RationalWiki:Articles for demotion/Cold War

Cold War | Result: Demoted to silver

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Demote to silver

 * 1) Somewhat relevant, detailed but crisp, well referenced and illustrated. 04:28, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) While it could use a bit more cleanup, the fact that it's just a bit over 20 and that I have plans to improve it tomorrow 7 means I think it is ok for silverAndrew5 (talk) 02:44, 16 December 2021 (UTC) (updated 02:46, 17 December 2021 (UTC))
 * 3) Regarding missionality, I think it works well as a summary/stepping stone for other articles, and what it may lack in depth it makes up for breadth. You've quite a smorgasbord of abuses committed by authoritarian regimes, big and small, plus a dash of conspiracy theory and pinch of woo. Also, it's a pretty good article in general, well-written and backed up by plenty of good references (especially after we've replaced about 75% of the Wikipedia citations with more direct sources). I have a couple of ideas for making it more missional (like discussing the or working in a mention of Project Stargate and other remote viewing silliness), but as it stands right now, I'd be comfortable with giving it silver. DietMondrian (talk) 05:50, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 4) This whole wiki can eat my fucking ass. 15:24, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Decline. Bongolian (talk) 17:48, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 18:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, you’re still putting effort into this wiki, so eventually you’ll still get shit on. Just like me. 20:18, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Flipping vote based on complete removal of wikipedia references. -- Techpriest (talk) 22:59, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) Per wikipedia's own " for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia. Because, as a user-generated source, it can be edited by anyone at any time, any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong." using wikipedia itself as a reference is just a facepalming bad idea. Even what Wikipedia considers "reliable" - quality of source and accuracy of source has a nuance its editors haven't fully grasped.  Wikipedia is good for a "if you want to know more about this" link but not as a reference--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:57, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Wait, is this an opposite or support for demotion? Also, there are only 2 wikipedia references left, lower then even on some other silvers. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 18:19, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well with the references reduced does it still qualify as Gold (rather than the proposed Silver)?--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:34, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe. There are still ~20 3rd party references, 1 citation needed tag, and 2 better sources needed tag, but overall it has >300 references. That’s one of the things we might need wider community input on. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 18:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Make that ~20 3rd party/tertiary references. The citation needed and better sources needed tags are gone now (and it still has >300 references of course). DietMondrian (talk) 23:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Status quo
Overrelies on Wikipedia references. -- Techpriest (talk) 14:17, 17 November 2021 (UTC) This has been fixed since. -- Techpriest (talk) 22:59, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Agree. For demotion, citations of Wikipedia should be minimal and/or for tangential things. Bongolian (talk) 02:28, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) I particularly dislike this wiki's occasional practice of substituting Wikipedia links for citations and that should be phased out. 03:49, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Even some of our silver level articles have these links. For instance, climate change, reference 84. Are we going to promote it to bronze over this? Of course not, that would be silly. And me and DietMoridian will continue to improve it. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 11:32, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it might be considered on a case-by-case basis, but I do think that excessive referencing of other encyclopedias (WP, Britannica, etc.) should be discouraged. I think WP may have a policy on this (so-called tertiary references). Bongolian (talk) 21:18, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * WP does allow them -, just not Wikipedia itself. Andrew5 (talk) 21:22, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There is still one "citation needed" and two "better source needed", the latter of which I put in for citations to History.com. History.com might be OK in these instances, but I still think it should be removed due to its general unreliability as a source. Bongolian (talk) 05:28, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * At this point in voting, my support isn't needed, but I think it's better to get these 3 things fixed before silvering. Bongolian (talk) 05:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, the page is currently fully protected, but let's see if wants to fix it. Also, I'd argue that the vote is 4-2, not 5-2 to post, as I would tend to see Duce's vote disregarded as it was clearly casted in bad faith. Now, I'm not sure if 4-2 is enough to post, it is a supermajority, so we'll see. Andrew5 (talk) 13:36, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Not that it matters, but it's a legitimate vote. Bongolian (talk) 19:26, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Both of those History.com references could probably be removed. The one in the section on the Soviet-Afghanistan War basically repeats the section's main argument that the detente ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which I think is reasonable to conclude given what's described of the American reaction to the war. The text could stand on its own without it. Similar deal with the one about the Loss of China. As for the "citation needed", I have yet to even start looking for a source to fix it. DietMondrian (talk) 05:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, good.
 * Went through a different plan: still removed the History.com reference in the section about the Soviet-Afghanistan war, but I managed to find a couple sources to fix the "citation needed" and replace the History.com reference in the part about the Loss of China. So those three things are fixed now. DietMondrian (talk) 23:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Excessive reliance on Wikipedia sources

 * I think there's an excessive reliance on Wikipedia for sources. Bongolian (talk) 07:08, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Ctrl+Fing "See the Wikipedia article on" returns 71 hits, exactly a fourth of the total references. That isn't good. Plutocow (talk) 05:50, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It appears to have been reduced to 62 out of 289, which is just more then a fifth actually. It's improving. Andrew5 (talk) 01:42, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Besides the problems with the references, I believe this article should also include information about the potential upcoming cold war between the U.S. and China. Plutocow (talk) 05:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Not a bad point, considering we just had Ted Cruz literally calling for a Cold War. Maybe he thinks the Chinese Dragon is cold-blooded?  22:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The reliance on Wikipedia references might mean we can't find them. I suppose most sentences like this should just be removed. That should still leave >200 references, though. -Andrew5 (talk) 14:21, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd also like it better if we just ditched the "see wikipedia article" all together. It always came off as bloating the number of sources. 01:45, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd say to cap it off at 15-20. Andrew5 (talk) 01:49, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Now done to 51 out of 310...progress (just under 1/6). Andrew5 (talk) 14:29, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It's now down to 32 out of 308 (references dropped a little), making it be just over 10% of all references. Also, some Wikipedia references actually have a big punch behind them, and removing them isn't so simple, so we're honestly at a reasonable level. However, before I support this nomination, this article does still need a little cleanup besides the references, including adding new references (as there are some unsourced statements), and general content cleanup. But it's getting close, and is almost ready for a silver. Andrew5 (talk) 22:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Now down to 23 out of 312, appear to mainly be in the breakup section. Andrew5 (talk) 22:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Good. I will lean towards demotion and have a read through. Bongolian (talk) 03:01, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Look, I get it okay? Nothing was good enough and it was all a waste.Just don’t bother  10:52, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I really encourage everyone to re-look this article. It is down to six Wikipedia references, nowhere near an excessive reliance and similar to other silvers. Considering that was the primary reason for opposing, I think it is suitable for posting. Andrew5 (talk) 02:09, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Other tertiary sources

 * I'm plowing through it. There are still quite a few tertiary references (Encyclopaedia Britannica and Thoughtco.), which are really not much different than WP citations. There is also at least one reference written by an undergrad: this should be fixed (marked with "[better source needed]"). Bongolian (talk) 19:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Goody goody. Hunkering down for improvement is a big plus here. You can do it! 21:20, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I would say, with 7 from Britannica and 6 from ThoughtCo, it's relatively good now. Andrew5 (talk) 20:42, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Potentially too many images
The images were fine without removal. We shouldn't be making a quantified assessment of images like Andrew5 seems desirous of doing. The main issue is not to make them a distraction and keep the formatting reasonable. One image per section is reasonable when there's sufficient text format-wise. Galleries are fine as a supplement. Removing the 3 images for individual causes is probably OK. There are two values to having images on pages: 1) It makes breaks up long stretches of text and makes it a more pleasant read. 2) It attracts additional readers due to, for example, Google's image search feature. Bongolian (talk) 18:12, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * BTW I think the image count is a bit excessive. Need to trim down the images so it looks more presentable. 21:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, I removed 9 images from the article, but a lot of them should be kept given the topic. Andrew5 (talk) 00:35, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Discuss this shit on a talkpage before doing it. IMO the image count isn't excessive. Images should be proportional to their subject. -- Techpriest (talk) 14:26, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I would argue there is. Forty images is a lot, and proportional to reaable prose size (excluding notes and refs), it is 98,562 bytes of prose. That means every 2464.05 characters, there is an image, on average. Some sections have duplicate and general unnecessary images. Compare this to Global warming, as an example. It has 20 images (albeit an unhealthy amount of YouTube videos, IMO), to 83,133 bytes of prose. That's one image to ever 4156.65 words, which is less excessive. (This also excludes the tumbleweed, factor that in makes it ~3959 words to an image). This ratio needs to be cut down. Also, we should not be ignoring suggestions left on a DEMOTE entry, let alone one that is close to failing. It's 3-3 and was open for 2 months with a lot of discussion, making it a prime case for a "no consensus" close, which would mean that if it ever were to be renominated, a sysop would need to move this demotion entry, and create a new one, or it would have to be discussed on the talk page. There are a little too many images, and we should cut down on it, or we should significantly expand each section with an unproportional image instead. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 15:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, fuck off, buddy. This shit is part of why I fucking stopped contributing. Fucking too many images, eat my ass. 15:16, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That level of rudeness is unnecessary. Also, the article wasn't even a bronze at the level you reverted it to. I understand it's a massive effort to get this to silver, that it was nominated prematurely and that you don't want to help out but that doesn't give you the right to destroy the article. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 15:22, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You made very clear it was better without all the unprofessional images I foolishly added. Maybe I can cut the Churchill image out of the version I reverted it to? 15:24, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * These images are the ones I would argue are the most problematic:
 * Cold_War has an image that is a TV screenshot. If you want an image, I would recommend this image instead as it does a better job depicting it. I tried to upload it, but it wouldn't let me.
 * We don't need 4 images of the falling of the Iron Curtain. 3 is enough.
 * Cold_War has a low quality image.
 * Remember, we want the reader to read the article, not just be hooked on the images. The article needs to be long and informative, and it needs to have a lot of images, but the images shouldn't be what you spend more time looking at like what happens when I read it. Also, thank you for expanding the article into a bronze, Duce. I don't think anyone credited that to you yet. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 15:40, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't have any problem with the images in this article, and I don't find them distracting from the article's text. Quite the opposite, actually. Some minor tweazing and tweaking could be done but I don't think mass deletion is appropriate or warranted. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 17:37, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem is that RationalWiki probably has too many images per text in general. A few days ago, was the featured article, which has only 5 images and is smaller, but not 1/8 of the size. If you look at Wikipedia as a whole, they are actually extremely careful at not bloating it with articles. Uncyclopedia - even fewer. So, I'm not saying this is not typical, I'm simply saying we probably need to revisit our image guidelines as a whole at a later time. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 17:56, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I just think there's too many images that clutter up the page (and how the page displays on various resolutions is worth consideration), and you don't have to outright remove them but relocate to a gallery. I'm sorry if hostility was provoked here but yeesh Duce calm down too, stop taking this so personally. 19:51, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You’ve always thought I sucked, huh? I put images in everything I do. It’s always cluttered and unprofessional. Well I can just fuck off, huh? It all sucks huh? 19:58, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Duce always takes it personally when he gets shit on. He’s so childish. 19:59, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Knock it off Duce. 20:07, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Fuck Duce for adding images and having the temerity to defend himself. Let’s add four navbars to each article instead of cluttering it with images. Let’s drag Ace to the mods just for asking a question on someone’s talk page. 20:12, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Duce, I don’t think anyone here likes your very agreesive tone. As far as the images are concerned, I actually feel in a way images are bad if they break up long things of text too frequently. It makes it so you’re not reading enough. I’m all for images but not ones placed in every single section. That would be like if Wikipedia showed a picture showing Ida’s destruction in Louisiana, alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 21:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Reflist adjusting

 * I know it would be non-encyclopediac format, but maybe we can add an addition column to the reflist or further shrink the size due to the shear number of references. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 01:51, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It was done, changed to 3 columns and 75% size. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 15:13, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Now back at 80% size. Andrew5 🎄 (talk) 17:37, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Is it ready to be demoted?
It does appear there is narrow consensus to demote, and it would probably be appropriate to do so, given how the article was cleaned up significantly and to prevent a major dispute, as I do feel it is ready and has the required consensus. Andrew5 (talk) 22:14, 27 December 2021 (UTC)