Wikipedia:Peer review/Chemtrail conspiracy theory/archive1

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Chemtrail conspiracy theory[edit]

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…I want to know how to further improve this article.

Thanks, Smallman12q (talk) 13:36, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Very interesting article, here are some suggestions for improvement.

  • The second paragraph of the lead is one sentence with a quotation - I would either expand it or combine it with one of the other paragraphs
  • I know contrail is linked, but I would specifically take a few paragraphs to spell out what they are. That way the contrast between the actual contrails and alleged chemtrails becomes clearer.
  • missing word I think reasons given by those who believe in the conspiracy vary widely, spanning from military weapons testing, [to] chemical population control, to global warming mitigation measures.[10]
  • Refs I checked seemed reliable, but some are incomplete. Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
  • Also make sure newspaper titles are correct, for example this ref is from the Akron Beacon Journal, not the "Beacon Journal News" as claimed in Ref. 8
  • I have never seen so many individual refs packed into one inline citation (and this is done several times). Some of them do not fit - for example this article (the last ref in Ref 1), is about odd U-turn contrails, but does not mention chemtrails at all. It could be cited individually to say that even without this conspiracies like this, there are sometimes things with contrails that are not easily explained.
  • If you want to expand the article, why not address some of the individual claims in the refs - just mentioned one possibility. For another example, there are articles from the US and UK so you could cite a few to show this is not just an American phenomenon.
  • Would it make sense to break this up into types of claims in one section, then give the rebuttals in another section?
  • There are some other contrail photos in the Contrail article that would have more variety than the three used - a satellite photo perhaps.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou.Smallman12q (talk) 21:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
llywrch comments

Two general points on this otherwise very readable article:

  • The first sentence of the second section begins: "Contrails can be visible for several hours" -- you may want to develop this point further. Obviously this is a key factor that the "true believers" use to insist that there's something happening here, & asserting this in 7 words only serves to make the believers think you are dismissing any validity to their claims. (Or, to use an old Wikipedia adage, "Write so your opponents will agree with what you say.")
  • "Many websites primarily devoted to far right nationalist views focused on chemtrails as well." -- This is something of a troublesome blanket statement: which websites are you talking about hee? Depending on my mood, I'm inclined to consider Free Republic or Little Green Footballs examples of those "devoted to far right nationalist views", which would be a curious situation since my one friend who believes in the existence of chemtrails espouses political views to the left of me!

Hope these help you. -- llywrch (talk) 23:45, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to try and restore a WP:NPOV.Smallman12q (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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