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Revision as of 19:14, 12 August 2009

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Opinions needed on the RS-ness of a source widely used on FAC/GAC/GA/FA

A lot of Eurovision Song Contest articles, some of which have been successful and unsuccessful at FA/GA use a few websites that have been contested and are the subject of some debate. Please see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Eurovision Song Contest/archive2 and WT:EURO YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:07, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That'll take time... keep the FAR warm for me in the meantime :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 02:47, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually there is an open RfC on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision#RfC on reliable sources for Eurovision articles. Jezhotwells (talk) 09:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to instructions

I've removed these changes from the long-standing instructions at FAR, and encourage some discussion before such changes are made. FAR was set up as a deliberative process, intended whenever possible to improve articles rather than delist them, and where nominators are encouraged to take part in the process (or at least not encouraged to make multiple, driveby nominations). The more delisting of FAs is seen as automatic, with nominators allowed to list dozens of articles at a time, the less editors will be encouraged to work to improve articles at FAR; such an environment will not bode well for FAR. Changes such as these should be broadly discussed, including audiences at both FAC and FAR. With only 10% of our FAs needing review, I'm not sure that these changes will work in the necessary direction of restoring FAR to a place where many editors actively work towards retaining and improving FAs. I realize that reviews here are lacking, but is there a chicken/egg effect, as FAR becomes more and more a place where articles are delisted rather than improved? Also, I'm not sure it's true that "the vast majority of FARs result in the article being delisted", or that we should encourage such. In fact, the page size has grown so large, that in itself may be discouraging the kind of collaborative work that used to occur here. I strongly suggest an end to multiple nominations by editors unless they are actively working to improve articles. The page traditionally was kept below 30 nominations, and if it passed 32, was considered backlogged. The page is now at 43 nominations!!!! With a page that size, it's not likely that many editors will be encouraged to do the kind of collaborative article restoration that used to occur here. See Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles: FAR handled reviews at a time when 50% of FAs needed review. With only 10% of FAs currently needing review, is it necessary to be encouraging an acceleration in the delist rate, and discouraging collaborative work to restore articles to status? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:42, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On your "vast majority" point, that is unfortunately statistically true (14 kept to 67 delisted [83%] in the last four months), but I agree it's not something we want to emphasize. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:44, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is true in recent months, but that is a reversal in the historical trend, which is reason for concern. I'd rather see discussion of ways to return FAR to the place it was in the past (collaborative work to restore articles) before we throw in the towel and assume most articles will be delisted and allow nominators to put up as many nominations at once as they want. Endorsing these changes will be demoralizing and won't encourage the page to return to a place where editors enjoyed working together to save bronze stars. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, in the past the survival rate was higher, but some of them were cheap and of articles that would obviously fail FAC, and some other articles that would get opposed at FAC without another concerted improvement but are kept anyway because people feel sorry about not giving the benefit of the doubt and letting it stay. In the case of an FAC they are merely holding it up until the author improves it, whereas here, the waiting tactic could be met by not doing anything and the reviewers seem to be more likely to simply do a sympathy keep rather than bite the bullet and confiscate the star, and people maybe feel guilty about taking something away. I know of at least one ridiculous FA last year that survived with about 50% sources, none very high-quality, really bad prose ; I won't name it in case in ends up back here again. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem is that we only have one active FAR director; Joelito is often not available, and Marskell has been gone for months. YellowMonkey has already single-handedly brought a couple articles back to standards, and he is actively collaborating on a few more. He has also nominated a few FARs. All this to say is that we have several clear keeps and delists that can't be archived because of the conflicts of interest. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well the FAR director isn't charged with fixing the articles and isn't responsible if articles are bad, the reason I do it is because I have some background knowledge in certain topics even if I don't know anything in detail, so in those areas I should chip in (cricket, Aus), as it is easier for me than other users from another part of the world. But it's not efficient for me to fix things like Gandhi when I know very little about him that I could write down off the top of my head accurately, and people from the country/wikiproject can do so more much more efficiently if they want. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've noticed how much work YM is having to do; another reason we should not be relaxing the "one nom at a time" rule. What's the hurry? The page worked when 50% of FAs needed review, after citation requirements changed; with 10% of FAs needing review, the page is unnecessarily overburdened, which may be a disencentive to editors to work to improve articles here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

YellowMonkey removed the restriction himself and encouraged me to nominate more while one nomination was still going.[1] He wants more nominations. I think the slowness is what seems burdening to him.[2] I plan to weigh in more to help him out. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 15:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just as an explanation, Awadewit said she felt obliged to follow the letter of the law and felt uncomfortable; she thought that it was impolite to participate or nom at FAR unless she fixed the article for them or expected to ensure that the star lived. So, I told her that de facto it wasn't the case, as many people have multiple noms, and hardly anyone bothers to chip in, unless they want to rewrite the article themselves (many of the articles being so outdated and some not comprehensive), and then I removed it, as it de facto changed little. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm helping out when I can, although I only have two hands and one pedestrian Internet connection, and a million other RL and wiki commitments. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:32, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know you are as I see your name a lot! —Mattisse (Talk) 15:36, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

History: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-11/Dispatches. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we need another Dispatch to revive interest? We could also integrate news of the changes to FA criteria (1c, alt text). Dabomb87 (talk) 15:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have time to write a Dispatch, and since I've been busy, no one else has stepped up to write them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can help out, and I know YellowMonkey has been writing about FAR for the MILHIST academy. I'll ask him. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:47, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The last Dispatch was May 11, before my surgery; it doesn't seem there's enough interest to keep them going, and I was pulling them along for months, alone. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FYI I believe BrianBoulton, Finetooth and Ruhrfish are planning a dispatch on common issues at PR. Dr pda (talk) 22:40, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The fact is, there are two completely different types of nominations that appear here, and we should revise the process to segregate them:

Type 1: The primary editors of the article are active and available, or if not, the sources are readily available, or inline citations are not the primary objection. These are salvageable and it's not necessarily maddening to work on them. In this case, the nominator should be expected to assist in the process of bringing the article up to standard.
Type 2: The primary editors are gone or disinterested, and the sources are not readily available, and the primary objection is inline citations. These have been reduced to an almost prod-like process where they are just waiting around to die, and they rarely get saved.

The second type should be moved to a different process. Maybe they get listed here for 10 days and if the primary contributor doesn't show up with sources in hand, they are auto-delisted. Maybe they just get a Talk page tag that they are going to be delisted unless someone comes forward to work on them. I personally think the old FAs whose only problem is inline citations should be grandfathered in, but that's neither here nor there and I wasn't around for the discussion. Working on Type 1 is fulfilling; I'd rather get syphilis than work on Type 2. --Andy Walsh (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about those articles like Cane toad and Lake Burley Griffin that had to be completely rewritten and expanded because the old versions continued irrelevant material or trivia, while omitting a large amount of core info? In those cases the authors were long gone, and even once the existing info was cited, the main body had to be totally transformed. I agree that if the main authors or the Wikiproject members survive, then it is good etiquette for the nominator to help with things that don't require any knowledge of the topic if the main guys/wp are serious about fixing the article, like formatting and consistent presentation and copyediting. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But there are only about twenty or so of those (Type 2) left on the Unreviewed list ... does it make sense to separate them at this point? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:04, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the "no citation" FAs that were "Brought to Standard" have since been brought back to FAR (A. E. J. Collins, Bernard Williams, Nafaanra language). Dabomb87 (talk) 17:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunate, considering the larger list (10%) of unreviewed, older FAs. I encourage us to do all we can to further a return to a very deliberative, controlled process, keeping focus on articles most in need of attn. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, based on your point of how few Type 2's are left, I agree. I strongly suggest that the nominator should be involved in improving the article, and that one nomination at a time be allowed. --Andy Walsh (talk) 17:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(reply to Sandy) While the list to mid-2006 leaves only 250-odd articles, the standards are so different now that mnay, if not most of the late-2006 and early-2007 FAs would get pile on opposed if they were at FAC now. Many have already been mauled. As an example, I will refer to FARs of Indian subcontinental articles, as I follow that part of Wikipedia (along with cricket and Australia). Even an early 2007 article got knocked off one year later, easily. I will add a list of them soon YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 05:47, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delisted subcontinental FAs since tthe start of 2008 and the problems are

Kerala - Many criteria cited
Gandhi - Many, including wide range of views/research/analysis, refs, too reliant on autobio and book by grandson when hundreds of indept full bios available
Sikkim - Poor refs, no refs, prose
Mumbai - Prose, poor refs, lack of refs
Syed Ahmed Khan - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (passed Nov 06, removed 09)
Ladakh - Prose, poor refs, lack of refs (passed Sep 06, removed 09)
Malwa - Poor/no refs
Iqbal - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (founder of Pakistan) (passed July 06, removed 09)
Mujib - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources and online encyclopedias, when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (founder of Bangladesh) (passed July 06, removed 09)
Ziaur Rahman - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources and online encyclopedias, when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (President of Bangladesh) (passed Sep 06, removed 09)
Black pepper - not comprehensive, poor/missing refs (eg from marketing shops not textbooks)
Kalimpong - Prose and refs
Indian Railways - Refs, mainly from a fan club or not 3rd party
Pashtun people - Lack of refs or good ones (passed June 06, removed 09)
Jinnah - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (National poet of Pakistan)
Kargil War - Lack of scholarly refs
Rudyard Kipling - sources
Bengali language - sources [mostly webpages] (passed November 06, removed 09)
Kazi Nazrul Islam - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few low quality sources and online encyclopedias, when major biographies were available on this high-level person (national poet of Bangladesh) (passed late 06)
Rajshahi University - prose, lack of reliable/indept refs (passed March/April 07)

The only FAR survivors were Dhaka (passed oct 06 and overhauled) and ahmedabad (passed Aug 06, FAR mid-08). Aside from these two, all the other articles from the second half of 2006 also failed. A common problem apart from just a lack of citations, is the lack of detailed research. Many articles were obviously just written off the top of the author's head and then googled for a related cite, including blogs and other amateur sites, or were closely based on a few short internet bios and paraphrased, which is why they don't cite any scholarly books (much). Many of these late-2006 FAs would clearly fail the new 1c about lit review and using high quality refs instead of rewording a few tertiary sources.

In many cases, when one does look up books to fix up uncited FARs, one finds out that the article is not comprehensive and missing a lot of things that can't be found by a run of the mill google, but was in the book.

As an example I refer to all the Australian FARs since 2008 as I can remember all of them

Cynna Kydd - Expanded a bit to keep up to date. Kept a bit weakly early 08. I ought to have been hardnosed about it, but Joelito closed it anyway. There are probably still bits missing and some uncited.
Shrine of Remembrance - Had 0 citations. Bilby (talk · contribs) and Melburnian (talk · contribs) completely redid it, 2X expansion, basically a new article. A lot of new info was added to fill in holes that were not noticed by nominator and only found out when books were read. Kept mid 08
Waterfall Gully, South Australia - Expanded a bit, more books were read up on. Broadened. a Bilby job. Kept late 08
Dietrich v The Queen - Small expansion, added cites from legal textbooks. Kept March 09
Sydney Roosters - Had no cites, inconsistently formatted, copyedited. Kept. Luckily, most of the info could be easily found in a general rugby league history book and only took me 2 hours to add about 50 footnotes. (late-2006 promote) Kept May 09
Lake Burley Griffin - Had to completely rewritten/expanded 3x due to random and large gaps in the coverage, unreferenced. Nominator only cited lack of cites, but on looking up books it was obvious that the article was nowhere near comprehensive. Currently on FAR
Cane toad - Had to be completely expanded on biology/environment and also a more international balance. Effectively a new article mostly by Bilby. Again, the nominator did not bring most of the lack of comprehensiveness and the holes were only discovered while trying to read up for the cites. Currently on FAR
Australia at the Winter Olympics - Comprehensiveness was not raised as a major factor, but reading up on a book for the cites, shows that it is a big problem. Being expanded. Currently on FAR, promoted early 06
Kylie Minogue ???

On looking up books etc for these FARs, it became clear that many were far from comprehensive. On most wiki-topics only the author and a few WikiProject colleagues (if the WP is not minnow) know much at all about the topics. So if the author gets lazy and their WikiProject doesn't care/exist or just piles on at FAC/FAR, they can get an uncomprehensive or shallowly-researched article through. Theoretically the FAR repairer might also be the only person who finds out by their reading that an article is not comprehensive, but might keep it to themselves so as to do the minimum work needed to crawl through. Judging by the examples given above of delisted FAs that were older than June 06, I would guess that there are heaps of articles that aside from having maybe only 40% cited info, are also based only on whether is trawled off the top of the author's head or google, which would seriously skew the article and almost certainly not be comprehensive. Many of these sources would also now easily fail the RS checks of Ealdgyth very heavily, let alone the high-quality options. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just on the topic of the new changes, many of my FAs were passed without content complaints in the last two years, including some in the last 18 months where I thought I had exhausted all leads on some of the smaller Vietnamese topics (using only proper textbooks and no websites) from scrolling the index of dozens of hardcopy books, but after I started using google books I found that I was often able to get sometimes 20-100% more material because it was searching hundreds of them, so I had to expand them. A lot of other Australian FAs from late 06 onwards that I started to pre-emptively improve, I saw a lot of comprehensiveness issues, including Don Bradman, which was promoted 12 months ago. I think the same could be said of a large minority, if not majority of articles, although I doubt things like Pham Ngoc Thao would have ever been FARed diff, even though strictly speaking it did not meet the "well-researched criteria". YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In short, I think that a lot of FAs up to mid-2007 and even beyond would not meet FAC. From a visual check, about 10-15% of the articles in the latter half of 2006 seem to have been struck from Wikipedia:Featured_articles_promoted_in_2006 already. I also suspect that the older articles aren't rising fast enough to keep up with the gap between contemporary FA passes and old remaining FAs is increasing. As a result I don't think the way of expecting the nominator to fix things significantly is going to work because

A large minority of articles need a complete rewrite and expansion, aside from sourcing and MOS
A lot of people/WikiProjects are happy to parade their stars, votestack etc, and only fix things when a FAC/FAR reviewer objects, so they will never do anything unless someone threatens to confiscate it, so many articles cease to improve once the star is added, often for three years. If the reviewers have to fix it they will just sit there, and reviewers will baulk at doing all the work (maybe 30+ hours if a content overhaul is needed) for another person's/WikiProject to sit there and engage in freeloading. The result is that it will be too easy for a bad article to stay FAs indefinitely; either the outsider has to serve the other still-active guy with a free lunch and the article stays legitimately, or else the outsider gets told off for "not fixing it yourself" and the stigma will lead to bad articles not being accountable. A lot of still-active people I have noticed, don't respond to FARs, and then go around saying they still have X FAs even though they are still delisted and don't meet modern GA standards, for an ego trip. Some guys even oppose RfAs because people criticised their unsourced "featured articles". I don't know why these types of people who drag their feet and only see the star as an ego-trip and means of wooing disciples, should be pandered to.
Most people think that all FAs, including old ones should meet current standards. Putting heavy expectations/stigma on the outsiders will mean that lazy/bludging WikiProjects, including some with a 100% support rate on all their FAs can just sit there as they will always do the mininum possible. It plays too much into their hands. It is not feasible for outsiders to clean up everything.
Yes, it is best for morale that everything is always improving, but it is very inefficient for a person from the US for instance, to have to rewrite a deficient cricket FA, things that they don't have a background in. Australians can help with Australian articles more efficiently so I just pre-emptively work on some of them without waiting for FAR. Authors and Wikiprojects should take responsibility for their "achievements". Many articles are never improved unless a star or GA is at stake, due to people's attitude, so FAR is the only way of prompting it unless maybe 10-25 people are expected to rewrite 1000 FAs in topics they aren't familiar with. As long as people are being pro-active in improving/maintaining articles in their sphere of interest to modern standards, I don't think they should feel guilty at questioning articles of those people/projects that choose to not improve their articles unless threatened. Certainly I do not feel guilty at FARing articles on topics I am not acquainted with and not fixing it for them; most people/WikiProjects are not shy about their achievements, some WikiProject leaders even talk to the media and take credit for FAs that they or their group didn't even write; they shouldn't expect to be able to hide behind articles that don't come close to GA standard or expect others to build a star and give it to them. Otherwise the quality of the FA cohort will never come close to being consistent; the bigger the inconsistency, the more discredit it. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In short, if pressure is put on reviewers to fix up articles, a lot will simply not bother, and the owners will mostly just sit there and expect to be served. Articles will rarely be improved by disinterested parties, especially content issues that apply to most older FAs. If Wikiproject people don't do it, then it basically won't happen, and WikiProjects tend to not be harsh with themselves, so if outside noms are expected to fix it or else shut up, the result will be that more and more featured articles will fail more and more of the criteria and still be unfairly categorised. The article isn't actually going backwards when a star is being removed. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should have just referred people to my collection of archived rants at User talk:YellowMonkey/FAR, User:YellowMonkey/FAR and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Academy/Initiating_a_featured_article_review YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts, YM—they are illuminating as always. You have spent much more time at FAR than I have, so I defer to your judgment on the general matter of author/reviewer/nominator behavior. I see your point that a person should not hesitate to nominate an article here because of a requirement to help work on the article. I would not want to stick my nose into 75% of the FA topics other than to fix surface issues, simply because I lack the expertise. The problem of recognizing comprehensiveness really transcends FAR—when I review your articles at FAC on Vietnamese history, for example, I would have no idea if there were large gaps in coverage. We have to AGF that people researched the articles to the best of their ability.

I still think people should be limited to one nom at a time to keep the page from being swamped, especially if there are multiple FARs from the same subject area. It's probably not reasonable to expect an active WikiProject to address multiple FARs at once. --Andy Walsh (talk) 14:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The oldest FAR nomination currently active has been open four months now. Is it reasonable that nominators of articles for FAR are able to do so only a few times a year? Not many editors are willing to nominate as it is. YellowMonkey has made huge strides in making the process orderly and preventing the "rioting" so common previously. As he noted, many many FAs are below criteria. As he says, the goal should not be to retain the bronze star on articles below criteria, but to correctly classify articles. Awadewit said somewhere (I can't fine it) that she felt frustrated when editors said they had carefully modelled an article on an FA on the same subject, only to be told that article modelled was out of date and no longer complied with FAC criteria. As YellowMonkey so aptly put it, many editors seem to be interested in their star count but do not maintain their articles. Some even get upset when attempts are made to upgrade "their" article. Is Wikipedia really interested in attaining and maintaining high quality?

Is there any evidence that certain projects are overburdened with nominees? The Military Project has high quality articles because they actively maintain their articles. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 15:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, MILHIST don't maintain their old FAs and in the last four months maybe 10 have been booted off and the only ones I can remember off the top of my head being kept were a couple that were kept because they were Greek and Yannis tries to fix all the Greek ones himself. They just make about 10 new ones or so each month and to them, losing 2 a month isn't considered a big deal. In one of the discussions somewhere in WT:MHCOORD there was quite a feeling that it was a waste of time to completely redo some of the articles; Kirill explicitly said it somewhere. While MILHIST is extremely large because war and killing has pervaded every country and every historical era, I don't think it is a particularly dense project. Most people only know something about articles relating to their country, and in a lot of cases have never heard of the subjects of the articles at FAR/FAC/ACR; certainly many reviewers including project veterans say that they had never heard of some Vietnamese military thing I nominated, and the same applies to articles I see, so I doubt that they would want to fix articles not from their country of interest. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's also funny how some WikiProjects see that because MILHIST is the biggest, that they will copy everything that MILHIST does even though they are too small to sustain it. Some WikiProjects see that because MILHIST has dozens of taskforces, they will do so too, and then end up with lots subprojects with 200 articles and some in double figures, with 1-2 participants, and spend all their time fiddling with talk page templates and setting up bureaucracy pages, thinking that it will make their project more prestigious, like a deluded cleric who invents more pointless ceremonies to pretend that they are becoming holier. Often it is by a self-serving wikipolitician who likes to create lot of meaningless titles and groups to feel better about themselves or to make themselves feel more important when they run off to some newspaper for self-promotion or decide to run for some wikielection or to get a few wikidisciples and a personality cult. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

YM,while I appreciate your concern over old articles relative to rising standards, one of the aims of FAR when citation requirements changed was to assure enough time for older articles to come to standard. One of the reasons for not allowing multiple noms at once was to assure that no one editor, topic area, WikiProject, etcetera would be overwhelmed and unable to bring articles at FAR to standard. With only 10% on the very old list, slowing things down might give editors more incentive and time to work on deficient articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well just speaking of the three relatively large projects that I observe, with MILHIST per above, it is very large but also very broad, and most people only concentrate on a specific war or their country and don't know about anything else; often they only write in one taskforce. In most cases apart from the big ones like WWII, WWI and US, there are only a dozen active members and often only 1-2 people reguarly writing the GA+ level articles, so if the original author does away, there is often nobody interested in the same country/war who will fix it. Even among the WWII/I and US taskforces, there may be 20 active FA people but even then, most concentrate only on their country's battles, or in the US case, some focus on ships, others on infantry, and others on civil war. There has usually been no interest in any of the FARs except for Yannismarou on the Greek facet, and there have been lots of FARs as there are so many FAs. WP:BIO isn't really a wikiprihect, it is just a classification more or less, so nothing happens there. WP:AUS listed above, I don't see much proactive work on citations/formatting/prose or content upgrades, and about 8 FARs in the last 12 months (although all have been saved so far) isn't really enough to keep up with the fact that the project has 141 FAs and about 25-35 get passed each year and therefore many of these will go out of date each year. I did comment on the Australian noticeboard multiple times that without pro-active rewriting, a big catastrophe will result, but it hasn't had any effect and when it gets to FAR it has been the same two people over and over, and two people can't fix 30 articles when most of these might need 15 hours or more, and in some cases a new article entirely. As for the subcontinental ones, about 75% of their FAs passed in 2006 or earlier, and an abnormally high proportion of the main writers quite in 2007, so they basically aren't coping because of the extreme rise in standards. (Most of the 20 or so delisted examples that I cited needed a content overhaul or major rewrite, and because only five or so new FAs have been produced in the past 12 months, there isn't enough personnel to improve the articles) Even when only one FAR was open, the vast majority of FARs had zero improvements. Only a small minority of WikiProjects have more than a handful of FAs anyway, so the chance of a small WikiProject having 2 out of 15 FAs being FARed is small, and in any case, in small WikiProjects, often 1-2 people have written most of the FAs. If they retire, then typically nobody in the project will care or maybe not even notice, and if there are multiple noms against the same project or author, they are usually slowed down if the author is working on them. They were always granted/offered to Mav, Piotrus and Nichalp, although Nichalp never fixed any of them when he was active, so maybe he was trying to buy time and hoping someone else would do it for him. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In short: Most big projects with 50+ FAs will have at large amount of outdated FAs due to scaling, and one FAR per project at a time (in the absence of pro-active fixing, which is rare) will mean that more and more articles will fall behind, especially if say 20-35% don't meet modern standards. That would mean dozens, maybe 30-40 for some projects, and one FAR at a time won't work. Pro-activity is the only way to keep a high rate of old articles at FA, aside from allowing articles that fail the criteria remain, and at the moment there isn't enough proactive improvement. I also sense that for big WikiProjects, it isn't a big deal to lose a FA, whereas with small WikiProjects, they don't have many FAs so they covet them more and tend to engage in bloc voting and political stunts more readily. Also in small Wikipedias, they tend to have 50%+ of articles less than 500 bytes so I think there is a mentality of small groups trying to "prove themselves" and creating/pushing a lot of low-quality stuff through so that they can overtake other groups in the FA-count/article count rankings and become one of the superpowers, whereas the English Wikipedia and MILHIST, because they are well ahead in the numbers, don't need to inflate the numbers by cutting corners. Most smaller projects are a one/two-man band as far as FAs go, and it all depends on the author, and if they are actively working, then second/third noms are held almost automatiiccaly or on request anyway. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On another related note, a lot of the people who were the most in favour of making the FA criteria more difficult, never come to FAR. I think it rather defeats the purpose that new articles need proper research, while not much of a finger is lifted against a litany of articles that were just paraphrased from tertiary source internet miniobios or worse, like home made sites. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index/Comparison - As of last year, only 30 groups had 50+ FAs (but this is inflated as some of them count FLs as FAs) and only about 10% had more than 10. Only about 40% had more than 2, so the chance of a small project getting swamped is negligible. If a group has 10 FAs, there is a (10*9/2)(10/2500)^2 (less than 1 in 1200) chance that two will be nominated consecutively YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To reiterate, I think the change in instructions is a good one. I, for one, am not willing to research a panoply of topics at FAR to "save" FAs. I am willing to review, like I do at FAC, but the time it would take to research an article fully is immense. If an article can be saved through some brief work, that is wonderful, but if we make saving every article the goal, we will get only patchy work because it will take months of in-depth reading and extensive writing (perhaps years, depending on the topic) to fully rewrite some article. That is very time-consuming - we cannot ask the reviewers here to do that consistently. Awadewit (talk) 02:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't keep a total count, but saving Lake Burley Griffin took about 20-25 hours to read up and expand all these holes. Half of the Australian ones I mentioned above needed some content changes, so it might take a similar time and they were all uncontroversial and didn't involve pundit analysis. If the topic is controversial, or has a lot of disputed facts and analysis it might take, 100 or more. I predict that the Gandhi article that was delisted might have taken maybe 200 hours or more for an outsider to be up to speed with research. Aside from adding citations, Gandhi was analysed by hundreds of historians, and only a handful of books were cited in the article, including autobios etc. Most of the delisted subcontintental national subcontinental leaders I mentioned above (Syed, Jinnah, Ziaur, Mujib) might have taken a similar amount; instead of simplying paraphrasing an online govt miniobio or the coreesponding online enyclopedia, they might have to read 5-10 books about the president's policies and rule before distilling it. The same might got for Iqbal and Nazrul as they were regarded as the national poets of their country (How long would it take to read up on Shakespeare?). YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This must have been considered and rejected, but you guys should just delist them like at WP:GA. And do it as quick as you can, allowing people to do multiple FARs. Trying to get people to do heavy work on subjects they don't care about is a losing proposition. People work on what they want to work on. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:52, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think this is an unreasonable requirement for FAR. Yes, it would be of great help if the nominator worked on bringing the article back to FA status, but if he honestly believed that the article could be saved without having a complete rewrite or referencing done, then he could have just asked a few people on WikiProject talk pages to offer some assistance instead of submitting an FAR in the first place. I think nominators are doing there part by simply offering their suggestions on how to bring the article back up to standard. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Changes reinstated

I've reinstated teh changes YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the reinstatement. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I deeply regret this development. Historically, FAR was a place where a high percentage of stars were saved, 500 uncited articles were carefully processed over several years in such a way that many could be kept featured, and the page was kept below 32 so that each FAR could get attention from a dedicated group of editors who enjoyed saving articles. With the page moving towards more than 50 FARs at a time, and multiple noms from a small group of editors, it should be no surprise that less and less editors will want to come here and help out. I checked Every Single FAR for years, but with more than 50 up and a mentality of running them through and defeaturing as many as possible, even though only 10% of our FAs are in trouble, I'm disinclined to exert effort here. I strongly believe this change is a disencentive to the entire FA process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With this refreshing change, I am strongly encourage to exert effort here. It is nice to know that there is no double standard for "old" and "new" FAs. Awadewit (talk) 23:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the record only, I'm not aware that there ever was a double standard, rather an attempt to allow enough time to bring older articles to standard. More than 500 articles were processed with a high "save" rate, while last month, we had only one Keep to multiple Delists. IMO, this isn't the way to go. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was 1-15 but it should have been about 4-15 except that Raul hasn't been closing a couple that were fixed up. I think the system is robust enough. In those areas where people have been interested, like Greek, Australian and Atrononomy FARs, they have lasted until the people have finished, sometimes three months, except when they fixed it more quickly. The only ones closed after a month were when people got bored. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with reinstated changes

In reviewing the reinstated changes I see several problems:

They summarize the consensus a bit harshly. There does not seem to be a consensus that the intent is that "the vast majority" of nominations should result in delisting, even if in practice many are delisted. The instructions should not put phrases like "the vast majority ... being delisted" into what many will read as a prescription for the process.
They introduce redundancy. "Ideally, an article will be restored to meet contemporary standards" is redundant with "The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status." The newly-introduced text can be greatly abbreviated without losing its gist.
As a lesser point, the 1st bullet in the FAR step is overburdened with a discussion of the intent of the overall process. This should be moved elsewhere, most likely to the intro.

I attempted to fix the above problems with an edit that I don't think alters the intent of the reinstated change, though it does soften the wording somewhat.

There's one other problem. Under the current rules an editor could nominate all the FAs for review, merely because of a change to the criteria. For example, right now I suspect that almost all FAs fail criterion 3 due to lack of alt text, so according to the rules I could nominate 95% of all FAs right now. I don't think this is our intent. The previous limit on nominations may have been too restrictive, but having no limit is even worse: it's just asking for trouble. Not being intimately familiar with the process I don't know what a good limit would be, but to start the ball rolling I propose a limit of one nomination per week for each nominator. Eubulides (talk) 21:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect example of the problem with this new mentality. When citation requirements changed, we managed to review ONE HALF of the current FAs over time (when inline citation requirements were added, 52% of then current FAs were uncited), with no hurry. Besides the above noted redundancies, I remain very concerned about this push. Putting no limits on how many noms a person can have up at once cannot lead good places. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:10, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting to agree here. Although I'm one of the individuals who's pushing multiple FAs through the process, I believe it's starting to get a bit overwhelming here. We have enough people willing to scour the FA listings to see which articles don't meet the current criteria, but we don't have enough editors who'll put the work into restoring an article to meet standards. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a big fan of multiple listings myself, but more because it tends to overburden any process, not just this one. However, I don't think we can complain about the fact that there aren't enough editors willing to read up on a subject and save an FA - it takes months, if not years, of research to understand many subject matters. As Sandy herself said, "I spent ten years researching and gathering material for Tourette syndrome, and six months writing it (granted, I was a newbie, and figuring out the ins and outs of Wiki, and there was, back then, not a single other Wiki editor who could help me...Colin and I have discussed FAing History of Tourette syndrome (many interesting sources available), and that would take me at about four months of research and work." (see here). I'm not sure why we expect editors at FAR to put in this amount of work, because to fix many of the articles, this is what would have to be done. It is not as simple as "just adding citations". One has to essentially redo all of the research to make sure the article is comprehensive, etc. Awadewit (talk) 03:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I sympathize with most of Sandy's points, but also agree with what YellowMonkey and Awadewit have to say, so let's meet in the middle. Perhaps a compromise would be to reinstate a limit on noms, but loosen the rules slightly: an editor should normally nominate only one article at FAR, but if an article they have nominated has reached the FARC ("Removal") stage and has a clear consensus to delist, he/she is allowed to nominate one more article to FAR (no editor would be allowed more than two FARs at any given time). Dabomb87 (talk) 03:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is pretty much how Marskell ran FAR. There was a one nom limit, but then exceptions were made for <ahem> editors who were working very hard every day at FAR, when their previous noms had already been dealt with. In other words, I often had up two or three (AT MOST), because the earlier ones were finished but still on the page. It was handled on an exception basis, also employing common sense. Under the current rules, someone could put up every FA for a given WikiProject, and the Project would be overburdened. That's why we had rules before-- to assure that no one area or editor would be unable to restore an article because multiple reviews came up at once. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I support reinstating that rule (perhaps making it more defined?). For the record, I have two FARs running: one that is at FARC and has no chance of being saved (even the original nominator has said the article needs a complete rewrite), and the other is at the first stage, and one editor just volunteered to work on it. In the interim, the good news is that after today's archive of FARs, we have more "saves" this month than in the whole July (although to be fair, those two articles should have been archived much earlier)! Dabomb87 (talk) 03:47, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would like think that people can be sensible and not nominate 20+ at a time, although I'll ease off myself personally. Having said that I am still certain that the gap in the FAs is growing, and that in cases like the presidents and statesmen above like Gandhi, Jinnah and Mujib, even for people from those countries it would take 70+ hours to do research at least, and probably 140+ to do it properly per the the "well researched" criteria, let along an outsider. I think that many of the old keeps would never have passed a FAC at the same time as the FAR, eg Rail transport in India (check the mid07 version) and Chennai (kept late 07) but were kept partly out of sympathy for the article and/or author. I can cite many more (some even worse) but if I assailed the article I would have to recuse from their subsequent FARs. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added seven and six were subtracted; where's the good news <chuckle ... just kidding>. Anyway, the current rules open up all kinds of bad doors, such as mentioned by Eubulides. I hope we can work around. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with the rules being tweaked, but given that often 50+ FAs passed per month in the old days, and that most articles are not improved much at all afterwards, with only about 15-20 new FARs per month until recently, there will be a lot of outdated FAs building up. I don't think many of the kept FARs from past times would pass FAC, I don't think Witold Pilecki would and was waiting for Piotrus to do some more cleanup, for instance, bu Joelito closed it anyway. For Cynna Kydd in early2008 I should have been more firm myself, it would not have passed FAC but was kept anyway; I couldn't find online news older than a few years and gave up but everyone else sort of just went "close enough...." YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd accept reinstating the "one nomination per editor, except for a special group of ~~elites~~ trustworthy and responsible FAR frequenters" rule. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 04:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That might be interpreted as "elitist": I say leave it unstated, and let YM use discretion, as before, in case any one area is overwhelmed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say just leave it and interfere as necessary. Like I said, I won't be adding any more in the next period. I agree with the no exceptions; I know Nichalp tried to say at WT:INB that he should be given an exemption to self-award A-class articles without a proper review. I think it's ridiculous. In any case, there have been plenty of instances of 3+ FARs at a time in the last year, not just in the last 2 months when it became a bit of a high-profile issue. In any case the old rules were never followed, so it's better to have no rule and just let me interfere if it gets too much YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by "the old rules were never followed". Yes, there were cases of more than one FAR at a time: when a FAR had been up several weeks and it was apparent that there were no editors available to work on an unsalvageable article, active FAR participants (like myself) could add another FAR. That is quite different from instructions that don't prevent every editor from nominating dozens of articles at a time: I oppose this change, as it adds a disencentive to improving FAs. I'm getting a sense of retribution and an overfocus on WP:WBFAN, rather than motivating editors and WikiProjects to monitor and preserve FAs ... a focus on editors and lists rather than articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is no evidence that any editors are motivated to nominate "dozens of articles at a time". It actually takes quite a bit of time and effort to read through an article, check out the sources, outline the issues the article has, research to see if fixes can be made, decide to nominate the article, then clearly present the problems in FAR. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to do this for dozens of articles at a time. —mattisse (Talk) 15:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's no reason for the instructions to allow, even encourage it. If that is the exception, not the rule, then the older instructions were more close to actual practice. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with YellowMonkey. His judgment is good; he is not afraid to step in if the going gets tough. Please allow him to use his discretion in this matter. —mattisse (Talk) 16:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The long-standing instructions did not prevent YM from using his discretion: quite the opposite. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quite. Juat as the new ones do not prevent YM for using his discretion. So lets go along with the instructions YM prefers. —mattisse (Talk) 02:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adding toolbox to FAR pages

I've recently changed the FAR instructions and templates so that we'll get the same toolbox on FAR pages that we do on FAC pages. I have tested this as best I can without actually doing an FAR. Does anyone care to suggest an article that really needs FAR, so that I can test the new template scheme on this article? Eubulides (talk) 18:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tested it using the preview button, and everything looks fine. I think the toolbox is a good addition; many web references were added years ago, and link rot takes its toll. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! The toolbox is a big help. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another FAR delegate

Does anyone else think that another might be useful? I involve myself in a lot of the FARs so can't close them, and Raul is only available intermittently. Joelito and Marskell are inactive. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not terribly active at FAR, but I'd be able to help if necessary. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well it doesn't take a long time, except for some FARs where there is some work and it take s bit to work out if the article is good or not. Plus, the reviews are sparser than at FAC so in closing you might have to research more. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think having another active delegate would be useful. YellowMonkey has expended much effort into improving/saving/nominating FARs (for example Lake Burley Griffin) that we have a backlog of closeable FARs that can't be archived. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think another delegate is needed. With YellowMonkey involved in some of the FARs, we only have Raul654 to close FARs. Unfortunately, his availability is dodgy at times, which leaves FAR a bit overwhelmed at times. I'd be glad to help out. I'm fairly active at FAR, with the nominating/voting process and more recently, in efforts to save FAs. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from the articles I nommed, I have also edited five of the current FARCs, and can't close them. Plus with not that many reviews on some articles one has to be a bit more proactive in examining the FARCs that are improved... YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would support Nishkid, and also recommend DrKiernan (talk · contribs) and Cirt (talk · contribs) as delegates. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder what the process for appointing a new delegate. Usually Raul just does his thing, do we have to wait for him to come back? Also, has anyone else noticed a big increase in the depth of reviews and attempts to fix up articles in the last month and a half. It does increase the FAR delegate workload. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Judging by the fact that Raul scheduled TFA two weeks in advance, which he doesn't usually do, he might be totally away for a while. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A community discussion is wiser than handing off the selection process to one editor. The FAC/FAR processes are a bit odd, in that they are chiefly controlled by one user. It would seem more appropriate that instead of having a FAC/FAR tsar with self-appointed (do correct me if I'm wrong) delegates, we create a committee of FAC/FAR deciders, who each possess the same amount of might. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Although I've been generally disappointed with the FAR backlog, for which I'm somewhat responsible, I have taken some relief in seeing an increased effort by various members of the community to save FAs. Keep up the good work, everyone. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Me too. I wonder if the informal incentive system carrots anyone YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My impetus is seeing more users working hard to bring articles back to shape rather than bickering with POV-pushers, complaining about the philosophy of footnotes, or just ignoring FAR altogether. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, there is less complaint about the way FA is run than about importance community processes, even though the directors/delegates are appointed rather than elected, as opposed to ArbCom (selected via a direct vote) or RfA (mixture of voting and discussion). Dabomb87 (talk) 04:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think that a lot of non-content people think that FA is BS, although they also regard it as irrelevant to whatever they are interested in, so they don't bother. Heaps of people just mumble negative things on their pages about FA (except when their old stuff gets FARed/GARed so forth) YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of any reason to think that Raul is away for an extended time, nor any reason that he isn't available for closing FARs (there is no hurry), but I continue to be concerned about the page backlog due to multiple nominations replacing a mentality of addressing items on talk page and coming to FAR as a last recourse. I don't see this as a problem with lacking delegates as much as a shift in the way the page is being used. I'd also suggest consulting Raul before furthering the notion that he's not available, as I have no reason to believe that to be the case. Also, Marskell was very involved in saving FAs, and still closed them when the work was done; there's only a problem when there are outstanding issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well I have been speaking out about being pro-active at WP:AWNB and to various Australians, with no obvious result. On a few old FARs I did a while ago, I also posted on the talk page before FAR, with no result, although obviously there is no problem with putting them on talk first to see if there is a reaction. Also, the FARs are overwhelmingly of 4-year old articles by authors who have quit. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 06:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to get involve in rubber-stamping things that I work on, unless the nominator explicitly withdraws it. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 06:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FA save efforts are usually directed by the editors who originally worked on the article. As of late, most of the FARs submitted are of articles that were promoted three or four years ago. Naturally, some of the editors who originally worked on these articles have left Wikipedia or are inactive. It seems inefficient to use an article talk page when the article needs a total revamp and could use the eyes of the larger community at FAR. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. I have learned through experience to be especially wary about putting suggestions for improvements on FA talk pages of older articles as these may not be welcomed. Also, a recent FA article I looked at had not had a talk page entry in three years. So that is not always a feasible way to go. Further, I support Awadewit in her suggestion (I believe) that since so much energy is needed to bring a deficient FA article up to snuff, she would rather put that energy in new FAs rather than an older one for which there are no other editors knowledgeable enough to help. The goal should be to have current FAs representing the best of Wikipedia, not some misguided attempt to preserve woefully below standard articles. Efforts to fix articles before they reach FAR often brings retribution. FAR is a quality control check and should be welcomed as such, as is the GAR process where the GA status is not considered a sacred cow. Many "saved" and "kept" FAs in the past did not meet FA standards at the time, never mind now. So many of those must be done again. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 12:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It can never hurt to suggest a review on talk to see if anyone picks up the ball. Well-positioned comments aren't usually rejected, and "often brings retribution" is unjustified in my experience, except for a few unique circumstances. I've seen no proposal to "preserve woefully below standard articles"; when FAR was a place of active work, reviews here were often more indepth than at FAC. Saved FAs did meet standards in the past: standards have increased continually, and with only 10% needing review, I still do not understand what is happening to this page. Guaranteed mass delistings will not provide incentive to editors to improve articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is incorrect to say that only 10% of current FAs are endangered/need inspection, based on the list at WP:URFA. A quick look at the listing of subcontinental pages on FAR that I listed above, a lot were written in the second half of 06 and some in early 2007. It was unanimously agreed on all of them that they were far from FA standard (none had decayed due to vandalism or nationalist/racist troll armies turning it into a joke, the standards in those days were simply very low). Looking at the listing at WP:CRIC, the first ten are from late-2006 up to mid-2007, all earlier ones are delisted. Bodyline was nowhere near comprehensive or well-researched and has been undergoing an overhaul for a year, Collins is getting through FAR, CWC isn't very comprehensive and doesn't use good sources. Collingwood and Pietersen are current players and haven't been kept up to date properly, the post-07 bits are uneven and skinny, West Indian cricket team in England in 1988 doesn't meet criteria, Gilchrist is not particularly comprehensive and has undue weight problems in 08-09, eg he won the Allan Border Medal in early 2003 (was the best player in 2002) but the 02-03 period has the shortest section, O'Reilly is not comprehensive, given that he is regarded as one of the top 30 players of all time, and especially as he was involved in perpetual Catholic/Protestant infighting and power struggles among the team members. Although these are far from the worst FAs out there (eg, the already delisted 06-07 stuff), there are a lot of places where improvement is possible. From my personal check, around 25% of Australian FAs need a checkup, and from other relatively projects I've checked, they have at least the same %. Furthermore, Ealdgyth only started checking RS last year; in late-2007, there were family tribute sites and hobby sites used on passed FACs. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Featured articles promoted in 2006 shows that many post June-2006 FAs have already been crossed off, and most of the discussions in those cases were pretty overwhelmingly against those articles. I remember doing some work on Russian Ground Forces, which was correctly delisted in Oct-08 22 months after promotion in Dec06, with Sandy as one of the people advocating delist (correctly). YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let's state the obvious: we need more reviewers. And we need more experts. ceranthor 13:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But until this magical fuzzy wonderful time comes upon us... :P --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or we could get the experts who are already contributors... maybe that could work. But that's a definite maybe ceranthor 15:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the FAR backlog is reduced, I think the entire process should be delegated to a few active editors to prevent stress and burnout that would be observed when a single user is regulating the system. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns

I have some concerns about the way FAR is approached. The default seems to be to delist unless relatively minor issues are addressed by the original authors, or at least by someone other than the reviewers. This is very unwiki-like. My memory of when FAR first started was that the point of it was to improve FAs to current standards, not to delist, but at some point the pendulum seems to have swung away from that. Does anyone know what percentage of articles nominated for FAR reached FARC, and what percentage of the latter are delisted? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Those numbers, as you noticed, are changing. You can review the FAR archive for a month-by-month summary. If I have time, I'll put together a chart, but I too, am concerned about this trend. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What recently caught my eye were two articles that had appeared on the front page. I forget the first; will look for the name. It was apparently on the front page one day, and put up for FAR the next. The other is Woody Guthrie, which appeared on the front page on January 2009, and was delisted yesterday. Looking at it, I can see areas that could use improvement, but they are all relatively minor issues. What concerns me is that it was regarded as good enough to promote, then good enough to feature on the main page a few months ago, but has now been delisted because a very small number of reviewers found minor faults. It seems most unwiki-like. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If an article was just on the main page, it should not have been nominated here. (In the past, I was the one to check for that, but with the increased volume on this page, I've given up trying to participate.) Also, in the past, Marskell simply didn't allow delisting over minor issues -- he rounded up editors to fix them, pinging everyone he could. My concern about the page is that there is now less motivation to work to fix minor items. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am quite happy to offer myself and an adjudicator of, if and when it is time to delist a page. The only requisite qualification is to be in possession of a half decent education and an ability to decide what can be reasonably assumed common knowledge Giano (talk) 20:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through the figures for this year, January and February don't seem so bad, but since then there seems to have been a presumption in favor of delisting:

July: one kept, 15 delisted; 94 percent delisted
June: two kept; 18 delisted; 90 percent
May: six kept, 14 delisted; 71 percent
April: six kept, 21 delisted; 78 percent
March: six kept, 13 delisted; 68 percent
February: six kept, six delisted; 50 percent
January: five kept, seven delisted; 58 percent

This is very demoralizing for FA writers. Did something happen in February/March to cause a change? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We had new delegates in mid-March. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

People changed 1c at WP:WIAFA to say "high-quality" sources after the FAC on John Wilkes Booth used some sources that were not as good as the textbooks available and "well researched". There have been instances of FARs where people have complained about too many tertiary sources being used; typically these were old FAs where the author pulled off a few minibios from online encyclopedias and just mixed a paraphrased them. Examples of articles that were heavily pulled from govt minibios/Banglapedia/CIA intro guides etc that were removed in the last 5 months include Ziaur Rahman, Mujib, Sir Syed, all written by the same retired person. To satisfy (1c) would have required a lot of reading up of serious history textbooks. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going further back to see whether this really is a new trend, or whether we've had mass delistings before:

December 2008: seven kept, eight delisted; 63 percent delisted
November: four kept, eight delisted; 67 percent
October: 12 kept; 14 delisted; 54 percent
September: 17 kept; 18 delisted; 51 percent
August: nine kept, 12 delisted; 57 percent
July: ten kept, eight delisted; 44 percent
June: 12 kept, 14 delisted; 54 percent
May: four kept, 16 delisted; 80 percent
April: 12 kept; 10 delisted; 45 percent
March: eight kept, 16 delisted; 67 percent
February: 11 kept, 10 delisted; 48 percent
January: 14 kept, nine delisted; 39 percent

Looking at this, the only comparable month was May 2008. Otherwise March to July 2009 stands out as the killing fields of FA. At this rate, we'll have no featured articles left, and no featured article writers either. Is there support to reverse the trend? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've given my suggestions for how to reverse the trend ... limit the page as was done previously, which will encourage editors to work to save FAs when possible. We're getting multiple noms of FAs written by same editors ... very demoralizing and will affect FAC as well as FAR. Even when we had scores of Emsworth articles to get through two years ago, we took them little by little and didn't allow all at once. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well Emsworth had 57 FAs and they were all FARed. They stopped some time late in 2008, and Emsworth was doing some stuff in 2005, so they were done in at most 3-3.5 years=36-42 months, at least 1.33 FARs a month, but I suspect most were done since the new FAR in 2006, so more like 2+ per month. No other editor has been subjected to that. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking down the list, I see multiple FARs nominated by one editor, but don't see "multiple noms of FAs written by same editors", as Sandy says. I know we've had trouble with certain editors over nominating "their" FAs, but that doesn't seem to be the trouble here. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have time, but for example, someone should look at the stats on this year's Giano, Bish, Geogre noms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They have not been targetted more than anyone else, less in fact. Buckingham Palace, Restoration comedy, Peterborough Chronicle, Augusta, Lady Gregory (Filiocht). One each since March. Piotrus, Nichalp, Rama's Arrow, Worldtraveller have all had three or more (and maybe I forgot some others) and some others two. There were two on the Mini by the same author that were removed. Some statistics compiled by machine would be good. There are a lot of perceptions that I would like to see corrected YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are a lot of perceptions about the FA process in general that I would like to see corrected. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to have been a slowly growing trend that snowballed in March. I don't think the issue can be addressed simply by limiting editors to one FAR nomination at a time. I'll compile some statistics to see the breakdown of FAR participation. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the breakdown of current FAR nominators:

TenPoundHammer – 1
Aaroncrick – 2
Aubergine - 1
Awadewit – 1
Cirt – 8
Dabomb87 – 2
Dalejenkins – 1
DroEsperanto – 1
Durova – 1
Future Perfect at Sunrise – 1
Giants2008 – 1
Jarry1250 – 1
Jclemens – 1
JKBrooks85 – 1
Jmh649 – 1
Koavf – 1
Mattisse – 5
Nishkid64 – 2
Noisalt – 1
Otumba – 1
Parrot of Doom – 1
Peter Andersen – 1
SilkTork – 1
TheCoffee – 1
The Prince – 1
Tpbradbury – 1
YellowMonkey – 11

Certainly interesting... Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

51 total nominations, the top three nominators are responsible for 24 (47.1%) of all FAR nominations. Frankly, that is ridiculous. I knew I saw some names constantly popping up at FAR, but I didn't suspect that we could be down to ~30 FARs if we had enforced the 1 nom rule. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The issue seems not to be the nominations alone, but the decision to delist over minor issues, even when people are speaking out in favor of keeping. I wonder how much work it would be to carry out an audit of this year's nominations. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What minor issues are you thinking of? I haven't checked through every single current FAR, but I reckon they center around referencing and prose issues, which are far from minor. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are style and formatting issues that get mentioned a lot. That's one of the reasons it would be a good idea to have an audit. Some are being delisted for style issues, some for substantive issues; some FARs are being moved to FARC for no obvious reason; some are closed quickly, some left open for months. If the stock of FAs is being reduced so quickly, it would be good to know why, and whether it's being done consistently. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August's delistings:

Anne of Great Britain – factual errors, citations missing, comprehensiveness
Rail transport in India – citations missing, low-quality sources, comprehensiveness
Names of the Greeks – neutrality, content disputes, primary sourcing issues
Krag-Petersson – citations missing, insufficient high-quality sources, and sources that were there lacked page numbers
African American literature – prose, citations missing, structure and balance
Aramaic language – prose and citations, mainly (in addition to MOS niggles)
Meteorological history of Tropical Storm Allison – uncontroversial procedural nom to allow for merge
Whale song – citations missing and unclear sentences/explanations, comprehensiveness, images
Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport – Prose, comprehensiveness, citations missing and over-reliance on primary source, images
Woody Guthrie – citations missing and prose problems (writing was improved, but there were still multiple complaints about it, especially on the higher levels), and a mention of missing coverage in one area

Hardly an in-depth survey, but enough to show that no article was delisted only because of "minor problems". Dabomb87 (talk) 22:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I don't recall of a situation in which an article was delisted primarily on style and formatting issues. It's usually secondary to something else, like prose or referencing problems. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, and when an article is restored by other editors, someone usually comes along and addresses the minor MoS issues. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Almost nobody (Except the odd Tony1 nom) nominates on prose or MOS. They normally do it on missing info and references, and throw in the others as an extra if the latter conditions are true. As for more surveys, a list of delisted subcontinental articles is listed a few sections above. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SlimVirgin, the process has speeded up in recent months. Usually, FARs are moved to FARC after two weeks, if there is consensus on the level and type of FA issues. At any time, an FAR can be placed on hold for an extended period of time if an editor states that they wish to work on the article. Aramaic language was at FAR for roughly four months I believe; it stayed there because the main contributor said he would work on the article. In the end, it was delisted because the contributor had not edited in over a month and there appeared to be no indication that the concerns could be addressed in a timely manner. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 23:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The two weeks only applies if no work is done whatsoever YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I found one FAR that was borne out of stylistic issues: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lazare Ponticelli/archive1 started because of an edit war over a linked date (and "citation density"). However, when the FAR was started, the nominator and others also pointed out legitimate prose glitches. Then, other major problems such as plagiarism, comprehensiveness and factual accuracy surfaced. Most of these were fixed, and the FA was kept. To be honest, though, the article was never in danger of being delisted. Other than that, I've never seen MOS issues and the like feature heavily in FARs. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Guthrie

I think Woody Guthrie was delisted for minor reasons. Dabomb, if you disagree, can you show me something substantive about that article that justifies the delisting e.g. contentious material that can't be sourced; writing so poor it would be hard or very time-consuming to fix it.

It was on the front page on January 10, 2009. An anon filed a FAR on June 9 because of supposed poor writing e.g. someone "lived across" from Guthrie, without saying across from what; it says he was born in (town) to (parents) without saying when; and several other somewhat odd complaints, including, "Guthrie was paid $180 a week, an impressive salary in 1940. (should be a semicolon) ," which is just wrong.

Others add:

1. Not enough about his music

2. An ogg file has no rationale

3. Tony made some copy-editing suggestions, but said it's a keep

Keep: Dannygutter, Tony

Delist: The anon who nominated it

It was moved to FARC on July 17:

1. Some citations are needed, and there's a hyperlinked external link in the body (Cirt).

2. The prose is not brilliant, and the structure is poor (Hamiltonstone).

3. Prose problems e.g. "In the late 1930s, Guthrie achieved fame in Los Angeles, California, with radio partner Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman as a broadcast performer of commercial "hillbilly" music and traditional folk music" [what's wrong with that?], and unspecified citations missing (Dabomb).

4. "I don't like voting to delist because there are so few concerns, but no progress has been made toward resolving the problems listed above. The "Jewish Songs" section is uncited, and there are a few other paragraphs that need citations as well. It's too bad, because this is a good article other than that" (JKBrooks).

5. Sourcing and prose problems, and no one working on them (Matisse).

6. "No one has even bothered to make the changes above where I cited garbled and awkward prose and provided suggested text for replacement" (the anon who nominated it).

It was delisted on August 11.

This article has 117 citations, some of them dead, but they can easily be replaced using the Internet archive (e.g. [3]) and live links aren't required anyway. And bear in mind that only quotations and material likely to be challenged needs a source; there's a tendency in FAR to ask for sources for the most straightforward issues.

I admit that the writing is not a style I particularly enjoy reading, but it's not bad. I've seen worse FAs. As I see it, there was no issue here so major that it had to be delisted. It seems that the delisting was prompted because no one was working on it as much as anything else. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Am I under a misunderstanding that our goal is to improve the encyclopedia? Would "I've seen worse" work in FAC? Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 00:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some were minor issues (in isolation), but taken altogether (with live links), the article would not have passed today's FAC.

I don't want to put words in other editors' mouths, so I'll stick with explaining my own example: "In the late 1930s, Guthrie achieved fame in Los Angeles, California, with radio partner Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman as a broadcast performer of commercial "hillbilly" music and traditional folk music" a borderline run-on sentence that is put together with the logically vague connector "with" (was Crissman part of the reason why Guthrie gained fame, or was he just a sideshow unrelated to Guthrie's notability); more subjectively (and I would never oppose or !vote delist over this), "achieved fame" doesn't sit right with me, as fame isn't a definite, hard achivement—I would suggest "gained fame" or "became famous".

The thing is, it's hard to copy-edit prose when you don't know the subject matter and you don't have anyone who is familiar with the subject matter to query. Now, could I spent more time searching for and listing issues? Yes, and I would have if someone was actively working to bring it up to standard.

I think other editors were pretty detailed in their criticisms too, which were hardly minor. For example, Hamiltonstone did a good job of explaining higher-level issues with the prose, which cannot be addressed by someone who doesn't know the subject.

Now for citations, it's hard to make arguments when editors are all over the board over how many inline citations should be used. So, I'll provide a few examples that I think need citations at the FA level:

"In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new generation of young people were inspired by folk singers including Guthrie." According to whom? This isn't widely known or accepted fact. Also, what is meant by a "new" generation?
LaFave said, "It works because all the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form". There's a reference, but it's dead, and there's a tag that says it's not in the given citation.
"Guthrie's Jewish lyrics can be traced to the unusual collaborative relationship he had with his mother-in-law, who lived across from Guthrie and his family in Brooklyn in the 1940s" Certainly not common knowledge except perhaps for a die-hard fan.
"Many of his songs are concerned with the conditions faced by these working class people." This could very well be original research or synthesis by someone
"Although Mary Guthrie was happy to return to Texas, the wanderlusting Guthrie soon after accepted Will Geer's invitation to come to New York City and headed east."
"Guthrie, known as "the Oklahoma cowboy"," Dabomb87 (talk) 01:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dambomb, I chose one of your examples at random—the influence of the Jewish mother-in-law—did a Google search and after literally 60 seconds had two sources, a website and a book. [4] [5]. I do think reviewers could find an awful lot of missing citations themselves with very little effort, and if they even just started to do it, others would see the effort and appreciate it, and might join in, rather than a resentful "writers v reviewers" relationship being established. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Guthrie was an extremely important musical and historical figure, and to say that a sloppy article is good enough for him reflects poorly on Wikipedia, from my point of view. Further, plenty has been written about him, and this article does not reflect that at all. It is rather a "dashed off" type article. —mattisse (Talk) 01:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Major change

I think the main point is still being missed. In 2005, there was a major change in FA requirements, when inline citations were required. Rather than running 'em all through and delisting 50% of our then-current FAs, we processed them slowly over time, which allowed for a high save rate. Now, instead, we're running 'em through to account for new requirements, rather than proceeding deliberatively and slowly so that editors can have time to bring their articles up to new requirements. If FAR continues on this path, there will be no incentive for editors to bring articles to FAC, because they will just be delisted every time requirements change. Please STOP allowing a few editors to make multiple noms, and instead, return to a slow and deliberative process so FA writers won't be demoralized. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the general sentiment, but I find your explanation behind the delistings to be a bit misleading. Most of the current FA delistings rest on failures to meet the criteria originally established back in 2005-2006. A few articles have been delisted with the newer criteria in mind, such as the use of high-quality sources, but it is usually treated as a secondary concern to more pressing issues, such as 1a and 1c. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's misleading...many of the articles being delisted under 1c today would easily have met 1c as it was originally interpreted when implemented. The citation density expected by FAC has massively increased over that time. In 2005, 10-15 inline citations in a relatively lengthy article was fine, so long as quotes and controversial statements were cited. Now an article that has less than 1 citation per paragraph tends to be rejected prima facie, and even this is considered a pretty low density of citation. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"they will just be delisted every time requirements change" No, people pick the worst ones, generally, and most of the FAs have failed FAC for the last 18 months at least. There was never a stable 50% keep rate, it was 35% long term at most. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The barn door is now wide open for mass delistings every time requirements change and quality increases. No one should have up eight or five noms at a time. Even when I was doing almost all of the work on this page, involved in all the notifications, checking every article, working on every save, I never had more than three at once. The current situation and instructions are demoralizing. Go back to one nom at a time, which will force nominators to seek out the FAs truly in need rather than just running them all through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

People are not exploiting the barn door by mass-ambushing articles as soon as the bar is moved up. Almost all the articles here have not had sources for over two years and the other problems as well. Hardly any and probably none of the cases were of 80%+ RS-cited articles who were ambushed as soon as the new 1c came in 6 months ago on grounds of using too much newspapers instead of scholarly journals, for instance. Whether there are 30 or 50 articles at FAR, there will be more and more falling behind. In 2006 and 2007 there were often 60 new FAs per month, but how many of them have been/are being improved? Simply put, the variance in FA quality will increase if FAR is cut back. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stats, as requested

Averaged over two months

File:Far.PNG

Of course, the keepcount can be skewed because some of the keeps were speedy keeps due to vandalous/TFA/immediate-post-FAC/misunderstood noms that were closed quickly. Also, as there are only 20-40 odd articles in a sample, a few FARs changing direction can change the numbers; particularly as most FARs need a lot of work (25+ hours, 70%+ unsourced or non-RS) but AEJ Collins was nominated and it only took around 2-4 hours to clean up, so if there are a few Collins-like articles nominated in a short span of time, it can skew the keeps due to a few easy to save articles. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Straw poll

Although I don't like poles, I think it would help if we figured out where people stand on the issue. Should editors be restricted to maintaining 1 FAR nomination at a time, with some leniency after a nomination starts to wind down, or should we keep the current system where users can, using their own common sense, nominate as many FARs as they want at a time? Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In favor of old system – 1 FAR nomination at a time, with some leniency

After looking at the statistics and the latest trends, I think it's better we go back to the 1 FAR nom rule. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support, maybe even with a temporary freeze on FAR noms until the list goes back down to a manageable number. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would also support a hard limit on total running FARs at any given time instead of (but not in addition to) a one nom per editor rule. Of course, that might lead to a few editors hogging the FAR list capacity, but common sense should prevail. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was also how Marskell ran it (that is, when the page size was down, I might have three noms at once; when the page size was up, regulars limited to one nom ... at no time did any one nominator have more than three to my knowledge, and 32 was considered a backlog). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, go back to this, allowing for Eubulides' subsequent copyedit for reasons mentioned above. Almost half of current noms are from only three nominators, and it isn't necessary to delist articles so quickly every time requirements change. FAR should be a deliberative process, allowing editors time to adapt to new requirements, and forcing nominators to seek out the FAs that are truly deteriorated and in need of review, rather than attempting mass delistings of older FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support the one-FAR-nomination rule, plus restoring to the instructions that, "The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them." [6] SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There was a comment in my version that the ideal situation is that the article is made complaint, but Eubulides got rid of it in the most recent reversion YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 08:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The potential for problems is too great if single editors can make lots of nominations at once. (I have my doubts about imposing a hard limit on the backlog.) Eubulides (talk) 06:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A hard limit wasn't imposed before; Marskell managed the page by discouraging multiple noms from regulars when the page volume was high, and allowing them when the number of noms up was low. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maximum two nominations at a time. The vast majority of the not up to standard pre-2006 articles have already been cleared by FAR. Given that we patiently waded through them for two-and-a-half years, why the sudden rush to nominate so many? YM notes that the page slowed down towards the end of '08—we wanted it to slow down. That was a sign that we'd been successful going through the old ones. Keep the informal understanding that the page should not exceed thirty. Twenty would actually be a good number. Marskell (talk) 08:26, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The disparity will grow with only 20 in there....Unless people start voluntarily cleaning up their own articles, which mostly isn't going to happen YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 08:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But having 50 dilutes what is already a very, very thin supply of improvement editing. It guarantees the remove rate will go up, which is not something we should want. I don't like the new template wording. It's like we're shrugging our shoulders and suggesting remove is the default. Marskell (talk) 10:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fewer nominations encourages greater focus on article improvement, which is the end goal of the process. Meanwhile, there is little urgency to put articles through FAR. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support for max one nom at a time. If somebody can spare the time to keep an eye on the civility level of the FAR/FARC discussions as well, and intervene as needed, it would be nice, too, because I feel that's another thing that has gone down. But that's a lot to ask and an unutterably dreary job, no doubt. Bishonen | talk 18:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]
One thing that has improved in the past few months at FAR is the amount of flame wars and the personalization of issues WRT nominations, usually leading to a few editors trading personal attacks and a long, stagnant FAR page. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that certain editors no longer contribute here or certain articles are no longer nominated, but it is a positive trend for FAR that we should preserve. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In favor of new system – unrestricted FAR nomination, limited by common sense

It is being limited by commonsense. I've restrained myself YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with explanation given by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 04:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with above. Aaroncrick (talk) 08:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. YM is uses dispassion and commonsense, free from the wikidrama that this discussion is starting to elicit. —mattisse (Talk) 12:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

As active as YellowMonkey is, I don't think we should count on him to do all the enforcing for us. It's hard to stop the ball once it gets rolling. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Marskell did it, but part of the formula was an attempt to keep the page under 30 noms at all times ... the reason there is so much work for YM is that he is allowing the page to run to 50 noms because of multiple noms! An additional conflict is created because YM is the leading nominator, so he can't close those. Marskell never nominated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did a random check on a few diffs of the FAR page in Dec-Mar 07 and all four samples had 35-40 FARs up and running. I've stopped nominating for a while and it will go back to that level before. The one-FAR has never been enforced that strictly. Nishkid added 2 at once last year [7], and supposing that is kept to, we still have 35 or so. I know I had three staggered on the odd occasion last year and nothing was ever made of it. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sandy, how long did a typical successful FAR fixup take in the halcyon days when FAR was well staffed? YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking off the top of my head, most of them made it within a month, but a (select) few may have taken as long as three and many took two months. My concern is that we're going to get less and less saves if the page always runs 50 noms, and FA writers will become discouraged if delistings are happening as fast as listings every time requirements change. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I meant labor hours: reading up books, expanding, citing etc. Most of the Australian FAR saves took more than 25 hours because most of them had content problems that needed fixing and reading up, and topics like Lake Burley Griffin and Cane toad are hardly wideranging and complex when compared to a national leader or iconic person in their field, such as Newton or Gandhi, because researching their tactics/character and subtleties take longer due to subjective content. I'm not sure how a 30%+ save rate can ever be achieved on those articles, unless the author decided to fix it up by themselves without being prompted. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best way I can answer this (since I'm confused why it's being asked) is that I spent over 24 hours only cleaning up citations for Bird when it was at FAC when I was a reviewer. The goal is to improve articles, whether at FAC or FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it took 24 hours to just clean up the cites, it might take even more when the content is messed up as well. I know the goal is to improve articles, I don't wait for FAR to improve exising FAs. The only problem is that with FAR people might just sit there and try and make everyone feel guilty so that they fix the article for them, or roll over and vote keep because they can't be stuffed taking the initiative against the article owner all the time. In any case, I'll just have tell people to not feel guilty and think they have to rewrite and expand B-class articles else shut up (even if the article needs 10 textbooks to be read), ie not take the instructions literally at all. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Once again, because I am a pathetically masochistic glutton for abuse, I would, in great fear and trembling, and donning my cast-iron athletic supporter, I would wonder whether a queue system would be worthwhile. FAR itself would have tight restrictions as per Sandy and (not yet sainted) Marskell. Those who have an abundance of zeal could list other noms in a queue, with detailed explanations of the (real or perceived) problems by the listing editor (not "nominating editor"). The queue is not FAR and should not be dealt with as such. It is, in effect, merely a notification. Articles would be popped from the queue to FAR in FIFO order, thus giving folks time to see what's what. The key would be to preserve cordial/collegial relations between those listing articles in a queue, and those who wish to improve the listed articles. I bow and scrape in 'umbleness. I exit in fear and trembling. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<berate>YOU MUST BE !@#$% CRAZY!</berate> That actually sounds like a good idea. What sort of time frame are we talking about here? I think any practical application of this system would greatly expand the FAR timeline from a few weeks to quite easily a few months. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The timeline is whatever it is. Wait for others to shoot this idea down, though. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree for (some of ) the same reasons I disagreed when proposed at FAC. It creates extra work, and won't bring the worst FARs up first. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Told you it would get shot down ;-) As for more work, FAR has no responsibilities with respect to the queue. Only listing editors do. As for "Not worst first"; no one said articles HAD to be listed in a queue. That wouldn't work, because of the "one nom per nommer" rule. If I do not use the queue, I can just pop an article in FAR. Those who want to use the queue need to do so very judiciously. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine with me, and gives people more "notice" (although it is pretty obvious that the article needs help without being flagged) but a lot of people will complain about the bad vibes of scheduling and lining them up for the oven/gallows. Having said that with a lot of FARs, people just sit there for three weeks until the delists start coming in before they make a move, hoping that the articles' problems will simply vanish or be forgotten about. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Ling Nut, my worry is that it involves the same process, just with a different name. It leads to uncertainty and pressure for the original writers, which can continue for months: do this and this and this, or the article will be delisted—the very opposite of Wikipedia's "sofixit" philosophy. I would like to see the number of writers put through this kept to a minimum, with each article being given care and attention with a view to improving, not demoting, whether we call that process "pre-FAR queuing," FAR, or FARC. It's the abundance of zeal that is the problem: renaming the process will accommodate it, whereas I feel we need to dampen it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, just more paperwork, longer process ... for that we can use talk pages to suggest FAR is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) I was thinking a queue would serve as a damper. Folks who use a queue cannot change the order they list things (except to completely remove them). They cannot FAR articles if they have one in the queue. Etc. It becomes a headache for the zealous, but not one for others. Eh screw it.Ling.Nut (talk) 04:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be frank, a very large proportion of people are willing to do anything unless their star is at stake (as judged by the fact that people do the bare minimum to scrap by, and don't fix articles until they get dragged to FAR years later even though they know standards have changed), so putting their star under the hammer is the only way to get the article improved (or removed) unless a small amount of FA regulars have to rewrite half the 2005 or 2006 articles after reading a lot of books, which isn't going to happen. Else we end up with double or quintuple standards of FAs. I have a lot of old FAs of all types on my watchlist and nothing ever happened despite all manner of cn tags etc for over a year until it was dragged to FAR. If people only care about the star and not improving articles simply to raise their own standards, then nothing can be done about making them feel better (except everyone writing their article for them, and that doesn't matter anyway, because I have seen a lot of people claim FAs even though they were delisted or overridden by a rewrite). YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to stop nominating completely and to stop participating in other FAR nominations. The restriction would make the whole enterprise less rewarding, as I was getting satisfaction in helping YM out by thoroughly evaluating other nominations also, not just mine, becoming immersed in the FA criteria. But there are plenty of other things to do on wikipedia. And there is little incentive to nominate (or keep track of the nominations) when the evaluation and nomination of articles would be limited to around four a year. I am surprised there is such a dust up over improving FA quality. Just have a rule that an FA star is permanent and do away with FAR. Or rule that only Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations can nominate, and make the rest of us ineligible. —mattisse (Talk) 11:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Who said you had to stop participating in FAR? We're just asking people to slow down with the nominations. With over 50 pages at FAR, it puts a strain on editors who hope to save multiple FAs. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do. When these type of familiar accusations start to fly, and my name is listed as on of "the top three nominators are responsible for 24 (47.1%) of all FAR nominations", I know it is time to jump ship, just as I did with FAC (where currently I copy edit only very, very rarely now. And even then, it seems to become mired on controversy. Other places I contribute a lot, like DYK and GAN, I get medals for a large amount of contributions. I think I will return to greener pastures. —mattisse (Talk) 14:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please consult your mentors about the direction you've taken in this thread and refrain from personalizing discussions, which may derail them from the important issues at hand. There is not an accusation that you are one of the top three nominators: this is nothing more than a verifiable fact. The discussion is about FAR, not individuals. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your nominations were perfectly in line with FAR rules. It's only now that we're seeing that this change has caused some unintended problems with FAR. You're not mired in controversy and you're surely not in trouble. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 14:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think Sandy's suggestion about using talkpages more often is the best solution suggested so far. And I also recommend doing it before you engage in drive-by fact-tagging and WP:V-citing finger-wagging.

As for having too many nominations going at once, I think the handling of Nafaanra is a rather good example of what can happen if you over-extend yourself as a reviewer; you get into arguments you can't win simply because you don't have time to do the homework, and all of a sudden you look like a bit of a jerk despite having the best of intentions.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(o/d) Matisse, you were able to contribute last year when the page was in 30ish the range. There's no reason you couldn't do so if we let this present spike taper off to a manageable level. In fact, you could better focus on fewer reviews, which is the whole idea—having so many up dissipates the keep energy. Assuming that improvement editing remains constant, increased noms necessarily means a greater removal percentage. In the worst case, keeps decline relatively and absolutely as the few reviewers available are forced to comment on a greater number. Only three keeps in June and July is a bit of shock. Marskell (talk) 17:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With the page running at 50, I stopped working on saves or reviews. It's a matter of quality or quantity, and I'm not going to try to follow 50 FARs at once. The incentive to work on saves has been lowered. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed three of YM's noms and will stop by to keep or remove his others. That will take care of that potential conflict, at least; adding another delegate to close one delegate's noms doesn't seem necessary. There's a few others that could go right now, but I'll leave those for YM, having not been monitoring things. I also added the backlog tag and reverted back to the older template wording, as the change doesn't have consensus here. Regarding the main closer nominating, I only did so when the page was really low. About one or two a year.

As far as the queue idea goes, we already informally have one with WP:URFA. It looks like people are beginning to systematically nominate at the bottom of the '05 list. That's not a bad idea, but there's no rush. I'd say dip into that list when FAR declines below 30. It's true that this page was often around 35 in the past, particularly in '07—less than 30 was ideal, 35 was regular, and 40 was a redline.

Perhaps we should also finally make a dedicated reward system for "savers"? I co-opted Barnstar of Recovery from time-to-time to give to people. There's also the Reviewer's Award. But there's nothing specific to FAR. Marskell (talk) 18:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC, YellowMonkey has implemented his own reward system for FAR savers over the last few months. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 18:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A reward system is a good idea. I think we should also be clear that reviewers should stick to the policies. I'm seeing a lot of citation requests that are unnecessary. WP:V requires refs only for quotations and material likely to be challenged. I don't want to give examples because of the danger of personalizing the discussion, but in broad terms, citations are being requested for material that is obviously true or non-contentious, then articles are being delisted because no one responds—rather than the reviewer finding a ref himself, or better still not requesting it to begin with. Page numbers are being insisted on when no page number is needed, including when it makes no sense to request one: WP:CITE does not invariably require page numbers.

Above all, Wikipedia:SOFIXIT is an important part of Wikipedia culture. Reviewers ought to begin a review by trying to find some missing citations themselves, or by fixing a badly written sentence or two, and only request input for issues they can't deal with or references they can't find. That doesn't mean they have to spend a week in an academic library before declaring a delist, but half an hour on Google from each reviewer would be helpful as a start. It would also show the primary article writers, if they're still around, that people have arrived to help, not just to criticize, which would change the whole atmosphere for the better. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For example, this could have been fixed almost as fast as it was tagged: [8] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Advice for reviewers

Would it make sense to create a page with advice for nominators, reviewers, and closers? It could spell out what to do, what to avoid, what the applicable policies say. I would start it but I'm not sure I'm familiar enough with FAR culture to do it. Indeed, there may be one already somewhere that I haven't seen. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches cover what you have in mind? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 420: / Line 420: @@
 :::Above all, [[Wikipedia:SOFIXIT]] is an important part of Wikipedia culture. Reviewers ought to begin a review by trying to find some missing citations themselves, or by fixing a badly written sentence or two, and only request input for issues they can't deal with or references they can't find. That doesn't mean they have to spend a week in an academic library before declaring a delist, but half an hour on Google from each reviewer would be helpful as a start. It would also show the primary article writers, if they're still around, that people have arrived to help, not just to criticize, which would change the whole atmosphere for the better. <font color="green">[[User:SlimVirgin|SlimVirgin]]</font> <small><sup><font color="red">[[User_talk:SlimVirgin|talk|]]</font><font color="pink">[[Special:Contributions/SlimVirgin|contribs]]</font></sup></small> 18:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
+:::: For example, this could have been fixed almost as fast as it was tagged:  [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Joyce&diff=prev&oldid=307059348]  [[User:SandyGeorgia|Sandy<font color="green">Georgia</font>]] ([[User talk:SandyGeorgia|Talk]]) 19:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 ==Advice for reviewers==