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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 promoted by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 16:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Female genital mutilation

[edit]
Nominator(s): SlimVirgin (talk) 05:24, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've been working on this slowly to bring it to FA standard, and I believe it now meets the criteria. It was promoted to GA in September 2013 by LT910001, and in the same month went through an informal peer review by Brian Boulton. There was also a formal peer review in September 2014 by Brian, Victoriaearle and Johnuniq.

There are several people I want to thank because I couldn't have managed this alone: Brian, Victoria and Johnuniq for the reviews; Johnuniq for finding and fixing my mistakes and typos, and for creating File:FGM prevalence UNICEF 2014.svg and an earlier incarnation; Victoria, Johnuniq, Doc James and Zad68 for fielding questions on talk, and for their helpful advice along the way; Ekem for the complications section; Khruner for his kind help with the hieroglyphs; and Akhilleus, Davidiad, Wareh, Fornadan, Andrew Dalby and Thanatos for information about Ancient Greece.

Also many thanks to Doc James, Zero0000, Sunrise, Shrike, OhanaUnited, HHill, Khruner, CFCF and Jytdog for invaluable access to sources.

A note about the medical content. The article doesn't follow MEDMOS for structure, but does follow MEDRS for medical content. Ekem, a gynaecologist, wrote an early version of the complications section; his edits are here and here. Regarding structure, I would normally place history at the top, while medical articles often place it at the end. Neither seemed right here, so it's in the middle. The article begins by looking at the key issues: procedures, health effects, prevalence, ages and reasons. Then we go into history and the growth of the opposition, and end with objections to the opposition.

Many thanks again to everyone who has helped with this. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:24, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Support: SlimVirgin is to be congratulated on her perseverence in bringing the article to its present standards of lucidity and comprehensiveness. This is a difficult and challenging topic, but reviewers should not be put off from engaging with it. It is a matter of global concern, even in Western countries such as the United Kingdom (it was highlighted in a TV local news report only yesterday). I have, as indicated above, been involved at various review stages in helping to organise and clarify the text, although I have made no contribution to the content. My support is subject to there being no substantive issues arising from sources, images or specialist text. I see this article as potentially an important contribution to Wikipedia, and hope eventually to see it on the main page. Brianboulton (talk) 12:08, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: SV, I know we disagree quite strongly about the utility of the policy in question, but, per non-free content criterion 8, File:Hulda Stumpf.jpg and File:Fran Hosken, 1950 (cropped).jpg really need to be removed from the article. We can understand the topic perfectly well without seeing pictures of the subjects; whether they/their views need to be included in the article (on which I defer to your judgement) is completely different matter to whether we need to see a picture of them. The same policy applies across all articles, no matter how emotive or controversial, and across all non-free content, no matter how old. J Milburn (talk) 20:54, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for the comment, Josh. Fair-use images are allowed in FAs (e.g. pictures of the boxes that video games come in). Almost anything can be understood without pictures, but images enhance understanding. The image of Hulda Stumpf, for example, helps me to imagine the situation of a woman like that in Kenya in the 1930s objecting to an important institution. The images are of important early women activists against FGM, both are poor quality, and the image of Stumpf is almost certainly free. I have the details of two publications it appeared in before 1923, but they're not online, so tracking them down has been a slow business. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:19, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Non-free images are allowed in FAs- no one will dispute that, and if the image of Stumpf is free, then I do not object to its inclusion. However, right now, by your own admission, we are not certain that it is free, and so it must be treated as non-free, which includes meeting all of the NFCC. You say that "[a]lmost anything can be understood without pictures, but images enhance understanding"- this is true, but not really the point; you could say the same about any picture, when in fact we have (deliberately) strict guidelines. We have to ask whether an image significantly enhances understanding, and whether an article would be worse off without it. Concerning the Stumpf image, for instance, you say it "helps [you] to imagine the situation of a woman like that in Kenya in the 1930s objecting to an important institution", but I'm not convinced. Literally all the image shows is what she looked like, how she did her hair and roughly the kind of clothes she wore. Could we understand this article without knowing these things? Yes. Does the seeing these things significantly enhance reader understanding? No. Would the article be significantly worse without the image? No. J Milburn (talk) 09:10, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the two images should be considered separately. Concerning Hulda Stumpf, bearing in mind the death she suffered for her beliefs, I found the image of this evidently ordinary and decent woman, while not perhaps significantly increasing my understanding of the horror of the event, brought it home more vividly, and more movingly, than the words. I see nothing wrong with an emotional response from readers, and I think the case for retaining it is at least reasonable. The case for the Hosken image is rather weaker, and if I were you, Sarah, I probably wouldn't defend the barricades for its retention. Brianboulton (talk) 15:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I'll remove the fair-use one of Hosken. It's very poor quality, and I have a better chance of finding a free one of her. I've been reaching out to people who knew her, so I hope that will bear fruit. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:53, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I have to echo Brianboulton's comments completely. I believe this is an important contribution to Wikipedia and congratulate SlimVirgin for her fortitude in tackling such a difficult and yet important subject. Bringing such a topic to FA standard on Wikipedia is enormously challenging and I commend SlimVirgin for not giving up. I've just read through again (although I've began following edits closely since September during the PR) and don't see anything to comment about. Re the images mentioned in the comment above: in my view two non-free images (with FURs) for an article of such substance doesn't seem to be me out of proportion. Victoria (tk) 22:19, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We don't judge whether non-free images are appropriate by looking at article length. There will be 100k articles in which no non-free files are appropriate, and there are stubs in which several are. We have to ask whether images meet the non-free content criteria, and there is literally nothing in there about article length. J Milburn (talk) 23:18, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - One of the first things I tried to find was a list or map of countries where FGM is illegal. That information seems to be split across the opposition section, but I think concentrating that information in a colour coded map would prove useful. - hahnchen 20:25, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is a list of such countries in the infobox under "Legislation". A map would be easy but the situation is unclear because some countries have a law banning FGM and an enforcement mechanism, whereas others just have some kind of legal statement. The source for the list in the article describes it as "have enacted decrees or legislation related to FGM/C"—in other words, the legal situation in different countries may not be directly comparable, so a map may be an over simplification. Johnuniq (talk) 08:42, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hahnchen, as John says, it would be difficult to sum up the complexity with a map. There are countries (such as Kenya, Sweden, the UK), where FGM is banned even with consent. In others (such as Canada, Tanzania and the United States), it is banned only without consent (i.e. for those under the age of consent), which means that adult women can be reinfibulated after childbirth. There are countries with bans but little or no enforcement, or bans that are very restricted (e.g. Mauritania, where doctors may not perform it and it is banned from government health facilities). SlimVirgin (talk) 16:26, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Per Brianboulton and Victoriaearle, the article's prose is excellent, and its scope of coverage is outstanding. I hope J Milburn's concern about non-free images doesn't bog down an otherwise wonderful nom, and I'm not sure why screen-shots of computer games are any more necessary than the images used here. Nice job, SlimVirgin. You should be proud of the fine work you've done with an immensely important topic. Rationalobserver (talk) 23:07, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support let me just say "wow". It took three hours to read this, a rewarding but uncomfortable experience. I would like to commend SlimVirgin on her achievement on a number of levels; the balance, level of research, quality of sources, clarity of writing, and for gathering such a skilled and often informed coalition of openion on talk and during the PR. Brian has it right when he suggests the article is "potentially an important contribution to Wikipedia". Ceoil (talk) 06:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I've followed this article for some years and have seen SlimVirgin elevate it from quagmire to its current excellent status. The article is very well written, and is as engaging as a neutral article on this topic could be. I've read a few of the references and it appears there is nothing important missing. The text is well researched and well sourced. The balance of the article (its neutrality) is very good with no preaching. There is a lot of content, but none which should be elsewhere. I just re-read the article and inevitably noticed some minor issues:

  • "Other terms often used include female genital cutting (FGC) and female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), preferred by those working with practitioners." I think some words are needed after the comma, although I can see the contrary view that the current text follows a natural style. Consider simpler (artificial) text: "Other terms often used include cutting and mutilation, preferred by those working with practitioners." Perhaps insert "and are", or change to "; these are preferred..."?
  • "The circumciser is usually an older woman; in communities where the male barber has assumed the role of health worker, he will perform FGM too." Would some alternative to the text after the comma be desirable? Perhaps: "FGM will also be performed by him" or "he will also perform FGM"?
  • "The surveys ask several questions about this, including:" The text assumes the reader will insert the heading. I think spelling it out would be better: "The surveys ask several questions about the type of FGM, including:".
  • "In 2011 the DHS and MICS surveys began asking women about the FGM status of all their living daughters." Is all correct? I haven't seen the source used, but I recently looked at some of the surveys and I thought they asked about the most recently cut living daughter.
  • Referring to a trial in 2014: "a verdict was expected at the end of October". I can't find any news on this, but am noting the fact that the text will need to be updated when the outcome is known.
  • The article uses the style that a four-digit number should have a comma (as in "3,711 of the subjects", which I noticed because there are a lot of commas in the sentence). Perhaps add a comma to "3011 personnel".

I'm not looking for a response to these very minor issues—they are just for consideration. Overall, fantastic work on a very important topic. Johnuniq (talk) 04:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Many thanks for the support, John, and for reading it again. I know how long that takes! I'll add some or all of your points when I next go through it. Re: the October verdict, I'm checking regularly. I may just remove that part of the sentence. Re: living daughters, yes, it's all. Yoder says:
"To monitor more recent changes in FGM/C prevalence, scholars and program experts have been seeking information about the prevalence among girls younger than age 15. This desire to monitor change more quickly led to modifications in the DHS and MICS module in late 2010. Surveys now ask about the FGM/C status of all living daughters. These data will allow specialists to consider the evidence for more recent changes in prevalence.

"Data reported regarding the FGM/C prevalence of girls aged 10–14 cannot be considered in the same way as that for girls/women aged 15–49 for two reasons. First, data concerning FGM/C prevalence for girls aged 10–14 is not yet available for any country except Egypt. Such data will soon become available for both the DHS and MICS surveys, because both began using an FGM/C module in 2011 that asks each respondent about the FGM/C status of all living daughters. Second, some girls will be cut at the age of 11 or 12 or even 13, so even if a figure for prevalence were available for girls aged 10–14, the figures would not convey the ultimate rates to be found among the cohort."

SlimVirgin (talk) 14:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Crisco, thanks for the review.
  • Re: external graphs. The article links to these two graphs [2][3] as external images. Perhaps someone would be willing to recreate them, but it would be a lot of work, would crowd the section, and readers would have to click on them anyway to see the data, so it seemed better to do it this way.
  • Fair point, but I do believe that we can link to them on Commons as well (meaning they wouldn't crowd the section) and we could have freely reusable versions for our readers (a plus). I do wish UNICEF would adapt a PD model for things like this, but ... Anyways, it's more of a "wish list" thing, so don't worry about it. The way we're doing it now is fine. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:16, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  • Pls check duplicate links and see which of them you really need, if any.
  • I think Brian has signed off on sources based on his comment at the top, pls correct me if I'm wrong.
  • It looks to me that the only thing we're waiting on to be confirmed as resolved relate to the image review -- Crisco pls ping when you're happy with that. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Why so many citations in the lead?
  • Be consistent in when you include locations, and in whether US locations include states
  • Source for Hosken report being "influential"?
  • FN39, first source should be simply WHO 2014
  • FN40: need full publication details for the last cite
  • FN47: we don't have the full cite for Ismail until later. Same for Shell-Duncan in FN58, Okeke in FN79 - check for others
  • FN54: source gives Cooke's initials as just RJ
  • Fn64: author formatting in second cite doesn't match others. Same with FN 134 second cite, check for others
  • FN112: is this two cites or one?
  • Compare FN60 and the last cite of FN121
  • FN124: author?
  • FN138: British Museum is a proper name
  • Fn206, second cite: why include publication title here? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:41, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the review. Fixes:
  • Cites in lead: they contribute to stability.
  • Locations: states removed
  • Footnote 19: moved source higher for Hosken report being influential
  • Footnote 39: done
  • Footnote 40: done
  • Footnotes 47, 58, 79: done
  • Footnote 54: full names added
  • Footnotes 64, 134: done
  • Footnote 112: inadvertent repetition removed
  • Footnotes 60, 121: magazine in italics
  • Footnote 124: author added
  • Footnote 138: typo fixed
  • Footnote 206: Names of news organizations are in brackets after the first reference.
Thanks again for the review. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:23, 13 November 2014 (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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