Wikipedia talk:Featured article review

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Very unusual problem

I know it is frowned upon here at FAR to bring an FA here immediately after it has received FA status, however I found an exception to the rule and wanted to get community feedback before I posted the article here.

The article in question is B-movie. The article written by User:DCGeist was well-written and looked good when it was nominated by another user on December 22. I offered my support for the article to receive FA status on December 27. The article eventual was named an FA January 10. It's last vote of support came on January 7. Prior to that, the last vote of support came on January 3. The problem comes from the fact that during the day of December 7 (at the tale end of the articles FAC), the original author did a complete re-write of the entire article , increasing its length by 300% to bring the article over 127 kilobytes in size and putting it into the top 130 largest articles in all of Wikipedia. I feel this gigantic novela about b-movies to be a complete violation of FA criteria 4) It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Additionally, a large number of copyrighted images were added to the article late in the FAC process bringing the total number of copyrighted images to 17. This is clearly in violation of Wikipedia: Fair Use rule 3) "The amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible."

To see all 205 changes made to the article after the second to the last support vote until the FA star was given (January 3 and January 11), click here: [1]

Given these facts, I believe this article should immediately be brought up for review even though it has just gained FA staus. It is important to the high standards Wikipedia has set for itself not to let the process be corrupted. Thank you for listening. --Jayzel 04:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

B-movie is a dreadful violation of WP:SIZE (to which my 56k modem can well attest — I had to wait several minutes for the page to load and the diff you provided stopped loading several times, necessitating a number of refreshes). Although the article seems quite good overall (though, the lead could use some work), it clearly needs to be split up into a number of smaller articles (like Saffron). As for bringing the article to WP:FAR at this early date, I would suggest WP:NOT a bureaucracy and WP:IAR most certainly applies here. I think it ought to be listed. Mikker ^(...) 05:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I was curious, so I dumped the article body in Word, which reports about 15,300 words. In skimming the article, its quality is a small miracle, and I'd happily see every article like this (well, almost) if they were as cogent as this. A web page speed report shows that in terms of download time, the main factor is the images, not the text. I personally would leave the article as a whole alone—preferring good works to policy diktat—but I can see that pragmatically, at least some images need to be removed. I hope that any reviews of this article will be respectful of the effort and achievement represented here. –Outriggr § 06:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

After several miserable edit conflicts, where I lost my paragraphs, Outriggr, a prose size analysis shows something different: the prose size is what is in excess. Have you got Dr pda's script? And, considering the article changes, we certainly need to get Jkelly to look at the Fair Use issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Retract that: I ran Dr pda's numbers again, and there is a problem in both areas, in fact. This must be a bear to load on a dialup. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

(Doh! You got me this time! I'll paste this anyway.) I think we're talking two different things. I was trying to say that downloading this amount of article text is not particularly a problem in terms of "transmission time"; it's the images that slow the page download, and slow transmission was mentioned above as a concern. And you're referring to the article length in relation to policy, which Dr pda's tool helps to measure. Sorry 'bout those edit conflicts. I had one meeself. –Outriggr § 06:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in spite of many edit conflicts, we're on the same page now. The images and prose both add to the download time, but it's the prose that goes against guidelines at WP:LENGTH, which tell us to take care with how much a reader can digest. Both are too long! And, some of these sections are so long that any argument against summary style doesn't make sense - some of the sections are articles in and of themselves, and should be in daughter articles. Of course it's easier to plop it all into one giant article then to figure out how to make it flow in encyclopedic-sized chunks. The article needs to use summary style. Sheesh, we're going to see the elac police come back after FA again if we start churning out 3 times the recommended prose size :-) And we really need a Jkelly opinion on that much Fair Use. Problems here, and troubling that it grew in a way that didn't fully engage the FAC process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Other editors have already noticed and inquired, Jayzel, so I had already looked at the numbers and the diffs.

B movie is now likely the record holder for the longest FA - longer than the previous longest FA that the ELAC (Extra Long Article Police, um, Committee) were complaining about, and longer than World War I, which was defeatured. Overall size is not the issue: prose size and failure to employ summary style is the underlying problem. Well-referenced FAs may have a large overall size, with KB chunked up by references, but a manageable amount of readable prose. In this case, the excess size is not in references, it's in prose. (See WP:LENGTH for article size guidelines, and how to calculate readable prose.) B movie's prose size is a possibly FA record 86KB, and a good chunk of that text was not reviewed on FAC. The excess was added after January 3rd, after most of the Support votes registered. The article size increased dramatically after it garnered FA support; here are the changes between the 3rd and now, a few days after its promotion.

I consider you a solid reviewer, and when I saw your early Support, I passed on reviewing the article: the title didn't attract my interest, and FAC was overloaded because Raul had not promoted/archived for over a week. I always check size: I did not review this article. Others may have checked, but the article grew dramatically after the 3rd, when most Support votes were in.

Following the substantial article rewrite (after the 3rd), there was one Object, one Support, and one mention that "my god, this is a long article" (with no vote) - it's likely no one saw that comment or realized the article had been transformed; the size increase was not noticed by a reviewer until the 9th, unfortunately just before it was promoted. The FAC room was backlogged, and the article rewrite wasn't noticed.

FAR instructions call for a 3-month lag between promotion and review, unless there are extenuating circumstances. I concur with you that the circumstances are extenuating: the article that was promoted is not the article that was reviewed and received Support. I believe there will be consensus to review the article before 3 months elapse, but it might also be useful to allow a month from closing so editors can employ summary style, bringing the article into line with guidelines at WP:LENGTH. If others think we should bring it up immediately, I'd go along with that as well, but feel that our time would be more productively spent if editors first worked on employing summary style before the article is again reviewed. I support review either now or a month after it was promoted; in either case, the article should come to FAR ultimately, and you're not the only one in line to bring it to review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, guys! Yo, Sandy, what up, bro. Y'all got a hardcore session going on here. I'm loving seeing the nitty-gritty stats breakdown on l'il ol' B movie. (By my admittedly non-tech-educated analysis, I have the article expanding from 35 KB when it was nominated [Andman8: 01:21, December 22, 2006] to 77 KB at the point the third-to-last Support vote was entered [Quadzilla99: 07:23, January 3, 2007] to 113 KB at the point the last Support vote was entered [Anthonycfc: 01:39, January 7, 2007] to 125 KB at the point FA status was affirmed by Raul654 [16:29, January 9, 2007] See, e.g., [2]. Did I get that right, or are the figures I'm looking at not really relevant? Tech question, Sandy: What is meant by "listy prose that isn't captured." Which prose is that? Perhaps my ad hoc data chart on 1938 movie running times? Can you explain to a relative layman why it's not captured? Sorry to vex you about this--I've never seen these stats before and it's fascinating. Am I correct that "Wiki text" = "Prose size" + "References" + "Coding [unstated; including image callup code]" and that "Images" is on top of that? So that would one would add "Wiki text" and "Images" to gauge the size of the article in terms of download time? And the figures I cited above are what you list as "Wiki text"?).

I'm sorry the article has made y'all so miserable. Jayzel--I'm listenin' and I'm lovin' ya: not only were you "duped," now B movie has "corrupted" the "process." It's kinda funny--so many people are jumping into line to bring the article to review, yet not a single one of y'all has yet made a concrete suggestion about how to compress the article. (I do understand the concern about how much prose in the last few days was not vetted by multiple independent reviewers—but, just anecdotally, if you examine my history, you should know that I was seeking more precise and well-founded detail and the best possible sourcing during that period.) How 'bout if I support review now? You think someone will actually have something constructive to say? Or let's take it straight to FARC--that little brown star is drivin' Jayzel c-r-a-z-y. Much love. Dan. (P.S. Did I really set a record?!?)—DCGeist 09:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I've just kind of been lurking here, but, yeah, folks have made "a concrete suggestion about how to compress the article": split it up and summarize per Wikipedia:Summary style. The "History" section seems to be the main bugbear, so you could create a new article called History of the B movie or History of B movies and move the text there. Then you summarize everything in the main article. — BrianSmithson 09:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Um...forgive me for not doing one of my excruciatingly elaborate (i.e., amateur) KB analyses, but the "History" section is the article. I'm going to guesstimate (Sandy, help!) that, including references, it's 95% of the throwweight of the article. And, in fact, you are the first one to actually make a viable suggestion. Let's think about this: (a) move virtually the entire article to a secondary sort of title (History of the B movie, say), (b) reserve B movie for an article that would be...what?...75%...66%...50% of its current size, and (c) link sections of the compressed B movie to matching sections of the full-size History of the B movie, which could even be expanded. (Or, as Sandy hints, if the ELACs don't like that, seperate articles by decade.) This is not irrational. This could serve the Wikipedia reader. I would be willing to bust my ass to do this. But let me ask you, Brian, how motivated do you expect me to feel, given that the immense effort that went into the article keeps getting characterized with crap like "duped" and "corrupted"? You know, I think the article as it stands serves the Wikipedia reader very well. With or without its star. And I'll do what I can to protect it (I mean its intellectual integrity; its FA status is comparatively small beans) against the Wikilawyers. Thanks, though. You clearly do care more about the end product than about policy-mongering. And I reiterate, I support immediate review. Let's see who both (a) has a vision of how to improve the article's utility for our readership and (b) is ready to do high-quality work toward that end.—DCGeist 11:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see your point about the history practically being the article. Yeah, in that case, you could move some of the longer sections of the "History" section to create now articles. For example, B movies in the 1930s, B movies in the 1940s, etc. (Dunno: Maybe 1930s B movies is a better way to write it; at any rate, be careful to redirect one to the other.) Then you'd summarize the part you moved into maybe 50–60% its original size (at a guess). But, yeah, the main article is supposed to be somewhere around 30-40 KB of "prose" (so, excluding refs, image captions, sources cited, etc.). Keep in mind, this is just me talking out my you-know-what, so perhaps you or someone else monitoring this discussion can propose a better way to split the article per WP:SS.

And don't take the comments here too personally. The folks who hang out at FAC and FAR are very committed, and most really want to make sure that Wikipedia's FA's do really represent our best work. I don't think you had any intention of "corrupting the process" or "duping" anyone, of course, but take those comments in stride. If you're committed to working out any kinks on the article, I'm sure everyone will be pleased with the final result. And, besides, you might end up with several FA-worthy subarticles to submit for the star in the bargain. — BrianSmithson 11:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Dr pda data

(Which fails to pick up chunks of B movie because it has listy prose that isn't captured - prose is higher than the 84 shown) - comparison with ultra long FAs, that were discussed on ELAC:

B movie

• Wiki text: 127.1 kB (19486 words)
• Prose size (text only): 84 kB (13569 words)
• References (text only): 15 kB
• Images: 477 kB

World War I (recently defeatured)

• Wiki text: 95.0 kB (14441 words)
• Prose size (text only): 69 kB (11406 words)
• References (text only): 2 kB
• Images: 360 kB

Ketuanan Melayu (Size was considered on review - unlike B movie, where size increase occurred after support was garnered)

• Wiki text: 107.5 kB (16228 words)
• Prose size (text only): 81 kB (13048 words)
• References (text only): 11 kB
• Images: 131 kB

And for comparison to a LONG FA, Bacteria, size all in references, not prose (conforming to WP:LENGTH)

• Wiki text: 84.6 kB (11403 words)
• Prose size (text only): 39 kB (5820 words)
• References (text only): 21 kB
• Images: 375 kB

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Interjection

To get back to the original question—should it or should it not go to review—I'd suggest waiting for the talk page to exhaust itself. Jayzel, you could make a list of ways to compress and better summarize; if after two or three weeks it's not budging, come back here. Marskell 13:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree that a month from promotion (around Feb 9) would give involved editors time to figure out how to address the problems, but definitely believe we should review it then; much of the article wasn't vetted, there may be a new article structure, and there are Fair Use questions. The talk page, at this point, reflects DCGeist's reluctance to correct the issues; perhaps that will evolve over the next few weeks. Editors may want to install Dr pda's script, in order to see how it measures different pieces, and what it misses. I also don't think it's "Jayzel's job" to list ways of compressing the article. He voted Support on a reasonably-sized article - it's not up to 'nominators' to fix the issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

May I say that I agree with Sandy on this one. Tony 15:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I too agree with Sandy. Let me add that there is good news for DCGeist as well as bad: he's done most of the hard work in writing the content of B movie which now simply has to be split up somehow into several sub-articles, many of which can become FAs themselves. Indeed, the series of articles thus created could quite possibly become a Featured topic. Lastly, I should note that the WP:SIZE issue isn't simply one of whether the article violates WIAFA, it's also (perhaps more importantly) an issue of usability. Not only do poor buggers like myself with ancient technology (the 56k modem — thanks Telkom) suffer badly when trying to access the article, the prose length is a deterrent to actually reading the article. Therefore, the article needs to be fixed irrespective of whether it's FARed or not and irrespective of whether it is an FA or not. Mikker ^(...) 17:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking similar, recalling the comment that Saffron isn't so much a featured topic, as one long article cut into three FAs, so there's potential here - another reason for allowing time for it to be fixed. Fair Use should be addressed, though, and we should still revisit whatever is left of the core article, as it wasn't vetted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, all. I've read through the article and have some ideas to begin trimming it down. I will suggest them to DC and see if he is fine with them. If he is, then I will drop my request for review. It's up to others what to do about all the copyrighted images, however. Regards, --Jayzel 02:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like progress Jayzel: hopefully within the next three weeks, the article will be down around 40KB prose size, and will have Fair Use clearance, prior to review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

40 kilobytes of prose?? Yikes. My suggestions to DC bring the overall size of the article down to 97k and 70k prose. I'll keep at this. We may just have to spin most everything into seperate articles. We'll see. --Jayzel 04:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

A prose size of 70KB 1) is still massive, and 2) is hardly a reduction - it's at 86 now. (We battled back the Extra Long Article Police because their methods were too forceful, but they objected to any article over 40KB *overall* - in other words, about 25 - 30KB prose, depending on images and references. They were taking on any article that passed 50KB overall - in other words, B movie would have to be cut more than in half for them, had we not fought for a definition based on prose size rather than overall size.) With the exception of that article listed above whose name I can never remember how to spell, I don't recall seeing any article pass FAC recently with more than 50KB prose, and people start complaining at about 40KB. Also, the person who added all those images should really be calling in someone to give an opinion - not our job, and I don't speak Fair Use :-) If that amount of images had gone through FAC, someone there would have noticed - now we need to find someone knowledgeable - the two names that come to mind are Jkelly and Meegs - maybe Petholmes works in Fair Use as well, not sure. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Some of the FAC numbers for comparison: it was 25KB prose when nominated, and 47KB prose on January 3rd, so the Support votes came somewhere in between the 25 and 47 - now it's at 84. If it got all but one of the Support votes when it was under 47 a week ago, it's hard to understand why it can't find it's way back to that size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm relatively new here at FAR, but I thought I would add a word or two about this article. In my view, while the article is quite long, it is also fascinating; and I would hate to see it demoted or even pruned simply because of length. To me, this is an excellent example of what Wikipedia does best: encyclopedic articles on subjects that Britannica et al wouldn't really bother with, or would dispose of in a few short paragraphs. While I agree that the article could possibly be broken into 2 or even 3 smaller articles, I wonder if that would weaken it. I wonder, too, if readers would search out the other segments.

I have messaged the author, and am looking at the article in more depth today. I do support Jayzel's suggestion--in a limited manner--that C, Z and Psychotronic movie can be altered or deleted. I say limited sup[port, because each section mentioned has valuable information about the subject.

I wonder if it is possibly to split the article into pages, without creating separate articles (eg: "article continues here" at the bottom of each of the first two pages. That way, the integrity of the article wouldn't be compromised, while the issue of KB per page (which I see as the central point of the argument against extreme length) is addressed.

As to the image use, I can see where there could be arguments against using them, since the images are not used solely to illustrate discussion of the image subject, but rather as examples of the article subject. That's a fine line. My personal feeling is that they contribute greatly to the quality of the article, and I would be sorry to see them excised. Jeffpw 13:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I am traveling, and only have dialup access, tying up the only phone line in a house where I'm a guest. I forgot to print the Monte Hall problem to read on the plane out; I tried to print it to read on the plane back, and gave up after waiting a minute for it to download (the math images really slow down the load time). So, I decided to experiment with B movie from a dialup. When I gave up and canceled the download - after waiting 5 minutes for the article to load - there were still 9 images remaining to load. This is absolutely unacceptable by any measure. The Extra Long Article (police - committee) stated that 50% of the world has dialup access only. I didn't verify that, but if it's anywhere close to true, we simply cannot have articles that take more than five minutes to load carrying the star indicating our best work - particularly when that size was not reviewed on FAC. Again, the article garnered support when it was a reasonable size; it should be able to find it's way back to something in the range of 40KB prose, without being weighed down by so many images. That's all my time of tying up the phone today, sorry I haven't yet read Monte Hall. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Diez's closures

I reverted all of these closures; I'll likely be removing a couple of these today or tomorrow anyhow (though not Dalek, quite yet) but I thought it best to rv. Diez2 has said he won't do it again, and I'm sure it was just a bit WP:BOLD in an effort to help out. Marskell 13:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I do not have any problems with other people closing FAR/FARCs once they have familiarized themselves with the process. I must stress that FAR/FARC is not a vote and that decisions are made by consensus. Joelito (talk) 13:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I have been tempted to segment and move down completely uncontroversial and clear cut FARs to FARC myself, in order to help out when Joelr31 or Marskell aren't available; I have always concluded it's best not to. The advantages to having only one or two people moving/closing FARs FARCSs far outweigh the disadvantages, and help avoid problems like the ones we just saw. I don't support the idea of anyone else closing or moving. The precedent established on FAC works - it's a delicate process, and if we open the door to anyone else moving/closing, we start down a very slippery slope. If the consensus here is that we need another person involved (I don't think we do), then it should be a person agreed upon by consensus - and if that becomes necessary, I nominate Yomangani. <grin> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both, in a sense. I don't have a problem with the idea of others either (all of us are "just another editor" at the end of the day). But there are advantages, as Sandy says. People know Joel and I at this point, and the process, despite occasionally testiness on reviews, has been personalized in a positive sense ("how are things coming here?" etc.); I like the attention we manage to give reviews.

Also, Joel and I know each other and are on the same page with closing (I can't think of one he's closed I wouldn't have closed the same). With only two, I know someone won't swoop in and close a review when we may have been on the cusp of consensus (e.g., Dalek). Finally, people know who to yell at when something goes wrong :)

And yes, this is absolutely not a vote. That was part of the problem with Diez's closing: he noted 5-3, 3-0 as if it were a simple nosecount. Marskell 19:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Additionally, Dalek is unique in that an editor is making active measures to address criteria concerns. LuciferMorgan 21:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Something I've noticed about FAR

It seems many, if not most, contributers whose articles get listed at FAR don't take any action to save them. I was really surprised about Panavision. The article creator has been online for the entire FAR process, but has done little to improve it. It seems that this is typical. Can anyone think of a reason for this? Do they feel the removal from FA is a fait accompli? And do you think there's anything we can do to encourage people to improve articles that are listed? Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I like working in this area, and would like to improve the results we achieve in terms of keeping articles at FA status. Thanks, Jeffpw 22:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

While there is probably no one single reason, an obvious reason is lack of incentive. One of the benefits of FA status is that it qualifies an article to be highlighted on the Main Page. My personal experience reading comments at WP:FAC and Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests suggests that this might even be the primary motivation for many nominators to put the work into an article that is needed to achieve FA status. Once an article has made an appearance, current practices remove this benefit to allow other FAs their day in the sun. Without the possibility of regaining the benefit that prompted the effort needed to achieve FA status, an author may see no reason to fight for an article that has already had its 15 minutes of fame. --Allen3 ^talk 01:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Very true Allen3. Jeffpw, the fait accompli reasoning may explain some of it. Some editors object to the notion that their article needs to be inline-cited (a common reason for review)—either in principle, or because they believe there should be a "grandfathering" of older FAs. Also, look at the very psychological dynamics of the process: the FA editor put in a significant volunteer effort to produce one of Wikipedia's ostensibly "best" articles—and they find some random user criticizing their effort in a featured article review. How would you respond? The degree to which any such FA editor can "assume good faith" in this circumstance varies tremendously by person. Those that don't AGF either get pissed off or simply aren't involved. (IMO, there are sometimes objective reasons, in the tone of FAR commentary, that can make it difficult for the FA editor to AGF.) –Outriggr § 03:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting you mention the "grandfathering" clause, Outrigger. I have pondered that, myself, and think a good case could be made for that. be that as it may, that's not the policy and articles need to be consistent in their quality. It just surprised me that so many easy fixes are ignored. Had Panavision been ref'd at the beginning of the process, rather than while it was at the vote point in FARC, its fate would never have been in doubt. Similarly, Marilyn Manson (band) was under discussion months before it was listed, and the article creator did nothing about the problems. I admit referencing is dull, but it is now necessary. Let's hope that with the new, more stringent criteria, FAR will become less and less necessary. In the intervening time, perhaps we can do more to stimulate those affected by the submission to edit more on the article. I'm going to start dropping a personal note on talk pages, in addition to the template we send out. Maybe that will help. Jeffpw 15:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

In many cases the amount of work needed to keep an article at FA status is rather large and is simply not worth the time required to do it, the marginal improvement attained by adding inline refs or copyediting is frequently rather low. Unsurprisingly many editors are uninterested in doing it. The main page issue is probably quite important as well. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Admittedly speculative, as none of my own articles have been FAR'd, but I have to think some of the problem is insufficiently detailed or specific FAR rationales (which, to be fair, are often fleshed out by users other than the original nominator). A disturbing number of them start and end with some variant of "needs more inline citations", which by itself is plain beancounting; nobody likes to be asked for a {{shrubbery}}. Articles with low citation density do tend to have other substantive problems - especially since those without inline citations are usually older articles that have been suffering from edit drift - so sending low-citation-density articles to FAR produces relatively few 'false positives'. But I imagine that authors would be more inspired to commit to the project of updating their older articles if provided with concise but specific criticisms, rather than a generic comment that gives no indication of the nominator having read any of the article besides the references section. Opabinia regalis 03:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I am slightly shocked when editors don't save their featured article, because I cherish the articles I work on extensively and would want to assist them all I could, not that any of them have ever been featured. But several reasons occur to me why editors mightn't be up for the task. I like to bury myself in one article at a time and not split my efforts, and so it may be that the editors in question are busy elsewhere. Or it may be that they no longer have the books they used for the article and so can't provide the cites (perhaps they left university and no longer have access to an academic library; and don't forget how much money it costs in some countries to hire books from libraries). Someone above said "I know referencing is dull": Nooooooooo! I loooooooooove it! Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, it can take a long time. I may spend an entire evening checking one phrase: maybe the authors aren't prepared to come back to these articles and invest that much time again. Referencing is enjoyable as a form of discovery, but probably not as a penance. qp10qp 07:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding grandfathering of older articles, this has been discussed and rejected. It simply doesn't make sense to have hundreds of older articles held to a different standard. As for this page becoming less necessary: it will, but not yet. The citation problems list has declined by a third in seven months. Still roughly a year-and-a-half to get through it.

Why don't people work on their FAs? I think the various answers above explain it. Interest waxs and wanes; sources get lost; after the main page day it seems less important; it's just damn annoying to take care of those fact requests, etc. Marskell 10:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, qp, your expertise would be greatly appreciated here and in the FAC room. Sandy has already raised the benchmark for referencing standards, and there are so many nominations at these two places. Tony 13:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I raised the standards for referencing: I might be the first editor who seriously started checking and upholding them <grin>. A problem with the new cite.php method is that people see lots of little numbers and think an article is well-referenced; I see few editors checking refs on FAC review. Anyway, I don't see any sense of fait accompli in the review stats; what I see is either editors don't engage and status is lost, or editors do engage, and status is almost always kept. On those that don't engage, there are many reasons. Recall that there was a time when many voted against adminship for anyone who hadn't written at least one FA, so that may explain some FAs and subsequent lack of interest. A large number of the defeatured FAs were brilliant prose promotions and had no original author. A large number of original authors have moved along. And, unfortunately, some reviews reveal a lot of what may have been original research - in the past, without strict referencing requirements, people could just write "what they knew" (or what they thought they knew), and they probably know that referencing it today would be hard, since they may not have strictly used references the first time through. Also, FA authors have to deal with being accused of ownership. Another factor is that few people consult the original editor before bringing an article to FAR, to see if the timing is good - the editor may be busy. (When I want to nom an article that does have a committed, involved editor, I try to give advance warning, and wait and see if deficiences are addressed - I left a LONG message on Stuttering a while back, and nothing has been done.) The reasons are as varied as the articles and editors; what concerns me is how quickly articles deteriorate when no one is watching them. Anyway, when editors genuinely engage, articles are most often kept. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the process is a little opaque and not easy to understand on first encounter. It comes across as very nitpicky and procedural. On initial glance, on many reviews, it seems an almighty amount of work is needed to rescue the article. Just my two pennyworth. --Dweller 22:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

My personal reasons for not bothering to "fix" my FAs are simple. I think that the FA process has evolved into a big joke over the past six months to a year. I feel that there's an emphasis on form over substance, and specifically that the FA interpretation of WP:V has reached a ridiculous level. Consider the near impossibility of passing a broad-scope article through FA; even articles on specific topics won't make it through the FA gauntlet unless they have a reference section rivaling the entire article text in length. What is now required for an FA is access to a library of literature on a given topic and the time and will to meticulously verify every factual statement, even those that would be obvious to anybody acquainted with the field. I don't consider the notion of verifiability to be a bad thing, on the contrary. I feel it's important to verify that statements are true when they are challenged. However, I think that a good concept has been taken to a ridiculous extreme (perhaps because of certain high-profile events that WP:V doesn't actually do anything to protect against), to the point that it becomes burdensome to people who are genuinely knowledgable on a subject.

In my perception, I have the option of embarking on many hours of work doing detailed research to verify tens to hundreds of statements that I already know for a certainty to be true, or just laugh off the FA process and devote my energies elsewhere. I really did like writing featured articles simply for the satisfaction of doing so at one time, and I used most of my Wikipedia-related time engaged in this process, but no longer. Perhaps my view is that of an infinitesimal minority. Maybe this is the new course of Wikipedia, and it's for the best to enforce levels of verifiability unheard of in any other field. Perhaps that other project with its acknowledgement of professional and expert level knowledge in various fields will provide a less frustrating way to write free, accurate, and correct articles. Who knows? These are just the inane ramblings of someone who believes that FAs are no longer attainable goals for most writers and most subjects. Is it any wonder that so many of our users do absolutely nothing here but revert vandals and play politics? I don't think it's so crazy to assert that there are exceedingly few people who would rather perform the underappreciated task of referencing every tidbit presented as factual in an article than go on the valiant, nay heroic, quest against the vandal agressors. This latter pursuit being rewarded with praise, badges of recognition, and adminship within three months with sufficient diligence. (see also: WP:ARD)

It may be exaggeration to say so, but I think this particular situation with WP:V dogma potentially harms the "encyclopedia" goal of Wikipedia more than anything a mischeveous teenager with a gay friend and time to burn can possibly accomplish. By setting the standard for what we consider a superb article at a level that makes it utterly frustrating for many people with both the literary ability and topical expertise to write a great encyclopedia article, I think we can quickly turn Wikipedia into nothing but a big bureaucracy and social experiment masquerading as something else.

Ho hom, that was rather rantish. I hope I offered some kind of interesting insight for someone. If not, feel free to ignore these crazed ideas of mine. :) -- mattb @ 2007-02-01T23:48Z

Nicely said (and you know matt, few will give you that). The only part you forgot is that the people "with both the literary ability and topical expertise to write a great encyclopedia article" are being replaced by people who write amazingly tangential fan articles on topics completely (and easily) referenced from the Internet at large—and that the factors you've mentioned play an important role in this shift toward less and less encyclopedic featured articles. Not that many seem concerned about this ongoing development. Process trumps goal — happens in all large systems, maybe. –Outriggr § 02:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There are lots of good FAs being produced, and if my comment read anything like an overall dismissal of current FAs, I didn't intend that. –Outriggr § 02:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course. My comments aren't intended to ignore reality or belittle the handful of people who ARE working hard on producing quality, highly-relevant encyclopedic articles. As you said, however, the norm these days seem to include FAs on mostly obscure topics... How useful is extensive "in universe" documentation on fictional topics? How about my favorite FA of recent times, Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner... I perceive a problem when the "best" Wikipedia has to offer is extensive coverage of a comedian's trip to a correspondants' dinner and everything you could possible (not) want to know about a fictional cartoon species. Not meaning to downplay the efforts of the respective authors of those articles, because you certainly can't expect people to contribute outside their realm of interest and knowledge; plus I'm increasingly of the view that a deletionist POV is simply counter-productive. However, with things the way they currently are, I should expect that we'll see a whole lot more pop culture FAs and very few on topics that one might traditionally use an encyclopedia for. Anyway, I'm not even sure why I keep talking about it... While several people have agreed with my views in the past, a lot more seem to be indifferent or unwilling to try and make the non-trivial changes necessary to curb this trend. Certainly talking about it here won't accomplish anything, but again, I merely seek to provide views that I hope would be useful to someone. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T03:42Z

I'm not convinced that there's a practical problem here. The actual number pop-culture FAs seems small, relative to the total volume going through the process; it's just that when one does show up, people immediately notice. The FAs on more staid topics generally get fairly little attention from the community at large, even though they significantly outnumber the other type.

(Then again, maybe I'm just not noticing it; admittedly, my attention is more focused on the traditional encyclopedic material.) Kirill Lokshin 04:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Could be... We're all coming from our own unique perspectives, and I haven't seen any hard statistics on this topic. If someone is interested enough to compile them, I'd be happy to be proved utterly wrong by them... -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T04:14Z

The distinction isn't always clear-cut; does Jaws for instance, count purely as a pop culture article or as encyclopaedic content? At which point do bands stop being "traditionally" encyclopaedic? You may want to look here for discussion that encompassed this issue (overshadowed somewhat by cries of cabalism).

As for making the non-trivial changes to curb this trend, have you got any suggestions? The problem with a volunteer project is that people will tend to work on that which interests them, and that is frequently the less traditionally-encyclopaedic topics. I also think there's slightly too much emphasis on articles being featured; just because an article isn't the "best we have to offer" doesn't mean it isn't very good. Trebor 10:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course I agree with your latter assertion, but you have to admit that an FA badge is almost the only recognition you're likely to get for working hard on improving any particular article. Again, compare with the Legendary Vandal Quest I mentioned above.

I actually do have some suggestions in mind, but I'm not sure how practical or feasible they are given our userbase and the mentality of some of the high level decision makers. I wrote/ranted about this before, but the gist of it is that I think there should be much stronger organization of article writing. Something like Wikiprojects, only with a more "official" emphasis and organization in order to try and sustain them (in contrast to what happens to WikiProjects left on their own, which die whenever the most active editor or two disappears). I think that WP:V should somehow be tempered with practicality. If, for example, we could develop strong and officially supported interest groups like the Wikiprojects, their review and stamp of approval may be considered a form of verification. Think of it like academic peer review; if a group of editors who work heavily on a topic and know each other to be relatively competent in the area find that a particular article is in their estimation, accurate, I think that should count for something. Despite what some WP:V dogma pushers seem to believe, this policy (albeit a good one in principle) does nothing to make Wikipedia accurate. It cannot practically prevent a Seigenthaler debacle, only exposure to many eyes can do that. Back around the publication of the well-publicized Nature article comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia and Britannica articles, I was a little surprised that Wikipedia articles might even be nearly as accurate as those in a print encyclopedia, but I quickly reconciled it in my own mind. Regardless of what you may say about the fairness of the results published by Nature (and there is certainly something to be said in this regard), I think you can come to the conclusion that many eyes made those articles accurate, not WP:V. Sure there's background noise from inexperienced or downright incompetent folks, but when a number of people with significant knowledge and experience in an area watch an article, the content tends towards correctness more often than not. The current interpretation of WP:V as regards what constitutes an "excellent article" is, I believe, totally overblown and effectively ignores the very thing that has always given Wikipedia articles some semblance of accuracy: the editors. Let me put it another way, a person who might be considered an expert in their field is fairly likely (given sufficient lucidity of articulation) to be able to produce a complete and correct general encyclopedia article on their topic of interest. This same person is not very likely to be able to easily provide a reference for every assertion that they could make. That's the very embodiment of general knowledge, only very specific knowledge is likely to have mental associations with a discrete source. I suppose this touches upon the idea behind Citizendium, that you must have some concept of experts to avoid the tedium of demanding references for every statement. I think that expecting the same concept from Wikipedia is unreasonable (if it were reasonable, Citizendium wouldn't likely exist), so I don't advocate the acknowledgement of individual experts. However, as I stated above, I think that we could try to apply the principle of "expert opinion" to a group of editors rather than to individuals. In this manner, the process is somewhat self-regulating, that is, the more knowledgable persons in a particular interest group will help drown out the flawed or incomplete views of the less experienced, and in this way, the group as a whole could produce something like an expert opinion.

Obviously, developing such groups requires a high level of organization, and it certainly won't happen if things are left totally to random development (thus my notion of "don't just do whatever"). However, as you can see, my basic ideas aren't entirely trivial to implement, and I'm not even sure if they are in line with some of the fundamental notions of Wikipedia. I'd certainly like to see some sort of firm effort in this regard, but I don't really think that an idea of this scale could possible gain enough momentum to succeed without some kind of endorsement from the higher-ups (and this doesn't seem likely to happen). -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T14:30Z

The "many eyes" approach seems to have worked well for the mathematics articles; there are 12,000 of them, and over 70% have timestamps later than Nov 1, 2006. When I look through a list of unreferenced math articles, it is surprisingly difficult to find articles that are entirely non-notable or original research. CMummert · talk 14:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite so, and many blatant errors can be picked out by anyone with a little experience with mathematics. Of course, something like a subtle mistake in a proof probably takes a more skilled editor to spot, but there again you have the notion of many eyes. The many eyes concept overarches every other facet, rule, regulation, guideline, and consensus regarding article editing, and I think that it is a sad mistake to put emphasis on citation over the very spirit of Wikipedia. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T15:11Z

And people shouldn't forget that Wikipedia is not paper. The number of pop culture FAs is disproportionate (a function of Wiki demographics, methinks) but this doesn't harm the traditional topics. Marskell 11:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Nobody here implied that pop culture articles are in themselves harmful, only that the disproportionate topical coverage of FAs may be partially as a result of the standards making promotion of broad-scoped articles much more difficult. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T14:30Z

Arbitrary break

(reset indent) Interesting points. I'll be interested in watching how Citizendium develops, and whether the idea of "experts" will encourage better quality. I'm yet to be convinced the concept will work as well as they expect, but if it does it may well produce better articles on "traditionally" encyclopaedic topics. Short of changing to a similar system to theirs, I'm not sure what Wikipedia can do to improve its coverage; the fact remains that it's a volunteer project, and volunteers tend to work on that which they're interested in. Trebor 15:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the concept of Citizendium, but it's going to suffer heavily from the obvious "second kid on the block" problem. That's primarily why I'd love to see Wikipedia somehow come to terms with the notion of expert opinion, thus my above idea about a peer-review type process. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T15:38Z

Yeah perhaps. It would be interesting to set up some loose classifications for "expert", and see how many we actually have. My feeling is that, out of regular contributors, the number considered "expert" in any field would be fairly low, and obviously that would be a key problem. But the numbers are just guesswork on my part and it would be interesting to see what the reality is. Trebor 15:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, don't get too caught up in the connotations of the word "expert". As I tried to express earlier, we don't need experts, only a handful of people who are competent enough in the subject to spot B.S. Fortunately, for most traditional encyclopedia-scope articles, this doesn't require a bona fide expert (though it certainly helps to have one). For example, one of my areas is semiconductor device physics, design, and processing. I'm not even remotely an expert in any of those fields, but I know enough to tell you whether an encyclopedia-level article on the subject is accurate. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T15:53Z

Completely accurate or just broadly correct. I'd say the actual WP:BOLLOCKS in Wikipedia at any one time is fairly small, going back to the "many eyes" approach. So I'm not sure I'm entirely following your proposal. Are you saying that a group of "experts"' approval means that some general facts don't need to be cited? (I assume you'll agree that specific facts (like quotes or figures) still need a reference.) Because I'm not altogether sure that the effort expended in getting these groups of people together, verifying their "expertise" and then grading articles is any less than finding citations in the first place. Trebor 16:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course specific figures need a reference, but that's a given since you either found that figure somewhere or made it up (in which case it shouldn't be in an article). I don't think that much effort should be or needs to be expended in confirming individuals' expertise. When you edit a certain group of related articles for a while, it's easy to get a sense of which editors are competent and which are not. Leveraging this fact, tightly knit interest groups should, as my theory goes, be able to provide reasonable confirmation of a related article's correctness. Therefore you aren't relying on the expert view of any person (Citizendium's approach), but are instead engaging the collective view of a group of editors who are familiar with one another's abilities. I hope that makes sense in some way. I'm not entirely sure that it would actually work out in practice, but I do believe that it (or something like it) could be a reasonable attempt to reconcile the somewhat proven "many eyes" method with the need for verifiability. -- mattb @ 2007-02-02T17:26Z

Yes it makes sense, and I'm intrigued by the idea. So how would the confirmation of an article's correctness work? If it seemed accurate and complete, would the group give it a "stamp of approval" (for want of a better phrase) which would go on the article? Trebor 17:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure. In the unlikely event that this were ever taken seriously by the higher ups and the masses, I suppose the fine detail would be worked out at that point. It could indeed work by means of a designated group "seal of approval", or it could be integrated with the FAC process. I'd elect for the latter. The real key to this idea's success is that the groups would have to be highly adopted and respected and heavily promoted to new users (and old ones alike). A passive attitude to them wouldn't get us anywhere, and we'd end up with the level of involvement that the WikiProjects generally enjoy.

This might require somewhat a culture change, which may be a good reason why it could never happen. Even simple attempted changes in culture here usually meet with vehement disagreement, and perhaps Wikipedia is beyond the point where it could be organized into a structured system for methodologically producing high quality encyclopedia articles (which is essentially what I advocate; a more sane structure for producing articles, not bureaucracy). I've never been a fan of the laisiez-faire attitude (please excuse my abuse of an economic term) that prevails in Wikipedia culture since it seemingly can only get you so far in the goal to producing something as highly organized as an encyclopedia. However, changing culture is quite near impossible, especially if there isn't a strong will to do so on the part of those who might have the ability. I don't know whether my proposition would require such a culture change or not, but I'd sure like to see it seriously tried out. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T00:19Z

Curious as to how this discussion relates to FAR? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair point; this should probably take place elsewhere. Trebor 17:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Trebor - with some recent help from you, I'm busy being one of the few reviewers who is actually spending time trying to help those editors who do want to improve their articles at FAR and are actively asking for feedback - this thing popping up on my watchlist is a distraction. Anyone care to actually review some of the articles at featured article review? The Roe v. Wade article has an editor asking for feedback, as do several others. Those who don't want to come to standard need not do so - their choice. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you'd like to move this discussion to another page and continue it there, that would be fine with me. Sorry to bombard your watch list. I suppose this has become slightly tangential, though I think it still has everything to do with FAC and FAR... -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T00:19Z

I think it has plenty to do with FAC, and little to do with FAR. Popular articles at FAC get lots of fan support which makes it easier for them to be promoted, while more technical articles (e.g.; math) get little attention as some reviewers may be intimated by the subject, and may slip through with terrible prose and referencing - so both can slip through the cracks without meeting standards for opposite reasons. The only solution is for reviewers to do a better job at FAC, or not complain about Wiki's "democracy". Meanwhile, here at FAR, we help anyone who wants to keep their star; can't help those who don't. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me for saying so, but telling someone that they need to inline cite every third sentence isn't "helpful" in my mind. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T01:41Z

Can you give me an example from FAR where someone has been told "that they need to inline cite every third sentence"? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Forgive my hyperbole, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that a citation every third sentence is nearly the level of referencing some folks seem to expect (I have seen people come out and explicitly say "one citation per paragraph"). Something like "needs inline cites" is equally useless. Doesn't help the editors, it just sets before them a monumental task without offering any guidance. I laid out my views on application of WP:V earlier, so take it for whatever its worth. I don't mean be confrontational towards anyone here, as my complaint is against what WP:V has evolved into, not people who are just trying to enforce guidelines. Please don't take it personally if I come across as a little cynical on the matter. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T06:29Z

The level of referencing is one citation for every fact that is likely to be challenged. So depending on the article it might be one citation a paragraph, or one citation a sentence. Given there's no other scheme yet in place, a dearth of inline cites is a valid reason for review. Trebor 10:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Which does seem reasonable, but the problem is this application of "likely to be challenged". Someone with absolutely no acquaintance with a topic could potentially challenge every factual statement, and I've seen this play out in FACs under the guise of verifiability. So we're back to my desire to see some recognition of groups of editors' ability to make some general factual statements about subjects that they are highly knowledgable of. I find it ridiculous that I could go to some FAC on a subject I know nothing significant about (say, cellular microbiology) and insist WP:V demands that every factual statement, even those that are totally obvious to someone familiar with the field, be cited just because I'm ignorant on the topic. -- mattb @ 2007-02-03T21:49Z

And, here we are back again at a discussion that belongs elsewhere; e.g., WP:V. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There's really nothing outstandingly wrong with WP:V as it stands, merely how it is interpreted by certain people. -- mattb @ 2007-02-04T22:21Z

Full circle again, back to asking for an example relevant to FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If you really want a concrete example, look at half the FARs on this page, which exist and are often pushed through solely because of this narrow interpretation of WP:V and WP:REF which holds that an article cannot be featured unless every factual statement is backed up by a citation. How many articles has this process demoted solely because they aren't littered with citations? I realize that this discussion has looped around in a roundabout way, but that's largely because I don't want to be seen as merely complaining without suggesting any kind of alternative solution. I recognize the need for citations and verifiability, but I think the particular method that the FAC/FAR process is advocating is unrealistic and ridiculous. -- mattb @ 2007-02-06T14:06Z

No, I don't need to "look at half the FARs on this page"—I know each one of them quite well; I want a concrete example of an unreasonable request for a citation, backing up your "inline cite (for) every third sentence" statement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I already said that statement was hyperbole. In any case, if you don't see the extreme requirements for refs/citations just from what's already on this page, nothing I can link will change your mind, and I'd rather not waste my time trying. We've both been around long enough to make reasonable generalizations, several folks agree with mine, I'm sure several would not. However, I sort of feel as if I'm being patronized just because I'm expressing discontent with the way things are. If you want to brush off my comments, by all means do so. I can't singlehandedly change culture, so the system will stay as is if nobody agrees with me. -- mattb @ 2007-02-06T15:09Z

List of FA nominations

On the Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations, Rick has recently flagged those articles that are no longer featured with a rust coloured star. People here might want to browse that list looking for older ones that have not yet been FARed, but need to be. Marskell 16:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Ten noms, four days

No stopping new people nominating, but could the regular reviews go easy for a while. I'm fairly certain a glut reduces the work done on each individually... Marskell 14:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that: it seems to be some kind of record. No noms from me until these work through the process. Hope it was just by chance. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Regular reviewers as in "LuciferMorgan" lol. To be honest I disagree with Marskell as concerns the "glut" thing, but of course that's a cool thing about democracy. I think it's all relative to what is being FAR'd - some topics are more cared for than others. In my defence though, after the Downfall debacle I didn't nominate for a good while.

If articles don't reach criteria and are defeatured, it really doesn't bother me to be honest. Every time a poor FA gets de-FA'd, I think the respect of FA slowly rises. People at FAC work their backsides off to get FAs, while 100s of below FA standard FAs are already featured. My only happiness about the month long review is that it gives an opportunity to the editors who edited the article a chance to work on the article, and gives reviewers a chance to give an article a thorough going through. Right now, it'll take a few years to get through all the below standard FAs - not good. LuciferMorgan 14:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The overriding concern is improving content, whether we have 12 or 1200 below standard to get through. Our highest volume month for nominations was October—it also had the lowest keep %.

As for your own noms, the only concern is that it seems to signal that your not going to work on the articles much yourself—three at once is a lot to pay attention to, and increases the workload for all of the other regulars. Marskell 14:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

It's important that we be able to help out when editors are willing to bring the article to standard. For example, I had intended to work on Rainbow, Roe v. Wade is waiting for guidance on improvements needed, two music articles have asked us to provide cite tags, we need to check in on Evolution to see how they're doing, I'm trying to work with Monty Hall and Superman, and we still have feedback needs on Dalek, Panavision, and Mozilla Firefox. Add to this my own commitments elsewhere and keeping up with FAR notifications, and something has to go in my workload - this probably means I won't be able to spend time in Rainbow, which I nommed thinking it could be saved. The number at any given time isn't my concern: it's the number that require our input and guidance because editors are attempting to come to standard. Another concern is we've got two back to back that require astronomy input (Sagan and Comet), so I also try to keep an eye on Projects. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the "increases the workload" bit. Apart from heavily reviewing the articles, I don't see much apart from minor work on the actual articles, so please don't blame me on "workload" issues. Whenever people working on the articles nominated want my input, they're free to ask me. As concerns citation tags, I have absolutely no intention of providing them since the joke that was the Operation Downfall debacle, followed by the Palladian FAR when nobody but me was willing to speak their mind - that's two keeps I disagree with, not to mention the "Real Love" one where a "Critical reception" section was nowhere to be seen. If more people say keep without good reason like the Palladian debacle, and less say straight that articles need work, then FAR is pointless anyway. This is the reason I pay absolutely zero attention to the monthly statistics, which are totally pointless when jokes like Palladian are made. Maybe I should've tried this for Iron Maiden - contacted the Metal wikiproject and had them all to vote Keep for no reason eh?

In future though I'll notify the relevant people when I nominate an FA for FAR, and'll update the List where FAs at FAR are flagged. I already have the FAs I've nominated for FAR on my watch list, and when editors wish for my input they've already been able to ask - this has happened at the Dalek FAR, happened on the Punk rock FAR, and others, and they're perfectly willing to ask me right now whenever they like as they have been before. Nobody can say anything different. I'll do the notifying bit etc. though and then nobody'll be able to say anything about me. Good day. LuciferMorgan 16:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Lucifer, I meant to point out that trying to help articles keep their stars can be a labor intensive project, requiring a lot of feedback. You also have a point that it's "not our job" to have to do all this work (providing the cite tags, for example) - when there are no editors working on an article, I don't try to help, but when a good effort is being made, I do. Anyway, I didn't mean to single you out - the overflow right now is no one individual's fault (we also have FuriousFreddy working on two music articles at once) - it's just something we regulars can watch out for, so that we don't overload one editor or one Project. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I've helped with Dalek as concerns cite tags etc., and even now am co-operating with them so that their other FAs are being improved without FAR. I've gotta watch though cos I think some editors think I'm trying to do WP:POINT, and they'll report me to Raul and I'll get blocked. I help when a good effort is made, but to be honest most FAs go through FAR without any good efforts being made. If you check all the articles I've nominated, only Dalek has work being done on it so far.

As concerns feedback though, I can fully handle it, since FAR is 99% of my Wikipedia work. Apart from FAR, I don't really do anything else (as for the article I'm working on, I'm leaving it for a few days). I'll make sure not to overload a certain project as I've already been making sure not to. Sorry for being temperamental though. LuciferMorgan 17:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I had nobody in mind when I started this thread. Re your specific points:

If you pay "absolutely zero attention" to the statistics, I'm curious what is informing your disagreement with "more noms = less attention to each". There is not enough sample months to reach a definite conclusion, but if you divide the number of nominations by contributor time it seems obvious that a correlation exists. Sandy's time is the best example.

Here is the before and after for Operation Downfall. Large improvement on LEAD and general structure; inline cites from zero to forty. If that's a debacle in terms of improving content, then we need more debacles. The single outstanding issue was an anecdote; the remainder had been compromised over. The line was either in or out and was tangential anyway—not a remove basis.

Palladian architecture: I'm glad you stick in when you're a minority. I realize there's people who will ignore 1c, so we need people who are sticklers for it. But only one person in that review questioned any of the information specifically (Indon). Not one person commented on the writing except to say that it was fine. "Needs more inline citations" is like a transative verb: objects must follow for it to be actionable. And I do try to pay attention to this—I wasn't willing to close "V for Vendetta" with its themes section, and I won't close "Dalek" with its current Culture section. But the primary point is whether there is doubt of factual accuracy and there did not seem to be any. Ideally, omniscent beings would judge—in the meantime, I don't see a debacle here either. Marskell 19:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

And not to worry, Lucifer - your work here is very valuable - sometimes you just have to pick your battles, and get the most important improvements we can :-) I also try to expend more effort on articles when we're likely to see the same Project members back here again. I don't mean to imply I was sacrificing work on Rainbow through anyone's fault but my own. I feel the time spent right now on Math Projects articles, and on Dr. Who/Dalek articles, is a better investment of my time because they have other articles that will eventually come up for review, whereas Rainbow has no one working on it except "us" - might as well help the Daleks and Math folks understand what sorts of things we're looking for on review, so they'll hopefully address their other articles with deficiencies before we have to look at them. Along those lines, I'm troubled that we've had three math articles up in six weeks - we need to give them time to adjust and do the work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I heavily disagree with Marskell as concerns Palladian architecture. Nobody commented for Removal due to intimidation because of Giano (I won't say what I think of this "person", and I use the word loosely) - there's a few people who thought the article needed more citations, and the fact it was closed makes FAR / FA / FAC look an ass. Much better articles have lost their status. That article will definitely be nominated for FAR again in future - I don't question any of his decisions, but I 110% question that one. It was a sheer numbers thing, despite the fact my comments were actionable. I'd like it noted this is nothing personally though, and I happen to like Marskell and think highly of him. LuciferMorgan 19:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No Lucifer, it wasn't a sheer numbers thing. Criterion 1c is factual accuracy NOT inline citations. You are misunderstanding the difference. Of course the article could use more inline citations, but nobody was specifically questioning its accuracy and work had been done to provide citations. Outriggr had struck his remove, Indon's primary point had been met, and you had not raised anything specific until pressed (Giano was willing to work, whatever the tension).

As for Giano being a person, I'm fairly certain he is one; you should be careful of WP:NPA even if not speaking to the person you're attacking directly. I can tell you very honestly that I had no contact with Giano or any of his wiki-friends prior to closing it. Marskell 20:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, I'll add: Giano did violate WP:DICK; I understand that that would be annoying. Marskell 20:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Giano actually refused point blank to add a citation to things I requested citation for, so I don't think he was willing to work to be fair. He said the thing I wanted a cite for was "obvious", but I didn't find it obvious. And the reason I didn't raise any specific citation issues was because there was so many. When I questioned the amount of inline citations, I felt I was questioning factual accuracy at the same time. LuciferMorgan 20:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say that it was a numbers thing in one respect: when a number of people whom I have reason to trust suggest the information in an article is accurate for a general survey, then I tend to conclude that the information is accurate... Wetman, for instance, is one of our best architecture editors (even if I've never gotten along with him...); Giano does fine work in the mainspace, even if he's tempermental on talk. Ditto Geogre.

"What?! We just have trust people's word?"—with book refs we do have to, unless we happen to have taken that particular course and have the references ourselves. McGinnly did do the cite per paragraph thing for most of it; this isn't perfect, but I have no reason to suspect the page numbers he's citing fail to correspond to the information.

Nuff said on this, I suppose. I'll leave it for you to decide when to do this, but one suggestion might be to add a small group of fact requests on the page itself first, rather than the blanket "not enough inline citations" on the review. Either might annoy people, but specificity never hurts. Marskell 02:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I don't know enough about the subject to comment specifically on the Palladian architecture situation, but see my post above. "Needs more inline citations" is, by itself, a non-statement; you might just as well post "needs more cowbell" for all the use it is. Particularly for articles in specialized fields, the specific statements in need of citation would ideally be identified by someone at least broadly familiar with the subject. One of the things I note in that discussion is the repetition of comments like "whole paragraphs without inline citations"; this is not about counting little superscripted numbers, and that perception is probably contributing to authors' malaise about fixing up an old FA. Personally, I would have felt unqualified to make a definitive judgment whether that article is adequately cited or not, and one of the general challenges of FAR is that commentators sometimes make that judgment with fewer inhibitions than I. Opabinia regalis 02:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

It didn't matter how much was known about Palladian architecture - when I read the article it made certain opinions, and all opinions should come with citations to avoid being original research. Eg. if I said a certain band was influential I would've been asked for a cite, but when an article says a certain architect or type of architecture is influential they aren't asked for a cite because people are scared off by the subject. LuciferMorgan 21:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Not true. "The Beatles were an influential band" is a statement that does not require a citation. — BrianSmithson 22:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mention the Beatles actually to set the record straight - you did. Besides anyway, if memory serves me correct, that very article was demoted from FA status a few months ago, one of the reasons being the lack of citations in supporting its statements, and is currently facing the same battle at GAR. Furthermore, if an article states a band has been influential, it does require citation - eg. if I said X band was an influence on Y band, this would need to be proved. LuciferMorgan 00:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I fully realize that I was the one who used the Beatles as an example of a situation where a citation would not be required. At any rate, I agree with you on "X band was an influence on Y band" requiring a citation, unless the bands in question are the Beatles and Wings, I suppose. The point was, though, that certain "opinions" are universally held, and should not require citation. That the Beatles or Elvis were influential is one example. -- BrianSmithson 02:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Lucifer, I doubt anyone is "scared off" by a particular subject or its editors; perhaps they aren't asked for an explicit citation because the statement is entirely uncontroversial. I don't know any more about the Beatles than I do about Palladio, but I consider the general influence of both to fall into the corpus of common knowledge. Willingness to defer to subject experts on what is uncontroversial in their field is a good thing, not a sign that people are "scared" by the material. Opabinia regalis 05:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you mean Brian. It's true such a Beatles citation wouldn't be needed saying they are influential, but if someone said "The Beatles influenced X band" I'd probably like one for that. As concerns the Palladian architecture argument, nobody will sway me on that one, and I 110% think it should've been removed, and'll welcome the day an editor is bold enough to bring it back to FAR and face the wrath of certain people (I'm not gonna name names). LuciferMorgan 14:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Roe v. Wade

There's an involved editor looking for a list of improvements needed on Wikipedia:Featured article review/Roe v. Wade - I don't have time to get to it today. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

FAR and the FAC bot

The bot for the FAC process has been through trials and seems OK. If FAR would like the bot to handle repetitive FAR tasks, it would be nice if it could be set up parallel to how FAC works. Basically, there are two pages, one for promotions and one for facfails. The bot checks each page for changes, adds closing tags to the FAC discussions, and updates the article talk pages appropriately. If the FAR archive could be split into a keep archive and a remove archive, it would make the coding for FAR a lot easier. (You could still transclude both those pages into Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive.) A discussion would be closed by removing it from the regular FAR page and putting it on the appropriate keep or remove archive.

The bot-assisted FAC process will assume that future FACs are always at WP:FAC/[PAGENAME]. This implies that when a FA is demoted, the old FA discussion at WP:FAC/[PAGENAME] should be pre-emptively moved to WP:FAC/[PAGENAME]/archiveN, and redirect cleared, so a formerFA can be re-nominated. The bot would handle this automatically. Gimmetrow 16:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to make sure I'm understanding. All we need to do is separate our archive into a Kept and Removed archive (which can be transcluded back to an overall archive). Then, when closing a FAR, we only need to remove it to the correct archive, and the bot will handle everything else on the talk page (we still need to remove the article from FA and add it to FFA)? Will the bot also remove the star on demoted articles, or do we need to do that? Also, repromoted FFAs create special circumstances (e.g.; DNA) - what are our steps? Will the bot also indicate if the FAR is kept or removed by adding something to the actual FAR page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The bot will handle the talk page. The bot will not update WP:FA, nor WP:FFA. It could remove the star from the article for formerFAs. It will also add headers to the FAR discussion pages, similar to the FAC discussion pages. Note that there already is a Template:FAR top but it is not being used. I would prefer a different background color, and a couple html comments will need to be added for the bot to find, but the bot will just add this template to the FAR discussion page. Since few articles have been through more than one FAR, I don't think there are a lot of problems at FAR like the situation with New York City, so there probably isn't a pressing need to do the pre-emptive archiving of WP:FAR discussions. What other special circumstances need to be handled? Gimmetrow 17:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Repromoted, as in DNA and Platypus. I think (not sure?) the bot handles everything needed on ArticleHistory and in talk page - we just have to move it to the bottom of the page at WP:FFA? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, there already are repeat FARs, but most of the older ones are filed differently, as FARCs. (See Rainbow for an example - I've encountered many.) There will be other repeat FARs, so we should contemplate how to handle them. Is it a lot of trouble for the bot to preemptively archive them as it does with FACs? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If the original FAC pages of formerFAs are archived according to the FAC process, then a subsequent nomination will work fine. I don't see how articles like DNA and Platypus would cause any problems. As for repeat FARs, the bot could pre-archive them, I'm just wondering if that's the best approach. I think FA/FAR and PR are the only places where pages are moved. All the VfD processes use increasing numbers for each subsequent nomination. Gimmetrow 17:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I created Template:FAR top and Template:FAR bottom a while ago, but I don't think they were ever used (the discussion on the bot struck up before anybody got interested). Feel free to change the colours - they were chosen just to be different from the xFD closing templates, there's no sentimental attachment. Yomangani^talk 17:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

On the issue or repeat FARs, I suspect we'll see more and more - I tend towards wanting to go ahead and archive them as you do with FAC, so we won't have to face this again down the road. For example, Asperger syndrome went through FAR last July, and it's already trashed again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

oops, retract - since I checked a few weeks ago, it looks like someone came in and did a major revert - yippee! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Dividing the archives

Gimmetrow, I assume we also need to divide historical archives so you can point the bot at them? FAC uses a monthly system for promoted and failed:

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/January 2007
• ‎Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log/January 2007

I don't think we have enough volume to separate by month. Marskell, who gets the honors of doing this work, and how should we set up the files? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't bother separating the older archives. Gimmetrow 20:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Give me 24 to respond to this fully. Marskell 03:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever Marskell decides is fine with me. Joelito (talk) 16:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The process

• We create Wikipedia:Featured article review/keep and Wikipedia:Featured article review remove to begin with.
• We move reviews off the page to the appropriate target. At this point we update WP:FA and WP:FFA as we do now, remove the stars but don't worry about the talk page.
• The bot checks and add's Yomanangi's Template:FAR top and Template:FAR bottom to the review page.
  • Does the bot first move WP:FAR/[PAGENAME] to WP:FAR/[PAGENAME/archive1] or should we have done that?
• The bot adds {{FARpassed}} or {{FormerFA2}} to the talk.
  • If the reviews are going to be moved to the archive, make sure to update these templates so they point there.
  • Can the bot add the oldid= and date= to the keeps as is done now? Example syntax: {{FARpassed|date=January 25, 2007|oldid=103203088}}
• When the noms for a month are through, I can still go back and lump them altogether in a new archive spot? Marskell 09:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that the bot can also remove the star from the article, so your steps are reduced to 3 (move to archive, update WP:FA and update WP:FFA - everything else is done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, that should be all that humans need to do. In order for this to work, the bot needs some way to tell "keeps" from "removes". The archive page could be kept as-is if there were a clear way to differentiate these that will be stable. Since you seem to want to lump them back together somewhere, it might be easier to just add a hidden template to the current archive page that will tell the bot where keeps stop and removes start. (Yes, the header does this, but it would make the bot programmer's life easier if the bot could just look for templates - this could even be handled by putting the current headers into a template.)
• The bot will tag discussions as closed based on the date they were placed in the archive. The bot can move WP:FAR/[PAGENAME] to WP:FAR/[PAGENAME]/archiveN. For removes, the bot needs to move WP:FAC/[PAGENAME] to WP:FAC/[PAGENAME]/archiveN in order to make it fit with the bot-assisted FAC process, which assumes WP:FAC/[PAGENAME] is always available for a new FAC. Of course the bot will update links on the talk page and the FAR and FAC archives to reflect the page moves. Removing the FA star is a simple step.
• The new template is {{ArticleHistory}}. The bot will update that, with oldids. Gimmetrow 20:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up points:

• I just want to place them in a monthly archive, as we do now.
• BTW, keeps are categorized at Category:Wikipedia featured article review candidates (closed) (a bit of a clunky category name) and removes under Category:Wikipedia former featured articles.
• It will note that date; can it also grab the oldid? Marskell 06:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

• Replies:
• Then you won't mind if I change something in the archive so it's easier on the bot?
• I don't think I can use the "related changes" of a category to track new listings.
• I said above the bot can manage {{ArticleHistory}} including oldids. Gimmetrow 06:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Somehow I missed "with oldids" :). I'm going to do the monthly cleanup of the archive tonight or tomorrow. We can try it after that. Marskell 14:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to process the pages in the current archive. Can you leave any pages in the archive that are not processed yet? One of the anti-vandal checks limits the bot only to working on pages still remain in the archive. Once they have been moved to a /archiveN page, they can be removed. Gimmetrow 19:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey great. It processed them all over top of Joel's and my work. The "kept" and "removed" headings are enough for you? It's no problem creating two seperate pages, if you like.

Nothing on FAR due to be archived quite yet (maybe Superman later), but next time we'll leave the article talk alone to let the bot do its thing. Did we agree the bot would remove the star? Marskell 05:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I coded up looking for those specific headings. Just don't change 'em ;) Gimmetrow 16:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Damon Hill Review

Not sure what to do with the Damon Hill review - holding off on Project notification until others give me a clue how to proceed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I asked the nominator about it. Marskell 15:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

On quick glance, I don't see problems in the article - it concerns me when POV is first raised on FAR in an otherwise sound article, when there has been no attempt first to resolve the issues with talk page discussion. The nominator asked the critical editor to respond on FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm closing it since no concerns were raised by the nominator. Joelito (talk) 16:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Anne of Great Britain

Can others pls have a look - this has been referenced. Wikipedia:Featured article review/Anne of Great Britain Are there other issues? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Some statements use words like "probably" etc. as though the statement is speculation and not fact - these statements need citations. LuciferMorgan 00:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[3]

Just thought you might wish to look at this thread. I have a few strong opinions as regards the thread, but what p***** me off the most is their failure to differentiate between FAR and GAR - FAR has a better established workframe which aims to work with editors / Projects and give them sufficient time to work on their articles etc. Seems we're widely hated amongst Wikipedians. Oh well. LuciferMorgan 00:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily come to that conclusion because of one disgruntled editor. Further, that argument is bunk and resulted because they're disappointed at the failure of an FAC candidacy - a situation which could have been entirely avoided by first running the article through peer review, since it wasn't nearly ready for WP:FAC. As an example of what's wrong with the argument, consider Barack Obama and Gerald Ford - highly edited, recently on the main page, and both came through fine because of committed and involved editors who are also good writers. The Beatles Project needs better copyediting in general - the "high profile" argument is a straw man. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There's more people than them that dislike us. The one who originally nominated Marilyn Manson for FA called us "the goon squad" a few months back, and a few others have said other things. The argument didn't actually result due to the failed FAC (may have contributed though, but actually the appearance of the Beatles at Good Article Review ([[4]]). My annoyance was at the seeming consensus that GAR and FAR are much the same, which I happen to disagree with - I think FAR has a much better, more consistent structure in place than GAR does at present. Eg. GAR sometimes informs a talk page about a review, whereas FAR informs the main editor, the Wikiprojects and article talk page - just an example. Furthermore, I don't think GAC will mean much until it's more like the FAC process where people vote etc. The fact one person can give a GA, and remove one, makes it a bit meaningless.

I agree with your sentiments regarding the Beatles Wikiproject - I was much surprised when all those FAs went through FAR without much effort. They do need better copyediting, but I have faith in that Andreas - he's keen and willing to work at articles, and has done some good stuff. He'll learn as he gains experience.

The "high profile" argument is indeed thin - it's like saying "My article subject is more culturally important than yours, so I get extra brownie points" - it'd bring FA into total disrepute. The fact that all FAs are subject to the same requirements is what has made it successful. LuciferMorgan 15:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I left a brief note about not conflating the two processes. FAR does indeed have "a better established workframe." I didn't really get the point anyway. On the one hand he was suggesting that tags related to quality on high volume articles will bite newbies, and then he advocates extra levels of protection—the surest way to bite newbies. *Shrugs*. Marskell 15:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I say we just keep doing what we're doing, and pass over resistance and insults. Those reactions are inevitable in a process that keeps standards high. Tony 02:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep - lots of that goin' round - to be expected. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Purging mentions of bad-faith FA and GA nominations

Shortly after it was created, Execution of Saddam Hussein was nominated as a feature article, on December 31. It was quickly, unanimously shot down. It has since been nominated as a good article, also shot down. It was also nominated for the 2006 Wikipedia CD selection. I am not able to assume good faith on any of these nominations. It is patently obvious the article was not even a 'good' article. It's easy to speculate on why it was nominated, but it only takes a single user to nominate in bad faith.

I want the tags removed from the talk page that the article has been considered for feature article and good article. I think those tags, to a real extent, are taken as a sign that at least some significant part of the Wikipedia editor community think the article is a great article. It makes Wikipedia look bad, IMO, to have those tags on weak articles. Tempshill 23:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The tags are useful for history purposes if the article reaches GA/FA standard again. I can't see how they suggest a significant part of the community think it is great; it only takes one editor to nominate. Trebor 23:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Plus, if people are curious, all they have to do is click on the link and see how big of a landslide it was. — Deckiller 23:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the people who read this talk page here are aware of this, but the tag, to me, sounds like it is full of portent; I think the 'facfailed' tag alone does lend some heft to the article that's unwarranted. A fix could be to just make the 'facfailed' banner tiny instead of this big thing, and mention in it that the tag alone doesn't mean anything, etc. Tempshill 06:20, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If an FA didn't get any comments other than object and WP:SNOW, and was never put into the archived nominations log, then precedent exists for removing the tag. Often, a message is left on the talk page (which will eventually become part of the talk page archive) linking to the FAC page, especially for good-faith nominations made unknown to the article editors. The same thing has happened with GA nominations. (This is, by the way, why the bot does not simply find as many archived FAC pages as it can and list them on the talk page.) Gimmetrow 23:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Another overlong Quarterly report

So we've been at this new process close to eight months and the archive for the sixth month was finally completed a couple of days ago. Sept: 7kp, 21rm; Oct: 4kp, 33rm (ouch!); Nov: 13kp, 18rm. The total is 24 kept and 72 removed, exactly 25% versus 75%. This is down from apx. 32% in the first three months and under the old process—the floor hasn't fallen out or anything, but it's just enough of a dip to be noticable. Random notes:

• Avg. 32 nominations per month or just over 1 per day. This has remained remarkably consistent.
• Apx. average number of bolded keep or remove comments in FARC (excluding those struck): 4.4 in November; 4.5 in August. By this rough metric we did not see an increase in reviewers.
• Apx. number of words per review (total in archive / number of reviews): Sept., Oct., Nov., at 1152, 1263, 2258; June, July, Aug., at 1433, 1600, 1624. Similar when averaged, with a spike in November. By this rough metric we did not see an increase in commentary.

So we're on a plateau, which isn't a bad thing. More reviewers remains, of course, the greatest need. One last point of interest:

• The total number removed for the entire eight months is 153. Of these, 125 or 82% were on the citation problems list. This tells me that a) the list is a good means of identifying poor quality FAs, and b) we have roughly compartmentalized the FAs that need to go through the grinder—when we're through the list a large part of FAR's purpose will have been served (though of course FAs will continue to decay and we'll still need this process). Marskell 09:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Realism

I think we need to look at FAR realisticially; we can only support ten reviews and 3-4 removal candidates at a time. Perhaps we need to make a clear cutoff? We need to focus on improving the articles, not removing them. By overwhelming this page (and WikiProjects), we are injecting FEAR into editors, who will feel helpless. Also, we might need to be a tad more kind with our criticism, including myself (although I haven't been on FAR in a while). — Deckiller 14:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain how you arrive at the ten and 3-4 numbers? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Those are just example numbers; either way, I think we should put a limit. This way, we might be able to keep more of the FAs in the long run. — Deckiller 16:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I see a very different problem. Our experience is that things start to get difficult if the number of noms approaches 40 - which it rarely does. We can't keep the articles whose original editors or Projects don't want to source them, upgrade them, improve them, expand them, prune external links, etc. I do agree that we need more active help from reviewers on articles that do have editors willing to do the work and are seeking feedback - right now there are about half a dozen of those. Some people spend more time making FAR talk page comments than helping those editors, and I'd love to see more reviewers jump in to help. The problem isn't the number of noms - it's the lack of people willing to help. There have been dozens of reviews where I've been the only person giving feedback to editors who want to do the work. In other words, Tyler, we need you on the FAR page, not on FAR talk  :-) At any rate, we don't defeature articles when editors are actively working on them; the bottom line when there is a bottleneck is simply that the half a dozen or so of us who do the review work here have to work harder - the result is not more defeatured articles - the result is more demands placed on the time of a few reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry for starting such a rant, because I have been juggling so many tasks and Tony is away. I'm just afraid that people will get burned out. But Sandy, you did clarify something; we don't close articles that people are working on. I should've used common sense. Perhaps I should've looked more carefully before I made this half-arsed topic. — Deckiller 23:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that makes two of us who are frazzled without Tony :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

What happens when we get too far above 1 per day is that we eventually have a pile of eight or ten straight in FARC that have remove comments and nothing else. (How are the 24 sitting in FAR now going to look in two weeks?) It's depressing from a content improvement perspective. We decided a while back that we wouldn't police nominators or remove noms, but it would definitely be nice if the people nominating would be willing to come back to work on the articles. Marskell 05:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm on the FAR page, but am prioritising the articles I nominated for FAR. At the moment the only one which is having active work is Quatermass, which I've commented where I'm able and Sandy's been nice enough to put her 2 cents in, as has Marskell (sorry if I've forgotten anyone else). The two aspects I find annoying are that the original FAC nominators sometimes don't wish to get involved, and sometimes the FAR nominators seem to disappear after their nomination. LuciferMorgan 21:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I missed one

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Abyssinia, Henry was promoted two and a half months ago, not the requisite three. Just noticed. It does have faulty (unreliable) references, so if we remove it, it will be back in two weeks: consensus as to whether we should remove it or continue? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I see little reason to have a waiting period; if an article doesn't qualify, it doesn't qualify. However, if it will keep folks happy I see no harm in postponing review for another month... -- mattb @ 2007-02-07T23:31Z

I agree with mattb regarding the waiting period. –Outriggr § 00:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't. We can't have everyone who is disgruntled over an FA promotion coming here the next day, or the next week, unless there are extenuating circumstances. If people have issues with a recent promotion, they should attempt to work them out on the talk page before coming to FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Then so be it... As I said, as long as we wait long enough that people can't raise a fuss about how long we've waited. -- mattb @ 2007-02-08T00:35Z

Actually, I just meant in this case. Yes, there is no point in lawyering over two weeks. –Outriggr § 19:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The rationale for the 3 month rule-of-thumb waiting period is to prevent FAR effectively being used as an appeal of a recent controversial FAC promotion (not to give undeserving articles a period of grace). If an article is promoted, prima facie, we should accept the consensus from FAC that it meets the criteria. If the article changes radically within 3 months, or substantial new issues come to light within 3 months, then it should be reviewed, but such cases are relatively rare. If the FAR is based on the same issues that were considered in the FAC, then it should not be reviewed within 3 months.

In this case, I would not bother too much about 2 week - let the FAR run. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree. The rationale behind the 3 mos is solid, but in this case we don't need to lawyer over two weeks. Marskell 13:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

DrKiernan

I've left a post at this user's page politely saying that we can't cope with so many FARs at the same time. To be honest I don't know what to do regarding this. Can someone else help regarding this please, perhaps Marskell, Sandy or someone else similarly level headed? LuciferMorgan 09:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• I advise moving them all to FARC, and then removing FA status. DrKiernan 09:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you misinterpret the FAR process here, DrKiernan. This is not a voting process and the first intention to nominate is not to remove FA status. FAR reviews FA articles to improve it to the current WP:WIAFA standards. — Indon (reply) — 09:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have removed. Simply "blowing the stars off" has been discussed, and rejected. Marskell 09:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The process doesn't work in this way DrKiernan. Each article is subject to a month long review, giving editors the opportunity to bring the article up to standard. There's a blurb on the FAR page that may be able to explain;

FARs are intended to facilitate a range of improvements to FAs, from updating and relatively light editing—including the checking of references and their formatting—to addressing more involved issues, such as a failure to meet current standards of prose, comprehensiveness and POV.

When listing here, a nominator must specify these criteria and may propose remedies. The nomination should last two weeks, or longer where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process. Here, reviewers do not declare "keep" or "remove". If the consensus is that the deficiencies have been addressed, the review is closed; if not, the article is placed on the FARC list. A nomination need not be made with the goal of removal. Minor reviews of articles that are generally up to standard, but may require a copy-edit, are welcome.

Given there are so many FARs posted, we cannot sufficiently review each article and give feedback to those editors wishing to improve them to standard. I hope you can understand this. LuciferMorgan 09:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

How do I delete the "Wikipedia:Featured article review/Name of article" pages? DrKiernan 09:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Request speedy deletion. I would suggest using this template: {{db-author}}. What you could do is leave one of the reviews up. Perhaps the one you're most interested in and would be willing to help out with. Marskell 09:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll kill them, don't bother with the speedy delete template. Yomangani^talk 09:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

unexplained movements

Who is moving articles to FARC with strange comments? Tony 13:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

A newbie editor, presumably. I think I've fixed it. Marskell 13:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Move downgraded articles to GA status?

Why don't we, instead of dropping articles all the way back down the ladder as far as quality, automatically demote featured articles that are deemed not featured material to GA status. From there, they can be demoted again, but it doesn't make sense to have to go back to through the GA process again if the article is very good anyway. It would save on the backlogs and make a lot more sense. Of course, if there is an article definitely not deemed suitable for GA, just strip it of its rank. This makes a lot of sense, so I'm surprised it's not already happening. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  19:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The GA and FA processes are not presently linked and should not be, IMO. The FA process has it's problems, but it's not haphazard, like GA. Marskell 19:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Generally, the articles removed at FAR either have substantial issues (prose, POV, stability), or a great lack of references. In either case (given the current push at GA for well-cited articles), these should "generally" not automatically become GA. There are currently about 350 former FAs, and only about 20 of those are GAs. Having looked at quite a few of these articles recently, I would say that most of the other 330 would not pass GA now. There are a few exceptions which might fall into the "broad coverage" of GA but not "comprehensive" of FA, but given the turnover at FAR I don't think it is a big burden on the GA process to handle these. Gimmetrow 20:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Marskell and Gimmetrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I feel the same per Sandy, Marskell and Gimmetrow. LuciferMorgan 19:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Since GA has a process for promoting articles then demoted articles should never be automatically given GA status. When the demoting problems are minor I usually downgrade to A status unless the article falls under either the Biography or MilHist wikiprojects. These projects have processes for promoting articles to A status.

If the article has major problems it should be downgraded to B status. Joelito (talk) 02:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The FA/FARC process and status should be kept as afar apart from the GA thing as possible, IMV. The GA process is too ad hoc and lacking in rigour to be formally linked here. I'd get rid of GA if I had a magic wand. Tony 05:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

intended to facilitate improvements

I came here after noticing a long time featured article that had been demoted. "FARs are intended to facilitate a range of improvements to FAs" <-- Is this a joke? Featured article review and demotion of featured articles can take place without any editing of the articles or discussion of articles on their talk pages by the reviewers. People who might take an interest in helping the article do not even know that the article is being demoted. I'm trying to assume good faith, but it is hard for me to imagine that this "FAR" process is constructive for the encyclopedia. --JWSchmidt 03:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

We leave messages on user and project talkpages, as well as a notice on the article talkpage itself. — Deckiller 03:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Besides multiple Project notifications, I doublecheck that every article is noticed on its talk page with a FAR template, and notification remains on the article talk page for at least a month in every case; can you pls tell us which article you're referring to, that wasn't noticed? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I queried JWSchmidt about which article was the problem, and had feedback from him; he correctly points out that when the FAR tag was placed on the article, there was no edit summary. (Our instructions do say to indicate FAR listing in the edit box.) On the other hand, there were eight Project and User talk page notifications on the Carl Sagan FAR, with no input or feedback whatsoever from anyone. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Why not hold featured article reviews on the talk page of the featured article and in a section called "featured article review"? This would increase the chance of people who have the article on their watch list noticing that the article is under review. --JWSchmidt 14:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

People have been discussing problems with that article on the talk page since 2005; it sat of FAR for more than a month. It really should come as no surprise that an article that fails all the FA criteria was demoted (in 2007). FAR cannot notify everyone when an article is nominated; given that you don't appear to actively edit the article (3 edits in the last 500/ 2 of which were reverts) and that you have been generally pretty inactive for 2007 - it's no ones fault that you missed the FAR discussion. FAR actually seems to work pretty well as is. --Peta 23:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Articles without specific problems

I'm think of putting Barack Obama up for FAR sometime in the next few months. Not that there's anything I see wrong with it, but the article was passed in August 2004 (before he was even elected to the Senate), and since then Mr. Obama has become a leading candidate for President of the United States. Obviously his article has evolved tremendously since then, and will probably undergo changes of an equal scale several times over in the course of the campaign. Would FAR be the appropriate place to certify that it's still of featured quality, even if I don't have any specific problems with its content now?--Pharos 07:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It just went through a FAR a few months ago; check the article history. It wouldn't be appropriate to bring it back if it's less than a few months. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I was just thinking off the top of my head.--Pharos 07:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

In fact, less than a few months ago—closed Jan 23. Wikipedia:Featured article review/Barack Obama/archive1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

May be better after everything dies down. LuciferMorgan 16:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you should get a peer review instead. Tayquan ^holla_{My work} 18:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Failed FAC - why?

The recent FAC application for Japan failed. Why was this? Votes were overwhelmingly for. If it is because some people opposed it, please explain how it is possible to remedy two diametrically opposed complaints - see the first two "oppose" votes. John Smith's 17:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps ask at User talk:Raul654. There were 5 opposes. I can't tell if the first one is resolved, but the second and third imply incompleteness, the referencing issues in the fourth seem addressed, and the fifth was likely ignored by Raul (gallery? FAs should almost never have a gallery...) Gimmetrow 19:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Why not fix 'em?

Often people complain about "trivial" issues such as formatting etc, that could be fixed by the person noticing the problems instead of bringing them here, which just means things get fixed more slowly and take up more people's attention. Why don't people just fix themselves? Is there anything we could to encourage that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.26.4.35 (talk) 08:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

I haven't seen an FA get demoted for trivial issues, those are in fact usually fixed. It's usually bigger issues (verifiability, completeness, prose) that cause an article to eventually be demoted if nobody takes up the task of fixing them. -- mattb @ 2007-03-30T13:42Z

Well that's good, but wasn't totally my point. 193.26.4.35 14:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The next post should give you an answer; fixing someone else's work is never easy or fast. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Some parts (e.g. spelling, most grammar) /can/ be fast and easy but still get reported here needlessly. Bear in mind that it is a minority of reviews on this page that get the attention of the original main author, so there usually will be "someone else's work fixing" going on. May as well be the nominator that does the easy bits. 193.26.4.35 14:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Most often when spelling, grammar, and other minor issues are mentioned on FAC/FAR, examples only are given, and the work needed is extensive and throughout, and rarely easy or fast. If it's one or two minor mistakes, most reviewers do just fix 'em. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It does strike me as more trouble to point out things like "which" should be "that" than to fix them. So I'd do a light copy edit before making comments. Often, though, the meaning is unclear, so it's better to query the wording on the comments page. The really tricky ones to comment on, as SandyGeorgia says, are those where the prose has too many weaknesses to point them all out individually. Sometimes, when the text was written by non-native speakers, I've done a full copy edit—but that, with my language-nerdiness, can take me a week. I'm afraid I've reached the stage where if an article's prose is uniformly lousy, I don't bother to comment on it but find a more promising article to check out. qp10qp 13:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Tony always places the disclamer that he is pointing towards examples of prose weakness only. However, time and time again, editors reply that they have fixed the specifically highlighted problems, can they now pass. Its far easier to repair one instance of a problem than it is to highlight its wider prevalence, and usually the trivial issues have multiple instances through out the article. Ceoil 22:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we reviewers are not providing a free fix-it service in the FA and FAR/C rooms; some of us choose to specialise in reviewing, thus achieving a much larger 'footprint' in the project by allocating our scarce time to providing examples of larger problems in an article, rather than directly intervening. If you like, this a way of motivating contributors to treat the FA criteria more seriously, to raise their standards, and to network to find collaborators who will help them to satisfy the criteria. This, I put it to you, is the essence of achieving quality on WP.

Nominators and their friends have three self-defeating options with which to counter examples of problems in their writing: (1) "You're trying to push your own stylistic preferences onto us". (2) "I've fixed what you specified; let me know if there's anything else". (3) "Why don't you help us directly rather than shooting from the side-lines". These strategies for protecting mediocrity need to be resisted whenever they pop up. Tony 23:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft

I offered to work on this after I returned from travel because User RN has been very helpful to me in the past. I asked that the review be held because no one apparently was reviewing the sourcing or referencing of the text. I spent an hour and a half this morning, and barely got through the lead only. My concerns only from the lead are listed on Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Microsoft/archive1. These are not just formatting issues as I hoped; there are issues of reliability of sources and overreliance on Microsoft itself as a source, based on what I've seen so far. I will continue once I catch up in other areas; IMO this review should not have been closed, and the article has substantial problems with reliable sources and over-sourcing to Microsoft itself. Closing a review with substantial problems means that it's not likely that anyone else will help clean up these problems; I suggest the close was premature. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I have been rightly chastised here. I've started to work on the article myself. Marskell 13:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Intelligent design

user:Chahax nominated this article, and I have removed it. While at first glance, it appears this user is uninvolved in this article, within seconds of his adding the nom to this page, user:216.67.29.113 (who has done some pretty ridiculous POV pushing on that article and others - [5]) added the FAR tag to the article. I smelled a sockpuppet, and checkuser confirmed it. As such, I have removed this FAR nom, being that it is being done both through sockpuppety and in mighty bad faith.

Furthermore, on a more general note, I am concerned about how our two most controversial FAs - intellgent design and global warming - are being treated here on the FARC. Global warming (which is currently in the FARC section) is there as a result of POV pushing by a small but dedicated cadre of POV pushers. Intelligent design appears to be experiencing similiar. Raul654 19:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not a sock puppet. In fact it's impossible to nominate an article for FAC anonymously. The fact that you have removed the nomination without any discussion shows that there is a serious problem with the page as I have pointed out. Furthermore you have threatened to block me if I persue this...that's a no-no. I am replacing the nomination. If I am blocked, I hope someone will unblock me. This article (and possibly your adminship) need serious review. Chahax 19:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

User blocked for sockpuppetry and seriously biased editing. Raul654 20:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Chahax, my assumption has been that your addition of this was done in good faith, but although the subject matter is of course contentious and editors present their opinions forcefully, the outcome at present is that a significant change (and improvement) to the lead has achieved consensus. It's unfortunate that you appear not to have added the FAR banner to the article talk page yourself. .. dave souza, talk 20:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

One point needs making: stability (1e) can't be a self-fulfilling. "It's unstable because I'm making it unstable right now." This is what concerns me about some of the opposes on Global warming. Marskell 07:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In the past, when an article has appeared at FAR with claims of a POV dispute or instability, and examination revealed no other issues, no attempts to resolve the content dispute either on the talk page or via mediation, and an article that otherwise complied with the rest of WP:WIAFA, we have closed the FAR, asked the editors to attempt to resolve the dispute, and reminded them that FAR is not dispute resolution. That doesn't appear to be the case here. The article was on the citations list, the problems are not recent or confined to a few editors, attempts at mediation have clearly failed, and almost every argument on the FAR in favor of keeping its featured status amounts to arguments that deprecate the entire notion of NPOV. (It's "the other side" that's causing the problem.) The article doesn't have even enough stability to insure compliance with 1c and 2, while 1b, 1d and 1e don't appear to be met. I agree we should continue to watch for articles that come here only with claims of NPOV or instability, as those can be self-fulfilling and we have seen that before, but this is not an article that only suffers from a recent claim of instability or POV. It has long-standing problems, indications that editors don't recognize the fundamentals of NPOV, and mediation hasn't helped. I hope this is not Wiki's best work; we're in trouble if it is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I echo Sandy's sentiment. LuciferMorgan 16:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Global warming FAR: user blocked

This is a lesson to all of us to keep a level head when things get heated. Tony 00:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Link doesn't work. Howard Cleeves 18:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Quantum computer

I just reverted an IP edit to Wikipedia:Featured article review/Quantum computer because I was unable to decipher what it was or what happened to the article structure (it repeated my previous post and several sections 3 times). If anyone can salvage anything from my revert, I'd appreciate another set of eyes. I really can't tell if it was vandalism or if there was something useful in there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Gimmetrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Notifications

The first five articles listed haven't had notifications posted to original authors, involved editors, and WikiProjects listed on the article talk page. I'm literally swamped; can someone please do the notifications with {{subst:FARMessage|Articlename}} ? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Just did four of them. I don't know if that helped. LuciferMorgan 19:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The most recent FAR has had a name change so that's thrown me off doing the notifications for that one. LuciferMorgan 20:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Lucifer; it's going to be a while before I can catch up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem - I'm busy myself really with off Wiki stuff, but I'll do the rest of the FAR notifications later. I'm leaving Columbine alone though as its name has been changed during the FAR. LuciferMorgan 11:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

They all seem to be up to date now, so that's cool. LuciferMorgan 16:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Everything shouldn't have to fall on your shoulders all the time anyway. LuciferMorgan 02:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Military brat (U.S. subculture)

Hope folks here are tuned in the issues occurring here: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Military brat (U.S. subculture) is on the main page, and has been twice removed from FAR. removed four times from FAR, with disputing editors edit warring over the FAR now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This shouldn't be at FAR right now for the reasons you've stated. What's more, this isn't the place to try and extend a content dispute war. I support your removal. If this behavior persists, I think a temporary block would be appropriate. -- mattb 13:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

What's the time period that is required to wait until you put something up for FAR? Tayquan ^holla_{My work} 18:24, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think its a month. Aaron Bowen 19:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Table of Contents

The TOC problem is not just on FAR; I just saw it in on the UK tax article, so it's apparently Wiki-wide. United Kingdom corporation tax SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

From Gimmetrow: See WP:VPT#Incorrect_TOC_formatting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Still no response. Well, based on the discussion at the Village Pump, I removed the level 4 headings from the Ian Thorpe review, and our TOC is sort of back, but now with another weird error. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The remaining error is likely from the level 4 headings in the sections above it. I wouldn't mind leaving those, though; your edit has made the TOC usable. Pagrashtak 19:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

hmmm, I removed the level 5 heading from Quantum computer, and now our TOC is back. I don't understand why this isn't being fixed; it's hard to read some of the articles under review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

ah, fixed at last. I'll put the sub-headings back into the articles I removed them from. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

FAC and FAR/C urgents boxes

FACs needing feedback view •
Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted	Review it now
Roswell incident	Review it now
La Isla Bonita	Review it now

Featured article removal candidates
Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark	Review now
Rudolf Vrba	Review now
Michael Tritter	Review now
Middle Ages	Review now
Emmy Noether	Review now
The Notorious B.I.G.	Review now
Isaac Brock	Review now
Mariah Carey	Review now
Pokémon Channel	Review now
Concerto delle donne	Review now
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask	Review now

Will reviewers kindly note that these boxes are regularly updated for problematic nominations and for those that are hanging around for too long with too few comments. Transcluding them on your user page and/or at the top of your talk page would be a great way to generate more interest in these processes, especially by reviewers who manage to visit only occasionally.

All you do is to key in {{User:Deckiller/FAC urgents}} and {{User:Tony1/FAR urgents}}. Tony 02:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

New version of Featured Sound Criteria

I've proposed a new version of the existing criteria after a week or so to form consensus. Comments from reviewers from this room would be welcomed. Tony 02:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Baby Gender Mentor

This article looks like an advertorial, a majority of the references points to unreliable, primary sources. If this is one of the best articles of wikipedia, we have failed. Erik Warmelink 01:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree; however, a Featured Article Review cannot be brought until several days after the article is on the main page. There are numerous comments on the article's talk page re-iterating your concerns; if the issues can't be worked out over the next four or five days via talk page consensus and article edits, then a Featured Article Review could be initiated. There are statements referenced to blogs and Pregnancystore.com, in addition to heavy reliance on primary, commercial sources. Main page exposure may help address the issues in this article and encourage better examination of sourcing by FA reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with the above, but I think that the article is an almost great article that doesn't belong anwhere near the main page, yet. The introduction is the problem - it can easily be seen as an advertorial. But the body of the article sets out the facts pretty well - and must have taken some digging to get them, i.e. the article is about a scientific/commercial scandal. So the article is schizophrenic: Intro - this is a great product that does something that people have wanted to do forever; body - this is a product that very likely doesn't do what it claims to do. It's notable either way, but shouldn't a feature article reflect the main body of the article in the intro? BTW there have been about 150 edits on it today and maybe it was different at the start of the day. Smallbones 17:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The lead has changed a lot. At some point the lead was about the controversies surrounding this product. As for the sourcing, the blogs really shouldn't have gotten through FAC, but since this article is basically a critique of a product's marketing, it seems natural to have a fair amount sourced to the marketing. Perhaps someone needs to do reviews of upcoming main page articles. Gimmetrow 19:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

As for the information in the lead concerning why someone might buy this product, that informaiton was added because an early reviewer basically asked "why would anyone buy this"? As for it being an "advertorial", did you read the article? There is plenty of informaiton about controversies relating to this product. As for links to primary sources, I assume you mean the company website and their related patents. Surely this is appropriate informaiton to tell the company's side of the story. Johntex\^talk 19:47, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did read it. The article itself is unbiased. However if unbiased articles about commercial products can become featured articles (and, as far as I can tell, there is nothing to stop them), the Main Page can be abused to draw attention to unknown products. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ErikWarmelink (talk • contribs) 21:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

As for the "blogs", they are appropriate because they are used only a source for what people say about the product and they are directly attributed as coming from the blog. These are not some random anonymous posts on a random blog - it is from the creator of a prominent web-source on pregancy issues that just happens to use blog-style formatting to post items. The references we are making are to say things like "...and In-Gender.com reported that the test has been completely pulled from the market." Just because a source happens to be formatted as a blog does not mean it is unusable. The fact is it is usale informaiton if it is used correctly. I believe it is used correctly here. Johntex\^talk 20:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps someone needs to do reviews of upcoming main page articles. I started doing that about a week ago. Cleaning up refs, cleaning up MOS stuff, tagging things that aren't well cited in time for them to be cleaned up before the main page. I haven't gotten to Japan which, IMO is in VERY bad shape, not ready for the main page, and due up tomorrow or the day after. I'm traveling, on a very slow dialup - I hope someone can run through it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Japan was just promoted. What happened? Gimmetrow 01:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

When I checked yesterday, the ref formatting needed work — I can't remember what else. But, from a dialup, I can't work on big articles. Not that we need to do anything about the size of our articles, for the half of the world that uses dialup :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes, non-standard ref formatting is a handy way to locate more serious issues :) Gimmetrow 01:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Duran Duran?

Why was Duran Duran removed from Featured status yesterday without any further comment or warning? I have been working on this steadily over the last week to improve the references (now that my real life finally allowed for it). It looks like no one even looked at it since the last comment on April 29th. — Catherine\^talk 15:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

You entered a comment on May 1st that you were working on the article, but you entered it in the wrong place (in the review section, after the article had moved to FARC), so 1) possibly Marskell didn't see it, and 2) you didn't provide an update on progress for over two weeks while the article was at FARC and had received Remove declarations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I apologize for entering it in the wrong place. And I should have left a comment after my work yesterday. But shouldn't a human being be reviewing these, not a bot? (Yes, I understand the work load.) I'm sorry that I don't know all the ins and outs of your system here.

Can I please have it re-reviewed now? I was planning to submit it for copyediting today, but I think all of the referencing issues have been addressed. — Catherine\^talk 15:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Catherine, Marskell is in a radical time zone and might be asleep now; leave him a talk page note to review this discussion, and then sit tight until tonight, maybe ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you -- I appreciate your help. I know we are all trying to improve content here. — Catherine\^talk 16:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi Catherine. My check on Duran Duran was as usual. I did in fact see your note, but saw nothing after it (two weeks) and looking at the history didn't see any real activity. Now, this edit does show continued work, but I didn't actually look at that specific dif. I check the history for repeated, on-going edits and the page for obvious flags (e.g. one sentence paragraphs—the poor pace and flow of prose sticks out on this article).

Anyhow, sorry. If in the FARC commentary you'd said "hey, ho, wait a minute," then I would have left it open. Because we process one-a-day here, that can't always be assumed. Marskell 21:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Now I'm feeling a little bad, so I'll try to make some edits myself to eliminate the choppiness. If the refs are acceptable to people, let's just ship it back to FAC. Then we'll know it's had a good look over. I'm loath to reopen a FAR. Marskell 16:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Why? We're just a bunch of volunteers trying to develop decent articles while also doing jobs, bringing up families, etc. not an inflexible bureaucracy or legal body. Raul sometimes restarts an FAC; don't see why we can't repost this one to FAR, given the circumstances. Ignore All Rules, in this case, I'd say. qp10qp 16:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Re-opening a FAR could get tricky in terms of setting precedent for future cases (when Raul restarts a FAC, the articles status hasn't changed); how about if several of us pitch in, and put it back through FAC? I'll see if I can contribute anything — I don't think I'd really looked at this one, since it seemed stalled in Remove territory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:03, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Working on the refs, and there's still a lot of CE needs, but Catherine, we need to know what makes you a reliable source as opposed to a personal fan site? [6] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

A lot of the book sources are lacking page nos. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:36, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, CatherineMunro (talk · contribs), if durandurantimeline.com is a personal and commercial site, we really need to remove all references. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:03, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I have requested copyediting help from the League of Copyeditors, though it looks like they're rather backlogged.

The Timeline has been a long-term personal project with a goodly amount of scholarship gone into it; not enough for Wikipdia as I now know, but I have been gradually working on removing all the Timeline refs from the article and replacing them with the source material I used to build the Timeline in the first place. By the end of the week they should all be gone, now that I've got my ref materials out of storage. (The store was an experiment from last year that didn't work -- I think I've made about 4.00 off of it! -- in fact I think I'll go ahead and take it and the Google Ads down as I'm in the process of transferring the Timeline to duranduran.wikia.com so that I don't have to maintain it all by myself anymore.)

I understand about the precedent of re-opening, and I appreciate your help with this -- it's so hard to keep up with the everchanging standards and citation styles and such. I welcome any editing you do, or suggestions you have; I hope it will be ready to regain its star soon! — Catherine\^talk 18:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I've done what I can for now; the first task will be to get it cited to reliable sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

One question -- some of the articles I use are quite old, but various fans have transcribed them online. If there is no online version from the publisher, is it better to use the URL for the unofficial fan transcription, or to use no URL at all? Either way, all of the information to find the original print version is there, so it's not the ref itself that's in question; it's a question of copyright, and the tradeoff between not being able to read it online at all, and the possible (if somewhat unlikely) chance that the fan has distorted the original text. So far I have leaned toward providing the link and letting readers judge the source, but what do you think? — Catherine\^talk 18:40, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

See WP:EL and WP:COPYRIGHT; somewhere in one of them it says we should never knowingly link to copyright violations. I think a safer way to do this is to 1) always base your citations on the original source rather than someone else's upload of it, and 2) if an online version isn't available, you can include a quote of the pertinent text in the footnote ref tags, or by using the quote parameter of the cite templates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The longest thread on User:Emsworth you've ever read

Some thoughts on our most prolific FA nominator.

I'm not sure how many successful FACs he actually has. The list shows 57 at the moment, but when I did my own count to track a couple of months ago, partly based on old info on his user page, I came up with 62. In any case, it's some number that would take a decade to accumulate under current standards. (And he did it before going to college.) The current FAR process has gone over about half of them: 10 kept, 17 removed, 4 outstanding right now (about 9% of the total that have gone through here in the last year). This is in-keeping with the overall ratio, and really isn't bad considering he's not editing himself.

My first thought is that we ought stop leaving notifications on his user talk. It's not especially important, but I think the fellow might feel a little depressed to log back in and see two dozen FAR/C notices. And it seems unlikely he's going to suddenly decide, "yes, because of that notice, I'm going to save that FA."

My second thought is in the opposite direction: we ought to accelerate the review of Emsworth FAs, particularly relatively vital articles. I read Canadian House of Commons over tonight, for instance, and it has no business being an FA as it stands. It's decent, but not FA—small but important inaccuracies (according to this Canadian); coverage that's both underweight and repetitive; basically nothing in the References section.

Anyhow, the same could probably be said of all of them. British Commons and Monarchy, U.S. Senate and Congress, Canadian Commons and Senate—all of these should be reviewed sooner rather than later. These are important articles that look increasingly stale compared to recent FAs. (Not that their current status is solely the product of Emsworth.)

Two suggestions:

• If you want to nominate an Emsworth article, start with the more important, currently relevant ones. And we should be nominating them, at regular intervals.

BUT, I'm not saying all this so we can have twenty of his articles removed tomorrow, so:

• Rather than contacting him, contact users that have already saved some of his articles. The venerable User:Dr pda, User:Ceoil (our pinch hitter), and the most excellent User:Yomangani, for instance. (Not to put pressure on those folks, but just as an example.) Better yet, see if you can pre-emptively save (or start to save) one.

On that last point: his British articles are often adopted, while not one of his American articles has been saved. Does Wikipedia have a monarchical bias? Marskell 20:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good initiative Marskell. As concerns royalty FAs that Emsworth has, could we also see if User:DrKiernan may be able to help? He's had about 5 recent royalty FAs - it's just an idea. LuciferMorgan 21:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

gosh darn edit conflict; was trying to put a complete list.

User:Dr pda, User:Ceoil, User:Yomangani, User:DrKiernan, User:Qp10qp, and User:Carcharoth.

Emsworth articles needing review:

1. Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu
2. Article One of the United States Constitution
3. British House of Commons
4. British monarchy
5. Canadian House of Commons
6. Canadian Senate
7. Charles II of England
8. Coronation of the British monarch
9. Elizabeth I of England
10. George I of Great Britain
11. George III of the United Kingdom
12. Governor-General of India
13. History of the Peerage
14. Irish Houses of Parliament
15. James K. Polk
16. Palace of Westminster
17. Parliament of Canada
18. Parliament of the United Kingdom
19. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
20. Privilege of Peerage
21. Privy Council of the United Kingdom
22. Separation of powers under the United States Constitution
23. Speaker of the British House of Commons
24. Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
25. United States Senate
26. War of the Spanish Succession
27. William III of England
28. William IV of the United Kingdom

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggest Charles II of England as first project. Ceoil 22:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm on board. Does someone else want to ping all the folks above ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Without wishing to sound like a wimp, Elizabeth I of England is about the only one of them I have the books on, and I am also an appallingly slow editor and can only really manage one thing at a time. I will say for Emsworth that he was of his time: he was knocking out very encyclopedic articles not unlike those in regular light encyclopedias and as such was doing an appropriate and highly useful job for Wikipedia at that time in its development: standards are now shooting up, which is a good thing, but each article takes more and more commitment. qp10qp 01:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

To add to that comment, which I'm feeling guilty about, I would just say that a reason why I'm not really the man for quick-fixing is that, for some anal, perfectionist reason, I can't just add refs to existing text: I feel obliged to dig about in book after book to find the right formulation...which means that I tend to over-invest and take ages on what some people can do quickly. When Elizabeth comes up, however, I promise I'll be there, though she's not on my to-do list at the moment. qp10qp 14:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

• I volunteer to adopt George III of the United Kingdom, but don't expect immediate results! DrKiernan 19:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No worries. Adopt what you can. Qp and Dr K., I've got you on record for one each, and we never forget these things at WT:FAR! I'd like to lead by example, but most of these require omnibus books I don't have access to. I'll try to pick at some of the Canadian parliament info. Marskell 20:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Multiple noms from new account

Eptypes (talk · contribs) is a brand new user account, and has entered three FARs at once for Emsworth articles; what do we want to do? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Improve all three of the articles? Which ones are they? What we could do is allow them an extended stay at FAR (in general they stay there as long as efforts are being made on them, right?), or create a subpage of FAR to ensure constant low-level activity on Emsworth articles. I'm afraid I don't have any books on English royalty or Canadian stuff, but I would be happy to carry on watching from the sidelines and polishing up articles that others are working on (I tend to do light copyediting, improve internal linking, and ask annoying-but-sometimes-astute questions, as Qp10qp will tell you! Carcharoth 11:29, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

In other words, do an umbrella FAR nomination of the remaining un-FARed Emsworth articles, hope the talk page tagging attracts more editors to those articles, but delay FARC unless they are really bad or no-one shows any initial interest. Carcharoth 11:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yet another possibility is to do stop-gap improvements that wouldn't pass FAC, and note that they still need further improvement. So it comes down to choosing between doing a little improvement to all of them, or a complete rehaul for a few. Carcharoth 11:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

(After four edit conflicts). The issue is that we usually remove excess nominations, because nominators are expected to follow their noms, and it's not clear that a new account is going to follow three noms. We usually allow only one nom at a time for most nominators, although a few of us have demonstrated that we can/will follow more than one nom at a time, and work to improve them. Do we remove the last two as we usually do, or let them run ?

I'm not in favor of a separate page/process for Emsworth articles; we're processing through them just fine, and there are many articles in worse shape than his that we should not drain attention from. I'm also not in favor of an umbrella nomination, because every now and then, someone has time to work on one of his articles. If you try to run them through all at once, there's not much chance any of them will be improved. I don't believe it's good to have six Emsworth noms on the page at a time; there are plenty of older, uncited FAs that are in *really* bad shape that warrant our focus. No stop-gap process either, allowing sub-par FAs to pass; the process is working fine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:38, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the limit on nominations. That is a good rule. I agree, remove the last two the new account nominated, and explain things to them. You've also persuaded me to recant my other suggestions, so there is not a lot left to say! :-) Carcharoth 11:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Normally, I go ahead and remove repeat noms and notify the nominator. In this case, I'll wait to hear from Marskell and others, as I'm not sure if this thread meeans we want to let more of them run. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

For reference, our instructions say:

Please consider posting only one FAR request at a time. We have limited resources!

I'm also going to begin to ask people to respect the nomination instructions about notifying Projects and authors, because I'm really tired of doing that tedious and boring work myself. There are currently six noms that haven't been notified; three from Eptypes (no need to notify if two of them are going to be removed). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:02, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and if you want to avoid Emsworth seeing multiple nom notifications, I see no problems with removing them to a subpage of his user pages, and refactoring his talk page to include a single notice and a link to the subpage. Though his contribs show he returned for a while in December 2006, so I guess he is already aware of this, so I'd suggest not worrying about it too much. Who knows, maybe at some future point, he will write articles of an even higher standard and disown his earlier attempts?! :-) Carcharoth 12:16, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I just did the notifications for the two oldest ones. Isn't much, but I hope it helps a little Sandy. LuciferMorgan 13:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

You and I have to stop doing them, and start reminding the nominators to do it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, but will they listen? There's a certain FAR culture of nominating an article and then disappearing. An unfortunate problem this is. LuciferMorgan 14:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yoda? Is that you? Carcharoth 14:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The use was blocked as a sockpuppet. No idea the details. I removed the latest two but left the first up. Marskell 15:12, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the limit that can be nominated at once? I mean normally I see 10-15 articles on each section (FAR and FARC I mean). Aaron Bowen 18:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There probably isn't a set number. Howard Cleeves 20:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Toronto Raptors

Toronto Raptors was recently promoted, but has been nominated by someone saying it was promoted over objections. Consensus to keep or remove the listing from FAR?

• Remove listing, there are not extenuating circumstances, one reviewer is merely disgruntled that the article was promoted. FAR doesn't review recent promotions unless there are extenuating circumstances. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
• Remove listing, I agree with Sandy. Some of his objections are idiosyncratic. For instance, the idea that there is too much detail stands in flagrant contrast to WP:NOTPAPER, but that's not even an issue here given that the procedure for listing an article soon after it has passed requires extenuating circumstances. Quadzilla99 10:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree and removed it. Marskell 12:41, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Sandy, there is plagiarism in the article as we speak. You don't think that's an extenuating circumstance? If no one in the nomination picked it up—let alone pick up any of the numerous other FA criteria failures—then the nomination is a bust. Two of us did catch a whiff of this article's deficiency, but they were ignored by the Featured Article Director and the article was promoted with no explanation. The Director was, however, kind enough to tell us why he would be discarding the least significant objection of all. You don't think this failure of process is an extenuating circumstance? Marskell said "it's not our business to redo a just done FAC," but the FAC was never done to begin with.

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, an "organization in which action is obstructed by insistence on unnecessary procedures and red tape." Does that not apply here? Are there good reasons plagiarism and uncited claims must sit in the article for the arbitrary three month period before they can be challenged, again? I can't think of any. I wonder what NBA.com or a newspaper looking for a story would think of the mandatory three month period.

Quadzilla99, before calling my objections idiosyncratic—or "voting" on FAs for that matter—you may want to actually read the FA criteria. The idea that there is too much detail stands in flagrant contrast to WP:WIAFA: "It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail." Punctured Bicycle 17:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violation takes priority, obviously. However, I don't see anything claiming copyright violation on the article talk page. Can you provide a link to the web page that was copied? Gimmetrow 17:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There's an illustration at Talk:Toronto Raptors/Flaws; I've now provided the NBA.com link. Punctured Bicycle 17:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh. If the issue were all or most of an entire section being copied, there would be a problem. But if this only involves a few sentences, I would suggest you work with the article and rephrase them. The other substantial complaint seems to be the article isn't comprehensive, but that was brought up at FAC. FAR would like to avoid rehashing issues from recent FACs. Gimmetrow 17:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There are substantial complaints about the entire article listed at Talk:Toronto Raptors/Flaws. The plagiarism issue is a symbol of the nomination's failure to do its job; fixing it won't fix the numerous other problems the nomination failed to address. Punctured Bicycle 18:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think its fine. Tayquan ^holla_{My work} 18:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a vote. Punctured Bicycle 18:30, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

If people are willing to address the concerns I don't think it matters if its here or on the talk page. Howard Cleeves 18:31, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

One thing is though while some of those wordings are definitely similar and should be re-worded, all we're really allowed to do here is say what our sources say right? I mean we're just re-iterating information for the most part. The article does need some work overall though, particularly on wording and flow. Trevor GH5 18:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Is that wording still in there? Howard Cleeves 18:45, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Punctured Bicycle 11:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a bureaucracy. Consensus is based on a system of good reasons. If the consensus is that "extenuating circumstances" has a rigid definition that excludes this case, then reasons should be given why. I'm going to restore the nomination unless some good reasons are given. Punctured Bicycle 11:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

1)I don't see the issues you raise, including the alleged plagiarism. 2) Apparently, Raul didn't give your other objections much weight either. 3) We have *never* reviewed an article here right after Raul promoted it — we're not in the business of second-guessing Raul. The only time we reviewed an article before the three months had elapsed was B movie, because the article completely changed after it received support, and even then, we waited a month to allow time for the issues to be addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:15, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

1) Are you following the discussion? I've linked to Talk:Toronto Raptors/Flaws repeatedly. It illustrates the plagiarism and all the other problems with the article. 2) I know he didn't. That's partly why I'm here. The article wasn't promoted based on consensus, it was promoted based on Raul's secret judgment. When I asked him why he promoted an article with active objections in its nomination, he demonstrated in his weak reply that he hadn't even looked at all the objections. 3) We're free to second-guess Raul. He's not a deity. FARC is the most logical place to appeal FA promotions, whether they were made yesterday or over three months ago. (And yes, I already brought this up at the WP:FAC talk page.) Punctured Bicycle 12:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've been to your "flaws" page, and I've followed all of your previous complaints about the article, including those at Raul's talk page. "Raul's secret judment" includes FAC consensus. Yes, we're free to second guess Raul, but we typically do that in marginal or exceptional cases, which is why that is part of our instructions. This case looks neither marginal nor exceptional. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Sandy, there is plagiarism in the article as we speak. You don't think that makes this an exceptional case? If no one in the nomination picked it up—let alone pick up any of the numerous other FA criteria failures—then the nomination is a bust. Two of us did catch a whiff of this article's deficiency, but we were ignored by the Featured Article Director and the article was promoted with no explanation. (The Director was, however, kind enough to tell us why he would be discarding the least significant objection of all.) You don't think this failure of process makes this an exceptional case? Marskell said "it's not our business to redo a just done FAC," but the FAC was never done to begin with. Punctured Bicycle 13:07, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

1) I don't think rephrasing is the same as plagiarism, and 2) if you think there's plagiarism, that's solved by further rephrasing. Work it out on the article talk page. The article was not promoted with "no explanation"; it was promoted with overwhelming support. I've seen many "failures of process", and each one of them has bugged me A LOT; this isn't one of them. This FAC was done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:15, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

1) You don't know what plagiarism is. 2) Once again, the plagiarism is just a symbol of the nomination's failure to do its job; fixing it won't fix the numerous other problems the nomination failed to address. It's obvious that an article that was able to pass with plagiarism in it wasn't examined closely enough. 3) Articles should be promoted based on consensus, not votes. Dozens of empty support votes, many of which were supplied by members of the NBA WikiProject, don't outweigh dissent grounded in the FA criteria. Punctured Bicycle 13:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Please stop telling people what they do and don't know, it's not helping your case. Trevor GH5 11:11, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Why should I stop telling people what they don't know? How do you expect us to have a meaningful discussion when some of the participants are uninformed? If you think that rephrasing a passage to the weak degree that Toronto Raptors does escapes plagiarism, you don't know what plagiarism is. No wonder the academic world thinks Wikipedia is a joke. Punctured Bicycle 23:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Question

So this page is for entering FAs that are no longer up to standard to see if they should be removed? I don't want to nominate anything or get involved yet, I'm just curious. Marcus Taylor 18:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah it is, I think you should probably comment on the article's talk page first though and tell people what you think is wrong. Trevor GH5 18:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I don't want to nominate anything, just wanted to be clear what this page is for. Marcus Taylor 19:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah a lot of of it is just updating also from what I understand because a lot of the old FAs aren't as good as the new ones. Tayquan ^holla_{My work} 19:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The old ones usually don't have inline citations. All the new FAs do. Trevor GH5 19:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks both of you. Marcus Taylor 19:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

As I recall, FAR used to require that issues be brought up on the talk page first, and only if they were unresolved could the article be brought here. (This may have relaxed when FAR went to two stages.) Gimmetrow 19:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Still probably a good idea though. Tayquan ^holla_{My work} 19:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

You bring it up on the talk page by putting the FAR template on the talk page, which directs people here for comment. Punctured Bicycle 21:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think he means bring it up there and then wait and see if the concerns are being addressed before putting it up for FAR. Howard Cleeves 21:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

So I see people vote on whether the article is still an FA and then they tally the votes. Is that how it works? Marcus Taylor 21:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

To address Gimme's point first, there was debate over how to notify people a year and more ago and the present FAR exists partly for that reason. It used to be that you could nominate to FARC and that was it; the actual review page, meanwhile, was dead. It's a merged two-step process now so that there is sufficient notification, and so that we actually review the article before removing it.

On last, the "vote count" is not by itself determinative. "Consensus within criteria", like AfD and whatnot. Marskell 22:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

How is the result ultimately determined then? Marcus Taylor 22:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The principal determinant (in some ways, the only determinant) is whether there are people ready to work on an article and meet concerns. If there is, it will almost always be kept; if not, it will almost always be removed. See Wikipedia:Featured article criteria for specific FA demands. Marskell 22:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

But who determines whether there's consensus. Marcus Taylor 02:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Mu. (Sorry, you'll have to wait for someone who can and will really answer you :-) –Outriggr § 06:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I think Marskell does after looking it over. Trevor GH5 11:11, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Notifications (2)

It looks like reminding nominators to do the notifications isn't working. All we have now is a mess on the FARs, with commentary asking them to notify and explaining to them how to do it, but no indication that it's been done. Niagara Falls, RMS Titanic, Pioneer Zephyr and Speaker of the British House of Commons all need to be checked, notified, and listed at the top of the FAR so we know it's been done. I guess Lucifer and I will be stuck with this chore "for life". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Could my best friend do it? The coding would no doubt be complicated, and Gimme does so much already, but without a bot... Marskell 18:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

... without a bot ... Lucifer and I are bots :-) I don't usually mind, but I'll be too busy this week. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

How would you propose identifying which projects to notify in an automatic fashion? The projects who have tagged the talk page are probably relevant, but not all relevant projects will have every article tagged.

I have some time this month to work on some program. I was thinking of automating the WP:GA page, since it's tedious to pass a GA correctly. Or I could implement the idea from WT:FAC, and generate a list of editors who have commented on facs, and on how many fac pages each has commented (page count seems more relevant than edit count). Or, I have some ideas to streamline the FAC promotion/archiving process some more, maybe writing a tool for Raul. But realistically I can only do one of these, so which is more important? Gimmetrow 19:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

My two cents (considering what it takes to keep track of all of this): 1) Streamline FAC, 2) fix GA (that thing stinks, and I spend more time cleaning up GA messes on talk pages than anything else!), 3) FAR notification bot, 4) FAC comment tracking. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

PS, the FAR notification would be stupendous if I could just plug a list into a bot/script/whatever somewhere, and it would do the work and post the list back to the top of the FAR. Let us input a manual list somehow/somewhere (since I have a spreadsheet for almost 300 of them). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

"Not all relevant projects will have every article tagged." Yes, and unless you can program a bot with higher reasoning, related projects who have not tagged an article talk will have to be left out. But realistically, notifying the projects who have tagged (tagging itself indicates the project's activity) and talk pages of original nominators is as much as can be expected of us. If the bot can check article history and, say, hit the user talks of three persons who have edited most often, it would be totally awesome. (Really—totally awesome!)

As for priority, I will defer to Sandy's list insofar as FAC takes precedence over FAR. But I'd bump 2 down, because GA does not take precedence over FA. (My thoughts on that have been extensively stated :). Marskell 20:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I share your views on GA, but d#@&, I spend a ton of time cleaning up messes they make on talk pages, so we can build articlehistory correctly for FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't participate if it's not worthwhile. Marskell 21:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

They screw up our articlehistory (I guess I could start deleting them if they aren't done right evil grin SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, why is GA even linked to the article history? Blaahh. Marskell 21:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Independent of the other discussion about GA, what do you think would be a good process? The WP:GA page is routinely in a bad state, with promoted FAs and delistedGAs remaining listed, the total and many section counts off, and a number of GAs not listed at all. I was thinking a bot could work off the categories. If reviewers just put a GA tag, a bot would catch that and add it to a list for the core GA group to categorize on WP:GA. A reviewer could put a delistedGA tag, and a bot would remove the article from the WP:GA page, updating counts and alphabetizing in the process. If these events are logged, another bot might be able to update ArticleHistory. Gimmetrow 22:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Notification: I go fuck myself

Having been requested on FAR to either source The Country Wife (which a couple of editors consider unsourced) or go fuck myself, I've renounced all connection, such as it was, with FAR/FARC. I've moved The Country Wife down to FARC, in the hope of shortening the time it spends on this page altogether. Personally I'd rather have removed the FA template from the page and the page from WP:FA, but I realize I would have been reverted in seconds. This action I hope may stand. I urge the people defending the article's FA status to desist. How important is the FA thing, seriously? Let's not cling to it, but put a stop to these unseemly spectacles. Bishonen | talk 13:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC).