the talk page as a reference source for editors, particularly as the data is readily available through links to other sites (including, of course, CNN). The table should be replaced with a paragraph that draws attention to the most significant findings from the poll, with 'significance' roughly determined by whether those results were reported in other reliable sources. The very last para under the heading (and below the table) is a reasonable example of what should be in this section.

Post election events - retroactive effect

This sentence needs a reference (ie. a reference that states that the result poses this particilar legal dilemma): "A pending legal issue is whether approximately 18,000 same-sex marriages already in effect would be retroactively annulled by the constitutional change or whether they would be preserved, since the amendment does not state explicitly that it would nullify same-sex marriages performed before the change took effect."

Demonstrations and boycotts

The use of the expression "thousands of protestors", or similar words, several times in this section, is NPOV. It reads as giving emphasis to the large size of protests. If an estimate of crowd size is available, it should be included (eg. around x thousand). An expression like "over x thousand" should also not be used, for the same reason, regardless of whether the original source used that word. If no estimate is available, omit the reference to the protest size. THe following is an example in the article that is good: "On Sunday November 9 an estimated crowd of 4,000 people protested in front of the State Capitol.[157]" - a fixed estimate, with an inline citation to support.

That's all for now. More later.hamiltonstone (talk) 12:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposition 8: The Musical

Well, sure, but is this really, in the long run, going to qualify as notable and worth taking up space in such a long article? I'd cut this back a bit. Which bits? I'd say all the unreferenced stuff, namely: "The 3-minute video was distributed on the internet at FunnyOrDie.com beginning on December 3, 2008. It was written and produced in just a few days. The cast includes Jack Black (who plays Jesus), Nicole Parker, Neil Patrick Harris, John C. Reilly, Allison Janney, Andy Richter, Maya Rudolph, Margaret Cho, Rashida Jones, Sarah Chalke, Jennifer Lewis and other celebrities. It was directed by Adam Shankman. The video satirizes Christian churches that selectively pick and choose biblical doctrines to follow."

FPPC complaint against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Again, this section is too long, not entirely clear, and somewhat inconclusive. Unless I am misreading this, it looks like it turned out to be a storm in a teacup. A church that was openly part of the campaign spent money on the campaign. That ain't news. To be honest, I would delete the entire section. If the issue is so important that it ought to remain as a section, then I certainly was not able to establish, from the text provided, why there was anything of great importance here, so it would need to be re-written. Alternatively you could add a sentence or two with footnotes to the earlier section on religious organisations supporting proposition 8.

Crimes against opponents and supporters

This section would benefit from editing. It needs an overall introductory para, explaining that there were concerns, some of which proved to be well-founded, that proposition 8 would prompt crimes against people involved in the campaign. Personal violence, threats, and damage to property occurred, and both supporters and opponents of proposition 8 were victims. Then one could go into some specific examples, but probably not in as much detail as at present.

Supreme court case

Once the case(s) seeking to overturn prop 8 have been decided, they will deserve a more prominent plce in the article than as a subsection of "Post-election events". They deserve a heading at equal level. Partiuclarly if the case(s) succeed in overturning the ban, it should probably be the final section of the article.

While I was conducting this GA review, I held off quick-failing it in the hope that by the time I'd gone right through, the case would be decided and editors would have added it in. Things haven't worked out that way. As per the discussion here, I am going to quick fail this for now. But as I have previously indicated, I am happy to revisit the nomination once the court case has been determined and other suggestions above have been responded to. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I've responded to most of the issues brought up, though most of the sections mentioned at the end of the review have already been removed. --haha169 (talk) 19:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)