Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact/archive3

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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 User:GrahamColm 14:07, 2 February 2013‎ [1].

Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact[edit]

Nominator(s): Wer900 • talk 22:27, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because the last FAC revealed no content problems, no substantial changes have been made since, and while there were title issues discussed in the previous FAC, the current title appears to be the shortest one that adequately gets the point across. All other FA criteria are met by this article, as evidenced by the previous two FACs. Wer900 • talk 22:27, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • As a bit of a drive-by comment, should this article be renamed something like Potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact given that its necessarily speculative? (as stated in the hat note at the very start of the article) Nick-D (talk) 06:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, exactly. People made similar comments last time it appeared at FAC. Tony (talk) 09:38, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I moved the page to that title by popular demand. Wer900 • talk 17:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Will (hopefully) review this in more detail when I get time; at the moment it looks like the lead is a little short and doesn't adequately summarise the article. Simon Burchell (talk) 12:52, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead: "The study of the cultural impact" would be better as "the study of the potential cultural impact" or something similar. Simon Burchell (talk) 16:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are lots of densely-packed identical cites, for example in the Extraterrestrial artifacts section, every sentence in the penultimate paragraph uses ref no 66, whereas just a single cite at the end of the paragraph would remove the clutter. Simon Burchell (talk) 16:34, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This system exists as a response to concerns raised in the good article candidate review for this article. Statements on the subject of this article are by their nature easily challenged, so it was suggested that each statement have a citation in order to avoid this. Otherwise, many statements in this article would be interpreted as unsupported original research. I think that for that reason the system of citations after almost every sentence should stay. Wer900 • talk 23:25, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - having a look-over now and will jot notes as I go below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:15, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A tricky subject - it would be easy to fall into the trap of writing it like an essay given the structure of the topic, but so far the prose has managed to avoid that.
I'd link altruism.
some extraterrestrial civilizations are malevolent. - would "inimical" be a better adjective here?
We cannot state if these extraterrestrial civilizations have something against humanity, only what would happen if they were good or bad (benevolent or malevolent) in general. Therefore, I think that "malevolent" is a better term. Wer900 • talk 23:24, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"hostile" is another possible word, but I take your point. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:17, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think hostile would be better, in terms of NPOV. "Malevolent" (in my mind) carries an intrensic judgement that the civilization is "evil", altogether different from hostile; since we can't judge their reasons for acting as they do, just their current (hostile or friendly) attitude, hostile is probably a less loaded term. Simon Burchell (talk) 15:18, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: hostility implies simple aggression, such as one would find from an enemy in warfare, who may not also be malevolent. Hostility often operates with a compatible set of ethics or morality. In other words, two hostile enemies may have a compatible set of ethics. In a situation where one party is malevolent, their ethics or morality will be incompatible. A good example of this scenario can be found in Torchwood: Children of Earth. In this science fiction series, Torchwood attempts to protect the planet from the malevolent extraterrestrial entities known simply as the 486. It was at first thought that the species was simply hostile to Earth, and needed Earth children for some unknown reason. But once it was discovered that the 486 use human children as recreational drugs, the species became known as malevolent. Further, the government, in an attempt to save some of the children from this plight, became hostile to Torchwood who wanted to reveal their past dealings with the alien entitles (a malevolent relationship of convenience between the government and the aliens). Finally, Torchwood's leader had to make the hard decision to sacrifice the life of one child in order to destroy the aliens and save all of the children of Earth. To the mother of the child who died, this act was malevolent, but since it saved the planet, the true nature of this act is somewhat murky from an ethical point of view. Viriditas (talk) 02:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Add "deadurl=no" field to the cite web template where needed. Plant's Strider (talk) 18:23, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's closing comments - After 30 days, there is no consensus to promote this candidate, and I still see problems such as "direct face-to-face communication", which I know is a metaphor - but an unfortunate one, and there is an image of the structure of DNA, which is used to illustrate "extraterrestrial biochemistry". I think the highly speculative basis of the article is a core problem and this is (rightly) troubling reviewers. Graham Colm (talk) 19:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Your last sentence makes it appear as if this article could never be featured, due to its speculative nature. Although closer scrutiny is warranted, this has not been provided by the editing community to nearly the same level as they would review other articles.
  • 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) 19:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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