Wikipedia talk:Featured article review

See also: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Coordination, Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles and the Toolserver listing of featured articles with cleanup tags.

Cliftonian nominations

Some worrying issues have been reported on FA articles by a vanished user formerly known as User:Cliftonian related to politics of southern Africa. Ian Smith was recently delisted and Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence looks like it's headed that way, with a FAR notice placed at Roy Welensky due to excessive sourcing to the subject's memoirs. I have taken a look at Cliftonian's other FA nominations. Some of them are sports- or crime-related and unlikely to be problematic but Hugh Beadle, William Harper (Rhodesian politician), Paul Kruger, D'Oliveira affair, Air Rhodesia Flight 825, Southern Rhodesia in World War I, Rudd Concession, Rhodesian mission in Lisbon, and Military career of Ian Smith should probably be checked. If anyone has additional suggestions on whether these articles meet FA criteria, please post on talk pages and ping me. buidhe 23:51, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Since I was concerned about this before I'd like to add Shangani Patrol as another Rhodesia article by Cliftonian that should be checked. Roy Welensky is very problematic but actually looks like it was written by a different user, User:Beneaththelandslide, in 2007. --65.96.222.96 (talk) 06:05, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm also quite concerned about those articles. They all share an over-reliance on a handful of sources (in particular JRT Wood), to the extent that I'm worried about close paraphrasing. In particular Missão da Rodésia em Lisboa, which follows Wood very closely in terms of pagination: many single pages are cited over and over again, to back up long stretches of text. The article also assigns thoughts and emotions to political agents in an editorializing way, which is unacceptable: The Rhodesian government now believed that it would almost certainly declare independence unilaterally and, knowing the purchase of materiel would be more difficult following this, wished to have the Rhodesian Security Forces' necessary ammunition, weapons, spare parts and other equipment in place beforehand. and Reedman, the former minister for immigration and tourism, was also a retired officer of the British Royal Air Force (where he had been involved in bomber research), and an experienced engineer and businessman: all the right ingredients, the government thought, for someone in the position to source European aircraft, weapons and other equipment, while also representing Rhodesian interests in mainland Europe. A search for "believe" gives nine results, four for "wish", ten for "consider", etc. Some of these might be acceptable, but this language does set off some alarm bells in terms of POV, methinks. Eisfbnore ^(会話) 01:15, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Eisfbnore, Thanks for taking a look and please feel free to nominate it for FAR. Unfortunately, I can't nominate any more articles until next week. buidhe 01:44, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

While I think POV fears are totally valid here, I don't see how, from a prose perspective, terms such as believe/wish/consider are problematic if backed by appropriate sources. While a tad old-fashioned in phrasing, it clearly means "the beliefs of the government apparatus as a whole". It doesn't seem any less valid than saying "In 1914, the British government believed that World War I would come to a quick end, barring Secretary of War Kitchener." Something like that could easily be sourced to many reliable sources. I'm sure the Rhodesian sources are spottier than something famous like WWI, but it's not invalid or unacceptable on its face, and can be qualified with "According to XYZ, members of the Rhodesian government now believed..." worst comes to worst. (POV will be much harder to weed out, especially since the sourcing is likely lopsided...) SnowFire (talk) 00:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

• I've checked some of these in more depth and added William Harper (Rhodesian politician), Paul Kruger, and D'Oliveira affair to the prospective FAR template[2]. I think Hugh Beadle may be OK but of course if anyone disagrees they are welcome to FAR it. buidhe 23:28, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  Further investigation: Air Rhodesia Flight 825, Southern Rhodesia in World War I, Rudd Concession, and Military service of Ian Smith may be OK. (I should mention that I'm only looking for obviously deficient sourcing and would probably miss more subtle POV issues, editorializing, and prose issues.) Rhodesian mission in Lisbon is already listed in the template. buidhe 02:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Pickup up the pace at FAR

@WP:FAR coordinators: The notices given template seems to be working, as we are now seeing more notices given and more FAR throughput. But the number of articles listed on the template is growing. Right now we have nominators constrained by:

1. No more than one nomination every two weeks.
2. No more than four nominations on the page at one time, unless permission for more is given by a FAR coordinator.

I was thinking of making a proposal at WT:FAC to move this to:

1. No more than one nomination per week.
2. No more than four five nominations on the page at one time, unless permission for more is given by a FAR coordinator.

Would the Coords support making such a proposal at the busier page, WT:FAC? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:50, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a sense of what proportion of the current list is from the 'prolific' nominators who could make more nominations under your proposal, vs 'one-offs'? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:51, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Nikki, since I have been going at only about one every three weeks, with Buidhe and Retired Duke semi-regular, but few others, my sense in the last month is that we are finally seeing an uptick in "non-prolifics" ... that's why I'm suggesting this now, in fact ... Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:07, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Okay. I'm not sure I follow the rationale - this would increase throughput from list to FAR for prolific nominators, but how does it promote a continued uptick among non-prolifics? Is the issue simply the length of the list, or is there some other reasoning I'm overlooking? I'm not against seeing a proposal that only supports prolific nominators, just trying to understand the picture here. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:10, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I understand :) The first four (FAR)s now are 1) Buidhe, 1) me, and 2) newish reviewers. And if you look at the declarations in the FARC phase, we seem to be engaging more people finally. We WANT to take advantage of this uptick to bring in and encourage new reviewers. My thinking is that now is the time. Unless we get more people in here, the bottom (FARC) is going to continue to stagnate, and the template will continue grow. IF you feel it's too soon, I understand ... but it concerns me that Buidhe found seven on the cleanup list today. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:13, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

That's fine, I'm certainly happy to see the matter discussed. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll wait to hear from Cas and DrK ... I just feel like the (overall FA) process is regaining some momentum finally :) Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:19, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm OK with what the community of editors here decides. DrKay (talk) 08:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

hmmmm ... good point. We are past 50 FAR notices given, and while the pace has picked up here, there is still relatively little general concern over at WT:FAC, along with increasing reticence to revisit and discuss current thinking, processes, and statistics to re-invigorate the overall FA picture. Perhaps DrKay is correct that this page is a better place for the discussion, notifying that page, so that anyone who cares can come over here instead. Cas and Nikki, what say ye? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps the timing is not optimal for a new proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:26, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

• I strongly agree with this proposal. I was going through the list of FAs with cleanup tags today and added 7 to the template because they had ongoing, valid cleanup tags. At the current rate it would take 3 months to bring them all to FAR. (t · c) buidhe 21:53, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I am happy with the proposal. It is not drastic, but a measured attempt to move things along. Loosening up an arbitrary Rate Limiting Step a little is fine by me. Either things get worked on or (more commonly) they don't. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:39, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

• I think it's an excellent proposal given the large list of articles for which notices have been given. Even as a non-prolific newbie, I might want to make use of nominating more frequently when time allows. This would motivate me to stay more active on this page. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:03, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

• I keep forgetting to mention this ... RetiredDuke thought that the FAR instructions meant that no more than four FARs could be on the page at a time, so thought there was never room for a new nomination. Femke, did you also have that impression? I made this temporary fix, but it's not very elegant and wording is repeated ... we do need to correct this misimpression, though, as it could have been part of what slowed down nominations such that the template has mushroomed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:14, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

That was indeed my impression when I first started following this page around March. I was quite confused that there were always a few more than 4 nominations open at the same time. Femke Nijsse (talk) 18:22, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Yikes, so maybe that was the problem, and the additional relaxing is not necessary ... perhaps we can wait a month to propose this officially, and then notify wt:FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:23, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the previous wording was a bit ambiguous (coming from a non-native English speaker), and I was under the wrong impression about the number of nominations allowed at the same time. But I see that you have changed the wording, Sandy, looks more precise now (from my point of view). RetiredDuke (talk) 18:33, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

• Comment, I wish there was a "speedy" FAR process for FAs that are obviously not up to FA standards and would require a complete rewrite. Then, other editors would vote here on whether the FA status is recoverable (leading to normal FAR), or the article needs to be rewritten (back to square one). It could speed up the process. T8612 (talk) 19:10, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Maybe rather than being a separate process, that can just be part of the normal FAR process? Just "if the participants agree it needs serious overhauls and no one volunteers to work on it, move to speedy FARC"? Even for articles I'd like to improve, the realistic nature of doing things means if an article needs rescuing I'm not likely to get to it on an expedient timetable (Halo: Combat Evolved is still on my radar to improve but I've got stuff in front of it. It was good it got delisted and comments for improvement but it can wait for the editors to come along for it.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:53, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
    • We just did that with Wikipedia:Featured article review/Webley Revolver/archive1, but few FAs are that hopeless, and we often see people kick in to restore an FA well into the FARC phase. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:20, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @David Fuchs: That is a proposal I'd support. In my view, the efficiency of the process and engagement with reviewers are the critical issues. The limit on nominations here was done in concert with similar limitations at FAC because the community believed (correctly, IMO) that the cognitive burden of processing a larger list is daunting and off-putting for reviewers who usually have limited energy to expend on the page. A less cumbersome, less ponderous list is more appealing and inviting of involvement. The community at FAC encouraged coords to more aggressively archive lackluster nominations and I think a similar thing should be undertaken here. A quick-delist, if you will. --Laser brain (talk) 01:14, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead with the formal proposal here; although we now have a healthier number of editors engaged here, I know of dozens of articles I haven't even templated talk yet because I know I can't bring them to FAR for many months! With increased editors participating, it may be a good time now to pick up the pace. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I asked over at Script requests if someone could generate a list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:18, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Formal proposal

The notices given on talk pages of deficient FAs is approaching 60 articles, but nominators are restricted in bringing those articles to FAR by the FAR instructions:

The number of FARs that can be placed on the page is limited as follows:

1. No more than one nomination every two weeks by the same nominator.
2. No more than four nominations on the page at one time, by the same nominator, unless permission for more is given by a FAR coordinator.

This proposal is to loosen the restrictions as follows:

The number of FARs that can be placed on the page is limited as follows:

1. No more than one nomination every two weeks per week by the same nominator.
2. No more than four five nominations on the page at one time, by the same nominator, unless permission for more is given by a FAR coordinator.

Discussion

• Support, I know of dozens of deficient FAs that I haven't been able to bring forward because we are hamstrung by the limitations. Thankfully, we are seeing more FA regulars participate here now, so it's time to pick up the pace. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I also support quicker delisting when indicated, but do not think this requires a change in instructions, rather should be left to the Coord discretion: they know when faster delisting is applicable when they see it, and it worked for Wikipedia:Featured article review/Webley Revolver/archive1. We have to take care that only FAs that are truly unsalvageable or unlikely to be salvaged will be speedily removed. (I will recommend same for El Hatillo Municipality when it comes up; it looks fine on the surface, but Venezuela is not even the same country as when I helped Enano get that article featured 14 years ago, and no mere mortal can rewrite that article post-Chavez, nor is there any editor still editing who would try.) The current FAR instructions do not prevent the Coords from speeding up or slowing down any given nomination, saying "The FAR and FARC stages typically last two to three weeks ... " (emphasis added). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:12, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
    • I also agree with Toccata quarta that moving from four to six might work; I am often restricted in nominations because something I nominated stalls on the page, because it is being improved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:56, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support (t · c) buidhe 02:21, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I would also support loosening further or abolishing entirely the limit on concurrent nominations. (t · c) buidhe 15:58, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
    • I don't think abolishing entirely would be appropriate at this point. Let's see how loosening goes first. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support - GamerPro64 02:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support – people should be free to draw attention to problems to be solved, of which there must be many, especially among older FAs. (In fact, I would be in favor of increasing the threshold to six articles.) I would also recommend changing the wording of the second paragraph to The same nominator may place no more ..., to minimize the potential for misreading. Toccata quarta (talk) 03:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support Seems like a good idea. Of course it could become a slippery slope but - if that happens - we can deal with a flood of FAR nominations in the future if need be. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:50, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support There are a lot of older FAs (from around 2006-2009) that clearly are not up to standards and would need a complete rewrite to comply with 2020 criteria. If we want the Featured Article designation to actually mean something, we can't have Five Go Down to the Sea? on the same list as The Orb (that falls off a cliff once it hits 2007 - the year of promotion), Skegness on the same list of Weymouth, Dorset, or Battle of Crécy on the same list of Battle of Blenheim (that uses so much flowery language and so many quotes that looks like it was based off an English General's diary). The fact that FAR has been moribund for a number of years means that many deficient FAs have gone unnoticed until now; we should take opportunity of this sudden revival of the FAR process to call attention to these deficient FAs so they can either be rescued (if anyone is interested - like Masem is doing with Wii), or not. If this ends up in a flood of nominations, we can always reassess the situation and slow the process down again. RetiredDuke (talk) 10:59, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support, as well as supporting quicker delisting if there's no active work ongoing. There's quite the backlog, especially when you think that there are many that haven't even gotten notices yet. Hog Farm _Bacon 17:18, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Coords - When will this take effect? It seems there's getting to be consensus for this change, and the FAR notice list only keeps getting longer. Hog Farm _Bacon 03:45, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support Aoba47 (talk) 05:56, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support – been thinking about this and was not sure at first. However, I think in general it is net positive. Aza24 (talk) 01:00, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:43, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support --Rschen7754 04:31, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I have implemented the proposed change. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:28, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Icon change for articles undergoing FAR/FARC

Thoughts on having an altered icon (in place of the FA star in the top right) for articles that are undergoing FAR/FARC? I would think that the simplest way to do this would be to use the same FAR/FARC icon (File:Cscr-star piece.png) with a hovering title similar to the FAR notice on the talk page. My reasoning is that Wikipedia is a frequently visited live website, so when an article is below featured status this should be recognized prominently on the article page so readers are aware that it might not be "the best content Wikipedia has to offer". It's also worth keeping in mind that articles often take a rather long time to receive improvements (which is fine, progress takes time), and during this time there's essentially what may be "false" FA star on them – sure it says it on talk, but surely the amount of readers who visit the article more often than talk is substantially higher. Another added benefit is that it might better alert users who visit the page and have interest in the topic, perhaps convincing them to join in on the review. Another option might be to subsitute the star for FARC not FAR. Just a thought, obviously if there's support here this could be opened up to a more formal venue like an RFC or a proposal. Aza24 (talk) 01:59, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

@Aza24: At Wikipedia:Village_pump_(all)#Move_good/featured_article_topicons_next_to_article_name and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Redesigning_the_good_article_and_featured_article_topicons people have raised concerns that readers often do not notice and/or understand what the existing icons mean. My concern with your proposal is that we'd be exacerbating that problem. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:12, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Nikki and think we are better served to deal with the older, deficient FAs than fiddle with the icons. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

For example, Anton Chekov was at FAR/C for 3 months, and that entire time it was starred as a "Featured Article" even when blatantly falling short. I don't see how readers not noticing the icons changes anything, if they don't notice the FA icon, they wouldn't notice a proposed FAR/C icon. However, the readers (and our many editors) who do notice the FA icon will have came across an Anton Chekov article for 3 months, thinking it is a "the best Wikipedia has to offer". Aza24 (talk) 04:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

But there are scores of FAs worse than Chekov that have not even hit FAR yet ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:32, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Updated list of Unreviewed featured articles

Thanks to the kindness of User:SD0001, we have a new list of unreviewed featured articles at WP:URFA/2020. It is organized by date so we can easily find the oldest unreviewed FAs.

@FAC coordinators: @WP:FAR coordinators: @WP:TFA coordinators @Dweller: This new list can be used to determine what old FAs need review, but it also has a column that allows us to include some of what is at Dweller's list of FAs that haven't been run TFA (a page whose link I can never find), by making use of the "Notes" column. In the Notes column, we can add information about whether the article has been maintained, whether it is mainpage ready, etc. Thanks, SD0001! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:22, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

This is excellent data, thank you Sandy for thinking about it and to SD0001 for working on it. I see a number of BLPs that have not been reviewed since 2006, which is worrying: Angelina Jolie, Frank Klepacki, Jake Gyllenhaal, Eric Bana, Bob McEwen, Sasha (DJ). RetiredDuke (talk) 18:07, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

yep. perhaps people are seeing now why I have been saying for well over a year that about a third of our FAs ... aren't. We have a large task ahead ... and I am so happy and appreciative that so many are on board to help clean this up! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:39, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

So far, I am uncertain if we should just remove the post-2016 portion from the page and not track those, since the page is so huge ... but several of them are noticed ... thought we would wait and see whether it makes sense to try to reduce the page size by removing the more recent FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:41, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe - My instinct would be to slough the post-2016 stuff into a subpage somewhere. As is, the page is just way too long. My laptop will handle it, but it's just too much for my mobile device. The post-2016 material should have less errors. This could be a massive undertaking. Hopefully we can get some new blood into FAR. Hog Farm _Bacon 19:21, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to do that, but will it cause problems when we are trying to update notices, etc? And if we are to remove it, we may as well just delete it out right, since if we need it again, maybe we can prevail upon SD to run the script they now have. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:33, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, I test deleted 2016 to 2020 (we can reinstate from history should we decide), and the page is still huge. What worries me is that a) when we go to update notifications or what is at FAR, we will now have to know if they are not included on the page; and b) I asked Hawkeye7 if FACBot could keep TFA up to date on this list, and would the absence of the recent FAs foil the bot? ANd, if we go with this, maybe I should delete one more year for size (2015 as well)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

The absence of recent articles won't be a problem. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:19, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Hawkeye. Then maybe we should delete 2015 as well, since the page is just way too huge. What do others think? What years should we be focusing on when it comes to cleaning up the older FAs? Right now, we have 2,188 FAs last reviewed between 2004 and 2009, and 2,343 between 2010 and 2015. And 2015 FAs are five years old already ... we just let too many years go by, so now the numbers are large. But we need to be able to edit the file. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:18, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I figured out a way to reduce the file size to make it easier to work with. SD0001 would you be able to put something together that will run through WP:URFA/2020 and just eliminate the fourth column entirely (the link to the last FAC or FAR)? I thought it important at the time to provide that link, but the file is just too unworkably large making it hard to edit, and removing that column would leave more room for comments/notes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:11, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Editing tables (where you can add, remove, and rearrange rows and columns with one click) is one of the few occasions it's worth switching Visual Editor on. ‑ Iridescent 06:46, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Don’t know how you did that but awesome ... that reduced size by 131! Thanks, Iri, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:25, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

@Hog Farm and Peacemaker67: is the file size manageable now? Would hate to have to delete 2015, and not sure that would make much of a difference, as the high volume years were the earlier ones .., SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Works better for me. Mixing the extra column was a big help for my screen. Hog Farm _Bacon 23:13, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

If you click this link it will open the page in Visual Editor even if you normally keep VE disabled. (It might take a few seconds to load because of the page size). While VE is generally a dog, it's fantastic for editing tables; you can remove rows and columns by clicking at the top of the column, cut-and-paste things around, etc, and the software will work out the Wikicode for you once you hit "save changes". ‑ Iridescent 15:55, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Going in, then, to try to use the VE to fix the three errors listed below. I'm warning you, if it fails, I am giving you my first-born. And he has COVID. :( :( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

• I'd remove the post-2016 part as we should probably be focusing on earlier articles that are in worse shape. It may also be helpful to have a list by FAC, FAR OR TFA date. (t · c) buidhe 18:51, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the tag, Sandy, and the work, SD. My page is User:Dweller/Featured Articles that haven't been on Main Page --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 19:02, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Error

Errors resolved

I'm confused, why is the date 2005-12-15 for Jesus? (I ask because its FAC was August 15, 2013, but I'm not sure if I'm understanding the table correctly) Aza24 (talk) 07:28, 22 November 2020 (UTC) You caught an error. I think that's due to the high number of milestones listed in the article's talk page; Jesus' FA promotion was action n=15, whereas most articles only have 4 or 5 actions before promotion. RetiredDuke (talk) 14:16, 22 November 2020 (UTC) hmmmm ... I will fix that one manually and check on others that had high ActionN numbers. SD thought they had caught and corrected that error, so I will inquire what N they used for highest. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:25, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Better ask them that, could be a different thing altogether. But that article does have a convoluted history. RetiredDuke (talk) 14:35, 22 November 2020 (UTC) I am fairly sure that is the problem as it occurred in an earlier version, and I believe they upped the N used ... but will check. [3] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:37, 22 November 2020 (UTC) When SD re-ran the list, I checked baseball which has a convoluted history, and it was OK at action8, so it is possible SD only ran through N=10 ... in which case there may be very few errors. Would hate to have to re-run the list since it now has so many comments ... would be faster to run a separate script looking for FAs with actionN greater than x. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Beatles are action10 and they are listed correctly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Yep, problem seems to be N=10 limit on Action, since Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is listed incorrectly at the action10 date when the promoted FAC was action 11. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:41, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Errors: May Revolution 2012-11-03 Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) 2017-07-28 (remove from list, only through 2015) S&M (song) 2013-08-13 These (along with Beatles) confirm that the problem is that N was capped at 10 for actions in articlehistory ... we need a new script to identify any current FA where the last (articlehistory action) N for FAC or FAR was greater than 10. There won't be many. I will fix these three, and suggest that correcting the errors manually will be better than re-running the list because of the extensive editing already to the list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:49, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Sandy, while you are at it, could you remove the links to the FACs/FARs on the 4th column in the table "Last FAC or FAR 2010–2015"? Like how Iridescent did with the table "Last FAC or FAR 2004–2009". Would reduce the page a bit, I think. RetiredDuke (talk) 16:30, 22 November 2020 (UTC) I tried my hardest, but could not make the Visual editor cooperate ... punted that one to Iri on his talk :) But I am relieved to realize that we have another path to reducing the page size! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:40, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Oops, apologies for the error. There was no cap on N. But the silly thing is that while trying to find the highest N, my program was actually comparing them as strings rather than numbers, by which logic "7" is greater "10" :( Let me see if I can fix all the errors programmatically. Should be possible. SandyGeorgia, note that Talk:The Beatles is actually listed incorrectly (action9 is listed rather than action10). – SD0001 (talk) 17:12, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Ah, ha, my error on the Beatles. I am not sure if I should fix that now (FAC promoted date= 2009-11-03) or wait for you to fix all of them. Not to worry about the error, SD0001-- most appreciative that you did the work! And happy that with Iri's edits, we have now reduced the original 741,000 byte file to a more editable 290,000. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:30, 22 November 2020 (UTC) There were about 30 errors; fixed. The sorting and table placement wasn't changed though. And yikes, that edit also ended up removing all spaces from end of lines. If someone wants to go and fix the sort order, here are the entries whose dates changed: Sesame Street, Truthiness, Solar System, Cretan War (205–200 BC), The Simpsons, Manchester United F.C., Earth, Karmichael Hunt, Ronald Reagan, Belarus, Liverpool F.C., Michael Jackson, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Hillary Clinton, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Crown Fountain, Frank Zappa, Barack Obama, Flag of Singapore, The Beatles, York Park, No Line on the Horizon, Elizabeth II, Lady Gaga, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Halo (Beyoncé song), Final Fantasy VII, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, May Revolution, Hyderabad, Nintendo DSi, Jesus, S&M (song), Ulysses S. Grant – SD0001 (talk) 18:54, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Thanks again, SD0001 ... 30 errors out of 4,530 articles, no complaints :) I'm a bit frustrated right now about how long it is taking computer to pull up the diff of your changes, and trying to understand why that resulted in a loss of 22,000 bytes. Were the 22,000 bytes only the spaces from ends of lines? Or were there some deletions as a result of last FAC/FAR being after 2015 ? I would like to work back through all of these myself, and re-sort them, as this ties in with the other messy work Mike Christie and I are doing to sort out old, pre-Gimmebot errors in FAC archives (it will be good for me to lay eyes on each one of these articles with long histories). So, if everyone will bear with me, I will get through these ... at any rate, the chart is still sortable by any column across the top, so no loss. Thanks again, SD, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:46, 22 November 2020 (UTC) SandyGeorgia Yep they're all from the spaces at the end of lines. So sorry the diff will be as long as the length of the page, which is why I put up the list above. BTW, the page is still too big to be edited properly (I had to copy the source into my text editor to work on it – unfortunately the text editor was configured to shove the spaces at the end of lines). I'd suggest splitting it up into subpages – one page for each year. That would make it a lot easier to edit for adding notes and so on. – SD0001 (talk) 19:52, 22 November 2020 (UTC) OK, the diff finally came up, so I am manually writing down the changes I need to do so I won't have to pull it up again :) Once I work through all of this, we will all put our heads together to figure out how to divide this up. (The problem with separate pages is that will be harder to add notices, notes, and keep tallies ... we will see where we end up ... let me get through the corrections first ... ) Curious to hear how many people have editing issues once I get this part sorted, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Oh well it pains me to know that someone is going to do this. Just in case you haven't already went through the changes, SandyGeorgia ,here is the list of date changes (page name then the revised date – output of the script I used): Extended content :::::::*Sesame Street 2011-09-11 Truthiness 2007-09-29 Solar System 2009-05-12 Cretan War (205–200 BC) 2006-11-24 The Simpsons 2007-08-14 Manchester United F.C. 2010-07-27 Earth 2020-11-14 Karmichael Hunt 2007-11-26 Ronald Reagan 2009-05-21 Belarus 2007-12-27 Liverpool F.C. 2011-08-30 Michael Jackson 2008-07-28 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 2008-05-08 Hillary Clinton 2014-12-13 Half-Life 2: Episode One 2008-10-31 Crown Fountain 2009-09-27 Frank Zappa 2017-07-31 Barack Obama 2012-10-22 Flag of Singapore 2009-12-29 The Beatles 2009-11-03 York Park 2009-12-16 No Line on the Horizon 2010-06-01 Elizabeth II 2012-02-21 Lady Gaga 2017-11-26 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 2013-03-11 Halo (Beyoncé song) 2012-01-28 Final Fantasy VII 2017-05-29 Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars 2013-03-16 May Revolution 2012-11-03 Hyderabad 2015-03-07 Nintendo DSi 2013-09-25 Jesus 2013-08-15 S&M (song) 2013-08-13 Ulysses S. Grant 2015-03-31 If it makes your work easier, you can just revert my edit and apply the updates above. – SD0001 (talk) 20:42, 22 November 2020 (UTC) Ah, thanks for that kindness :) The problem is that, because I had already subdivided the page, some change sections, which is why I had to write it all down. And we lose four articles that now have their latest review past the dates we are looking at. Thanks again, going in for the changes now! And I had already changed four of those you highlight (Jesus, Holy Wood, S&M and May of Revolution), so my list is a bit off from yours. I shall learn to move more slowly next time :) Had I not done all the other editing by the time the Duke Aza24 found the Jesus error, we coulda just started over, so it's my fault :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:52, 22 November 2020 (UTC) By the way, I just found 22 actions in article history at Talk:Real Madrid CF-- which brings up bad memories of my FAC delegate days! If anyone locates a greater than 22, you can have my other son, who also is about to get COVID, since his fiance and her entire family has it, and they (the two of them) live in a teensy apartment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:43, 22 November 2020 (UTC) SD0001 something went wonky with your change to The Simpsons Movie? [4] 21:29, 22 November 2020 (UTC)SandyGeorgia (Talk) Nice catch. The date update was meant to go to The Simpsons not The Simpsons Movie. Fixed now. – SD0001 (talk) 07:30, 23 November 2020 (UTC) Thanks for fixing that! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

No mainpage appearance

You can sort on the TFA date column at WP:URFA/2020 to see the old FAs that have not run TFA. There are tons! The TFA Coords may appreciate it if we look into those sooner rather than later, as to whether they need review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Ready to roll

I think everything is in order now; ready to roll. I've put new instructions at the top of WP:URFA/2020 so we can keep notes brief because of the file size issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

As an example, if three experienced reviewers will have a look at my 2006 promotion, Tourette syndrome, we might move it off the list. Ditto for Germany, which Nikkimaria worked on. If you find issues, please list them at article talk, so as not to bulk up the URFA page unnecessarily. And so on ... We're not looking for perfection :) We're looking for which FAs have deteriorated enough that review is warranted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

A general point that occurs to me is that while there's never going to be an ideal time for it, launching a mass cleanup drive when much of the world is in lockdown (and a not-insignificant number of editors are seriously ill or caring for people who are seriously ill, and an even more not-insignificant number of editors are extremely busy) is definitely less than ideal. The FAR co-ords need to be very aware that there will likely be a lot of "I can't check the exact wording of the source as every library is closed" and of editors who aren't in a position to reply quickly to queries, and make allowances accordingly. ‑ Iridescent 07:50, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Definitely have been planning for that. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:11, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we have to worry about our exceedingly patient FAR Coords, who were all chosen for this characteristic :) They have shown themselves comprehensive in their allowances for improvements and time needed.

But in terms of institutional memory, the last WP:URFA undertaking took about six years; this is a marathon, not a sprint, and participants should keep in mind that we are not in a rush to defeature thousands of articles, and proceed instead in an orderly way that will maximize the number of stars retained without engendering ill will. We will be doing this long after COVID has hopefully faded in our daily existence. We can take our time to ping for collaboration, reach out to still-active nominators, etc. And keep in mind not to overwhelm one project or one nominator ... proceed in a way that those who are willing to improve articles are able to do so methodically, without being hit all at once with fifteen FARs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

History of saffron on hold

Buidhe just noticed History of saffron, where I saw that it was on hold. Do Coords want to delete the on-hold FAR, or bring it back ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:57, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Deleted. DrKay (talk) 08:08, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Caroline Island on hold ?

Caroline Island (which is a mess) has a notice at the top of the article that it is currently undergoing review because Wikipedia:Featured article review/Caroline Island/archive1 is still open. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I deleted it because it's so old I think it best if the entire process restarted. DrKay (talk) 19:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a category where we can find these old still-open FARs. But something still was triggering the notice at the top of the article, so there must be a way to find them all and deal with them, no? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

This was triggering the notice, although there seems to be no cat: [5] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:20, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't see anything on the article page. Do you have a gadget/script installed that puts information there? DrKay (talk) 20:35, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

It was probably coming from my Preferences —> Gadgets —> Appearance —> Display assessment ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:43, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes. I think that script searches the talk page wikicode for a string like "{featured article review*/" and if found then displays a message on the article page. So: Talk:Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident, Talk:MTR, Talk:Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. DrKay (talk) 21:04, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I've resolved those, so the gadget should only recognise the 20 known reviews (the 19 currently transcluded at FAR plus the one at /Coordination). DrKay (talk) 21:18, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Testing article issue detection AI

Help us test our problematic statement detection system. We hope to deploy this to help editors.

We are developing an AI to automatically detect issues in articles related to: NPOV, CLARIFY and CITE. We need help evaluating how well the model is working. We are asking for a group of volunteers to evaluate a set of sentences that are flagged by the AI. The landing page for evaluations can be found here. This page has a small set of examples for each issue. We have included sub-pages that include more examples (e.g. More POV examples). If you want to help, please assess as many example statements as you can. The more assessments we get, the better we can judge our model and make improvements. A description of our research project is on meta. Sumit (talk) 23:00, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Pulling this back from archive for a bit more input, since this AI is now being applied in active reviews. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:11, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

It is potentially useful for identifying issues of weasel and loaded language but should also be applied with common sense. (t · c) buidhe 22:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

buidhe, fully agreed. If we do this right, it'll be useful. But it won't replace reviewers and editors. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 12:39, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

User:Sumit.iitp would it not be better to put these comments at article talk, with a link back to the FAR ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with that 100%. I have volunteered my candidates to get the AI treatment, just to help start understanding how to explain why it's saying what it's saying. Something I'm interested in both here and professionally. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 20:15, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia aha that makes sense. We could do that. Sumit.iitp, when you get a chance to look at The Rambling Man FARs, maybe we could try posting the flagged sentences on the article's talk page. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 12:37, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

EpochFail, I think TRM is referring to his Featured article candidates. (t · c) buidhe 12:43, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Aha! That makes sense. That's for clarifying. EpochFail (talk • contribs) 13:52, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks SandyGeorgia for the suggestion and The Rambling Man for letting us post the problematic statements on your FAR candidates. I'll get to generating the predictions for the given articles and post the statements which the classifier flags with the highest confidence to give an idea of the overall quality of predictions.

Sumit and EpochFail, thank you for updating the research page. Here's my concern: your goal is to reduce review burden, which is fantastic. However, the approach you're taking to try to get there is to post predictions on live reviews and ask reviewers to provide feedback on them... thereby increasing review burden.

Also: as seen in this particular review, the accuracy of the suggestions is debatable, which is to be expected given that it's still under development; I'm not too worried about that at the moment. What gives me pause is this: even if all three of the statements identified were indisputably a NPOV problem... what does that accomplish at that stage of the review? Best-case is those three get rephrased/cited, but neither I nor the reviewers know just from that whether these are minor deviations from an otherwise excellent article, or whether the whole thing is irretrievably non-neutral. I would suggest we go with Sandy's suggestion, post a list of every potential issue on article talk (perhaps with a pointer from the review), and/or provide some sort of summative assessment ("There were 900 neutrality problems identified, suggesting this article needs major work..."). Thoughts from others? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:03, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Nikkimaria for the detailed response. Below is the response to the questions:

• Debatable accuracy: Agreed that the accuracy of the suggestions is debatable but this is precisely why we need feedback. Our automatic (preliminary) evaluations show promise in identifying issues with this approach of using "improving edits" to build AI to identify these issues. Beyond this, only editor feedback can help us identify the gaps to make it robust (like "How many statements to flag?, How to tailor it for Featured Article Review?"). Further, once we establish through broader consensus that we can identify missing citations and minor POV problems effectively through our proposed approach, it can similarly be used to build AI to automatically identify other issues like "Full paragraphs having neutrality issues", or "Full paragraphs needing lots of copy-edits" in review stages to give a sense of overall paragraph/statement quality in the article.
• Easing review burden: Posting statements on the talk pages of articles as per SandyGeorgia's suggestions will allow us to solicit feedback on the positive and negative aspects of the predictions and identify ways to refine them so that they can be reliably used. I can also provide a summative assessment of the most problematic statements. E.g., "15 (or approx 4%) of the statements in this article were flagged to have NPOV issues". With regards to easing the review burden, after an initial assessment of the individual problematic statements, posting aggregate number of problematic statements seems like a good idea to achieve faster review. Sumit (talk) 06:05, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

FAR for climate change

Hello coordinates. In March, Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/requests/Archive_18#global warming nomination I inquired whether climate change (then global warming) could be featured on the main page. I got loads of feedback that has been acted on, and the advice to go the FAR to make sure it's main page ready.

Since, I've been waiting for the right moment, making sure there isn't much development or heated disucssion on the talk page. This topic attracts many passionate editors, and so that moment of calm hasn't arrived yet. Is it okay for me to bring it to FAR once the latest RfC is concluded? Or would you prefer for me to wait a bit to avoid a British-Empire like review? Most of the gang agree, but one editor objected on neutrality grounds when I proposed we bring it to FAR now. Femke Nijsse (talk) 14:42, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

It looks like the most recent objection from that editor in the linked discussion was stability - do you believe that the article is stable now, or will likely be stable once the RfC you mention is done? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I do believe so. It changes moderately from week to week and we have the capacity to teach new users how not to be disruptive. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:08, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I think then it would be reasonable to nominate post-RFC. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:49, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

FAR pre-load

DrKay or Nikkimaria, could one of you please fix the pre-load to remind nominators to include a link to the talk page notification? One wearies of checking and adding them. I can't figure out how to edit those portions of the pre-load, but:

• :Notified: Example user, Example WikiProject

to something like:

• :Notified: Example user, Example WikiProject, diff for talk page notification

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Done. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:49, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

India

I noticed India yesterday for problems with comprehensiveness and summary style (plus a set of minor issues). I was met with personal attacks and ownership behaviour. Could an experienced FA reviewer have a look? I prefer some content-focused mediation to behaviour-focused ANI. Femke Nijsse (talk) 12:17, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

For now, watchlisting to see which way things develop. Sorry to see this, SandyGeorgia (Talk)

Femke, I believe the issue has calmed a bit,[6] and will separately address the panic in your new section below this one. On that particular article, it may be helpful for now to focus on the climate change additions you want to make, and let the (considerable) MOS:SANDWICH, caption, and WP:SS issues slide until February, at which time, I will be happy to outline the problems in dispassionate detail. Overall, India is in amazing shape relative to what usually happens to Geography articles, and particularly one with such high views, so I feel it is OK to let these issues slide until the temperature lowers. Would you be amenable to that for now? And by the way, thanks for not adding to the heat over there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Has it truly calmed down? I opened Karnakata's FAR discussion yesterday and I was met with abuse twice since. I have never interacted with that editor before the nomination so it's all a bit perplexing to me. Appaling behavior from an FA regular. RetiredDuke (talk) 16:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh, my. Well, I've moved that to talk, sorry it happened to you, and hope it does not repeat. I am watching both. Not an excuse, but there was a lot going on in the last few days, that included socking and hounding of an editor who acknowledges they need a break. Shall it repeat, please ping me ... I can sometimes make a difference, although my patience will wear thin if that behavior continues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not particularly concerned about it, I just wasn't expecting that kind of reaction following a FAR of that particular article. It's a Geography FA, for heaven's sake... We're in for a long ride. RetiredDuke (talk) 20:51, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@SG: I agree that is the best course of action. The reason I'm focused on these high-profile FAs is that those are probably used as a template for other FAs. I definitely checked these articles when trying to figure out how to get climate chagne to FA level again. @RD: I think it has. There has been a sort of apology at the India page. Femke Nijsse (talk) 16:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I have not looked, but Nikkimaria has done a ton of work at Germany and Japan; would they be good candidates for your "template" work? Thanks again for the patience, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:58, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Preferably, we'd keep an eye out on all of those super-prominent articles (with slightly more tact that I did), so that FA novices will be able to go to any odd one, and find it in good shape. The next learning step for me will be the FAR of climate change, which I hope to bring this Friday. Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:23, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Keep the asbestos suit handy :) I am sorry some of you are enduring this; it kind of goes with the territory here, along with a steep learning curve, which you are handling well! At least you haven't been threatened by an entire cabal of admins like I was, leading to me being named FAC delegate and eventually to one of the admins being desysopped by arbcom, and framing my entire impression of Wikipedia :) Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

That sounds stressful... I started out on the Dutch wikipedia, battling off climate denial while learning the ropes, so I'm used to the heat. Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Give more time to article watchers?

Now that we've picked up the pace here, and identified many articles that require some love, we may want to make the process a bit less stressful. Now, we could bring the articles to FAR 5 days after a notice. In practice, we sometimes do so after two weeks (f.i. at Battle of Blenheim). We know we're patient at FAR, but people unfamiliar with the process might not.

Would it work to increase the time from 5-7 days to, say 3 or 4 weeks? Given the recent flurry of notices, this shouldn't slow down the overall process. Femke Nijsse (talk) 10:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I often post notices that we are happy to leave FARs open for a long time (even months) if there is active progress being made on them. Might be worth expanding somewhere. Will have another look over the guidelines/process. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Here is the discussion that resulted in the 5 to 7 days; Cas, note that this lowering was NOT part of my original proposal, and yet it crept in without explicit endorsement from everyone who weighed in (two editors endorsed the 5 to 7 days). I think it is doing more harm than good, and agree that we should put it back to a vague "few weeks" to lower the panic that we have seen now in three recent instances. (And from now on, keep FAR proposals at FAR talk.) Vague because there will always be occasional differences, at FAR Coord discretion. (As an example, I can assure you that I am the only editor left who had/has anything to do with El Hatillo Municipality so that timing would never be an issue there.)

The last thing we need, when gearing up to take on years of unaddressed FA reviews is to have editors panicking and turning against the process and participants because, as Femke says, they don't always realize how much leeway is given on timing. And with so many articles so many years out of compliance, there should be no reason to leave the non-FAR-knowledgeable feeling an "oh my gosh" panic, that is part of what led to the reaction Femke got at India (there are other factors there, including hounding and socking that contributed to the overreaction, but nonetheless, we don't need to add to it).

I suggest that we never had strong consensus to lower the wait days, and we can put it back without a new RFC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think increasing back around where it was, and then leaving it slightly vague is a decent idea. There's obviously a judgment call. Very flawed articles with no active involvement and nobody responding on the talk page might be good to go after a couple weeks (Chew Valley, maybe?), while stuff like Blenheim, especially since the project is rather active, would probably be worth holding off on. Another thing to keep in mind would be that while most wikiprojects are dead/dying, some aren't, like MILHIST or the medical project. In cases with still-functioning wikiprojects, it's also probably worth a note on the project talk page to see if some work can be done without a FAR. Hog Farm _Bacon 16:36, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Couple of notes ... the author of both Chew Valley articles indicated on one of the talk pages that they have moved and no longer have access to sources and cant' fix them ... so those provide an example of FARs that can probably move forward. In general, common sense and awareness that editors are humans, and tons of hours went in to every bronze star, is a good thing. When we're uncertain, we should reach out to the original nominators if they are still active. And, by the way, the Medicine project is active, but many of them want nothing to do with the FA process, which is why I wrote User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content ... an attempt to get some to re-engage after years of neglect related to other issues that resulted in the loss of many medical FA writers. (So, if you are a non-med editor, please go review medical articles at FAC ... we have a couple of editors trying to bring back medical FAs, but it's hard to get reviewers to engage, as they are unnecessarily scared off.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:07, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay - happy to revert/lengthen the 5-7 day segment. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Please do that. I don't understand why the length of the talk page notification stage was brought up in the first place. Speaking as someone who has saved articles at FAR in the past, a lot of the pages in question are going to need more work than a 5–7 day window allows. Between this and the multiple expansions of the nomination limit, I couldn't blame outsiders for thinking that this has become much more of a "delisting" process than a "bringing deficient articles up to standard if possible, and delisting if not" process, when the latter is truer to the intended spirit of FAR. If the former is truly what FAR has become, than it would be better to just delist most everything at UR/2020 and get it over with. If not, then the minority of us who care need to know that we will have the time needed to work on the pages we are interested in. If it takes a few weeks, it takes a few weeks. While I am proud that I've managed to add a couple pages to the FA tally over the years and would say that I feel connected to the collection as a whole, I won't waste my time on a lost cause. Too many of the ones we have now are going to be very hard for even interested editors to save, and I doubt I'll even be able to save most of the ones in my field (leading to the panic mentioned above, and demotivation on top of it). If I had believed that the notification window would be changed, I would have opposed the proposal as a whole. Let's fix this so that we can do some fixing. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:54, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think "5–7 days" means that the article needs to be *fixed* within 5–7 days, there just has to be an indication that someone is interested and will work on it. If that happens, it will be delayed as long as necessary, usually months. (t · c) buidhe 01:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm on the record saying it is far too short. I agree with Giants2008 that with the current timings it seems more like a delisting process rather than an article rescue process. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Agree that FAR should be a last resort process for articles with significant issues and nobody willing to work on it. Two week minimum between notice and FAR sounds like a decent floor except in rare cases. Hog Farm _Bacon 01:17, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

This hasn't happened yet at Template:FAR-instructions ... all we need is for:

• Concerned editors should give article watchers 5–7 days to respond to concerns.

to go back to ...

• Concerned editors should give article watchers two to three weeks to respond to concerns.

Could someone do that?

Also, separately, I am unable to find what edit caused FAR listings to be removed from the end of the WP:FAC page. Does anyone have a link to the edit, or where there is consensus that caused that to happen? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Done the template change. The FARs are not transcluded because of [7]. DrKay (talk) 19:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

oh my. Thanks as always, DrKay. I'm not sure many people over there even understand what that means, why it happened, and why I used to work so hard to keep off-topic off the page. Extended commentary goes on talk! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:32, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Back at last; thanks DrKay. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

What's been wrong with the delisted FAs - A probably useless study

This is a fairly rough look, but I'm going by the listings for 2020 at Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive to see what issues the delisted FAs had in common, simply judging by the statement at the head of the FARC section (or my interpretation of the rest of it on the cases where it was delisted without FARC). The sum will not match the number of delisted FAs, as some of them had multiple issues.

• Merged at AFD - 1
• Sourcing - 44
• Comprehensiveness - 9
• Prose - 17
• Neutrality - 5
• Verifiability - 1
• Close paraphrasing - 1
• Organization - 10
• Style - 7
• Structure - 2
• Currency - 5

So, unsurprisingly, the most common issue is sourcing. I suspect prose/style/organization may be catchalls. What is interesting is the number that had issues with comprehensiveness and neutrality, which is something to keep in mind when looking at WP:URFA/2020. Hog Farm _Bacon 17:56, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Another extremely common (almost universal) issue among the unwatched older FAs is the cramming in of images with no regard for image layout. Irritating as all heck. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:06, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Issues like image sandwiching tend not to get mentioned in that sectioning summary, which should not be taken as encompassing every issue an article may have. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:19, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, this was just a rough look, and my "study" is probably useless. Most of the time the sandwiching can generally be fixed by just removing some of the less-useful images, although massive infoboxes can cause problems almost impossible to fix. Hog Farm _Bacon 18:22, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I hesitate to remove images, because the problem is so big, and I would need to ping Nikkimaria for a new image review on every article I touch! How many of these older FAs are out of compliance with image policy? (I Don't Speak Images :) I don't know which to remove and which to keep, being deathly afraid of image policy as I am :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

When fixing the sandwiching issues at Battle of Blenheim, I removed two images. Somehow, they wound up being the two with licensing issues. So idiot's luck for me, I guess. Hog Farm _Bacon 18:50, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Prose is (relatively) easier to deal with before you reach an FAR, so it's not surprising to me that larger issues like sourcing and organization come up. It's easy for junk edits to accumulate or for subsequent edits to break clear links in sourcing. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:32, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

@David Fuchs: get thee over to WP:URFA/2020 and add a "Satisfactory" note to your older FAs that you have watched and are still at standard. They don't have to be perfect; we need to sort out which articles need to go to FAR, and which would be an embarrassment if run on the mainpage. If you indicate which of yours are "Satisfactory" (good enough), other editors are then triggered to look in, and get those moved off the list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:57, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that lack of comprehensiveness is so low, that is the issue that I find more difficult to flag down on the "notice stage". We're looking at a rather large array of topics here; I don't know enough about many of them to judge if the articles are comprehensive or not. When the article reaches the FAR stage, more issues are spotted by other editors, and sometimes comprehensiveness is one of them, like what happened at Gilwell Park's FAR. I had no idea that aspect was missing from the article. RetiredDuke (talk) 21:04, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Those with institutional memory will understand my silence on some FARs ;) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Thinking about this a different way, there are four main reasons that a FA might warrant / have warranted delisting:

• The criteria have changed - this of course applies most significantly to the earliest FAs
• The article has changed - if no one is stewarding, cruft and uncited/poorly cited material accumulates
• The subject has changed. This could be with regards to "living" subjects, and I include in that not just living people but also other subjects that are still "around", if you will - for example, a common problem you see in the geography articles is that something promoted in 2010 still uses 2010 stats for economy/demographics/etc. But it also includes non-"living" subjects because people still tend to write stuff about people/things that aren't around anymore, and in order for an article to be a comprehensive survey of the literature someone needs to keep up on that.
• Something wasn't flagged in the FAC. This is a smaller category and includes things like close paraphrasing/copyvio. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:10, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

• And add to that, when you get back in to the 2004 to 2007 period, you find promotions on two simple support statements, no review or analysis, and promotions over multiple opposes. So not only did criteria change; reviewing standards changed. And Coords/Delegates were often obligated by consensus to promote things they didn't agree with. There was a period where I was flogged in the blog-o-sphere for flagging blog sources on a computer-related topic, and editors claiming that blogs were the most reliable sources in that field. We went into an extended period then when lesser quality sources were endorsed by reviewers as appropriate to certain content areas-- those are coming out now. The criteria never changed on this, but what reviewers accept did.
  I have been reading through some old FAs of a well respected and now long departed FA writer and reviewer, and seeing amazing amounts of original research that have stood for well over a decade. And trembling at the prospect of deleting it, knowing I will be flogged again, on Wikipedia this time. Her academic reputation was such that reviewers passed on original research. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:37, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

And on this topic, see this great idea. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

At my five limit

I am due for another nomination tomorrow, but at my five limit.

1. 8 November Wikipedia:Featured article review/Wii/archive2 (still in FAR)
2. 25 November Wikipedia:Featured article review/Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami/archive1 (3 Delists)
3. 2 December Wikipedia:Featured article review/When God Writes Your Love Story/archive2 (1 Delist)
4. 9 December Wikipedia:Featured article review/Music of the Lesser Antilles/archive1 (2 Delists)
5. 16 December Wikipedia:Featured article review/Jupiter/archive1 (still in FAR)

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Almost one-third of the nominations on the page are extended reviews that people have promised to work on or that are actively being improved. That's a Good Thing. But extended FARs mean that many nominators will hit their five-article limit, and that FAR overall could stall. Do we need to entertain the possibility of moving to a max of six at a time? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:01, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

My idea would be to set a limit solely for the number that could be in the FAR section at a time. The idea is to prevent system overload, and the bigger fish of system overload IMO is when stuff gets stuck at the FAR stage before FARC. Hog Farm _Bacon 17:49, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I'm also at my 5 limit (Cell nucleus and daylight savings time at FARC, the others at FAR). (t · c) buidhe 18:04, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I would very much prefer people ask for exceptions when needed (as in the cases of extended FARs) rather than making a blanket change. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:30, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm happy with that ...just was hesitant since I have had to keep bugging the Coords :) It looks like Wii will be at FAR for quite a while, so I may be asking for an exception soon. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 revisited

(Posting here rather than WT:URFA/2020 for visibility reasons and the overlap in regular editors between the two project pages) Well, progress with URFA is coming along pretty well under the leadership of SandyGeorgia, who's been informally heading the project. One thing that's been noticed through the project that I think ought to be introduced is a change as to how we've been doing the noticing system. The goal of this project is to get interest in bringing older and abandoned FAs back up to standard, with delisting as really a last-choice option for when the article has major issues and nobody is stepping up to work on it. Currently, what generally happens is that the article does not meet the criteria, and a notice is left on the talk page stating that if identified issues are not met, FAR is coming. This is likely to discourage or scare off editors who might want to work on the article. An idea is that maybe references to FAR should be left out of the talk page notice identifying issues, and then FAR only mentioned and the article added to the list of notices after some time if no work is being done to address the issues. In exceptional cases, it's probably perfectly fine to drop the notice early: for instance when there's only a single main contributor who has been indeffed for years or has stated that they can't or don't plan on bringing it back up to standard. Additionally, if there develops consensus that the article is hopeless in its current state for whatever reason, that'd also be a sign to go ahead and notice.

Additionally, this is an effort that needs some more help. We let featured article maintenance get backed up by about 10 years, so there's a lot of attention that needs to be given here, especially with the oldest entries. One thing that could be done easily is for editors considering nominating articles at FAR to give precedence to nominating the articles closest to the top at the URFA list, although it should be kept in mind that some of those noticed are not good FAR candidates as they were only recently noticed, and someone may still step in to fix the issues. Hog Farm _Bacon 02:18, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I think that if a featured article needs to be rewritten to retain its status, then it should be delisted and go through a new FAC. Several FAs promoted in 2006-2008 have not gone through a proper FA review, and I think that asking editors to upgrade them in the background is not the proper way to go. I repeat my suggestion to have a "speedy delist" process for FAs that need to be rewritten. I've seen FAs that wouldn't pass a GAN. T8612 (talk) 04:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

So have I. The extreme cases should probably go the more accelerated route. Examples include Webley Revolver which was delisted a few months back, or Battle of Tippecanoe, which has serious source-text integrity concerns. But stuff like Shadow of the Colossus, which has definite issues but is not systematically broken, should get some more time to try to get engagement. I support not giving extra time to the hopeless cases, but the fixable ones I think should get a little extra time. There's a bunch of hopeless cases out there now, but as URFA works into the period with less time to degrade and stricter original standards, there will be more fixable ones coming up. Hog Farm _Bacon 04:19, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Not so much "my leadership" as URFA/2020 has been an amazing collaboration of many editors. The only thing I've done is try to set the tone and process, taking lessons from the old WP:URFA, knowing what some of the pitfalls can be down the road.

T8612, I like to think there is also a middle ground. Remember that a FAR is a new FAC. (See Climate change. No, strike that; these days, FAR is better than a new FAC, because FAC has fallen into a problem where any nomination is lucky if it can get three reviewers, and once it does, the review often stops-- you get more reviewers at FAR. We don't allow subheadings here. FAC has fallen into a pattern of allowing subheadings, including an indication of support, so that once reviewers see three segmented sub-heads where others have reviewed and supported, they say fine, I don't need to look-- this is a Very Bad Thing, that affects article quality, and is not happening at FAR. And when people see an article's status is challenged via a FAR they are more likely to weigh in and review. I do not think Climate change would get the grilling at FAC that it is getting at FAR.)

So when an article is many years separate from its original FAC, and considerably changed (I'm looking not only at Climate change, but also at Bob Dylan, where editors have engaged on my talk to ask for feedback), my suggestion is a three-step process: 1) involved editors who are notified on article talk that there are issues work for a few months to bring the article closer to standard; 2) once they've done that, URFA/FAR reviewers give them further guidance towards improvement; 3) then an article with that many changes is submitted to FAR for a check, as is happening with Climate change.

Ultimately, we have to keep two goals in mind-- article improvement, and engaging more editors toward same. If we are only here to strip stars from articles, or even perceived that way, FAR will fall into decline again.

All that aside, I agree that we need to move the hopeless cases through quickly, and conserve resources for where there is hope, or at least, for article improvement even if the star can't be saved. It's hard to know where to draw that line, but the Coords here do a very good job at sorting that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

So, I think you all have a dialogue to finish. I came here to ask a question and found this thread that's kinda sorta getting at what I wanted to ask about. My understanding is that saving a FAR used to outweigh a quick and simple delist, but I've been away for ages and stuff changes. Above Hog Farm mentions the Battle of Tippecanoe as unfixable which he reiterated on the nomination page last night. Whatever the goal - delist, rewrite and go back to FAC, or something else entirely - it needs to be clear so that we don't have volunteers stepping up unnecessarily and wasting time and energy. For now I'll cease on Tippecanoe until coords and all are clear re goals. Let me know on that talk page or on mine what to do or not to do once it's clear to all. FWIW, as an uninvolved seldom-around participant my view is that saving an article is always preferable to delisting. But ymmv and all that. Victoria (tk) 15:14, 10 January 2021 (UTC)