User talk:The Rambling Man/FLC things to check

Input

Anyone fancy adding some common issues here? I'd be happy to collect a bunch of 'em and then format them into a half-decent guide. Create a section with your user name as a heading, and use the headings on User:The Rambling Man/FLC things to check as a guide for specific areas of FLC for common faults. All help gratefully received! The Rambling Man (talk) 17:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Rambo's Revenge

Nice idea, I'll take a crack at some things. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Images

• Check these are appopriately licensed (PD, Creative Commons, etc.). Just because it is on Commons doesn't (necessarily) make it okay.
• If the image is fair-use, make sure it meets the NFCC. The FUR should be individual and specific, not a boilerplate you (or someone else) has borrowed from another fair-use image.

List

• Guidlines say chronological lists, including all timelines and lists of works, should be in earliest-to-latest chronological order."

Sortability

• Please click on the sort buttons to check numbers sort as numbers (not text, e.g. 1, 10, 11, 2, 3, ...). Use {{nts}}, {{ntsh}}, or put in invisible preceeding zeroes with <span style="display:none">...</span>
• Diacratics should sort as letters: e.g. Petr Čech should sort as "Petr Cech". In this case {{sortname}} would be used as follows – {{sortname|Petr|Čech||Cech, Petr}}

Accessibility

• Per MOS:COLOUR, colour cannot be the only way to convey information. A symbol such is also needed (e.g. † or *)
• Per MOS:FLAG, a flag should also have the country (or entity, province etc.) name beside it (or noted in a key)

References and notes

• If there are many references put them in columns (for CSS 3 supported browsers). This means either {{reflist|colwidth=30em}} or {{reflist|2}}
• Per MOS:DATE, dates should be consistently formatted not a mix of ISO, dmy, and mdy – User:GregU/dashes.js can help automate this

Killervogel5 sez:

• Check rules regarding grammar and punctuation, especially the proper usages of commas (avoiding run-on sentences, comma splices, and the like) and semicolons.
• Check all sortable columns before nominating. This means sort them up and down more than once to make sure that the sorting is always correct. Especially check: foreign names with diacritics, columns with numbers >1000 that use number separators, and columns of numbers that may not all be plain numbers (if text is used anywhere in the column, you will need to use {{sort}} or another type of manual sortkey to get the job done; see also Help:Sorting).
• Make sure that information isn't conveyed by color alone, per WP:ACCESS. In other words, if something is colored in the table, make sure that it also has a symbol or some other sort of visual indicator to aid the visually impaired or color-blind readers of Wikipedia.
• Check page numbers in your references: if you're using a range of pages, then it should have an en-dash. If you are using only a single page, make sure that you change the parameter to "page" instead of "pages" to generate the correct code.
• Read WP:DASH – it's really important! Know the different uses for the dashes and hyphens. All year ranges should use en-dashes (1900–1910). Em-dashes should be used for interruptions in prose where a comma would be too subtle (think parentheses), or for blank cells in the table! Hyphens should be used whenever a compound adjective is present (note the difference between That was well played and That was a well-played ball).
• If a direct link to the list doesn't occur in a navbox, it generally does not belong there. Navboxes are for linking together sets of related articles. If there are several articles that are related to one another directly but not directly to the main list, use "See also" links.

Dabomb87

Article

• Verify that the information in the list correctly reflects the sources (but be careful of plagiarism and copyvios). This is especially important in statistics-heavy lists, where it's too easy to add an extra 0 or type a "2" when you meant to type a "3".
• Proofread the prose before starting the FLC. Look for redundancy and wordiness in your writing—User:Tony1/Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing is an excellent guide to identifying fluff in prose.
• Common MOS and stylistic errors:
  • MOS:CAPTION: Image captions that are not complete sentences should not be terminated with a period.
  • WP:DASH: Yes, it's nitty-gritty stuff, but it's correct typography, so please at least attempt to follow it. User:GregU/dashes.js is your friend.
  • WP:LINKING: Be specific and explicit: "X is a [[Cinema in the United Kingdom|British film]]" is more useful to the reader than "X is a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[film]]". Don't link terms that most English speakers know (such as common nationalities or occupations). Chronological items (years, centuries, etc.) should almost never be linked.
  • The common practice for pagination in citations is to use "p." for one page and "pp." for multiple pages (don't forget to use en dashes for page ranges). In citation templates, if you are citing a single page, be sure to change the |pages= parameter to |page=.
  • WP:SEASON: Avoid using seasons for temporal references; it's a different season from yours in half of the world.
• Items should be linked on every appearance per WP:REPEATLINK.

FLC process

• Most FLCs take at 15 days before receiving enough comments for consensus to form. Be patient.
• How can you speed the process up? More reviewing, of course! In addition to reducing the FLC backlog and increasing the chance that other editors will review your FLC, reviewing other nominations often helps you to identify your own errors more easily.
• Check dabs and external links before FLC; it saves reviewers time when you start the nomination.

Courcelles

• Check your images. Lists rarely justify non-free content, so make sure you have far more than a cookie-cutter fair-use rationale before using any.
• Check your refs. The less detail in your citations, the more I'm going to start inspecting every source you've used for reliability.
• Even if all sources are reliable, make sure you've filled every field in your ref template you can. This aids reliability, either for if the website goes down, or someone decides to hit the library. Newspapers are especially susceptible, as a full citation allows the ref to stand even without the internet link, as many papers are closing or charging for their older stories online.
• Ref X was not questioned in Y's FLC is not proof of reliability. Ref X was successfully argued in Y's FLC is marginally better, as the argument could still be valid... it also could have been incorrectly accepted.
• Endashes in date ranges. Not hyphens, not emdashes. Get it right, checking dashes is boring for reviewers and nominators.
• If the list is similar to one that has gone before, make sure you've changed everything that needs changing. Straggling mentions of the wrong team name or year invite close scrutiny.
• Don't assume folks know the terminology of your field or sport.
• Sometimes reviewers are just wrong. Don't blindly assume every comment a reviewer makes is spot-on. Often, however, that the comment was made exposes an opportunity for your list to be made clearer.
• Elucidate, elucidate, elucidate.
• Print out your list before nominating. Read it with a red pen in your hand, and have someone who doesn't write for Wikipedia do the same. Weaknesses in your prose will be exposed.
• FLC can be prone to "sameness". Even though a list covers the same general area as a prior list, it is not required to look like what went before. If it works, it works, so don't be afraid to consult recently promoted FL's for ideas, but if you can do something better, then do it!
• EngVar's are hard. As best as you can, make sure you're only using one.
• Make sure your engvar and date formats match. American language with Commonwealth DD-Month-Year dates is rather strange.
• Have fun. Wikipedia is supposed to be enjoyable. When it stops... well, it is time to go hold the dog, take a walk, or do paying work and come back fresh.

Giants2008

• Avoid having a "This is a list of" introduction, which isn't engaging writing.
• If a reference link is a PDF, indicate that in the citation. The format= parameter of the cite templates is helpful here.

Struway2

• Consider submitting your list for peer review, and leaving it there long enough to get some useful comments, before submitting to FLC. If no-one does comment, at least you tried...
• If your source is in a foreign language, indicate in the citation what language it's in, and give an English translation of the title: the cite templates have language= and trans_title= parameters for this.

Fine-tuning

• "help can be sought at Help:Sorting." not sure I like the homophone there
• "Ensure that the external links are reliable. If not, they should be removed." That is news to me, Wikipedia:External links should be worthy of inclusion, yes, but I don't think they have to be reliable. We quite often link to iMDB or TV.com or things like that in the External links although we would not usually consider them reliable

Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Fair enough. I wonder if this is me being me and making my "opinion" count. Perhaps a simple pointer to WP:EL is better here? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Maybe remove that third bullet of the section and link to EL in the fourth. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:32, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Done, cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 17:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)