Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ali Hewson/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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 10:02, 27 October 2013 (UTC) [1].

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Ali Hewson

Ali Hewson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Ali Hewson/archive1

Nominator(s): Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 16:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I think it meeta all of the FA criteria and the peer review for it it's closed and archived. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 16:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

You should crop that one photograph and add that to the infobox.—indopug (talk) 18:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

And remove the full picture from the article, indopug? Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 18:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll leave that upto you. I also recommend adding a Bono pic (since we have several) somewhere in the article to identify him better.

By the way, have you tried asking people on flickr to release their photos on a Commons-friendly licence?—indopug (talk) 18:49, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Anna Frodesiak tried once but she didn't find anything. I will email the EDUN staff asking Ali to upload a picture under a free licence. Oh, by the way, where do you think I should add a Bono pic? Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 18:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• A Comment and a Request: It's a nicely comprehensive article about someone who's accomplished some good things. Ali Hewson is notable in her own right, which is why she gets her own article, of course. Given her own importance, I find it slightly odd that the second paragraph of the lead-in starts off by talking about her meeting her future husband. It might focus the article more on her if we moved the "how she met Bono" information down a couple of paragraphs. I also have a request, which I ask purely for clarity and having regard for your choice of user-name: could you confirm that there are no potential conflict of interest issues, please? I don't actually see any problem with the article, and your reply won't change this opinion, but if there is a potential conflict of interest in proposing this article for "featured" status we'd be better to deal with it now, rather than accidentally incur adverse headlines later. Thanks. RomanSpa (talk) 01:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The ordering in the lead is because Ali became Bono's wife first and accomplished important things after that. The second might well have not happened but for the first. As for Miss Bono, she has no connection with anyone in this article other than her username. (And there isn't any real person called "Miss Bono" - in the press Ali sometimes gets called "Mrs Bono", while their daughters might be called "Miss Hewson".) Wasted Time R (talk) 01:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Wasted Time R. RomanSpa, I have no conection with Bono, Ali or anyone in the article. I choose the username because, the first I picked was Ali Hewson and it is was a violation of Wikipedia's rules. Hewson is called Mrs. Bono by the press - though she has make clear that she hates being called like that - So, I am confirming that there are no potential COI issues. I am not Ali, Eve Hewson or Jordan Hewson. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 12:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Miss Bono and Wasted Time R. It's always better to get these things sorted out quickly and painlessly. RomanSpa (talk) 20:00, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

No problem, RomanSpa. So, what's next? Sorry if I ask too much, I've never been involved in a FAC review process. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 20:02, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

• Drive by comment I agree with RomanSpa's comment in regards to the ordering of the lead. The effect of this ordering is that this woman is being defined upfront in terms of who her husband is, and not who she is and the reason for her notability (being married to rock star generally isn't enough to pass WP:BIO). This can be easily avoided by tweaking the lead (details of notable personal relationships and families generally go towards the end of the lead) Nick-D (talk) 11:54, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

You said what I wanted to say far more eloquently than I managed. RomanSpa (talk) 20:25, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Done, I fixed it. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 20:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Miss Bono I reverted your edit because it no made no sense...

Alison "Ali" Hewson (née Stewart; born 23 March 1961) is an Irish activist and businesswoman. Raised in Raheny, she was awarded a degree in politics and sociology from University College Dublin in 1989. The couple have four children together and live at residences in Ireland, France, and the United States. She has inspired several U2 songs, most famously "Sweetest Thing".

It mentions "the couple" before explaining who they are?

In any case being the wife of Bono is a large part of why she is notable and it should remain in the lead. Theroadislong (talk) 12:11, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

My approach to BLP leads is to have a short first paragraph that identifies who somebody is. And here I give her as an activist and businessperson first, wife of Bono second. The remaining paragraphs give a roughly chronological, summarized account of their life. And the relationship with Bono and the band clearly came before her other activities. That doesn't mean her other activities are in any way cheapened or less important, but it is the way it happened. A good comparison point is the Morleigh Steinberg article, written around the same time. She was an established dancer before she ever began a relationship with The Edge, and a number of the sources used predate that relationship, so in that lead, the first paragraph is similar but the following paragraphs discuss career first and relationship/marriage/band second. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment: Here's how I would re-cast the first few paragraphs: "Alison "Ali" Hewson (née Stewart; born 23 March 1961) is an Irish activist and businesswoman. She is particularly prominent in anti-nuclear activism and the development of "ethical" businesses.

Raised in Raheny, and educated at University College Dublin, Hewson became involved in anti-nuclear activism in the 1990s. She narrated Black Wind, White Land, a 1993 Irish documentary about the lasting effects of the Chernobyl disaster, and has worked closely with activist Adi Roche. She has been a patron of Chernobyl Children's Project International since 1994 and has participated in a number of aid missions to the high-radiation exclusion zones of Belarus. She has also campaigned against Sellafield, the northern English nuclear facility. In 2002 she helped lead an effort which sent more than a million postcards, urging the site be closed, to Prime Minister Tony Blair and others. Hewson has repeatedly been discussed by tabloid newspapers as a possible candidate for political offices, including President of Ireland. None of these suggestions have come to fruition.

Hewson is the co-founder of two ethical businesses, the Edun fashion line and Nude Skincare products. The former, intended to promote fair trade with Africa, has struggled to become a viable business. French conglomerate LVMH has made substantial investments into both companies.

She is the wife of singer and musician Paul Hewson, known as Bono, from the rock group U2. The couple met whilst still at secondary school, and married in 1982."

I would put the rest of the information - the particular school, her university career, the couple's children and homes, etc. - into the main body of the article. I don't think the lead is the appropriate place to list people's homes and children, unless this is a vital part of "who they are". I tend to feel that the "above the fold" part of an article should tell our readers exactly what they need to know to be well-informed about something or someone, and this is generally stuff related to what it is that makes them notable.

Hope this is of some use. RomanSpa (talk) 23:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Your approach would be fine if we were talking about someone like Beyoncé, who established herself as well-known first and later married someone famous. But that's not the case here. Ali Hewson did not become active in third-world issues until U2 played Live Aid and she and her husband traveled to Africa; her activity in anti-nuclear causes began at the same time the band was protesting against Sellafield; she might not have met Adi Roche and gone to Belarus if she hadn't been Bono's wife. Both of the ethical business she is involved in were founded with her husband's money. Pretty much every source used by this article frames its depiction of her in terms of being Bono's wife. In sum, she has used her position as a famous rock star's wife to gain access and publicity and resources for the causes she believes in. Nothing wrong with that, and it does not in any way diminish what she has done. Plenty of celebrity spouses have either not become involved in causes or have made fools of themselves doing so. But to mention her marriage to Bono only at the end of the lead, as your proposal does, is to me ahistorical. As for mentioning her homes and children, I think if you asked her if her domestic life and four children are a vital part of who she is, she would say of course they are. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Reply. I agree that she's taken advantage of her situation, but (as you yourself observe) it is the use to which she has put her situation that makes her notable. Let me draw a parallel with people who attended (say) Cambridge University: most are not notable, and generally those who achieve notability do so for reasons other than attending this or that college. However, for many (e.g. the various graduates of the Cambridge Footlights) their situation gave them an advantage in becoming notable. Despite this, we don't generally mention the situation (being at a great university) that gave them their opportunities: we focus on the use they made of the opportunities open to them. I see the point you're making, I think, but I somehow feel that making her simply a sort of footnote to her husband is doing her a dis-service. RomanSpa (talk) 20:34, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I get what you are saying, but I think there is a difference in kind between people who attend elite universities, who must number in the hundreds of thousands around the world, and people who are married to A-level pop culture stars, of whom there are only maybe a hundred. I also can't see how this lead section is making her a footnote to her husband; of the 270 words in it, 206 are devoted to her alone, and of those, 188 to her activism and business career. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:26, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I think we both see each other's points. It's largely a question of how we say what we want to say, and the best way to phrase it. I'm very happy to wait for other editors' input; I suspect that with a few more comments from different people we'll see a consensus evolve, and I'll be happy to abide by whatever emerges. Have a good weekend! RomanSpa (talk) 21:01, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

(COI notice: I copyedited the article): I largely agree with Wasted Time R, having spent about 30 days, on and off, with them constantly being right ;p. Reading the article at the moment I don't get the impression that her successes are a footnote to her husband's, more that one enabled the other and vice-versa; she is responsible for Bono being in a position to succeed, and his success created a platform that allowed her to explore her interests and try and make an improvement in the world. It would certainly be possible to strip out more material in relation to her relationship with Bono, but to do so would reduce the connection between that relationship and her other work - and there is that connection. Ironholds (talk) 16:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I have to add something to what Wasted Time said about her domestic life:

''Jordan and Ali get up to go shopping. "We fight sometimes, don't we?" Ali says to her daughter. "But it's the age-old story: parents are stupid. And we weren't prepared for what has happened to us," says the woman who deliberately lists her occupation on her passport as "mother."

That's an interview named "Sit Back and Relax? Bono's Wife Can't" by Liz Jones from Evening Standart (2 March, 2005)

So I guess that metaphor suggest that her role as mother in an important thing in her life. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 12:43, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Oppose on sourcing. Talking of BLP, what makes the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror (five references each) good sources for a BLP? WP:BLPSOURCES instructs to avoid using such sources on BLPs, let alone featured articles. --John (talk) 16:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I have removed them where they were duplicated by others, and removed content only referenced to them alone. Theroadislong (talk) 18:48, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice to let the person who researched and wrote almost all of the article (me, in this case) respond to comments like this before ripping stuff out. First, your method of treating 'duplicates' is faulty, because in those cases part of the sentence is due to one source and part due to another. Second, we can certainly use tabloid newspapers to source what tabloid newspapers do, such as saying that tabloids published speculation on a political career for someone. Third, WP:RSN has concluded that the Daily Mirror can be used as a reliable source - see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 19#Daily Mirror, which I haven't seen negated in later discussions. WP:RSN is a little murkier regarding the Daily Mail - see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive 106#Time to axe the Daily Mail for example, which did not reach any firm conclusion that I could discern. With these and all sources, you have to handle with care - any one of them can make a mistake. But I did that in writing this article and all others. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:07, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Wasted Time R, I'm a bit unsure what your status is in this review - should you add yourself to the nominators and make this a joint nomination? It would help keep things tidy if you're the main contributor the article. Nick-D (talk) 10:57, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I am the main contributor, and I put up the successful GA nomination for it, which fulfilled my own ambitions for the article. Miss Bono has been interested in taking it further, which is fine. She put it up for peer review, and I assisted her in some of the responses to that. I intend to do the same here, particularly on structural issues like the lead or the quality of sourcing. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

My apologies for diving in at Miss Bono's request, feel free to revert. Theroadislong (talk) 11:28, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• I appreciate the efforts Theroadislong has made to remove poor sources on this article. Wasted Time R, if you're a main contributor to this article and you maintain that these sources are fit for a FA on a living person, then we are indeed wasting our time and we can fail this and move on. Is this your position? --John (talk) 16:44, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

My position is this:

• Yes, these two papers suffer from the usual British tabloid faults of lurid cover stories, excessive attention to celebs and footballers, and political agenda-pushing. But not every story they publish is rubbish; some are quite mundane and fair-minded and accurate, such as for example this one about the Hewson-McCartney perfume lawsuit or this one about Hewson getting an honorary degree. So can these be used or not? These kinds of discussions have come up several times in WP:RSN and, as I read them, the general guideline is that 'reliability depends upon context' and the general verdict was probably yes for Daily Mirror and leaning no for Daily Mail. If you know of some other guideline somewhere that contains a blanket edict against these or all British tabloids, for BLPs or for articles in general, please point me to it and I will happily abide by it.
• In any case, per the discussion in WP:NEWSORG and WP:BIASED and elsewhere, we've always been able to use editorializing or opinion sources to document those particular editorials or opinions. So if this article is saying "... tabloid newspapers speculated that the Labour Party wanted to put Hewson up for the Irish presidential election of 2004", we can certainly use as one of the cites those tabloid newspaper stories being referred to. Several of the uses in this article fall into this category.
• Notwithstanding the above, there's at least one use I shouldn't have done: this Daily Mail piece is too much a rant and I shouldn't have used it for a factual cite on the couple's New York property. And there's one or two others that may be of borderline quality and I will reexamine them. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:06, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Update - I've made some more revisions, including removing or restoring with other sources material due to what Theroadislong did earlier. Now, there is one each source from each paper for the 'tabloid reports for president' material, each named in-text as such. And there are the two innocuous Daily Mirror pieces pointed to above, one used to supplement a primary source and one used to supplement an Asian press service report, so neither is stand-alone. All other uses of these two papers are now gone. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:35, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Graham Colm (talk) 18:57, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.