Wikipedia talk:Featured article review

WikiProject FAR Notifications
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Featured article removal candidates
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare	Review now
The Notorious B.I.G.	Review now
Anarky	Review now
Isaac Brock	Review now
0.999...	Review now
Mariah Carey	Review now
Pokémon Channel	Review now
Concerto delle donne	Review now
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask	Review now

Featured content dispatch workshop

2014 Oct 1: Let's get serious about plagiarism 2013 Jul 10: Infoboxes: time for a fresh look? 2010 Nov 15: A guide to the Good Article Review Process Oct 18: Common issues seen in Peer review Oct 11: Editing tools, part 3 Sep 20: Editing tools, part 2 Sep 6: Editing tools, part 1 Mar 15: GA Sweeps end Feb 8: Content reviewers and standards 2009 Nov 2: Inner German border Oct 12: Sounds May 11: WP Birds May 4: Featured lists Apr 20: Valued pictures Apr 13: Plagiarism Apr 6: New FAC/FAR nominations Mar 16: New FAC/FAR delegates Mar 9: 100 Featured sounds Mar 2: WP Ships FT and GT Feb 23: 100 FS approaches Feb 16: How busy was 2008? Feb 8: April Fools 2009 Jan 31: In the News Jan 24: Reviewing featured picture candidates Jan 17: FA writers—the 2008 leaders Jan 10: December themed page Jan 3: Featured list writers 2008 Nov 24: Featured article writers Nov 10: Historic election on Main Page Nov 8: Halloween Main Page contest Oct 13: Latest on featured articles Oct 6: Matthewedwards interview Sep 22: Reviewing non-free images Sep 15: Interview with Ruhrfisch Sep 8: Style guide and policy changes, August Sep 1: Featured topics Aug 25: Interview with Mav Aug 18: Choosing Today's Featured Article Aug 11: Reviewing free images Aug 9 (late): Style guide and policy changes, July Jul 28: Find reliable sources online Jul 21: History of the FA process Jul 14: Rick Block interview Jul 7: Style guide and policy changes for June Jun 30: Sources in biology and medicine Jun 23 (26): Reliable sources Jun 16 (23): Assessment scale Jun 9: Main page day Jun 2: Styleguide and policy changes, April and May May 26: Featured sounds May 19: Good article milestone May 12: Changes at Featured lists May 9 (late): FC from schools and universities May 2 (late): Did You Know Apr 21: Styleguide and policy changes Apr 14: FA milestone Apr 7: Reviewers achieving excellence Mar 31: Featured content overview Mar 24: Taming talk page clutter Mar 17: Changes at peer review Mar 13 (late): Vintage image restoration Mar 3: April Fools mainpage Feb 25: Snapshot of FA categories Feb 18: FA promotion despite adversity Feb 11: Great saves at FAR Feb 4: New methods to find FACs Jan 28: Banner year for Featured articles

See also: Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles

and the Toolserver listing of featured articles with cleanup tags

Who is checking notifications ?

I used to do this job on every FAR, and remind nominators to do it correctly ... is anyone doing that now? if is a perfect shame that Wikipedia:Featured article review/Tuberculosis/archive1 has been up since April and the significant contributors weren't notified-- I would have gladly worked on it, and I imagine Tim Vickers would have to. Someone needs to stay on top of the bookkeeping here, and independently of whether that article needs a FAR, the FAR statement was very poorly written and didn't indicate problems worthy of a FAR (not saying they may not be there, I haven't yet looked, but the rationale for a FAR wasn't really developed in the nomination statement). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Geez! This is really all my fault anyway. I started the FAR and looking around its history, I failed to have looked at the first FAR properly. I mean, I didn't notify TimVickers because of me looking at his contributions and seeing him less active now. However, Sandy, I never noticed you were part of the FAR in the first place. So, I'm sorry. Can someone restart the FAR or something? GamerPro64 15:10, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly how I would go about restarting a FAR - I don't think I've ever seen it done. However, I am more than willing to put a notice on the review page saying something along the lines of "Unfortunately, the notices weren't completed correctly and this issue was never caught. Because of this, this review is being extended, and will not be removed from this page for at least another 2 weeks (July 20, 2011)". I can do this if you (GamerPro) are willing to make the notifications, and perhaps list them in a new comment on the review page. According to this tool, it looks like TimVickers (talk · contribs), Petersam (talk · contribs) and Jmh649 (talk · contribs) would be the ones to notify, as they have over 50 edits to the article and are still active. Sandy would also be in that category, but I think we can assume she's now aware of the review from her posts above and on the review page. Notifying the editors who have expressed an interest in working on the article (OrangeMarlin, Casliber, etc) that the review has been extended would also be appreciated. Dana boomer (talk) 16:20, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, I notified all the people that would work on this FAR. GamerPro64 17:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I think even if someone is evidently long gone, we should notify them. People may check a user page even after years away. (I got an image donation for "Fluorine" this way, posting a request on a talk page of a user who had no contribs for over a year.)TCO (talk) 18:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Correct-- anywho, the issues raised in the original FAR have (apparently?) either been corrected or were invalid (expand "victims"-- see MEDMOS-- damn near everyone in history had tuberculosis, so linking to a list is much more appropriate). Someone needs to indicate what work needs to be done on the FAR-- it's been open for eons with apparent corrections made and no commentary. Folks, you gotta prod prod prod for FAR to work ... and even then, some of us have limited time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:31, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I got my knuckles wrapped :) first FAR I looked at. I thought the person STARTING the process ought to do a solid, LONG, review. I just think this is more efficient for the first person to do so, rather than the first fixer. Also, since theoretically the goal is a "save" and the first step of the process is not a real deletion, but more of a "peer review", it makes sense. A review that just topically lists the major problems (or gives one or two examples) is not adequate. I'm not saying the nom should find every problem or do all the work to solve. But I...basically think he should do the equivalent of an initial Peer Review (at the PR area). I guess this is not the current expectation, but I think the process would work better if it was. (Or conversely, just have sweeps or de-FA after a year or something.) P.s. Even if I was in the wrong policy-wise, urging a nominator "long review" led to the article getting saved...;-)

7 months? 8 months? A year?

I seem to recall a time where articles had about a month total at FAR before the review was closed or the article demoted. Even so isn't 7 and 8 months a bit ridiculous? The two oldest articles still have open issues after this lengthy period of time. Could a FAR essentially never close just because there are occasional sporadic attempts being made on its improvement? Brad (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea why Belgium hasn't been delisted (perhaps the delegates will explain), Indian FAs have always been subject to some ... strange ... input, so delegates may need additional feedback from non-partisans, but I can tell you why Tuberculosis is still listed: primary contributors were not notified, as expected per FAR instructions, which is a shame. Someone should be checking for that on every new nom so that doesn't happen again. We also have some clearly deficient articles still listed here because no one has bothered to enter Delist declarations; I don't see what delegates can do in such cases, although Marskell used to 1) do the work himself, and 2) recruit, recruit, recruit. FAR became an unhappy place to work before the current delegates came on board and for reasons unrelated to them, so it's unclear what can be done to encourage participation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:45, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I delisted Economy of India earlier today, but on Belgium two reviewers had indicated that their delist comments had been addressed (but they didn't strike their delists), so I pinged the primary person trying to save it to check with other reviewers whether they had more concerns. I definitely echo Sandy's concerns about lack of reviewer engagement - we've got some very long and/or very old reviews with few to no declarations, which makes it difficult to definitely close one way or the other. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I can offer to help out in about two months when I'm done moving :) :) You can only do what you can do ... but some sort of push to get folks to re-engage here might be talked about. We no longer have The Signpost Dispatches, which was the venue we used to encourage participation, so I'm not sure what you might do. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the delegates are too hesitant to move articles off (not just when they need to lose the star, but the converse). Felt that way on Latter Days...was like a hesitancy to just move the procedure on and end it. Like having to ask again "are we sure this is ready to go". Some less consensus processing and more making a decision would be better. (Of course I also think FAC has some definite process shortcomings compared to open peer reviews at real journals.TCO (reviews needed) 04:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, reviews are moved articles too quickly. Most of the reviews I made resulted in articles demoted. Maybe expend on the time it takes between the steps and there could be more work on an article without someone worrying about a short time limit. GamerPro64 04:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting - the original poster says the process is too long, you say it's too short. In your view, what would be the ideal time-frame for a review, from talk-page notification through FAR and FARC to a decision? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, the talk page step is alright with someone waiting a week or two if there are no response to the notification. For step two, that's another two with with again, no response. But for the FARC, I feel like if there is no work on the article for a while, unless a user is saying there on vacation or something, maybe just close it. Its not worth a backlog if there's too many articles up for FAR. Besides, its not like the article's gonna be deleted after the review. GamerPro64 04:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't want to create an incident over this; I was sort of musing out loud. The time line on Hamlet chicken processing plant fire was just about right IMO. A month of talk page notice and then mix or match another two months through review and removal commentary. With a two month time frame on the actual FAR process this means that an editor could nominate about six articles a year. However, the articles that sit around forever prevent the nominator from nominating another unless permission is given. User participation has been and always will be a problem; I don't ever foresee a time when it wouldn't be. I wonder if setting a maximum amount of time for FAR would work without creating tons of drama? Brad (talk) 07:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The notion that you can't nominate another was based on a time when FARs took one month-- now that they are routinely taking six, it seems that permission would be granted to nom another. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Chiming in here (have been watching, but too busy to comment): the "nominate one at a time" thing was implemented at a time when there were over 30 reviews on the page and some nominators had 5 or 6 going at the same time. With the reviews down in number and nominators no longer being (IMO) rather unreasonable, permission will be more readily granted to nominate an additional article if one that you have already nominated is held up for some reason. Just ask Nikki or me. We still ask that nominators try to not have multiple noms from the same project up at the same time, just to allow interested editors to work on one article at a time... Dana boomer (talk) 02:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Dana. I know you are taking a lot of crits. I appreciate that you are doing the work, running the thing, making it go forward.TCO (reviews needed) 02:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

United States Marine Corps

United States Marine Corps.. Message was left on talk page about 6 months ago by tpbradbury. I asked him recently if he was going to follow through on the FAR listing but he has no plans to do so. I have other articles in the pipeline after Daniel Webster is resolved. Perhaps someone who feels like taking on USMC can do so. I've also talk page noticed International Space Station since it's at the top of the FA cleanup listing. Brad (talk) 22:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't remember exactly how the current instruction wording came about. However, IIRC, the consensus ended up somewhere along the lines of: if the page is really backlogged (over 25-30 articles) nominators can only have one article on the whole page. However, if the page isn't backlogged (it's not right now), then nominators are welcome to have one in each section (FAR & FARC). Unless I'm missing something, you only have one on the page, in the FARC section, so please feel free to nominate another. Dana boomer (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Unreviewed featured articles

I went through the entire list of unreviewed featured articles and made updates where needed. There is one remaining article from the original few or no citations list that needs a FAR. More articles to review than there are reviewers. Brad (talk) 05:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Brad, your updates look wonderful - thank you very much for taking the time to do that work! As everyone can see, there are quite a few articles that have already had notifications made - if the work has not been completed, these can be nominated at any time. The FAR page is low with only 12 articles, so everyone get out there and nominate one! Another good link is this cleanup listing, which shows that over 30% of featured articles have a cleanup tag of some sort! Dana boomer (talk) 12:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I ran each article through checklinks and tagged the dead ones; I made notes when I thought it was needed. I did not however, make any changes to the graphs or counts. Running checklinks in most cases meant that another maintenance tag would be added and therefore bump the article upwards on the cleanup list. The trouble with the cleanup listing is that it counts articles that use the "as of" template. In the case of the Virginia article I happen to know that it's up to date as possible since the article was on the main page back in May. If the "as of" tags were discounted on the space station article it would have only 5 tags on the listing. It's sort of misleading. Brad (talk) 21:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Article in need of a review?

After seeing the AfD full of what look like socks and what feels like a very puffy/spammy article, I thought someone who knows about the featured article process might want to look at Ernest Emerson again. Thanks. Hobit (talk) 09:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

"They" have-- several times. This might be helpful, and AfD debacles are unrelated to WP:WIAFA-- any topic that meets notability (and Emerson clearly does) can be featured. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Articles in need of FAR

Hi everyone - Since the list on the FAR page is fairly short right now, I thought I'd go ahead and list some articles here that have had notifications of work needed in the past and now could stand to be listed on the FAR page:

• Francis Petre - Nom'd Brad (talk) 09:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
• Island Fox - Nom'd Brad (talk) 10:21, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
• Order of Canada Nom'd Brad (talk) 01:13, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
• Hero of Ukraine
• Templon
• Sylvia (ballet)
• Sunset Boulevard (film)
• Fauna of Australia
• The Relapse
• Rosa Parks
• Gas tungsten arc welding
• Raney nickel
• Scotland in the High Middle Ages
• Katie Holmes
• Dog Day Afternoon - nominated by TenPoundHammer on 9/22/11 - Dana boomer (talk) 21:48, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

All of these articles have had notifications of a possible FAR over the past couple of years, with little or no follow up. Everyone should feel free to either nom these or pick them up for cleanup work! Thanks to Brad101 for updating Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles, from which I compiled this list. Dana boomer (talk) 00:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

If there are no objections I'll nominate one article a week until I get tired or someone else wings in here. Or we could throw caution to the wind and do a nomination bombing. Brad (talk) 12:06, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Is it really fair to encourage people to nominate one of Bishonen' pages the day after she announces that she will be away with a health problem for some time? Even by FAR's standards that seems pretty low. Giacomo Returned 17:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Brad, I don't have a problem with you noming more often/once a week or so (unless the page starts getting backlogged with more than 20-25 noms; it's no-where near that right now, though). If other users have an issue with that course of action, though, they are encouraged to post here. Per Giano's comment, you may want to hold off a while on The Relapse, to see if Bishonen is able to come back. Giano, you make it sound like it was deliberate...many of these articles have editors that are away at the moment or have been for a while - hence the reason they have had work needed sections on the talk page go unanswered, in some cases for years, and hence why they are listed here. Dana boomer (talk) 21:37, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

• Yom Kippur War. Talk page notice was given in May 2010 (now in talk archives). Skimming over the article I can see that it is in very bad condition. Promoted in 2005 it had a FAR in 2006 and can be listed for another FAR at anytime. Brad (talk) 09:22, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Nominated today. Brad (talk) 14:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Could we please try to avoid "FAR noms on auto-pilot"? One of the aims of FAR is to improve articles when editors are willing to work on them, yet I'm seeing lots of vague nomination statements that don't engage WP:WIAFA with specificity and clear examples, to encourage article improvement. A driveby "this article needs FAR" without providing specifics isn't in the spirit of FAR-- some of the recent nominations include non-specific statements with no examples like:

• Some very short paragraphs that also fall under 2b below. A general copyedit never hurts either.
  • Unless you can explain why the short paragraph is a problem, how do we know it is? Of course a general copyedit never hurts, but you shouldn't FAR an article unless you can identify specific prose issues and no one is working on them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
• There are a few areas that are lacking citations. Several dead links.
  • Perhaps those areas don't require citation? Examples would help. Links go dead over time-- check archive.org-- that the links have gone dead doesn't mean the article has fallen out of compliance-- it means someone needs to update the links. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
• Could use a bibliography section.
  • We don't prescribe citation methods, and bibliography sections aren't required. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
• 1d and maybe 1e. Article was the subject of an arbitration ruling for edit warring and POV issues. While this issue may have come to an end it's possible that some of the warring and POV still remain in the article.
  • Maybe? It's possible? No-- demonstrate that the article fails 1e please if you want to FAR it on that basis. 1e by the way is greatly misunderstood-- we don't penalize articles because they are subject to edit or POV warriors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
• 2c There is little uniformity in citations. Full information of sources are missing.
  • Not a single example-- how does that help someone trying to improve the article.

This is an alarming trend, based on only glancing at the top of the FAR page-- one that I'd not like to see also take hold at FAC (if you oppose an article without specifics, I'll be likely to ignore the oppose unless someone else provides specifics and examples). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)