Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Max Mosley/1

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Max Mosley[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page
Result: Renominated at GAN. —Giggy 23:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Max Mosley was delisted by user:Sceptre on 12 July. The reasons given were:

  1. the Nazi orgy section taking approximately half the page up is unacceptable - what is he more famous for? Formula One, or the orgy?
  2. I think it would be impossible to fix these objections in the timeframe alloted by GAR, so I'm skipping the process because it would, most likely, see reason to delist.

In response to 1, the section referred to takes up just under one sixth of the article (1093 words out of 6461 for the text) - which suggests a rather cursory reading by Sceptre. He didn't identify which of the GA criteria he felt was a problem, but the only one it can be is 3b - staying focussed on the subject. In response to his question about notability, rather unfairly Mosley is far better known at present for the orgy allegations than for his role at the FIA. Even so, the section is too long, a problem recognised on the article talk page.

In response to 2, it's actually a rather trivial task to cut down the length of the section. I have already drafted a much shorter version in my sandbox. It probably took me about half an hour, but I have not yet added refs. The problem could have been dealt with easily within the timescale of a GAR, and to be honest, it would have been even more sensible just to deal with it on the article talk page.

I am asking for views on three points:

  • Does the article in its current state fail GA?
  • Would the article fail GA with the section in my sandbox substituted?
  • Did Sceptre take the most appropriate route to improving the article here?

Thanks in advance. 4u1e (talk) 09:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to point 3 is no. That isn't the point of this GAR though, and I hope those involved don't spend time focusing on that non-issue. Trout Sceptre and be done with. :-) I haven't looked over the article (yet - I will!) so I can't answer 1 and 2; I just think it important that we get 3 out of the way and drop it sooner rather than later. —Giggy 11:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Re 3 - OK.I was thinking of the words "whether former good articles have been improperly delisted", from the intro above, which indicated to me that this was one of the things reviews were for. However, if I've misunderstood, I'm happy to leave it there.
Since we're here now, though, any and all comments about this article's suitability for GA status will be gratefully received. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 12:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are quite right about the intro, but discussions here should focus on the article and the criteria, rather than individual editors. I would however, make two general comments.
  1. Reviewers should always give article editors a chance to respond before delisting articles.
  2. Delisting decisions should be backed up by a review, just like GAN actions.
To this end, {{subst:GAR}} now has a facility to allow reviewers to create a review subpage just like the one used for good article nominations. I hope this will encourage good practice and have commented further at WT:GAN. Geometry guy 13:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments. The section on the sex allegations is a very bad case of recentism. "Mosley is far better known at present for the orgy allegations than for his role at the FIA" says it all: whether that is true or not depends whom you ask, but in any case, it has nothing to with encyclopedic notability. As such the article does not currently meet criterion 3b. The issue can easily be seen by comparing the article to Prince Harry, where the Nazi costume controversy gets two sentences: in contrast, in July 2005, when this was recent news, we have two long paragraphs. One can also compare this section to the FISA-FOCA War, which is controversial enough to have its own article, yet only gets a paragraph in the present article. There seems to be a reluctance to elaborate on incidents in which Mosley's contribution was generally beneficial. In contrast the tobacco section goes into matters which have more to do with Ecclestone and the Labour governement than Mosley: "Ecclestone and Mosley, both Labour Party donors," certainly needs clarification and a source.
One should not be able to tell from a Wikipedia article what are the views of contributing editors, but there seems to be a negative undercurrent here, which is a neutrality issue. There are also some sourcing issues: for example
"This training led some national English newspapers to link him to the French right wing Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS), which was involved in the Algerian War at that time."
is sourced to grandprix.com, which provides no evidence for the assertion. In "The name March is a contrived acronym...", why "contrived"?
"Many insiders believed that Mosley's announced retirement was just part of a well crafted plan to strengthen his and Bernie Ecclestone's control over the sport,"
is neither sourced nor neutral. The word "believe" is also used to cast doubt on Mosley's views in a couple of places.
Concerning the sandbox replacement, it is certainly better, but is still more like the state of Prince Harry in 2005 than 2008. Two specific points: the illegality of pimping etc. is not really relevant; also since the question of whether the incident involved Nazi roleplaying is the subject of a court case, the article needs to be very careful not to give preference to the newspaper account over Mosley's.
I recommend that the article remains delisted. Checking the article against WP:BLP would be a good idea before renomination. Geometry guy 14:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comments, Geometry Guy. I would argue that this incident is far more important in relation to Mosley than the Harry incident was for him. Yes, the tabloid coverage is about the same, but Mosley came very close to losing his job over this, and may still do so. I will certainly review again for negative stuff - although I was, for example, surprised to find that almost all mentions of him in two histories of March Engineering, which both predate his position as FIA president, tend to be negative in the details. The positives tend only to concern his legal and diplomatic skills. The pimping stuff is an attempt (probably unsuccessful) to cover prostitution's slightly odd legal position in the UK: it's not illegal, but many activities around it are, and it is generally perceived as being illegal. I'll have another go. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 15:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that the Mosley incident may end up being more important than the Harry incident, but the question is, how important? Geometry guy 17:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, quite a lot more important. In an F1 context, it's more similar to the hypothetical case of the current monarch being caught in highly inappropriate situation and being asked to abdicate by, say, several prominent cabinet members and a couple of the UK's leading companies. Without of course, quite the degree of tabloid hysteria that would entail. ;-) 4u1e (talk) 19:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Mosley has shot into wider 'fame' because of the Nazi incident, so it has drawn a lot more attention. There is a general acceptance, I think, on the talk page that it had gotten too long. I think the agreement was that if we waited until monday or tuesday (When summations occur and the jury are sent out) there would be easily sourced summations we could use as the court case ends. Papers, in many ways, end up deciding what parts of controversies have lasting impact and until then it becomes difficult to do more than compress the information. As it is, I'd like to see what 4u1e can put in there in terms of a compressed section. It strikes me that the dates on it are quite irrelevent, providing some kind of chronological order is kept. I'll have a poke around for some cites on Mosley donating to labour. That Ecclestone does shouldn't be too hard, there was a huge row over him giving a million to labour back in..97? Narson (talk) 17:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, Ecclestone is not the issue: his donations to Labour are well known and relevant to the tobacco advertising story. The question is whether Mosley donated, and whether any donations he made are relevant here. Geometry guy 17:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, if he did (The Observer lists him as a financial supporter of labour). It is certainly fairly interesting, when he has had links with the far right, the right and then the centrist party. It indicates the shedding of his past, or an attempt to rather, perhaps? I'll add in the observer article as a source for that bit unless I can find a more concise and detailed one. Narson (talk) 17:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: the acronym is 'contrived' because there is no reason for the letters to be in that order, it could as well have been CHARM, for example. It's not intended to be a negative thing, btw. 4u1e (talk) 19:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to further that, see Acronym#Contrived_acronymsTommy turrell (talk) 20:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems then that "March" is no more contrived than "Charm" would have been, so I've removed the adjective. Geometry guy 20:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    That's rather the point, isn't it? You contrive an acronym if you pick the word you want, rather than following some other natural scheme, usually the order of words in an existing phrase. March is certainly contrived, but this is an extremely minor point, so I'll not argue the point further. 4u1e (talk) 22:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't really want to argue it further either, but an acronym is contrived when it is set up so that the word has significance, as in PATRIOT. In this case, no one has argued that the March acronym was created because "March" is a significant word in the industry. Instead, the suggestion is that it is simply a readable word involving those five letters and beginning with "M". If that is "contrived", then so is almost every readable acronym. Geometry guy 22:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Going by the very strict - but unreferenced - definition given on our page for Acronym, you're correct. I'll agree to disagree, or we'll be here forever:) 4u1e (talk) 06:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update: As of 16 July, the "Nazi orgy" section that was the reason for the original delisting is now down to three paras (plus a one sentence para) from the previous nine (300 wds vs 1093). Although it may be possible to cut it down further in future, the current content seems to me likely to remain relevant.
I have also reviewed against WP:WTA and revised wording accordingly - lots of 'claims' have gone, and a few 'deny's and 'reported's as well!
I've done a general review of the text and cut some stuff that had negative sounding implications, but didn't really follow through on them. This includes the OAS story, Mosley's parents' wedding (with Hitler present!), and Alan Rees's departure from the team. I've also rearranged the lead, so that Mosley's parents and early life aren't the first thing presented, since they are less important than his career in motorsport.
Next up is a review of the sources to see if we've (unconsciously) filtered out more positive stories about MM. I think it unlikely but, hey, that's the point of checking!
Geometry Guy, you said above that there was a reluctance to expand on MM's positive contributions. It would be helpful (for me, anyway!) if you could specify which ones you feel don't give enough coverage. Thanks.
Finally, it occurs to me that the section on FIA presidency might be more neutrally structured if it were split by his presidential terms, rather than by (mainly controversial) topics as at present. This would follow the model taken by several articles on politicians that I've looked at. Views on this are welcome. 4u1e (talk) 06:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks a lot better, thank you. While the controversy section should be merged into other parts of the article (article structure), it does look a lot better than my delisted version. A question too: didn't Mosley admit on his part to participating in S&M during the orgy, or was that another NOTW allegation? Sceptre (talk) 09:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He admitted to being involved in S&M activities (though, I think it was 'such activities' or somesuch in response to a question about S&M) for 45 years. I don't think he has denied the orgy in any part, only the conclusion that it had nazi connotations. Narson (talk) 12:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sceptre, thanks for taking the time to comment. Yes, he did admit to everything other than the Nazi element. Question is, how much detail do we need to go into? The current wording is intended to make the situation implicitly clear. 4u1e (talk) 20:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's me done for the next week or so, btw, so unless others want to have a stab at it, the article will have to stand or fall in its current shape. Thanks to all for the comments. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 23:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any other issues/problems with the article? I think the specific problem that Spectre brought up was dealt with and a few other things have been fixed. What more needs to be done to see the article retain its GA status? Narson (talk) 20:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. This section has much improved: good work! My tentative view is that it would now be more efficient to renominate the article, especially if e.g. Sceptre is willing to act as GAN reviewer. Otherwise, we need to wait for other reviewer's comments, and this is a quiet time of year. Geometry guy 21:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This article looks fine to me now after the work that's been done on it, and I agree with Geometry guy. The best thing to do now is to renominate it at GAN and close this GAR. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've closed it out as per these comments. —Giggy 23:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ta guys. Thanks for all the comments, but I really do wonder if an eventual three (count 'em!) GA reviews is really the most efficient way of maintaining the article at GA level. No very difficult changes have been made: a severe pruning such as the offending section received proved, as I suggested at the start, to be a simple job. ;-) 4u1e (talk) 06:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • It seems wrong, and against the spirit of wikipedia, that one person can act as a vigilante de-lister, circumventing procedure with obviously farcical arguments and the result is that editors who use the process have to go through two assessments in order to undo the damage that the one vigilante caused. If the article is up to scratch and this re-assessment shows that, why is the unliteral de-listing not simply undone without us doing again exactly what was done here? Narson (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a note, after reading the article today, I am in agreement with the above that this is once again a GA, and have relisted it. Resolute 20:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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