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Hannah Arendt

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: First contentious close as GAR Coord: The consensus seems to be towards Keep. Length discussions are not really under the purview of GA Criteria, except per 3b: "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)". Given that the topic at hand is the life of an individual, the necessity of detail is much vaguer and possibly more subjective than it might be for many other topics. While I do agree that the length should be considered excessive from a MOS standpoint, I don't really see any violation of 3b taking place, as most events directly relate to the subject. Sections should, IMO, be spun off into their own articles, with many possibilities such as an article on her early life, works/literature, and a subpage about her relationship to the Eichmann trial, among others. After that, these subjects can be linked, and discussed in less detail here, to cut down on the size. As many experienced editors are involved, I would suggest taking to the talk page to coordinate this process. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:31, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Way WP:TOOLONG, needs to be split into multiple articles - car chasm (talk) 02:55, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: As can be seen in the Talk page comments, there are divided opinions on this, so would recommend leaving alone. Besides which, it is easy to say something is too long and should be split up, but a biography does not lend itself easily to such treatment, eg it does not make much sense to have a page on Arendt's childhhod and another on her final illness. Many sections are already summaries of other articles- particularly her writings and the Eichmann controversy. It would be interesting to see the views of the reviewer (J Milburn) although they are not very active at present. CodexJustin was also involved (notified). If anything, the review process actually asked for expansion. Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 04:21, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We do split biography articles all the time, some philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle have almost 100 subpages.
While there were divided opinions on the talk page, the editors who were in favor of keeping the article unsplit did not make any arguments based on policy. I believe the cleanup banner I added should not be removed until the issue is addressed. Do you feel that the article should remain listed with a cleanup banner? - car chasm (talk) 04:51, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And to make it clear, I believe this article was promoted in error, as it very clearly does not meet WP:GAN. The only thing that needs to be settled here is whether or not improvements can be made, not whether or not the article passes the criteria, which it very obviously does not do in its current state. - car chasm (talk) 06:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Carchasm: I believe you misunderstand WP:Article size. In your edit summary, you state that the article is 3x too long. You seem to be confusing readable prose (93k) with total article length (275k). The article is at the very end of the range of WP:TOOBIG. Article size is not mentioned in the GA criteria, but it is relevant for two criteria:
The article underwent a thorough GA review in 2019, and I see no faults there. Article size was mentioned as a concern, and some work was done to address this. I think a bit more can and should be done.
  1. The Hannah_Arendt#List_of_selected_publications section is so large that it does not help the reader. It seems to be text that should be under 'further reading', and comply with the selection criteria of WP:further reading.
  2. I see a lot of harvnb errors in the bibliography. Where all of these works actually used? The inline citations are very clean, so I have doubts (maybe not relevant for GA?)
  3. The The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump seems to get undue attention.. Was this such a seminal book that it requires
—Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:30, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment A long article, but one with few existing subpages and no argument has been put forth as to which prose part might be particularly undue. (Perhaps some areas might be worth their own article, but that might not necessarily mean the current text here is undue.) I would agree the long publication list could be its own listicle though, keeping the notable ones mentioned in prose as the current article already does. Some prose might need tightening ("Arendt had close friendships"), and a bit of oversubsectioning, but I wouldn't delist just on that basis. CMD (talk) 02:22, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Others have pointed out that GA2a is not met. This is a more clearcut issue, and needs to be addressed. There are also quite a few citations to primary sources, which need a closer look. Some may not be being used as references, for example the source after "She also draws on Arendt's essay "Lying in Politics" from Crises in the Republic" appears to be there to provide a link to the Crises in the Republic source. CMD (talk) 17:35, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep WP:TOOLONG isn't explicitly in the realm of GAR (I've personally never seen it used as justification), though I can see it as a MOS issue. Apart from some sourcing concerns, wordpress, 'Hannah Arendt Center' likely being primary sourcing, and Youtube, I am not seeing anything that would immediately howl 'delist'. I haven't taken the time to go source by source so please consider that. Also, the references for this page are a beast, which is likely a source of much of the bloat. Frankly a separate article 'Works of Hannah Arendt' is in order. Otherwise the article is very well written and it'll be a hard sell to delist simply on length grounds. 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 03:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment - My logic on not meeting the good article criteria was WP:TOOLONG -> should have a cleanup banner -> doesn't meet GA criterion 3. I think some of the confusion might be that article size is often judged solely on the size of the article body, but the references and bibliography are a big part of the issue here, it's just so long that it's hard to scroll even on desktop. I agree though that I think a bibliography/works article and cleanup of the references would probably fix most or perhaps all of the specific problem, though. - car chasm (talk) 23:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Articles can always be "improved", whether GA or FA, although some, no doubt well intentioned, attempts post promotion are often unhelpful. There were no inline citations originally. However, the issue at question is an attempt to delist on the basis of length, and that needs to be the focus. WP:TOOLONG is being overinterpreted here, it actually urges caution. I understand that the nominator has very strong feelings that it should never have been promoted in the first place, but there is no concensus on that. No convincing evidence has been advanced to delist on the basis of length. Arendt's influence has been profound, and every few months another article appears stressing her relevance to the current world. If anything, I kept the parts relating to her life after coming to the US relatively short, compared to the definitive biography, because it was relatively uneventful, other than the Eichmann affair.
It is true that it is a common practice, where a list of publications is long, that they are often listed separately, however here they form part of the biblography, and moving them would throw the citations into chaos. However I could look at trimming it to the works cited and copy the full list to a daughter page (I have actually started a subpage). In the meantime I have capped the TOC, which saves some space.
Two examples of "split" philosopher biographies, Plato and Aristotle (a GA) were cited, however they are distinguishable because the subpages appropriately lead to discussions of Platonism and Aristotelism, which is not the case here. Interesting and useful discussion. Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 04:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Michael Goodyear: could you change your 'keep' !vote to 'comment'. It now seems like you're !voting twice.
There is precedent having separate bibliographies about people such as List of works about Søren Kierkegaard and Bibliography of works on Davy Crockett. I agree with AirshipJungleman that is necessary to meet criterion 2a. It hides which sources are actually used. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:33, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to oblige, if it causes confusion Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 22:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: As suggested a bibliography daughter page and referring hat has been added and all works not specifically cited have been removed - - but most of them are cited Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 23:28, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article cites over 50 primary self-pub sources? CMD (talk) 01:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@CMD with a bibliography in the middle of the article, no less. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:21, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realise that list was actually serving as sources, I assumed it was just using reference formatting. (I don't think it should be there either way, but if they are being used as sources that is more of a problem.) This prompted me to look at the Bibliography section at the bottom of the article, and a significant proportion of entries there don't appear to be sources that are cited in the article. That does need cleanup; items used as references need to be clearly distinguished from a general bibliography. CMD (talk) 17:33, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Michael Goodyear: there is a user-script that can help you 1) figure out which sources are actually used, which should be removed/moved to further reading 2) where your culling has caused citation errors: User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.js. The bibliography is still overly long, and contains web sources that are bibliographies themselves. The Kohn one is also used as a source, as should therefore be in the sources section. It takes very long to edit the article due to a large set of unused sources (I noticed for instance an unused MA thesis.. ) —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:29, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I did use that script, and yes, not surprisingly the article cites her work extensively - there are 426 citations. The issue of Bibliographies and sources is a long standing one. I happen to belong to the school of thought that believes a bibliography is a list of sources used in compiling the article, rather than only those that are directly cited, and therefore think it should stand as it is. I am not aware of any citation errors caused by culling - I checked carefully for them at the time and again just now. Can we just focus on the original complaint - should this article be delisted purely on the grounds of length? Otherwise we risk debating the nuances for ever. Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 03:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Of course the original issue was a statement that the page should be split, not simply a separate bibliography, which I have used many times. But if an example is required it would be difficult to do better than List of works by W. Somerset Maugham, which is a FL. Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 01:18, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fairly certain that that's not how this process works, but I'd be happy to clarify that my argument for delisting it (or improving it...) is on the basis of the *overall* length of the article, which includes the bibliography. I originally nominated it because of how much trouble I was having navigating it, and was shocked to see it was considered "Good" when it appears in dire need of cleanup and reorganization to be readable.
I'm not sure the more general attitude here holds water though either, that we should err on the side of "grandfathering" articles that have other underlying issues with them. If other people find additional reasons that the article should be delisted, there's no reason to ban discussion of those. I think addressing those concerns would likely address the issue of overall length as well, so in this case they are particularly beneficial. - car chasm (talk) 05:47, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear - I am by no means suggesting any discussions be 'banned', as that would be counterproductive. I am merely saying that we need to distinguish between (a) the remit to delist on the basis of length, and (b) any other 'improvements' people might like to make, and indeed are free to do so, which is what Talk pages are about. Otherwise we are all going to get lost in the weeds. Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 18:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Michael: I emphatise with your frustration. Issues like this should be brought to talk before a GAR is started, as it can be frustrating to work on them with a time limit in mind (as long as improvements are made, articles are not delisted). It is normal that new points are brought up during a GAR that go beyond the initial assessment. I'm conservative in bringing them up, even though I do feel strongly about making technical articles understandable (I think this article is too difficult in places), as I know GARs are not always pleasant.
I think a second split of this article would be beneficial: a bibliography about her. I agree that the article's sources can include a few general sources that are used to inform the structure or tone of an article, but not necessarily cited inline. It's a common practice on for instance nlwiki, and I've seen it here on enwiki as well. These sources are always separated, and usually number between 3 and 5. I find it hard to justify adding half of the bibliography that way. There are 101 harvnb warnings, which is too much. It makes verification (2a) more difficult, but more importantly, it's excludes people with a poor internet connection from enjoying your work, given how difficult it is to load the article.
One more specific issues (in addition to my comment about The Death of Truth)
  • Arendt argued that some Jewish leaders associated with the Jewish Councils (Judenräte), notably M. C. Rumkowski, acted during the Holocaust, in cooperating with Eichmann "almost without exception" in the destruction of their own people. I needed 5 rereads to understand this. Can you perhaps rewrite into two sentences? I'm struggling myself a bit.
Femke (alt) (talk) 08:15, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rephrased, as requested Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 18:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of prose quality, I think the article would benefit from a trip to WP:GOCE. Would you be okay if I nominate it? Not really needed for GA, but would improve article. Wanted to check first as copy edits need a pair of expert eyes to double check if the meaning hasn't been changed. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, by count it appears that literally hundreds of 'improvements' have been added since this article was promoted four years ago, and I suspect not always constructively. Since there are Arendt haters around, I notice some attempts at vandalisation Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 18:25, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Since WP:GOCE is horribly backlogged, and in view of your comments about meaning, why don't I go over it with a fine toothcomb, in its current form - otherwise we will be in GAR for ever Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 18:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I meant for the copyediting to speed up the GAR: as in, no need to look at prose now when we ask copyeditors to make the prose easier to understand in a couple months. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:36, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Got it Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 19:24, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The GA criteria do note in 3b "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail" for any article, so one of this size you can make the argument that some stuff should be trimmed. I haven't read through the article (and due to the size do not intend to) but just noting this since others are claiming size isn't in the GA criteria. Wizardman 04:03, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, what is unnecessary is somewhat subjective. I'm assuming that people who are interested in reading past the lead are sufficiently motivated to want to read the whole story - and this is by no means the whole story. Also the guidance on length and subpages advises against discarding material, as opposed to delegating it. Personally, I don't see a lot of "unnecessary"detail. In the meantime I am continuing copyedit, which may make it slightly shorter Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 19:30, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be highly subjective to me as well. It would say it is quite uncommon for somebody with Wizardman's experience to make a comment like that. Having read the article I don't see a lot of extraneous or unnecessary detail. It does seem quite odd to make a statement like without reading it. scope_creepTalk 09:55, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, having some knowledge of the subject, I have been going through this article word by word focusing on that criterion. Arendt was a very complex individual with an extraordinary life and an influential thinker. A true understanding of her and her work requires a knowledge of the many influences on her, which I have tried to outline. Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 22:41, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It might also be worth pointing out that, while we have been debating the length here, over the last few weeks, others have actually been adding material. Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 23:00, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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