Wikipedia:Featured article review/W. Mark Felt/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by User:Marskell 10:38, 1 September 2008 [1].

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W. Mark Felt

Review commentary

Have Notified:

• PedanticallySpeaking - the editor who originally nominated this article;
• WikiProjectBiography Here;
• WikiProjectFBI Here; and
• WikiProjectLawEnforcement Here

factually accurate Article needs a lot of work to keep up with current historical thinking. Specifically, Ed Gray and John Dean have both argued that Mark Felt could not possibly have been the only person to be Deep Throat, Gray even names another person that must have contributed to the Deep Throat we see in All The President's Men. For a summary of what I'm talking about, you can see the "composite character theory" section on the Deep Throat page. For details, you can look here[2] and here[3].

In this light, we see that much of this article depends on the idea the Felt = Deep Throat. At the very least, the sections on how Felt and Woodward stayed in contact need to be re-worked to recognize at least the possibility that when Woodward writes in All the Preseident's Men about how he contacted Deep Throat, he is not necessarily talking about Felt. And I think a new section should be added to talk about how Felt may not necessarily be the only Deep Throat out there. (Morethan3words (talk) 04:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC))

Alright, so the main issues here are factual accuracy (FA criterion 1c) and comprehensiveness (FA criterion 1b), correct? Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, yes, thanks, that's correct. (Morethan3words (talk) 08:02, 26 July 2008 (UTC))

This might also need overhauled per 2C. I think we should avoid using ibid in case paragraphs get moved. Not all the references appear to have actually been used (though they would be useful for future researchers). I don't know what the citation guidelines actually say and am basing this on my instincts... Does someone knowledgeable about this know what all actually ought to be fixed? --JayHenry (talk) 01:44, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• I was reviewing a different PedanticallySpeaking FAR, and stumbled across this on his talk page. This is an issue I know something about. Gray and Dean's arguments should be noted, but it's important to bear in mind that Dean was Nixon's lawyer and Gray his FBI director and as such they are possibly the earth's least-unbiased people on this issue, after only Nixon. Further, they had published their own theories that were contradicted by Felt and Woodward. Their points should nonetheless be noted, but Gray and Dean do not by themselves reflect the "historical thinking".
• The article does need some updating, but it does not need overhauled. Neither doubts that Felt was an off-the-record source for Woodward and very little of the article depends on whether it was Felt or Donald Santarelli that gave a specific piece of information. (It's already acknowledged by all parties that other anonymous sources were used in the reporting.) Needs updating on a few other points as well. --JayHenry (talk) 00:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note in response. Of course it's worth noting who the writers are on this particular issue, but in that light it's worth noting not just who they were, but who they currently are. In Gray's case, it wasn't actually Pat Gray who discussed the Mark Felt/Deep Throat issue in his autobiography, but his son Ed who had done the research (and subsequently wrote the last chapter on the issue). And as for Dean, he has made becoming an expert on the Watergate era as a way of kind of atoning for the whole affair, and as such has been praised for his fairness, impartiaility and knowledge in his writing on the time period. Although, I think the most important thing to note on this is that, in both cases, the writers use Woodward's own records to draw their conclusions, and in Gray's case referencing Woodward's notes against the FBI investigation files. Furthermore, these conclusions are really more of an attack on Woodward, and not so much on Felt, so any perceived bias against Felt is almost beside the point.

Of course the conclusions by these two writers do not yet constitute a consensus on historical thinking regarding Felt/Deep Throat. But then, it's also worth noting that there is still more to be revealed in this regard. Woodward's publicized notes only cover 3 of the 17 conversations with Deep Throat indicated in All The President's Men, once the remaining notes are publicized, more writers will scrutinize Woodward further, and it is likely more criticisms and/or questions will come up.

What I am suggesting is not that the article be orverhauled, per se, but that the sections that refer to the conversations and information about Deep Throat provided in All The President's Men, simply be amended to refer to Woodward meeting with/talking to Deep Throat, as opposed to Felt. Furthermore some statements, perhaps in a new section, that discuss the composite character theory and its persistence beyond 2005. (Morethan3words (talk) 10:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC))

Yeah, that sounds completely reasonable. I think we're on the same page--I just wanted to make sure of that before diving in :) I'll start chipping away at this in a couple days. Does anyone have any thoughts about what to do with that reference section? --JayHenry (talk) 16:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

One other thought that should go under FA criterion 1b, I'm also concurrently trying to get a related biography to GA status, and one of the criticisms I've gotten recently for that article is that there is not enough on the individual's family. So I took a look at this article to see what types of things should be included, and saw that the "family" section in this article is barely a sentence long. If this is an issue that is preventing an article from reaching GA status, then I certainly think it is an issue that should be addressed here given what we have currently. (Morethan3words (talk) 04:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC))

Image The author is missing from Image:MarkFelt.jpg. How can we be sure that it is a work of the federal government? DrKiernan (talk) 13:51, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are factual accuracy (1c) and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell (talk) 16:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

• Remove per 1b and 1c. The article has not improved since the FAR began. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 16:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
• Remove per 1b x 2 and 1c, same reasoning as above. (Morethan3words (talk) 06:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC))
• Remove - Significant referencing issues throughout. Agree with assessment by Nishkid64 (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 21:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

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