Robert Tilton was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | |||||||||||||
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Current status: Former good article nominee |
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The contents of the Lexington Academy page were merged into Robert Tilton on 11 October 2016. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. |
Please do not blank out the Robert Tilton article. We are aware that some people may fundamentally disagree with its content, but blanking the article is not productive. If you have issues, please discuss them here... Scarletsmith 20:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
In reviewing this article according to the
Good Article Criteria, I unfortunately need to decline this article's GA nomination for reasons that I will detail below. By nature of being a
WP:BLP this article is elevated to a higher standard of verifiability and accountability with particular awareness of
WP:NPOV presentation. In those regards, this article has areas where improvement in needed.
1. It is well written. - Weak Pass
2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. - Needs Improvement
3. It is broad in its coverage. - Weak Pass
4. It follows the neutral point of view policy - Needs Improvement
5. It is stable - Pass
6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic. - Pass
I feel that all these concerns are addressable and I encourage the editors of this article to resubmit the article for GA review after they have been addressed. Tilton's influence in the Word Faith movement and polarizing reflection on the Christian faith is certainly merit for encyclopedic inclusion and this article is quite capable of achieving GA. In fact, I do need to take a moment and commend the article's editors for bringing the article up to this point. Given the controversial nature of the subject, this article could have been much more riddled with POV issues that would be considerably more difficult to address. It is the hard work and dedication of this article's editors that have been of immense benefit to this article and its current state. Again, I wholeheartedly encourage resubmission and I will be available if anyone has any questions.
Agne 22:15, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
The primary concerns are addressed in the GA review. I'm moving here in their entirety to make it easier to modify and include a more proper and
reliable source if the item is going to be included back into the article.
Agne 22:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Excellent work so far in improving the article. Your edits do quite a bit to alleviate the BLP concerns and improve the overall quality and NPOV tone. There is still the sticking points of the External Links section. I would recommend to trim it down to something like this
External Links
* Success N Life – official site, complete with online webcasts of Tilton's most recent television sermons * Robert-Tilton.com * Robert Tilton at Rotten.com * Sacred Blue – webcomic satirizing Robert Tilton and other television evangelists * All 5 farting preacher videos, available at one web site.
Articles
* Rowe, Sean. "The Resurrection of Robert Tilton." Miami New Times January 1, 1998. * Branstetter, Ziva. "Robert Tilton: From downfall to windfall: Living on a prayer." Tulsa World May 4, 2003. * Bender, Stephen. "Oh God, you devil." Salon.com November 21, 2000.
I think this links would pass inclusion per WP:EL and minimize the POV-ish tilt as well as repeat of content. Agne 17:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Do we need so many links in there? That's making it almost like an attack page. JoshuaZ 04:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
There are major problems with this article.
1. Biography policy
There is the potential that this article is in violation of WP:BLP and in particular:
“Biographies of living people should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. While a strategy of eventualism may apply to other subject areas, badly written biographies of living persons should be stubbed or deleted.”
Unfortunately, this article is more of a listing of his scandals rather than a biography. But even more than just listing the scandals, they are written neither responsibly nor conservatively. Most of the scandals were broadcast on Primetime Live and not surprisingly, they are sensational. However, giving the full details and quotes is not encycylopaedic and would certainly not satisfy Wiki policy above. While scandals and accusations should be mentioned, they must be written in a neutral way perhaps summarised rather than detailled to maintain the encyclopaedic tone. I believe Jimbo Wales’ quote is relevant here.
"Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism, we are an encyclopedia."
2. Basic English
There are also some basic English problems which makes this article less than compelling.
There are several examples of using quoted clauses for nouns or adjectives. For example: "demon blasting", "get-rich-quick", "St. Matthew's Churches", and "preached this gospel of Jesus". If these are special quotes and are truly needed in the article, then they should be defined once and then regular nouns and adjectives should be used. There is also heavy use of dashed clauses for adjectives and nouns such as “the down-on-their-luck people”, “many types of come-ons they'd receive almost daily from big-media ministries”, and “he'd been a long-time high-dollar donor”. It would be better to use single word adjectives and nouns.
Other issues include the use of contractions like “he’d” and “they’d” which lowers the quality of the article. There are examples of poor prose for example, “to the tune of more than $80 million”. Also there is the incomplete sentence, “These infomercials that also appear under the title of Success-N-Life on BET Inspiration.”
And I am not sure what the following sentence means:
“The director of Response Media told Anthony and the hidden cameras everything they needed to know, including the major revelation that the prayer requests not only were never read by Tilton, but that they were never even intended to be read by him”
Did the director say something to the hidden cameras?
3. NPOV
Although just listing scandals makes the article to push a POV, there are also examples of POVcreep in a single sentence. The clause, “they were mere advertising gimmicks” was used to describe Tilton’s use of the prayer requests. Did someone use this description? If so, then it should be cited. Standing alone as is, calling it a “mere gimmick” is pushing a POV. Another example is the description of chemicals in the prayer requests that affected his eyes. The description seems out of place as this sentence comes into the context rather suddenly. It also appears POVish as the explanation is described as “unusual”.
4. Citations
I also worry about the citations. The cites support part of a sentence, but not all. For example "Other sources put the total time to closer to 68%, still high in comparison with many other prominent televangelist and even network television." The sources supports the 68% value, but does not support the second clause (“still high in comparison…”) And “grew to 8,000 members and was one of the most successful megachurches in the world at the time.” The source supports 8000 members, but does not state that it was one of the most successful megachurches in the world.
5. Manual of Style
Other than the first word, words in the subsection titles are not capitalised.
The post-1997 part of the article is mostly made up of one-paragraph sections. These should be under one section under several paragraphs.
I am afraid some major work needs to be done. The main points that will help improve this article are 1) better English/better prose and 2) maintaining a strong neutral tone as this is a biography of a living person. Even a person as reprehensible as Robert Tilton deserves to have a quality article. RelHistBuff 14:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
The scandal section begins with:
Even before the ABC News investigation into his ministry, Tilton had controversy in his background. In a deposition video for a lawsuit that was taped August 18, 1992, Tilton admitted to having robbed a fruit stand as a teen and abused marijuana, LSD, and various barbituates as a young man prior to his conversion to Christianity in 1969.[17] Tilton also admitted several times on Success-N-Life that he used to "drink lots of alcohol and use lots of drugs" before his conversion.
I am curious,how is this a scandal? Many christians were naughty prior to their conversion. Many teenagers were naughty because, well that's what teenagers do. He smoked dope and did some drugs and drank when he was a teenager. My first reaction is so what? That is pretty typical with many American teens. Certainly not scandalous. He robbed a fruit stand says the article but the cite has no mention of it. In view of this is a living person and there is no support for the alleged fruit stand robbery I am going to remove that bit after I hit save page here. I think we should remove all of the "teenage years" from the scandal section but wanted to get opinions from others here before I do it. I just don't view it as scandalous. How many of YOU smoked dope or drank booze in your youth? Heck, how many of you still smoke dope or drink booze ;-) Mr Christopher 23:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I just read the cite for that paragraph and none of what is written is in the cite. Therefore I am deleting the entire paragraph. Feel free to add it if some reliable cites can be found. But again, I don't think smoking pot as a teenager is exactly scandalous. Mr Christopher 23:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
A UK Emo band, hailing from Norttingham, named themselves after the televangelist. They were touring from 1993 to 1999 and released two albums, Crescent in 1996 and Leading Hotels of the World in 1999. The albums never lived up to their live shows, which were recognised as some of the best around that time in the UK Hardcore scene. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SMKinnear ( talk • contribs) 18:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC).
I did not see any mention of his wierd habit of breaking into nonsense words in the middle of his presentation, which is apparently his notion of "speaking in tounges." It's not biblical and it really creeps me out. Also, in the latest version of his show (which I have seen) he seems to have an uncontrollable tick or twitch or jerk that moves his entire head. Looks like a neurological disorder of some kind, like Parkenson's. I don't have a citation for the latter; I suppose it is sort of OR. But just LOOK at him sometime! You'll see what I mean. Bigmac31 17:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
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