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==May 2012==
==May 2012==
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Long-tailed Ground Roller/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Otis Redding/archive2}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Otis Redding/archive2}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pichilemu/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pichilemu/archive1}}

Revision as of 16:13, 26 May 2012

May 2012

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 16:13, 26 May 2012 [1].

Long-tailed Ground Roller

Nominator(s): Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating the Long-tailed Ground Roller article because I believe it is a comprehensive overview of the species that is both well-written and well-illustrated, and that it meets the criteria. This elusive bird is found only in a small area of Madagascar's spiny forest. It digs nesting burrows in the sand and is so unobtrusive that the locals used to believe that the species hibernated. Thank you for reviewing the article. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images are mostly OK. The reference for File:Long-tailed Ground Roller Range Map.png is dead- a citation to the particular article would be more helpful. Also, as it's based on a picture which is GFDL, I believe it has to be GFDL too. It's impressive that we've got such great photos for a species which such a limited range. J Milburn (talk) 09:16, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I put in a citation with a new link for the range map and, I think, changed the license to match that of the original map. Please let me know if I messed something up; images are not my forte. Thanks. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 12:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The prose is a bit choppy, with each idea given its own sentence. I think that running sentences together more will make the text smoother and reduce repetition.
  • Following from the above, "bird" twice in first two sentences, "species" thrice in last para of lead, also "group" thrice in Taxonomy, "habitat" generally overworked.
  • ranging from worms to butterflies — in what sense is this a range?
  • After the chicks fledge... after the breeding season — isn't this the same thing?
  • Uratelornis chimaera — it's not critical, but if you can explain the binomial name, that would be a bonus
  • link "territory"?
  • were all placed in a single family— called...?
  • 0.008 to 0.1 per 10,000 square meters (110,000 sq ft). — I really don't like this, a weird unit of area to start with (10,000 sq m) and a conversion of the area rather than the numbers, which is unhelpful, Suggest 0.8 to 10 per square kilometre (2.1 to 25 per square mile)
  • Due to its short wings, the species rarely flies — evidence that link is causal? It's more likely that it has short wings because it rarely flies.
  • to pair with another Long-tailed Ground Roller — I think we would assume that it pairs with the same species, name is redundant
  • Hatching and fledging times? If not known, say so
  • Binomial needs italics in ref 1
  • Can you write the state in full in ref 8
  • pp. in refs 11 and 15 I think
  • HBW should have an isbn
  • What is the point of the hidden text <!-- Bird Conservation International 17:1–12. doi: 10.1017/S095927090600058X -->?
  • I think I've addressed all of your concerns, though I am not certain what exactly you mean by the habitat section being "overworked". I've given the article another copyedit while trying to smooth out some of the choppiness. I've also got a note out to Casliber; while none of my sources translated Uratelornis, Casliber has done wonders with scientific names before. Thank you for your review, and let me know if I've missed something. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 03:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just one question: Why is ground roller capitalized in the title of the article?--Carabinieri (talk) 22:45, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ground roller is capitalized in the article's title because it is part of the species name. This is the standard for WP:Bird and is talked about in detail here. To briefly summarize, species names are capitalized, like in Long-tailed Ground Roller, but if you are referring the ground rollers as a family, ground roller is lowercased. This is generally the standard in ornithological literature. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 03:58, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Full review coming soon. Was wondering if there was anything worthy of inclusion from doi:10.1007/BF01678372? Sasata (talk) 16:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I'll look at the paper later tonight. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 21:31, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • perhaps reword the three consecutive lead sentences beginning with "It" to reduce repetition
  • "…and its closest relative is believed to be the Scaly Ground Roller." "is believed" sounds a little bit weaselly
  • possibly useful links: population density, plumage, calls, breeding season, scrubland; native peoples; instead of the generic link to logging, how about the more targeted link to illegal logging in Madagascar?
  • "Madagascan government" Is that the correct adjectival form? I get 108k G-hits with "Malagasy Government" compared to ~34k with "Madagascan Government"
  • any possibility to include a citation and link to the protolog?
Sweet. I tried to find this earlier. Thanks.
  • what is the etymology of the specific epithet? (see here)
  • "This position is supported by DNA evidence, which also removed the Cuckoo Roller from the Coraciidae." the DNA evidence didn't remove the roller
  • "It has been suggested, but not widely accepted, that the ground rollers are closely related to the puffbirds and jacamars." Who suggests this? Is the definite article "the" required before ground rollers and puffbirds?
Unknown; its not specified in the source as I recall. Will double check.
Found the original source. Added.
  • "It is believed" weaselly
How should I write around this? These cases are suggested as possibilities in the sources, not as definitive truth. Is it really better to say "Noel Snyder hypothesizes that..." when the reference at the end of the sentence leads the reader to the suggestion? Am I missing an obvious way around this?
It's tricky sometimes, but if you don't feel like attributing the opinion, here's a couple of suggestions ("tricks") to avoid using the weasel words:
"It is believed that the ancestor of the Long-tailed Ground Roller was an arboreal roller" -> "Fossil evidence suggests that..." (or replace with whatever the evidence is)
"The Long-tailed Ground Roller does not migrate, though it is believed to disperse across a broader stretch of habitat outside of the breeding season." -> "..., though it may disperse ..."
  • "and recent genetic analysis suggests" avoid using the vague "recent" (I don't consider phylogenetic analysis from 2001 recent). There's another occurrence in the "Dist & hab" section
  • link covert, buff
  • "A white stripe is present from the base of the bill" "from" -> "at"?
  • "and it has been suggested" weaselly
  • "… and descending near the end." descending in pitch? volume?
Will check with my source next time I'm in the library.
I believe the reference refers to volume.
  • "Another territorial call has been described as" a hint of weasel
  • don't need to wikilink the units square kilometers and square mile twice in the same sentence
  • there's a few too many sentence that begin with "This"; there's five in the "Dist & Hab" section alone. I think it's bad form to start a paragraph with "This" (as is the case with four paragraphs in the article), but perhaps that's just personal preference.
Mixed it up in "Dist & Hab". I kept the paragraph-starting "this"es for some variety it introductory noun; I feel that "this" should be linked with bird, species, and ground roller and I don't want every paragraph to start "The Long-tailed Ground Roller"
  • "deep leaf litter.[13][10]" citations should be numerical order (unless there's a pressing reason not to)
  • "off of the ground" -> "off the ground"
  • "males have been observed feeding the female." link to nuptial gift (animal behavior)?
  • "20 centimeters (7.9 in) wide chamber" is adjectival so should be hyphenated "20-centimeter (7.9 in) wide chamber"
  • do we know the size of the eggs?
To my knowledge, we do not know the size of their eggs.
  • link courtship ritual, incubation, conservation
  • "The estimated population of the Long-tailed Ground Roller" perhaps start this with "As of 2011" (or whatever the year is)
  • minor reference nitpicks: journal article titles are inconsistently given in both sentence and title cases; publication date month + year or just year?
I tend to follow the style used by the original authors with regards to capitalization; do I need to make this standard? I include the month when the publication includes the month.
Our article needs to have consistent formatting; we can't accommodate the varied styles presented in other journals (we wouldn't, for example, give an article title in ALL CAPS because some journal from 1905 did so). Same with giving months—the presentation should be consistent (I added one). Another thing, publisher info is not required for journals. Sasata (talk) 18:27, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • outgoing links in External links should also tell us where they're going
To confirm, I need to say "Image gallery hosted by Arkive" or something?
Something like the following would work:
  • are there any other ground-rollers that share the same range? If so, are they easily distinguished?
No others share the range.
  • anything useful in these:
Could not get access to the Long-tailed Ground Roller page.
Thank you for the review, and my apologies for the delay; I just had my last week of classes. In particular, thank you for your wealth of ideas for wikilinks I would never have thought of; I now need to go back and look at earlier articles. I've made all of your changes except those with commentary beneath them. I do have questions about some of them. Thank you. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 03:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome. Did you get a hold of the Appert (1968) article I mentioned above? I can email it if you don't have access. Sasata (talk) 18:27, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Axl:-

From "Taxonomy": "In 1971, Joel Cracraft proposed a separate family for the ground rollers based on dramatic differences in behavior, plumage, and post-cranial anatomy between the groups." Is the word "dramatic" required? Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From "Taxonomy": "It is believed that the ancestor of the Long-tailed Ground Roller was an arboreal roller that invaded Madagascar from Africa." "Invaded"? Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In "Description", paragraph 2, are the breeding season calls made only by the males? Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From "Ecology and behavior": "The Long-tailed Ground Roller is a shy and elusive bird and, if seen, it either freezes or runs away." Should that be "if it sees a human observer"? Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review and comments

  • I've added the publisher. For its purpose, which is just to show images of stamps, this is the standard source, frequently used in FAs. I can't see anything contentious about the content of this site which would make it inappropriate Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:11, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spot checks:
    • Minor bit but http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/24182#page/505/mode/1up does not support "Novitates Zoologicae, the periodical of his private museum." I'm pretty sure this isn't exactly contentious and can either be sourced or removed...
    • Footnote 9a is supported by its source and properly paraphrased.
    • Footnote 9c is supported by its source and properly paraphrased.
    • Footnote 3 is supported by its source and properly paraphrased.
  • Prose review:
    • Lead - do we really need to link to charcoal??
    • Description: "The sound carries for a distance of at least 200 meters (660 ft) and may either attract a mate or defend a territory." How can a call defend a territory??
    • Description: "The territorial call is a series of soft "boo" notes, typically coming in sets of six to ten and descending in volume near the end.[8] Another territorial call is a series of chuckling tu-tuc..." You first say "The territorial call" ... which implies there is only one, then you say "Another territorial call..." which is confusing.. can we get this made a bit clearer?
    • Ecology: "It is diurnal, though, unusually for a ground roller, it occasionally forages at night." Awkward - suggest rewording to "Although diurnal, it does occasionally forage at night unlike most other ground rollers."
    • Relationship: "The local inhabitants of Madagascar believed, as this bird is remarkably silent and difficult to see during the non-breeding season, that the Long-tailed Ground Roller hibernated in its burrows, although no evidence supports this." The digression of "as this bird..." is awkwardly placed, can we rephrase?
Just a few spots of prose that could use a polish and I'll be happy to support.
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. I googled three random phrases and showed no copyright violations either (all turned up those phrases only on wikipedia mirrors). Ealdgyth - Talk 14:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Noleander

  • Footnote #1 in Lead seems forlorn. WP:LEAD says footnotes are optional in lead ... the cite is already in the article body, I presume? Recommend delete footnote from lead.
  • Footnotes #19 and #22 have links to Ref section, but links are broken.
  • Tense: "The local inhabitants of Madagascar believed, as this bird is remarkably silent and difficult to see during the non-breeding season, that the Long-tailed Ground Roller hibernated in its burrows, although no evidence supports this." - strange shift from past (believed) to present (supports). Do they still believe that?
  • Date ambiguity: "At the turn of the twentieth century, .." - I suppose that means circa year 2000, but readers shouln't have to guess if it means 1900. Be more specific.
  • Wording: "Only one zoo, Germany's Weltvogelpark Walsrode, is known to keep ..." - "is known to" doesnt seem right for that phrase. Just say "... keeps". Any fact stated in the article "is known to" the best of the editor's ability. If you suspect other zoos may have the bird, then the article should not say "only one zoo ..."; instead write "Germany'x W W keeps ...".
  • Italics vs. quotes for sounds: "of chuckling tu-tuc" is italics, but " Low "gu" notes" and other are in quotes. If there is an official bird reason for that distinction, fine, otherwise choose one or the other.
  • I don't see an explanation of the name "ground roller", is it in the article? I expect to see "named ground roller because they roll on the ground ..." or something like that. If the explanation is in the ground roller article, it should be duplicated in this article for one-stop-shopping.
  • DNA-based relatives: "This position is supported by DNA evidence.[5] It has been suggested, but not widely accepted, that ground rollers are closely related to the puffbirds and jacamars." - I thought that DNA information provided pretty concrete info about how closely species were related, I'm surprised to see "it has been suggested ..".
  • "This bird has been featured on several of Madagascar's stamps." - That seems rather telling, Does that mean it is considered a very prominent bird in Madagascar? Perhaps symbolic in some way? If so, the article should mention how the bird is well-recognized or admired etc within the country, and why.

End Noleander comments --Noleander (talk) 16:10, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments and questions by Ling
    • "definitively display sexual dimorphism" Did you wanna talk about how the males and females differ? I see only two brief sentences, separated from the dimorphism wl by text... – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 13:46, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 16:00, 26 May 2012 [2].

Otis Redding

Nominator(s): GoPTCN 16:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Following the first Catholic Church FA, I present you an article from an underrepresented area, namely Soul music. The article was nominated thrice at GAN and once at FAC, but it never passed the nomination. The reviewers of the last GAN opposed the promotion for minor reasons that I had already explained. Since the first FAC, the article was copyedited by many editors and two sections were added.GoPTCN 16:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments ~ Without a proper peer review, or succsessful GAN, I'm not sure this nom will last long, but I'll do my best to help out in the meantime. — GabeMc (talk) 00:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there any need for those two cites in the lead? If this info is properly covered and cited to in the article body, then these can be removed from the lead (see WP:CITELEAD). Same with the cites in the infobox.
"[W]as an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout."[4] This could/should be integrated into the first few lines of his career section. "His open-throated singing", should be integrated into a style or legacy section, which the article will likely need to pass FA anyway. — GabeMc (talk) 21:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Such as? --GoPTCN 07:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I mentioned that he was also a talent scout, producer and an arranger in the "Songwriting" section.--GoPTCN 09:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the lead is intended to be a summary of the article body, so really, there should not be any information in the lead that is not covered in the article. — GabeMc (talk) 00:57, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, convtroversial statements can be mentioned in the lead only, see WP:LEAD.--GoPTCN 07:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I think you may be misreading that. Controversial statements may sometimes need to be cited in the lead yes, but the lead should summarize the article, so if its not in the article, it shouldn't be in the lead. — GabeMc (talk) 08:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So basically you are suggesting that the body should contain duplications of what is already in the lead, and which is cited there? --GoPTCN 09:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Its not my suggestion, its how the lead is intended to be. You can have info in the article body that is not in the lead, but not the other way around. Again, this is not my opinion, its how it works here at wikipedia. See WP:LEAD, "Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." — GabeMc (talk) 22:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Non-print sources should not be italicized, as in cites #50, 77, 90, 119, 120 (Allmusic, NME, Billboard.com/Rollingstone.com, whereas cites to actual Billboard, or Rollingstone issues should be italicized.), use the publisher field instead of the work field for non-print sources.
  • Locations are missing for some sources in the bibliography, this should be made consistant. — GabeMc (talk) 00:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Rolling Stone Magazine Staff (1967). The Rolling stone record review. 1. Pocket Books." Needs isbn.
  • "MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand)." Per WP:ISBN, "Use 13-digit ISBNs, if available, as these are now standard as of January 1, 2007 and issued to new books." same with: "Appiah, Kwame Anthony; Gates, Henry Louis; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. (2004). Africana: An A-to-Z Reference of Writers, Musicians, and Artists of the African American Experience. Philadelphia, Pa.: Running Press." Use 13-digit isbn. — GabeMc (talk) 00:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

  • Spot checks:
    • Footnote 29 states "The Chitlin Circuit was a string of venues where black performers and audiences were welcome during the years of racial segregation in the mid-20th century." but the article states "These performance venues were safe for African-American musicians during the era of racial segregation which lasted into the early 1960s." which is subtly different - "lasted into the 1960s" is a bit different meaning than "during the years of racial segregation in the mid-20th century."
    • Footnote 27 is supported by its source and properly paraphrased.
    • Footnote 33 is supported by its source and properly paraphrased.
    • Footnote 37 uses http://allmusic.com/album/complete-unbelievable-the-otis-redding-dictionary-of-soul-r16348/charts-awards/billboard-single but that's just a bare listing of the chart positions. This does not support the information ""Try a Little Tenderness" was included on his next album, Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul. Although the song was commercially successful—it peaked at number 25 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and at number 4 on R&B singles chart—the album was not." ... the part about the album not being successful isn't supported.
    • Footnote 68 ... http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=15622 I cannot find any mention in this source of the information it is supposedly supporting in the article : "In 2007, a memorial plaque was placed on the lakeside deck of the Madison convention center, Monona Terrace." Has something gotten lost in the various copyedits?
    • Footnote 123 http://www.exploregeorgia.org/Georgia/Attractions/Otis-Redding-Statue-at-Ocmulgee-Heritage-Trail-Gateway-Park/400580 ... I'm not seeing anything in this source from the Rhythm and Blues foundation at all??? Does not support the text "The Rhythm and Blues Foundation named Redding as the recipient of its 2006 Legacy Award."
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Definitely needs a full check of sourcing for problems. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments by Ling:
  • Oppose per 1a and 1c. – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 04:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please explain your oppose. Why do you want more sources? Do they add significant content? Did you read the books or just copy-and-pasted the titles?--GoPTCN 08:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The sources I listed are mentioned more than once in other articles as being the definitive sources. It seems to me that perhaps they are at least as good as your, and perhaps better. And even if they are not, such heavy reliance on one source is ill-advised when others that are certainly no less notable are available...You have one and only one quote from Freeman (which, if you were my student, would make me think you copied someone who quoted Freeman), and none from the other two. The writing needs more than a little polishing, and in some sections may even merit a complete rewrite. Those are concrete and actionable Opposes. Beyond that, there is a less concrete and less actionable aspect: I just get the feeling that the topic has not been covered as well as it could have. This is in part due to the sourcing issues I just mentioned, and in part due to the fact that when I was done reading, I remembered a few blurbs praising Redding, but I didn't really have an understanding of the depth and breadth of his impact. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (Via HighBeam) describes Redding "the single most important and influential male soul artist of the 1960s". I really think that anyone who merits such high praise must have been analyzed at a deeper level by better sources than those on the Internet... The whole article, in general has the feel of something mashed together from subpar sources and without a lot of careful thought about the content. Please don't take any of this personally. You can always rework and renominate. Excellent writing and research are usually multi-step processes. – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 10:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Dear LinkgNut, I don't know where you found that they are the definite sources, but I tell you that they are not very WP:RS. How can you tell they are reliable if his wife and Phil Walden even accused the author of one of the allegedly reliable source that he wrote hoaxes? Explain this to me. I don't think that if anything is mentioned many times is also reliable; I have a biography about Dostoyevsky and it has 6 pages of further reading material, and they weren't even peer reviewed! So tell me how that is possible. And you believe the prose is not "polished"; it was "polished" by many skilled writers. You did not name examples of bad prose, then how can I trust you? Furthermore, even if I buy or borrow this book (the latter is impossible here in Germany) then will you still oppose when I tell you that there were no important information? What will I need to do to prove that these books duplicated the information of Guralnick, Bowman and co? Guralnick's book received many awards, and Bowman's book about the history of Stax Records is the best book about this company and Soul music general.--GoPTCN 16:15, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • You have focused only on the sourcing issues, and not the substandard writing.... If I have time, i will try to track down the references I saw and post them here. Feel free to leave your nom open and see if a wave of support materializes from other reviewers. If that happens, then you will have been proven to be right. Cheers – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 02:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Per Ling.Nut3. This article needs a proper peer review, then to pass GA before returning here. — GabeMc (talk) 05:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, but you did not review it properly. Elaborate why it needs a pr and gan? Several articles passed without. What will a peer review bring? What do the reviewers post there? And why not post issues here? If there are too much issues, then at least explain your position properly. I used the best sources about Redding. The mentioned books are jokes compared with the books listed in this article.--GoPTCN 08:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment from Noleander - I've read the article and I've read the comments above. I sympathize with the nominator because the issues mentioned above are not "smoking gun" problems (e.g. not all biographies are worthwhile sources); and the latter Oppose is short on details. On the other hand, the article has not had a Peer Review nor a successful GAN. The article looks decent, but upon reading it, I see some potential improvements, such as moving the "Another characteristic was his raw voice ..." material out of the "Legacy" section and into the 'Stage presence, ..." section. My recommendation to the nominator is to withdraw the nomination; have it go through a Peer Review, and then re-nominate it. I'd be happy to do a thorough Peer Review, if the nominator would like. --Noleander (talk) 17:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Bencherlite 06:40, 24 May 2012 [3].

Pichilemu

Nominator(s): Diego Grez (talk) 18:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it complies with all the FA criteria, it's long enough, and there's nothing that cannot be fixed :) Diego Grez (talk) 18:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose on prose grounds. Well done for the amount of work you've done on this to date, and for all your Chilean-related editing on this and other projects. I would have been able to guess who the nominator of this article was without reading the nomination! However, just reading the lead is enough to make me think that this needs a very good copy edit before it meets the required standard.

  • "twenty-one villages" - should be "21", as it is later on; and why do you need to mention three of them in the lead? Is that important to give some of the village names in the lead? "Espinillo" is a dab link, by the way.
  • "approximately 14,302 residents" isn't an approximate figure, it's an exact figure.
  • The next paragraph jumps about - the city was founded in late 1891, we're told, but in the next sentence we jump back in time as we're told the area was first populated by the indigenous Promaucaes, then in the next sentence we're back to more modern times with the idea of a beach resort for the upper-class.
  • In any case, I think "Pichilemu was founded by the inheritors of Lauriano Gaete and Ninfa Vargas" could be phrased better (reading down I learn that these people "were proprietaries of the land which is currently Central Pichilemu", which again needs improvement)
  • We get the beach resort idea mentioned in the second para of the lead, the beach mentioned in the next para, and again in the final para of the lead. OK, we get the idea, there's a beach there.
  • "by the National Monuments Council, in 2004." no comma required (and there are other instances of this in the article)

Etc. Reading through the rest of the article, it feels very much like a series of facts strung together (in very short paragraphs, with no real flow) rather than exemplifying engaging prose of a professional standard. "Pichilemu was severely affected by the February 27, 2010, Chile earthquake and its subsequent tsunami, which provoked massive destruction in the coastal zone", for instance - earthquakes and tsunami do not "provoke" destruction. "The Pichilemu Police, known in Spanish as [...]. is the police force of Pichilemu." Well, yes, the clue is in the name. "Pichilemu has had censuses taken since the 17th century", you tell us as the second sentence in a two-sentence paragraph, then change topic, returning to censuses several paragraphs later in a new section about demographics.

I suggest that you withdraw this and take this to peer review. FAC isn't designed for the sort of work that I think this article still needs. Try and find some Spanish-speaking FA writers, for instance, who can help with the sources. One advantage of a PR is that, when you come back to FA, you should have a few people already familiar with the article and able to speak about its merits. BencherliteTalk 19:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaaaaaaah! Got it, got it! I'm gonna withdraw this then, and will later put it up for peer review. Thanks for the comments anyway, will work on this article as soon as I have time. :) Diego Grez (talk) 04:20, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: I haven't read through yet, but a few small comments:
  • I believe that MOSQUOTE frowns on the use of {{cquote}}.
  • There's one uncited paragraph in "Important places". Also, how did you define which places are important?
  • I'd recommend adding OCLCs in the Further reading and removing the two redlinks there (unless you plan to turn them blue).
  • Quite a bit of repeated wikilinking, probably want to trim a lot of those.
  • I believe spaced emdashes are frowned upon by the MOS.
  • A number of overlinking issues countries and major geographical things shouldn't be linked, nor should common terms like "fishing".
  • Date formats should be consistent, I see "December 4, 2009", "21 August 2010" & "2006-08-08". Mark Arsten (talk) 21:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 07:44, 13 May 2012 [4].

Europa Barbarorum

Nominator(s): It Is Me Here t / c 21:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that I have cleaned its prose up, getting it to GA status, and have since removed forum-post references. It Is Me Here t / c 21:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Noleander

  • Has this article been through the WP:PEER REVIEW process? That is often a great help in ensuring success in the FA nomination process.
  • Put footnotes at end: e.g. " ... they called the mod "breathtaking" in an official[46] statement.[47][48]". Putting the footnote 46 in the middle of the sentence disrupts the readers experience. Unless there is a compelling reason, it should be at the end. The fact that the one source is for the "official" claim can be noted in the footnote itself.
  • Creators? - The Lead should explicitly state who the creators were. A casual reader may get the impression that this is an official game, when in fact it is a vartiant created by .... who? Fans? Paid? unpaid? In any way affiliated with the original game creators? All that should be explained in the lead.
  • Define team: Similar issue as above: the article several time mentions "The modification's development team's stated aim..." but never defines who that team is.
  • Reviews - Many game articles include an Info box which lists a handful of review scores. Can that be done for this article? Or do mods not get scored?
  • define term: " as the best mod ..." - need to define "mod" probably after first use of modification, as in: "modification (mod)".
  • Wording: "... felt that such factions' representations in Rome: Total War conformed more ..." - the "faction's representations" is not worded smoothly. Suggest re-write the whole sentence.

End Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 18:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • "the development team had previously stated..." - source?
  • FN1: don't italicize UK
  • FN2: author profile is only open to subscribers; can you confirm that it's the development team?
  • Several of your web sources are missing publisher info
  • Use consistent italicization
  • Be consistent in whether websites are cited using website name or publisher
  • What makes this a high-quality reliable source? This? This
  • Don't use hyphens in titles where endashes should be used instead

Leaning oppose at this time. An awful lot of self-published/primary sources here, added to some less-than-stellar sites. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:11, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's comment After five days and no response from the nominator, I have decided to archive this nomination. Graham Colm (talk) 07:42, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 07:35, 13 May 2012 [5].

Ra.One

Nominator(s): ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 17:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is the second FAC for the article. The first one went off rather unexpectedly, and a lot of problems were pointed out with specific mention of the references. I have subsequently undertaken a significant overhaul of the entire article (including creating a new article and hence reducing a significant amount of content from Ra.One). I believe that now it is much closer to FA standards, though I won't say with certainty as there may be things I have not done properly. i hope this one goes off better. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 17:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: For a film article, this is extraordinarily long. When it was archived last month from its previous FAC it had 10540 words of text; since then it has swollen to 15300, plus another 1000 or so in the bullet-pointed Cast section (the full Wiki text is 214 kB). If it were to be promoted it would be just about the longest featured article in the entire project; can you explain why you think the subject-matter justifies this extent of treatment? Most film articles seem to me to thoroughly cover their subject in half as many words, frequently less. Brianboulton (talk) 14:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess its because Ra.One has a number of firsts to it. Its the first Indian film to have a nine-month promotional campaign, for starters. Its the first Indian film to, very extensively, utilize the concept of merchandising. Its one of India's most expensive films to date. Its the first film to actually exceed Avatar in the quantity of VFX used. Its the first India film to have utilized around 15 studios all across the world, for a number of aspects be it VFX, costumes, sound design etc. It has a soundtrack that received much popularity around the world. It has firsts even in Wikipedia: Ra.One is the first film which has an entire article devoted solely to its VFX. You should have seen the article when the VFX section had been full; reducing that took off around 8,000 bytes from the article. I am aware of its length, but I don't see that as a hindrance. In fact, I see it as comprehensiveness; there are separate articles dealing with specific film aspects, such as its accolades and VFX. I would really encourage you to give the article a full look. Thanks. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 15:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can accept that the film is important, but not so important as to require this length of treatment. We are compiling a general encyclopedia, not a film buff's handbook. The article is 50 percent longer than that for the Second World War, 50 percent longer than that for Mohandas Gandhi, twice as long as that for Barak Obama. The film articles that have reached featured status vary in length; some (Jurassic Park, E.T.) are around 4500 words, while Casablanca, an iconic film, gets 6200 words. I would not wish to see a precedent for such extraordinary length in featured articles, and I suggest that you study WP:LENGTH for general policy guidance on what is generally deemed acceptable within the project. Brianboulton (talk) 23:41, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: I agree with Brianboulton about the length. There are many opportunities where details/promotion/quotes can be removed or summarized to reduce length.

  • There are many unnecessary quotes
    • Promotional statements: "If you look at any superhero story, the super alter ego is just the garb. At its core, the story is all about emotions."
Removed.
    • "When a film flops, people stop answering your phone calls. [But] Shahrukh is the only person who remained unchanged after Cash. He believed in me."
I have removed the first sentence of the quote (unnecessary, agreed). The rest of the quote is necessary; more so because a lot of debate on Sinha's capability as a director had surrounded the film pre-release.
Is the quote necessary? paraphrase will work. --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Modified.
    • "It's the bad guy who teaches you about the good guy. Good exists because of evil, hence the title." "I have always felt this – and even Alfred Hitchcock said that in a movie, which has a larger than life hero, the villain's role should be very strong. So, I [also] felt [that] if the villain looks good, the superhero will also look good." are repetitive in nature. "The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture." already sums it up
Shortened a bit.
    • Rumours/Film gossip: "Chopra had been rumored to play the role of a transvestite; however, the producers refuted the rumors"
I don't see what's wrong with this at all. The sentence may sound like the statement was not very big, but the rumor created a lot of flurry and huffing-and-puffing among the Indian media. Certainly notable.
  • WP:UNDUE details: "In an interview, he stated that he had been "cheated" into the film when he was told the film would be in English. He said that the main reason why he had been called for was due to his experience with CGI and green screens; he accepted due to his interest in Bollywood, and also because "back home, there is not enough money.""
Moved out.
  • "Shekhar often tries to impress his son about the former's coolness" Used as in slang.
What shall I replace it with?
Sentence changed.
  • References
    • Unreliable source tags have not been addressed
    • Why is a Micro Finance Monitor, a finance news portal reliable for this article?
Could you explain why you find it unreliable? It seems to be quite reliable to me, well-organized, its a finance portal. Financial aspects of the film were a major talking-point.
It is not used for financial aspects. --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Could you point out where the source has been used? I seem to have got lost in the labyrinth of references in the article :P.
  • " A music video for the song "Raftaarein" was filmed one week before the release due to a positive critical response to the son" typos??
Oops, corrected. No longer present in the article.
Removed. No longer present in the article
  • "Filming faced further complications when producer Bobby Chawla suffered a brain hemorrhage in April 2010, disrupting an entire filming schedule." There is no mention of Chawla being the initial producer earlier. In Development, we are only told that Khan's company was producing
No longer present in the article.
Comprehensiveness issue: It should be mentioned that Chawla initially produced.--Redtigerxyz Talk 13:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Both producers (Chawla, Gauri) added. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 10:59, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The body suits were the primary reason for both Khan and Rampal facing difficulties during filming. Since removing the suits took a good deal of time, water and food intake had to be regulated" Fact repeated, stated for Khan in "Cast"
  • " Yash Johar (who had died recently)" dated statement
Little more specificity regarding the death added.

--Redtigerxyz Talk 18:45, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments The splitting has shortened the length, but Wikipedia:Summary style is not properly followed OR is the article still under construction (use {{underconstruction}} if so). When you are done, leave a note here so reviewers can complete their assessment. --Redtigerxyz Talk 13:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to inform everybody that since the length of the article is becoming a sticking point, I am currently in the process of breaking away significant portions of the article into separate articles. By doing so, I may reduce the Ra.One size by as much as 35,000 - 40,000 bytes. At that stage, will the article length become acceptable? The break-off articles are currently in my userspace.
Regarding Redtiger's quotes, parts of the problem shall anyway shift into the separate articles. But I don't agree with a number of them. Just give me a day or so, after splitting, and I'll get down to a discussion.
Mark, could you specifically point out which instances of overlinking/dabs are there? Thanks. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 07:02, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Ankit has worked very hard on the article and the article still needs work/consensus following the split. The article is looking much better following the split.

  • My main concern is stability. The article is changing every day. Then there are reverts, not related to vandalism, but to the addition/removal of content.
  • WP:UNDUE (is gossip needed? is the title section needed to so long?)
  • WP:QUOTEFARM (Critical reception)
  • WP:NPOV: 'Ra.One utilized a record extent of marketing for a Bollywood film, with the level of promotions being described as "the most comprehensive and all-pervasive among people's lives"' is a view, promotional in nature. 'The producers of Ra.One set a record marketing budget of around 52 crore (US$10.37 million), making it the highest ever for a Bollywood film' is a verifiable fact.
  • WP:SUMMARYSTYLE: Facts left out
    • Use of converted 3D
    • Marketing: "The look of the film's titular antagonist, which had been kept under strict secrecy, was revealed in the final theatrical trailer" This is the first trailer mentioned. I read the daughter article and understood what you by final.
  • Reference use:
    • "The look of the film's titular antagonist, which had been kept under strict secrecy, was revealed in the final theatrical trailer to a positive response" [6] says that SRK says (biased opinion) that people liked it. Not that people liked it as fact.--Redtigerxyz Talk 09:27, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose for excessive length and unnecessary detail. For an example of the former, see Critical reception, where thirty reviewers are quoted, in the domestic section alone. I reckon four paragraphs for Indian+foreign reviews should suffice, since they all mostly talk about similar stuff. Also comb the text for unnecessary tidbits like "Actor Amitabh Bachchan supposedly remarked negatively about the film on Twitter as well, though it later turned out that the Twitter ID used was fake". Even apart from this, a lot needs to go for a clear, concise and FA-worthy article.—indopug (talk) 10:41, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It would be far more useful for the article if you clearly list out what all the problems are, rather than go for a rapid opposition spree and vaguely say "a lot needs to be done". ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 11:27, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would add that, in response to my comments earlier in this review, the length issue is being tackled vigorously by the nominator. Credit where credit is due. Brianboulton (talk) 21:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The prose is not sufficiently well-written. Here is a small sample of prose problems that I gather while reading through random paragraphs of the article. There are also a number of sourcing issues.

  • "either of the players can only be killed in the third level using a special gun that holds a single bullet." Is this relevant to the rest of the plot? I don't see how it is. If it's not relevant, delete it.
Highly relevant to the plot. Its this basic fact that actually allows the film's climax to happen.
If it is highly relevant to the plot, then why is it not mentioned again in the plot summary? I don't see anything else about a special gun or a single bullet. I think this whole sentence could be scrapped without any risk of the reader missing something important. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "His character's appearance required him to apply prosthetic makeup for over eight hours a day" Was he applying makeup for eight hours per day, or was he wearing makeup for eight hours per day?
Applying is the correct word, Click on the wikilink; the article states "To apply facial prosthetics..."
You misunderstand my point. The current phrasing suggests that it took over eight hours to apply to the makeup. This cannot be correct. What you must surely mean is that after the makeup was applied, he had to wear it for eight hours. The correct phrasing for that is "His character's appearance required him to wear prosthetic makeup for over eight hours a day". --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are not familiar at all about what prosthetic makeup is. Let's just say it isn't your ordinary face powder-lipstick-mascara make-up. Prosthetics are complicated. It takes hours just to apply them. The phrase is perfectly correct. I can understand your trouble believing this, but I can assure you, the phrase is "applied", not "wore".
Does it take eight hours to apply them? Does the actor sit down on a chair, wait for eight hours as the makeup artist works, and then start filming? That is what the phrasing suggests, and it cannot be correct. I will readily concede that the source uses "don", which has essentially the same meaning as "apply" in this context, but the source was very clearly not written by someone with a native command of the English language. It does not, and cannot, take eight hours to apply prosthetic makeup for a single day of filming. Perhaps it took two hours to apply, and the actor would wear it for six. Perhaps the ratio was more extreme than that. In any case, it did not take eight hours to apply the makeup. The correct verb is "wear". --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Besides this, he also suffered considerable discomfort with his superhero suit. Subsequently, he lost ten kilos of weight by the end of filming" So wearing an uncomfortable suit causes one to lose weight? I was unaware of this.
You have not read the full sentence. They weren't wearing suits, they were wearing superhero suits. Yes, those do lead to loss of weight, and that's even more applicable for a mid-forties person :P.
Your explanation makes even less sense than the original issue. How on earth does the costume cause the wearer to lose weight? Whether or not it is a superhero suit is irrelevant. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See the Costumes section. The suits were heavy, not made of heat-conducting material, hot weather. In short, lots of perspiration plus lower food consumption. Hence loss in weight.
The current phrasing does not suggest that perspiration or food consumption caused the weight loss. It suggests that "discomfort" caused the weight loss. ("Revolutionary weight-loss breakthrough: sleep on bricks!" Hee.) --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he was watching an advertisement on television dealing with kids controlling a human with a remote." This phrasing suggests that "kids controlling a human with a remote" is a real problem which the product being advertised can "deal with". Somehow I doubt that this was the case.
The statement is written from the source itself. That's how the director said it in the source, so I guess it will have to be that.
Where in the source? The next citation is to this article, in which the phrase "remote" is never mentioned. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Khan initially approached several directors to lead the project" This seems to contradict with the previously presented facts that Sinha was the director and that Sinha approached Khan. Why would Khan be looking for a director when he was already brought on board by the director?
The second time somebody asked me the same thing. Please read the statement carefully; Sinha approached Khan with the film's script. He may be a director, but that does not guarantee him being the director all the time. I had placed the bit about his previous film's box office failure to highlight this point as well.
When multiple editors point out the same issue, that's usually a pretty good indicator that the problem is not on the reader's end. The issue may be stemming from the phrasing at the very beginning of the section: "According to director Anubhav Sinha". The use of "director" here not only implies that Sinha is a director, but also the director. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, removed.
Okay, so here's what I understand (based almost entirely on what I've learned from this discussion, not from the article itself): Sinha came up with the idea and the script. Sinha shows the script to Khan, who decides to produce the film. Khan tries to find a director for the film, but they all turn him down. Khan eventually decides to have Sinha direct it. Is this correct? If so, the current problem lies in the fact that the italicized part of the chronology is never mentioned in the article. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The film's next production phase was split into two schedules" Does "schedule" have some special meaning in the context of film production? Otherwise, it is not clear to me why anyone would ever want or need to know about these details.
Umm, a schedule - as in any other aspect of work - is a set period of time where particular work is done. In case of filming, a schedule is a set period of time where filming is done. I don't understand how that is unclear or unnecessary.
Unnecessary detail. It should be removed. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me? Unnecessary detail? Far from it. Splitting the production phase was one of the main reasons why there was quite a bit of controversy regarding the presence of multiple directors for the film.
See my response to the suit mold issue below. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have made significant cuts throughout the article, including the Critical Reception section. The post-production section has been phased out to the daughter article. Currently, I estimate the word count to be in the ballpark of 8000 (little less, hopefully) though more cuts are on the way. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 12:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The film's cinematography involved the basic outline of a video game's perspective of vision" Does this refer to the HUD? If not, I have no idea what this could possibly mean.
Present in the main article. I had kept the reason out since I figured somebody would come and declare it "unnecessary detail".
Don't cut out details if doing so results in sentences whose meanings are unclear. Similarly, the summary of a daughter article should make sense on its own without the reader having to navigate to the daughter article. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, I'll add it.
The added detail about first- and third-person perspectives doesn't clarify what "basic outline" refers to. Does "basic outline" mean a set of fixed visual details which lie along the edges of the screen, as one would expect in a video game HUD? Or does "basic outline" mean the same thing as "general idea"? I suspect it's the latter, in which case I would suggest rephrasing as such: "The film's cinematography borrowed ideas from video gaming, such as rapid transitions between first-person and third-person perspectives." or something similar.
Alright, shall do so.
  • "On October 20, 2011, Sinha tweeted that the post-production of the film had been completed." The completion of the post-production is certainly notable enough to be mentioned, but tweets are not. Surely there was a more substantial medium through which this was announced, yes?
If you are referring to the source, then I think I can replace it with a more reliable source. The post-production end had been announced by Twitter alone, so if you are referring to a press conference or such, you may be disappointed. If you read the section, you may have come across some examples showing severe delays and quite a bit of tension. I doubt that under such conditions, the director would have time to hold an official meeting.
Yes, please do find a more reliable source. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fine.
As of now, I am unable to find a specific source to back this (all of the articles I found seem to have been "eaten by Pacman" in their own words) so I have removed the detail entirely.
  • "To create the mold of the suit, Khan was required to enter into a small chamber wearing minimal clothing. A warm latex-like liquid was subsequently released into the chamber, reaching until his neck. The liquid was allowed to solidify, forming the mold, and was then peeled off Khan's body. The suit was joined by a concealed zipper and modified." This level of detail is not necessary. This article is about is a film, not a special effects technique.
This is not a "special effects technique" at all. In fact, till date, I have not heard of any superhero suit being made in this way. Hence the detail.
What you have or have not heard of before is not relevant, and neither is this detail. Passages like these are among the reasons why the article is so much larger than it should be. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Very sorry to say but this "unnecessary detail" is most necessary for the article. Superhero suits, being one of the most talked-about aspects of the film, need to be covered well. And I don't know what you expect from the article's size, but in case you haven't noticed yet, I have cut down the article size significantly. If your aim is to cut it to some 1000 words, I doubt that will be possible.
I appreciate your efforts to trim down the article, and they have definitely helped, but the article is still far too long at ~10,000 words. The FAC will fail if we cannot find some way to cut it down further. It is obvious that you care deeply about this film and the article you've worked to build, and while it is heartwarming to see, what you must realize is that your own feelings will make it very difficult for you to accurately judge what material is superfluous. This is exactly why I'm trying to point out passages that don't seem necessary to an uninformed reader (myself). If you don't want to take my advice, fine, but you've got to find some material to cut out. The Critical reception section would be a good place to start, as would the Post-production section. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 14:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a full-cycle game for PlayStations which was released on October 5, 2011" What is a "full-cycle game"?
Removed "full-cycle". I sometimes wonder which IP editor adds what stuff.
  • "A reported partnership deal is being finalised by the distributors, which will allow the film to be released in China with 1,000 prints" As of when? See WP:ASOF.
Added.
  • Why do all of the online sources link to archived copies? This seems completely unnecessary, and it makes the references section harder to navigate. Archived copies should only be linked to when the originals are no longer accessible.
The problem being, the article is dependent on a number of sources which can easily disappear (namely Mid-Day, Mumbai Mirror etc.) I had lost a big chunk of information when a particular reference had been lost due to link rot (though thankfully an old cached version was available) but I would not like to risk another loss. Its a unfortunate thing, but this article suffers from the problem of depending on a significant amount of information on only one reference, and hence information loss is much more possible. I hope you understand, its not convenient for me either since it makes it difficult to find repeated references, but its a precautionary measure that I would not like to lose. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 12:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reviews in the Review Score box don't seem to be listed in any order. They should either be alphabetical or in descending order of score.
You must have seen the score table after some vandal IP wrecked it completely. Its been restored to its original form.

I would like to re-emphasize that this is not a comprehensive list, but merely a sprinkling; I haven't even looked at the Critical reception section. As other reviewers have pointed out, the article desparately needs to be cut down in size. Once that's done, the prose should be given a thorough review by an uninvolved editor. Or perhaps the prose should be touched up first and then cut down. Either way, it will be a lengthy two-step process. I suggest that the author withdraw the nomination. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:41, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most problems rectified. Have a look. ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 11:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is considered a wee bit improper for a nominator to strike the comments of a reviewer; doing so makes it more difficult for the reviewer to keep track of which corrections have been checked. It is much more helpful for the nominator to leave a brief description of what change has been made, so the reviewer doesn't have to crawl through the article again to find the relevant material. Would you be so kind as to employ this convention? Even something as simple as "Done" would be sufficient for the really easy comments. Thanks! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 23:20, 12 May 2012 [7].

Mitt Romney

Nominator(s): Wasted Time R (talk) 02:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in the 2012 U.S. presidential election currently taking place. In case you're wondering if it's a good idea to promote a BLP of a high-profile, active candidate like this, there is strong precedent for it. In 2008, the Barack Obama article was FA through the campaign, and the John McCain article became FA during his time as presumptive nominee (and both remain FA to this day). Indeed, on the night of the November 4, 2008, general election, they went up together as dual featured articles on the main page. It was seen as a testament to WP's ability to present current and potentially controversial subject matter at the highest level, and it's a worthy goal to be able to do that again. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments As some initial comments, a few of the photos have somewhat stilted captions: in the photo in the 2002 Winter Olympics section he's 'speaking' rather than "offering remarks", and in the second photo he has his mouth closed and is waving, so isn't "giving an interview". In the first photo in the Political positions and public perceptions section, was he speaking to the Values Voter Summit or an event which took place prior to this? Nick-D (talk) 05:12, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your lengthy and detailed comments. Regarding the photo captions, I have adjusted all three of these. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:57, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here's my full review. As background, I'm an Australian who doesn't know all that much about Romney or US politics. As an overall assessment, the article seems quite good, though it would obviously benefit from comments from people with a greater familiarity with this topic. The length is appropriate, the subjects covered and the weight given to them seems generally OK and most of the prose is well written and neutral. The main things to watch out for are the use of buzzwords and PR-speak in some parts of the text, some minor issues with non-neutral wording and some lengthy and/or unclear sentences. My full comments are:

  • "The son of George W. Romney (the former Governor of Michigan)" - was his dad the Governor before he was born?
I've removed "former".
  • "He received his undergraduate degree" - replace 'his' with 'a' as he could have hardly received someone elses ;)
Done.
  • "Romney organized and steered" - 'steered' is a bit awkard. Can you just say 'Romney headed the Salt Lake Organizing Committee which organized the 2002 Winter Olympics' or similar?
Done.
  • "He presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated an up to $1.5 billion deficit." - why the lack of precision? The article later says that taxes went up under his administration, so 'fees' might not be the appropriate term (and one man's 'fee' is another man's 'tax', I guess)
The lack of precision is because of differing sources and differing ways of looking at the budget. Fees went up as a direct result of his administration, while local taxes went up as a side effect (but we don't want to get too heavily involved in describing this in the lead section). Taxes and fees are different because the latter directly charge those using a service, while the former tend to spread the cost out among a larger population.
  • "The results of the caucuses and primaries have placed him as the clear leader and in April 2012 the Republican National Committee declared him the presumptive nominee." - this seems a bit strong given his poor showing in the initial primaries
There have been ups and downs for him in the early months, but he's clearly the presumptive nominee now. It's hard to summarize the campaign tersely in the lead, because there were so many anti-Romney leaders who then faded.
  • Where's Bloomfield Hills? (is this a suburb of Detroit?)
Yes, and that's stated in the article body, but I don't think it's necessary in the lead.
  • "and then from seventh grade on" - the 'then' is unnecessary
Done.
  • "did not excel at academics" - should be 'did not excel academically'
Done.
  • "While a sophomore, he participated in the campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan" - what year was this?
1962, added.
  • What's the relevance of the sports Romney took part in at high school?
General biographical background. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:57, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "with the nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people proving especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol." - this sounds like a stereotype, and is going a bit beyond the topic of the article. I think that the French were still fairly religious in the 1960s.
Not according to the source used; if there are other ones relevant here, I would welcome seeing them. I'm not trying to promote a stereotype, but instead give some perspective on the task a missionary faced. If you're trying to convince a certain group of people to switch from religion A to religion B, some description of how attached they are to religion A seems in order.
  • "In Nantes, Romney was bruised defending two female missionaries against a horde of local rugby players." - was there really a "horde" (which suggests a huge number), and what do you mean by "was bruised by"? Can you just say that he got into a fight with rugby players who were aggressively trying to pick up two female missionaries, or whatever the situation was?
Now reworded to "In Nantes, Romney suffered a bruised jaw while defending two female missionaries who were being bothered by a group of local rugby players."
  • "The experience in the country also changed him. It instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose. He gained organizational experience and a record of accomplishments that he had theretofore lacked." - this reads like something from Romney's campaign material. Most people's first serious job and serious life experiences have this kind of effect on them.
Yes, but it's important to point out what those experiences are in a biography. Before this he was an underachieving student, after an overachiever; that's got to count for something. I've shortened the text to "The experience in the country instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose." See if you think that is more acceptable.
  • "He had a different social experience from most of his classmates, since he lived in a Belmont, Massachusetts, house with Ann and two children; he was non-ideological and did not involve himself in the political or social issues of the day" - this sentence is rather awkward, and seems that he was non-ideological and political because he lived in the suburbs
I've split it into two sentences at the semi-colon, so now I don't think there's any implied connection.
  • What does "heavily recruited" mean?
Changed to "was recruited by several firms".
  • "With Bain & Company, Romney learned the "Bain way", which consisted of immersing the firm in each client's business,[48][57] and not simply to issue recommendations, but to stay with the company until they were changed for the better." - this also reads like PR material
I changed the last part to "... until changes were put into place", but otherwise I don't know how else to word this. Describing the Bain way is important because it became part of his way of looking at things.
  • "With a record of helping clients such as the Monsanto Company, Outboard Marine Corporation, Burlington Industries, and Corning Incorporated, Romney became a vice president of the firm in 1978 and within a few years one of its best consultants and one sought after by clients over more senior partners." - this is a bit award - it might be best to split it into two sentences
Now restructed.
  • "Romney became a believer in Bain's methods" - did he doubt them at first? If so, why did he join the company?
I removed this – it comes back at the end of the article anyway.
  • "The idea that consultancies should not measure themselves by the thickness of their reports, or even the elegance of their writing, but rather by whether or not the report was effectively implemented was an inflection point in the history of consulting." - this sounds really dubious. Was the entire consulting industry, and their clients, up to this time really paying no attention to implementing recommendations? A more neutral source is needed for this to be retained.
I've removed it. It really belongs in a different article, and better sourced like you say.
  • "rather than the hostile takeovers practiced in other leverage buyout scenarios" - what does this mean?
Some leveraged buyouts involve hostile takeovers, but Bain Capital's didn't.
  • "Much of this profit was earned from a relatively small number of deals, with Bain Capital's overall success–to–failure ratio being about even." - yet the article only names the successful deals. What companies did Bain purchase and lose money on?
Hmm. The sources, and this article, generally discuss two kinds of deals by name – those where the company became successful and Bain Capital made a lot of money, and those where the company failed but Bain Capital still made a lot in fees anyway. The third kind, where the company went nowhere and Bain Capital lost its money, are described in aggregate in the sources but not individually. So I'm not sure there's much I can do on this one.
  • "As a result of his business career, by 2007, Romney and his wife had a net worth of between $190 and $250 million, most of it held in blind trusts" - when did he move the money into blind trusts? - presumably this was when he went into politics
Year (2003) added. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:05, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He stepped down from his position at Bain Capital, and from his church leadership role, during the run." - 'the run' is awkward - how about 'the campaign'
Done.
  • "Romney came from behind to win the Massachusetts Republican Party's nomination for U.S. Senate after buying substantial television time to get out his message and gaining overwhelming support in the state party convention" - the second half of this sentence is a bit awkward
I revised and expanded this text, with added sources from the time. See what you think.
  • "the smallest margin in Kennedy's eight re-election campaigns for the Senate." - needs a reference
It's clearly true if you look at Electoral history of Ted Kennedy, but I've never been able to find a source that says as much, so I've commented it out.
  • "she found in Park City, Utah (where the couple had built a vacation home) a mixture of mainstream, alternative, and equestrian therapies that gave her a lifestyle mostly without limitations" - this sounds like PR material for this place
I changed the wording to "... she found while living in Park City, Utah ..." to make clear that the place was only one factor.
  • "He admitted past problems, listened to local critics, and rallied Utah's citizenry with a sense of optimism" - how? "rallied Utah's citizenry with a sense of optimism" is pretty vague and PR-like.
I changed the last part to "and appealed to Utah's citizenry with a message of optimism", which is closer to what the source says.
  • Did Romney really 'ignore' people who wanted the Olympics cancelled due to security concerns? (which suggests that he either dismissed their views or paid them no attention at all). Surely he gave some consideration to this idea but decided against it if it was being put forward from notable sources. If the people calling for this weren't influential, it shouldn't be in the article.
I don't think there was ever a real chance this would happen, so I've removed it. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:50, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Material on how and why Romney decided to run for governor is needed given that this is provided for his previous high-profile jobs
It was already there at the end of the Olympics section, but I've added some text in the 2002 campaign section about why he picked Massachusetts over his other opportunities.
  • "Unexpected revenue of $1.0–1.3 billion from a previously enacted capital gains tax increase" - how could this be 'unexpected', and why the range of figures? Surely the Massachusetts Government could track what legislation was in place and later generate accurate reports on the amount of report revenue received.
Tax revenue is unpredictable in the sense that it rises and falls with general economic prosperity, and in the U.S. states often face a sudden drop in revenue as a result – this is happened a lot during the Great Recession, for example. Capital gains tax changes can be even harder to predict because they also dependent on where the stock market is. Regarding the range, let me look at that again.
  • "Romney did so from a sense of rectitude" - more PR wording
Removed.
  • "The cuts in state spending put added pressure on local property taxes; the share of town and city revenues coming from property taxes rose from 49 to 53 percent." - how did this add pressure to local property taxes? My reading is that it increased town and city government's reliance on this source of income. Did they then go onto increase the rates?
Yes in many cases. I've tried to clarify the wording on this.
  • "Romney was at the forefront of a movement to bring near-universal health insurance coverage to the state, after Staples founder Stemberg told him at the start of his term that doing so would be the best way he could help people[140][141][142] and after the federal government, due to the rules of Medicaid funding, threatened to cut $385 million in those payments to Massachusetts if the state did not reduce the number of uninsured recipients of health care services." - this is a rather long sentence. Also, is it really unusual for state governors to be "at the forefront" of major policy reforms?
I've shortened the start to "Romney sought to bring near-universal health insurance coverage ..." but I think the rest of the sentence can stand as it is.
  • "After positing that any measure adopted not raise taxes and not resemble the previous decade's failed "Hillarycare" proposal, Romney formed a team of consultants from different political backgrounds that beginning in late 2004 came up with a set of innovative proposals more ambitious than an incremental one from the Massachusetts Senate and more acceptable to him than one from the Massachusetts House of Representatives that incorporated a new payroll tax" - this sentence is also a bit too long, and is vague. The word 'innovative' in particular.
I've split the sentence in two and dropped 'innovative'.
  • "Romney dealt with a crisis of confidence in Boston's Big Dig project – that followed a fatal ceiling collapse in 2006 – by wresting control of the project from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and helping ensure it would eventually complete" - how did he help ensure this?
Not really in the source, so I've dropped that part.
  • "Midway through his term, Romney decided that he wanted to stage a full-time run for president,[161] and on December 14, 2005, Romney announced that he would not seek re-election for a second term as governor" - no need to repeat 'Romney' in the same sentence
Fixed.
  • What's a PAC?
Now expanded out.
  • "A network of former staff and supporters around the nation were eager for him to run again" - what's meant by a 'network' here? Was this an organised group?
Changed to 'informal network'.
  • "The San Diego location was also ideal for Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapies and for recovering from her late 2008 diagnosis and lumpectomy for mammary ductal carcinoma in situ" - why was it ideal? (presumably it had good health care and a pleasant climate, etc)
Clarified as "location and climate".
  • "Romney stood to possibly gain from the Republican electorate's tendency to nominate candidates who had previously run for president and appeared to be "next in line" to be chosen.[214][238][241][242][243][244]" - does this simple sentence really need six references? The "stood to possibly gain" part is rather passive.
Now down to three cites, and 'possibly' removed.
  • "Perhaps his greatest hurdle in gaining the Republican nomination was party opposition to the Massachusetts health care reform law that he had signed five years earlier." - the article says that he did much more than just sign this
Changed 'signed' to 'shepherded'.
  • " Michele Bachmann staged a brief surge, then by September 2011, Romney's chief rival in polls was a recent entrant, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and the two exchanged sharp criticisms of each other during a series of debates among the Republican candidates" - this is a bit unclear
Split into two sentences and clarified, with cite added.
  • "Perry faded due to poor performances in those debates, while Herman Cain staged a long-shot surge until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed him." - references needed
Now added.
  • "Romney decidedly won the New Hampshire primary" - do you mean 'decisively' rather than 'decidedly'?
I'm not sure what I was going for, but switched to 'decisively'.
  • "Romney's admitted bad week" - is 'admitted' needed here?
Yes, to show that Romney conceded it was one of his worst stretches during the campaign. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He followed national politics avidly in college,[31] and the circumstances of his father's presidential campaign loss would grate on him for decades" - the article generally presents him as being disinterested in politics as a young adult, and says that he had no interest in politics while he was studying at Harvard
Hmm, good catch. I've changed it to "He had kept track of national politics while in college", meaning he followed what his father was doing, but was not directly involved in campus political issues.
  • "Romney again generally operated in the mold established by Weld and followed by Weld's two other Republican successors, Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift: restrain spending and taxing" - the article says that taxes went up while he was governor, so this doesn't seem accurate
Romney didn't raise state taxes, which is what is at issue here.
  • "He also displayed aggressiveness on foreign policy matters such as wanting to double the number of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp" - 'aggressiveness' is rather non-neutral in this context
The source says "blustery", this seems less pejorative than that.
  • "The hostile attention it held among Republicans" - this wording is a bit awkward and unclear
Changed to "The antipathy Republicans felt for it ..."
  • "Romney believes the Bain approach is not only effective in the business realm but also in running for office and, once there, in solving political conundrums such as proper Pentagon spending levels and the future of Social Security." - has he explained what this means? It's rather unclear here. As a president, would he really go through spreadsheets himself?
Well, this is what he's said. Like all positions, we won't know for real unless he wins.
  • "In 2006, he received the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award, the highest recognition given by the U.S. Government to employers for their support of their employees who serve in the National Guard and Reserve, on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." - is this really an award given to him as a person? It seems that he was presented with it as the head of the state government on behalf of the government.
Good point – another editor moved this down to the Awards section but I've now gone back to the previous state – no text, and photo and cite are in Governorship section.
  • The number and extent of notes at the end of the article seems excessive, especially for the subjects which have dedicated sub-articles. I haven't read through these, and I suspect that few people ever will. The FAs on Obama and McCain don't have any notes.
    • I tend to like the notes, but then again, I use a lot of notes in my articles too. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the Notes are valuable in that they allow for some extra detail without derailing the flow of the main text. And most of them are in sections that don't have dedicated subarticles. Whether readers look at them or not is up to them, just as it is for everything else in the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:30, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm not suggesting removing all the notes (I normally include a few in articles I develop to FA level); I just think that the current number here is excessive. Nick-D (talk) 06:44, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is File:Bain Capital logo.png really public domain? One of its tags at Commons says its PD while the other says it may be trademarked. Nick-D (talk) 10:31, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the two things are independent in this context? I'll let the FAC image experts rule on it when they appear. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]



  • Comments: Will try to do a full review soon, I copyedited this article a bit over the winter, so I'm fairly familiar with it. And, for once, I actually do know a bit about the subject of the article.
Thanks very much for your comments (again).
  • Watch for consistency with locations in the references, I see "Deseret News (Salt Lake City)." as ref 332, but just "Deseret News" for a few other refs.
I've added SLC for the places where it's a main cite, but not for the places where it's an alternate link for Boston Globe paywall articles, because that seems like overkill.
Ok, as long as no one else objects that's ok with me. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It could be because I was just reading about her, but it might be nice to note that his mother was an actress turned homemaker in the sentence that you mention his father's occupation.
Done.
  • "He became president of, and an innovative fundraiser for, the all-male Cougar Club and showed a new-found discipline in his studies." What did the Cougar Club do? Also, I'm not sure about the easter egg link to Booster club here.
Restructured to give booster club link separately as an in-text explanation.
  • "and was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top five percent of his business school class." Should "top five" be hyphenated?
I don't think so. I did a Google Books search of "top ten percent" and didn't see any publishers hyphenating it.
Ok, fine with me. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a few instances of refs out of numerical order "French people proving especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol.[15][31][9][29]" I'll try to pick a few off as I go through.
Okay thanks, but there may be more of those generated as text is moved around due to comments here. Hopefully the bot that fixes these is still running.
Yes, now added. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:59, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixes thus far look good to me. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the first paragraph of "Management consulting" you start three consecutive sentences with "Romney", I suggest rephrasing at least one.
I replaced the latter two with "He".
  • "Romney later said that the years spent as pastor gave him direct exposure to people struggling in economically difficult circumstances different from his own affluent upbringing, and empathy for those going through problematic family situations." This sentence reads a bit wordy to me (mainly the "people struggling in economically difficult circumstances different from his own affluent upbringing" part). Mark Arsten (talk) 03:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the "different from his own affluent upbringing" part, since it's pretty much implicit given that we're mentioning this at all. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:08, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, have been a bit busy/distracted this week, hope to finish my review soon.
  • "The Romneys sold their main home in Belmont and their ski house in Utah, leaving them an estate along Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, and an oceanfront home in the La Jolla district of San Diego, California, which they had bought the year before." When did they sell their Belmont home?
In 2009, now added. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:25, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Both locations were near some of the Romneys' grandchildren" I see what you mean here, but the previous sentence mentioned more than two locations, so you might want to make it clear.
Now clarified as part of reordering two sentences and tweaking wording.
Now modified to say "including rarely wearing a necktie". The other part was leaving a few strands of hair slightly uncombed, but this seems a bit detailed to get into ... Wasted Time R (talk) 11:25, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
lol, yeah, probably don't need to go that far.
  • The section on the Winter Olympics looks good to me, the only thing I can note is that it doesn't really say why he was chosen for the role or who was behind the selection, just that the "offer came for Romney to take over".
  • Also, you use "Romney" a lot in the last paragraph of the section. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:53, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first sentence of the "Romney sought to bring..." paragraph is pretty long, could probably be broken up.
  • " Romney formed a team of consultants from different political backgrounds" Different from Romney, or different from each other? Maybe use "diverse" here.
  • "but citing a 1913 law that barred out-of-state residents from getting married in Massachusetts if their union would be illegal in their home state, no marriage licenses were to be issued to out-of-state same-sex couples not planning to move to Massachusetts." I dimly recall that some town clerks may not have followed this order, if this was the case it might be good to note. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Romney rebounded to win the January 15 Michigan primary over McCain by a solid margin, capitalizing on his childhood ties to the state and his vow to bring back lost automotive industry jobs which was seen by several commentators as unrealistic." Might want to break this sentence up a bit.
  • 2008 campaign section looks pretty good, the only thing I feel might be left out is how Huckabee and Romney split the religious right vote to some extent, preventing either of them from mounting an effective challenge to McCain.
  • I see there's a reference to an "Ask Mitt Anything" session in a caption, is that significant enough to get a mention in the article?
  • In the fourth paragraph of "Political positions and public perceptions" there are a few sentences in a row that start with "He...", is there a good way to avoid this.
  • I made some tweaks to the political positions section, might want to double check my work there.
  • Alright, finished my read through, article is looking pretty good. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:32, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the "2012 presidential campaign" you mention that the Mass health care law was a hurdle, but you might want to explain why that was such a big deal. (i.e. the party had launched a full-scale attack on Obama's similar plan). Mark Arsten (talk) 17:59, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]



  • General Comments ~ 1) Numerous, if not most of the cites to online sources lack accessdates, 2) Per WP:ISBN, "Use 13-digit ISBNs, if available, as these are now standard as of January 1, 2007 and issued to new book", some of your refs use 10-digit, other 13, this should be made consistant throughout 3) Several statements are supported by four cites, WP:CITEBUNDLE suggests grouping these into one for ease of reading (see also Wikipedia:Citation overkill. 4) Consider using a harv or sfn tmeplate to clean up your sourcing for works cited to numerous times.
  • Specific comments on sourcing ~ Currently these need to be fixed, (isbn, publisher, location, date), or linked to the source in the bibliography via a harv or sfn template or something like that.
  • Cites #4, 19, 32 are to "Mahoney, The Story of George Romney, pp. 52, 70." * Cites #12, 53, 94, 104, 124, 127 is to "Kranish; Helman, The Real Romney, pp. 14–15." Ditto.
  • Cites #33, 45, 56, 72 are to "Hewitt, A Mormon in the White House?, p. 82." Ditto.
  • Cites #84, 90, 98, 101 are to "Hersh, The Shadow President, p. 123." Ditto.
  • Cites #90, 95 are to "Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy, p. 549." Ditto.
  • Cites #117, 129, 131, 160, 166 are to "Barone and Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2004, p. 772." Ditto.
  • Cite #26 is to "newsmax.com", is this a WP:RS?
  • Cite #133 is to "factcheck.org", ditto.
  • Cite #155 is to "findlaw.com", ditto

I'll go over the rest of the sources later, but that's enough for now. — GabeMc (talk) 22:48, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the comments.
  • Regarding book cites, I'm using the original "last name, main title" short form footnotes inline, with the full book citation details in the Bibliography, as described in WP:CITESHORT. I and other editors have used that on many FA and GA articles over the years. I realize that some people use harv or sfn, but personally I think it's an example of overlinking – after you've clicked through once to see the full cite, why would you click through on any of the following footnotes to the same book? It's easy to find the full cite from the short form just by looking through the bibliography, and on a lengthy article like this I think the added templates, and thus added load time, of harv/sfn is not worth it.
Its incorrect to claim that sfn would increase the length and load time of the article, in fact, the opposite is true. Currently Hewitt is included in the refs list as * {{Cite book| title=A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every American Should Know About Mitt Romney | first=Hugh | last=Hewitt | authorlink=Hugh Hewitt | publisher=[[Regnery Publishing]] | location=Washington | year= 2007 | isbn=1-59698-502-X}}, all you would need to do is add, |ref=harv to the template. Further, your cites to Hewitt currently require, <ref>Hewitt, ''A Mormon in the White House?'', p. 51.</ref>, 59 bytes (109 if you used the full title, as I think you should) and they render as "Hewitt, A Mormon in the White House?, p. 51.", 44 bytes (100 with full title). If you used sfn, the code would require this, {{sfn|Hewitt|2007|p=51}}, for 24 bytes, and would render this "Hewitt, 2007 p.51.", for 18 bytes. So really, sfn would reduce the overall article size, and load time, while making it easier for readers to quickly identify sources. — GabeMc (talk) 00:47, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that the template processing takes longer in and of itself and that the resultant HTML is more complex since there's an additional internal link. Can I prove this drives up the overall load time? No, that's kind of a black art. But in any case, I think what kind of short form citation style to use is one of those things that is in the discretion of the main editor/nominator, and in this case I choose not to use harv or sfn. I've gotten articles to GA and FA using the basic form. Other editors can go the other way and I wouldn't object to it on their GANs/FACs. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding accessdates, the recent trend has been to do away with them – I've even seen some bots that comment them out. They just add visual clutter to the references and make it easier for the reader to get confused about when the story was published. Per WP:CITEHOW, it's only necessary now to include retrieval dates if there is no publication date, and I follow that in this article.
I strongly disagree on accessdates, they provide spot-checkers with important info, also, I don't think readers are confused by dates versus accessdates. — GabeMc (talk) 03:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is another thing that falls into the discretion category. I've gotten a bunch of articles to GA or FA with minimal use of them, and passed GA articles that use them throughout. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding ISBN, I agree they should be consistent, will do.
They are all now ISBN-13. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:20, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding more than three cites, cite bundling doesn't work for me because typically my cites are used in multiple places, but Nick-D had a similar comment and I'll try to get them all down to three.
Well, I do suggest removing as many redundant or unhelpful cites as possible, because as it stands now, its very difficult to discern which cite sources which clause in any given sentence, and its way past the point of WP:OVERCITE. — GabeMc (talk) 03:36, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have now gone through the article and gotten all the four or more cite clusters down to three. There are only two exceptions, the 'why the French wouldn't convert to Mormonism' explanation and the 'Romney looks like president' description, which I kept at four because experience has shown those are the two statements that readers most want to see sourcing for. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:46, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
One or two high quality source can do the work of four low quality ones. The issue here is more of, if you have three independant clauses in your sentence, and four cites, then it take a reader/editor/fact checker much longer is some cases to verify that the sentence is backed by reliable sourcing. Three cites can also be confusing to readers, especially when a statement is straight forward. — GabeMc (talk) 01:28, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have a concern about the following sentence:
  • It seems that the parenthetical clause "based upon the beneficial rate accorded investment..." is alluding to the fact that the relatively low tax rate Romney paid generated some controversy in light of the ongoing discussion about taxes (c.f. the Buffett Rule). At the very least, we should include his effective tax rate as a percentage (the Washington Post gives it at 13.9%[8], since percentages are generally what people use when discussing tax rates. We should probably also explain exactly what "the beneficial rate" means: that it is 15% for investments versus 35% for "ordinary" income at the top bracket. We might discuss the context here - that this was seen by some critics as an example of a general problem where the very wealthy end up paying a lower tax rate than some upper middle-class people, but I don't want to give undue weight to the issue. GabrielF (talk) 00:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with GabrielF, also, after a quick look at the sources I can find no mention of "the beneficial rate accorded investment income", its called capital gains, we should call it that here. To omit his 13.9% effective rate is misleading. — GabeMc (talk) 01:08, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the sources you cite (Reuters, Wash Post) use figures for two years, here you have divided the figures to apply to a yearly average which is original research. You should report it as the sources say, not estimate and average. — GabeMc (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have decided to simplify this by only giving the 2010 numbers. The 2011 numbers so far are still only estimates (Romney got an extension on his returns) and don't change the basic picture presented by the 2010 return. I have added the 13.9 percent figure. I have kept in the "beneficial rate accorded investment income by the U.S. tax code" language because it isn't just capital gains, it's dividends and carried interest too. The underlink is to the Capital gains tax in the United States article because it discusses dividends also and because I couldn't find a better article that discusses the rates for investment income. If there is one, I'll be happy to switch the link to that. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further Sourcing Comments ~ I question the reliability of the following sources used in the article: newsmeat.com, pbwiki.com, mcclatchydc.com, opensecrets.org, realclearpolitics.com, highbeem.com, mediamatters.org, and newsbank.com. These sources appear dubious to me, and some link to potential copyvios. — GabeMc (talk) 02:44, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your input Mark, what do you think about the other five I mentioned? — GabeMc (talk) 03:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Let's see, I'm not familiar with Newsmeat, there are a couple threads on WP:RSN that tend to make me think it's not a high quality RS. I think PBwiki is probably unrelaible too. OpenSecrets is run by the Center for Responsive Politics and I think it is reliable (not 100% sure). RealClearPolitics would depend on its use, I think it is trusted for polling data, but they host op-eds and columns that aren't necessarily reliable. MediaMatters is a highly partisan source, so I'd be very careful about citing them. I'd tend to accept them for some non-controversial facts (not 100% sure though). This is my basic appraisal of these sources, not the final word though. Mark Arsten (talk) 03:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Newsmeat and pbwiki only appear in the External links section, where they aren't intended to be RS per se, just places for extra information (Campaign contributions, press releases). But I've removed them. Opensecrets was used once as a cite, but I've removed that as redundant. The other use is in a common template that this article has no control over. RealClearPolitics is used once for a primaries vote total, the thing they are best at, and another time that I've removed as redundant. MediaMatters is used only once to collect some media opinions about Romney looking like a president, they are reliable for that kind of collection (there's no opinion mongering in this particular story). Wasted Time R (talk) 03:55, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

* Suggestion - You should add, Believe in America: Mitt Romney's Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth to his writings. — GabeMc (talk) 10:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's credited to "Romney for President, Inc." as the author. The only thing he's credited for is a five-page "Introduction: Letter from Mitt Romney". So I don't think it qualifies as one of his writings. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: When I saw the extent of comment quickly generated by this nomination, my first thought was that the nomination was maybe premature and that the article was still under development. The article became a GA over a year ago, and its only formal peer review was six years back since when it has changed out of all recognition. My feelings about the unreadiness of the article for FAC were somewhat confirmed when I took one section at random ("2012 presidential campaign"), and found the following:-

  • Several instances of unnecessary multiple citation strings for simple statements
You're the third commenter to raise this, and yes my style is to pile on citations, especially in an article like this where even the mildest statements get challenged. But I will make a pass through and try to reduce these.
  • A non-encyclopedic speculative statement: "Perhaps his greatest hurdle in gaining the Republican nomination..." etc
This is just shorthand for "One of his hurdles in gaining the Republican nomination that observers though most serious was ..." I don't see it as non-encyclopedic, and clearly from the battering that he took over Romneycare in some of the debates, it was a hurdle.
  • An uncited statement related to the "derailing" of Herman Cain (I see refs have been added here)
Already fixed, as you saw. I think there were only one or two uncited statements in the whole article.
  • "flip-flopping" is a hyphenated term (I have never seen it otherwise)
Now fixed.
  • Over-repetition of the term "surge" or "surging". The language needs to be varied if it is to meet the excellent prose criterion
You're right, it was used way too much, my bad. Now fixed with varied wordings.
  • "decidedly" should probabaly be "decisively"
Someone earlier said that, but I looked it up, and "decidedly" is correct here: decided — "Without doubt or question; definite; a decided success. —decidedly adv. The problem with "decisively" is that it implies it ended the nomination contest, which it didn't.
  • "However, during two debates, Romney fumbled questions about releasing his income tax returns, while Gingrich surged with audience-rousing attacks on the debate moderators." Gingrich "surged" during a debate? And surely, it is support levels, rather than candidates, that surge?
Now changed to "Gingrich gained support with ...".
  • Clunking prose: "Combined with the delayed loss in Iowa, Romney's admitted bad week resulted in a previous double-digit lead in polls – and chance to end the race early – turning into a 13-point loss to Gingrich in the January 21 primary and a decision afterward to release his returns quickly". Needs substantial rephrasing.
Now split into two sentences and restructured. See what you think. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These points are not particularly significant individually, but collectively they tend to confirm the impression of an article still in the drafting stages. I can understand the desire to have this article promoted as soon as possible, but I don't think it shou;ld be done this way. FAC should not be a forum for article building. Brianboulton (talk) 15:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your comments. Just to address your general point, the article had a troubled history back in 2007–2008 during Romney's first campaign. Staring in March 2010, it was almost completely rewritten and significantly expanded. In March 2011, it became GA. And now it's at FAC. As the main author since the rewrite/expansion began, I do indeed think the article is "done" (modulo expected campaign developments such as the convention and veep pick) and not still under development. And note that very few of the comments so far have addressed structural or content issues; it's almost all been wording improvements and clarifications and referencing fine points. Yes, some of these I should have spotted myself, but as you know after you look at an article a zillion times, you start missing things other people readily see. But I respect your point of view as well on this. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:47, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment ~ As it stands now, the article's load time is ridiculous, and not conducive to editor involvement, making very small improvements takes way too much time. Please find a way to decrease load time. Also, WP:OVERCITE is an issue for me, as it stands now, there are way too many cites and verifiability is actually decreased. I would consider opposing based on the cite overkill alone. — GabeMc (talk) 02:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have the impression that the load time is worst for us editors, because we're looking at it right around the time we or other editors are making changes and the caches have all been invalidated at that point. For regular readers just arriving at the article at any random time, I think it's better. Regarding reducing load time, I've never been completely sure what it's a function of. I've heard number of images, number of templates, complexity of templates, double columns in footnotes, etc. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the commas, I think there are three different usages here. "In June 2009, a whole family gathered for the reunion" needs a comma due to separation of dependent from independent clauses. "Her daughter may return in June 2009 for the reunion" is a different sentence structure that doesn't involve separate clauses and doesn't need a comma. "Her daughter may return on June 3, 2009, for the reunion" does need a second comma due to the style guidelines for month day year dates. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:OVERCITE ~ Here are a few other relatively simple sentences that do not seem to require multiple citations to source. — GabeMc (talk) 22:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Romney is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry.[4][5][6]"
  • "Romney idolized his father, read automotive trade magazines, kept abreast of automotive developments, and aspired to be an executive in the industry.[13][15][16]"
  • "Initially a manager for the ice hockey team and a member of the pep squad and various school clubs,[1][18][20] during his final year at Cranbook, Romney joined the cross country running team[12] and improved academically, but was still not a star pupil.[13][19]" Does this sentence really need six cites?
  • "He was promoted to zone leader in Bordeaux in early 1968, then in the spring of that year became assistant to the mission president in Paris, the highest position for a missionary.[28][9][32]"
  • "The experience in the country instilled in him a belief that life is fragile and that he needed seriousness of purpose.[13][31][9]"
  • "The couple were married on March 21, 1969, in a civil ceremony at Ann's family's home in Bloomfield Hills that was presided over by a church elder.[40][41][42]"
  • "At culturally conservative BYU, Romney continued to be separated from much of the upheaval of the era, and did not join in those protests that did occur against the war or the LDS Church's policy at the time of denying full membership to blacks.[16][28][37]"
  • "The Romneys' first son, Tagg, was born in 1970[40] while the Romneys were undergraduates at Brigham Young[46] and living in a basement apartment.[28][37]" Does this really need four cites?
  • "Romney initially refrained from accepting the offer, and Bain re-arranged the terms in a complicated partnership structure so that there was no financial or professional risk to Romney.[48][57][60]"
  • "In the face of skepticism from potential investors, Bain and Romney spent a year raising the $37 million in funds needed to start the new operation, which had fewer than ten employees.[52][57][61]" — GabeMc (talk) 22:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In many of these of these cases, the contents of a sentence does indeed come from multiple sources. One might supply the date, another might give the main substance, and a third might support another aspect of it. It has nothing to do with how simple the sentence might appear or how non-controversial the material might be. If there is a fact presented, people want a cite for it, especially at the GA/FA level. Look for example at this review, where both you and another editor wanted a cite for "Perry faded due to poor performances in those debates, while Herman Cain staged a long-shot surge until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed him." Now anybody who was awake at all during the campaign last year knows this to be true. Yet you both wanted this sentence cited, and because I couldn't find a single source that said both things, I had to add two additional cites to the article. And so it goes.
In a few cases, the multiple sourcing is done to additionally confirm something that might be contentious or disbelieved or challenged. In your list, the "The experience in the country ..." and "At culturally conservative BYU ..." and "Romney initially refrained from accepting the offer ..." statements would fall into this category. In fact as a general rule in these political BLPs, which I've done a bunch of, I won't put in anything contentious unless I can double cite it.
Finally, I'd ask, what is the problem here? Most readers of WP probably end up visually ignoring the footnotes when they are reading an article, just like you visually ignore ads when you reading a magazine page. And if you can ignore one, you can ignore two or three. For those who are interested in verifying the sources, if you think a statement is verified after just checking one of its footnotes, fine, you can skip the rest. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
1) I'm not against multiple cites for multiple clauses, but if you are going to use them, they should be clear and understandable. Look at WP:CITEBUNDLE. For example, from the article: "Romney is of primarily English descent, and also has more distant Scottish and German ancestry."[4][5][6] This should appear as [4], and it should render as: 4 ^ For Romney's English ancestry, see [4]. For Romney's German ancestry, see [5]. For Romney's Scottish ancestry, see [6]. This would be much cleaner and easier to understand. 2) When did I ask for additional citations? I think you have me mixed up with someone else. 3) Why do you need to double cite CBS, CNN, or Politico? If you have one reliable source that verifies the text that is enough, there is no need whatsoever to have three RSs for one claim. A triple cite here and there is fine, but they should be bundled and made clearer to the reader which cites verify which clauses, as WP:CITEBUNDLE explains. 4) I know FAC can be frustrating, but try not to bite the heads off commentors, we are just trying to help. Afterall, we could just support or oppose without offering any suggestions at all, so try to appreciate the time that goes into offering suggestions, and checking the article so as to help you pass FAC. — GabeMc (talk) 22:09, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, Nick-D and Brianboulton were the two editors who asked for the Perry/Cain cite, I should have double-checked, my bad. As for the FAC process, I don't think I've bitten anyone (and I certainly haven't intended to), and no, I don't find this process frustrating. As for the bundled cite approach, I agree that it can work for some articles, but I don't think it's a good fit for this one. The key sources here are all used multiple times, which means per the example in WP:CITEBUNDLE that there could be ten different clonings of "Brown, Rebecca. 'Size of the Moon,' Scientific American, 51(78):46." with url's and everything. That would make cite maintenance (after a checklinks run, say) a real nightmare. Also, all the added explanatory text in the footnotes would drive the article size and load time further up. Again, I think this is one of those 'architectural' decisions that some editors will do one way and some another way. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment ~ Based on recent activity at the article's talk page, I cannot help wonder if this article is stable per Featured article criteria 1(e), considering many of the discussion comments there are not in response to the FAC process here. — GabeMc (talk) 22:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are no edit wars, and the article has not changed significantly. This brouhaha is good for one--two news cycles at best. Noone cares what Mitt did in high school. This is just an example of the mainstream media doing everything it can to avoid talking about the economy. Let's get back to work on this FAC. – Lionel (talk) 02:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A flurry of activity when something like the bullying story comes out is inevitable for an article like this, and to me does not indicate instability, unless it's still in churn a couple of weeks later when the dust should have settled. (I disagree with Lionelt's assessment, but that's being discussed on the article talk page.) The other instability has been with the top image, largely because none of the existing possibilities is a good choice. Other than that, the article has been very stable. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:23, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

  • "He received an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University" ~ In what?
  • "His wealth helped fund most of his future political campaigns." Too vague.
  • "Active in his church, he served as ward bishop and later stake president in his area." Does Romney own a church? Why not mention LDS here, if you are already mentioning his religious involvement?
  • "losing to long-time incumbent Ted Kennedy." I believe Ted was a five term senator in 1994, so "five-term incumbent" may sound better, and be more informative than "long-time incumbent".
  • "Romney headed the Salt Lake Organizing Committee" I think "president and CEO" is better than "headed".
  • "He presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated an up to $1.5 billion deficit." "an up to" is awkward here, how about "an estimated"?
  • "During the course of his political career, his positions or rhetorical emphasis have shifted more towards American conservatism in several areas." Vague, what does "rhetorical emphasis" mean? What's "American conservatism"? Euphemisms? If so for what? If his politics have shifted toward conservatism, then one may assume his politics were once non-conservative, please clarify this, was he middle of the road, liberal, or other?
  • "In June 2011, he announced that he would seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination." Maybe this is a better example of the comma misuse in the article.
  • "The results of the caucuses and primaries have placed him as the clear leader and in April 2012 the Republican National Committee declared him the presumptive nominee." I think "indicated him" would be better here than "placed him", results indicate trends, they don't place people. — GabeMc (talk) 04:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's comments

  • This is turning into a complex peer review. Clearly, many problems still remain and these should be discussed (and fixed) on the article's discussion page. FAC is not the place for extensive article improvement. I suggest sorting out these issues off-piste and renominating when a consensus for FA readiness is agreed on the talk page. Graham Colm (talk) 23:18, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 10:13, 12 May 2012 [9].

Oxford United F.C.

Nominator(s): Eddie6705 (talk) 18:06, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it has gone through many changes since both of the previous failed nominations some two and a half years ago. Has just been taken to Peer Review (although with very little response), so hopefully there should not be any major issues with the article. Any questions please drop a message on my talk page. Eddie6705 (talk) 18:06, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source comments –

Bottom bit of para 1 of First Division and cup success section needs inline citations.
Lower part of para 2 in Financial problems section needs inline citations.
There are some other uncited sentences at the end of paragraphs.
Casliber, i have added citations to the areas highlghted and another section where i thought it was needed.Eddie6705 (talk) 12:11, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good - the other thing I am concerned about is having books in Further reading sections, which leaves me wondering if they are important enough to list there then should they be used as references. I have The Soccer Tribe - was there something pertinent to Oxford you wanted in that I can look up...actually jogging my memory there is some stuff on songs IIRC.....Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If there is anything in the book about kits or the history of the kits then that would be great. Apart from that nothing else springs to mind. Unfortunately i dont have a copy of any of the books listed in further reading, so i wouldn't be able to reference from any of them. Eddie6705 (talk) 11:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Charts are a bit hard to read at present size
    • Increased size by 100px.
  • Wilder image sandwiches with following
    • Moved up a section
  • Why is Ox capitalized in caption? It isn't in article text
    • I think is used to be in a previous version, made lowercase
  • Seems obvious, but our archaic image rules require that you explicitly state who holds copyright to File:Oxford_United_FC.svg at the image description page
    • Added
  • Source for data in File:Oxford_United_League_Positions.jpg?
    • Added
  • File:Chris_Wilder.png needs a source. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed description so the source is now visible.
I will deal with these issues on Monday when I can get to a computer (currently typing via my phone). Eddie6705 (talk) 17:46, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Changes have now been made. Eddie6705 (talk) 16:05, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - I made a few minor technical changes, a couple of other things:

  • Don't mix date formats in the refs.
    • Added brackets around the actual dates.
  • Avoid the "double full stop" you get when you have "Oxford United F.C.." in a ref...
    • Removed second full stop.
  • BBC, BBC News, BBC Sport, linked, unlinked, italicised or not? Be consistent in refs.
    • Done.
  • Check refs for en-dash, some titles have hyphens where en-dashes should be used per WP:DASH.
    • Checked and changed.
  • You have many refs. For those where you have a general ref and you then go on to ref a single page, instead of "Brodetsky, Martin. Oxford United: The Complete Record, p.83" you could have "Brodetsky p.83". As long as there's no ambiguity (i.e. one author has written more than one book you reference) then that reference style should cut down a lot of the text in the refs.
    • Followed advice.

The Rambling Man (talk) 17:29, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All changes made. Eddie6705 (talk) 17:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 09:29, 12 May 2012 [10].

History of Evansville, Indiana

Nominator(s): YHoshua (talk) 13:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it meets all of the featured article criteria and would be a nice addition in the FA portfolio. YHoshua (talk) 13:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • There are a number of issues here, for example, several uncited paragraphs and a very short lead. I'm not sure that a featured article nomination is the right step here. I'd suggest withdrawing and going for good article or a peer review first. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I concur with Mark Arsten. As well as the referencing issue, there are smaller MOS problems which would hopefully be ironed out at GAC or peer review; for instance, the unecessarily capitalised section titles (also, avoid in/definite articles) and unitalicised publications names (Courier, for instance). J Milburn (talk) 16:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose early nomination. It's not ready yet. I concur with the above.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Nikkimaria 20:15, 7 May 2012 [11].

Iraq War in Anbar Province

Nominator(s): Palm_Dogg (talk) 13:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have been working on this article on and off for the past two years. It has been Peer Reviewed and achieved GA Status. I believe I have addressed, or made good faith attempts to address, all concerns about it so far. The biggest problem I can see is that I believe its length has dissuaded a lot of editors from taking a hard look at it, so don't hold back! :) Palm_Dogg (talk) 13:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • In the into "...secure the Western Euphrates River" - is the Western Euphrates a separate river (in which case it should be wikilinked as such), if not then it should be "western Euphrates".
  • "stability and advisory role" - these two don't go well together.Stability is a noun, while advisory is an adjective. Perhaps "stabilizing and advisory" or something better.
  • In "Background" western-most; surely this should be westernmost.
  • The terrain outside of the Euphrates area is overwhelmingly desert. - which desert does this belong to?
  • In "Invasion of Iraq" - the first Coalition Forces; I think it should be either Coalition forces or coalition forces, depending on whether the coalition is capitalised throughout or not. In any case the capital "F" looks out of place.
  • In "Summer of 2003" - Major Matthew Schram became the first American killed in Anbar Province since the invasion - I think after the invasion or following the invasion would read better.
  • In "Fall of 2003" - I ran "shootdown" through a couple of online dictionaries without success - but the Oxford dictionary returned a hyphenated "shoot-down". I'm a Brit, so I wouldn't know if "shootdown" is accepted US usage, but the online dictionaries would suggest not.
  • More to follow, from 2004 onwards, but generally looks very good so far. Simon Burchell (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "First Battle of Fallujah" you have both "cease-fire" and "cease fire" - all instances should be checked and changed to "ceasefire".
  • In "Insurgency in 2004": the insurgency was still viewed by Iraqi as legitimate - something not quite right there. "Iraqis"? "many Iraqis"?
  • The insurgents would never conveniently massed before the overwhelming firepower of the US for the rest of the Anbar campaign. Again, something wrong here; this needs to be rephrased.
  • The official Marine Corps history claims that the battle was not decisive, because most of the insurgent leadership and non-local insurgents had managed to flee before the battle - try to rephrase this so as not to use "battle" twice in the same sentence. I would suggest "insurgents had managed to flee beforehand"
  • In "Winter of 2005": more up-armored - I don't understand what this means - does it mean "more heavily armoured", or does it mean armour mounted higher up on the vehicle? Either way it needs to be clarified.
  • In "Securing western Anbar": including Akihiko Saito. - why is he singled out for naming? A short phrase to tell us something about him would be good.
More to follow, 2006 onwards. Simon Burchell (talk) 19:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "Haditha killings": failing to properly initially report - this is somewhat clumsy and should be rephrased.
  • In "Second Battle of Ramadi": The first outpost was built in July 2006; not only did it bring former insurgent territory under American control, but the insurgents also lost many men attacking them. - seems to mix up singular and plural; is this talking about one outpost or all of them?
  • In "Awakening movement" there is a photo of Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha - the accompanying text mentions sheikh Sittar - is this the same person? If so his name is spelt wrong somewhere...
  • Check your captions throughout. Captions that are not complete sentences/paragraphs of text shouldn't end with a full stop.
  • I've gone through the captions myself, as best I can. In retrospect, perhaps I'm not the best person for that particular job (I always get caught out myself) - so apologies in advance if anyone else comes along and asks for them to be changed again... Simon Burchell (talk) 18:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "The Surge": in what became known as The Surge. - I'm not sure about the capitalisation there, it looks strange.
  • I've dropped in a couple of convert templates to give metric as well as imperial units, please check that all units of measurement have conversions throughout the article.
  • In general metric and imperial units are used indiscriminately - square miles in one place and square kilometers in another - when all conversions are in place, make sure that either imperial/metric are consistantly displayed in the same order (you can use disp=flip in the convert template to reverse the display order).
  • I've seen an instance of Haditha Triad (without inverted commas) and one of "Haditha Triad" (with inverted commas) - choose one or the other and stick with it.
  • 120 mm mortar shells and two 100-pound chlorine tanks - switching between metric and imperial in the same sentence, but I don't know anything about post-medieval ammunition terminology and don't know whether conversion templates are appropriate here, so I'll just point it out so someone who knows better than me can pick it up.
  • Try {{Template:Convert}} - I already dropped a couple in as examples, but Template:Convert has a full list of syntax.
  • In "MRAPs": The original MRAP they would design, the Cougar, was initially fielded... - the tenses seem to be all over the place here - perhaps "The original MRAP they had designed..."
  • In "Operation 'Alljah'": - They uncovered several mass graves with over 100 victims left behind by AQI - this is rather ambiguous, is that over 100 victims in each grave or over 100 victims in total. Please rephrase it to make it clearer.
  • In "America declares victory" - "21,000 Anbaris on police roles" - is that a direct quote? Otherwise in police roles. If it is a direct quote, perhaps it could use a (sic).
Enough for now. 2008 onwards to follow. Simon Burchell (talk) 22:32, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "Human rights abuses": Both sides committed human rights abuses in Anbar Province and civilians were often caught between the two sides - rephrase this to avoid using "sides" twice - maybe "...were often caught in the middle."
  • In "Insurgent abuses": found several mass graves near Lake Tharthar with over 100 victims. - same problem as another instance above; this has ambiguous phrasing. Did each grave contain over 100, or was the total of all graves over 100? Please rephrase.
  • References - Reference no.2 had a footnote that should be separated into the footnotes section. Otherwise I haven't checked the references through and will leave that for someone else.
Your previous changes look fine. On the whole the article is in good shape. I have one concern over neutrality: your {{rquote}}s are unbalanced; you have 1 quote from an Iraqi student near the beginning, in the rest of the article there are 6 quotes from US sources. I'm not asking that they be removed - I quite like them where they are, but the inclusion of more Iraqi commentary would balance the article up considerably - there must be some comments from Iraqi diplomats/spokesmen/officials/police/public that would be suitable, even oposition statements. There is a partial quote in the Drawdown section with an Iraqi saying "total destruction... you just came in, destroyed, and left."; moving this to an rquote would be a good start.
On the whole an interesting read. Well done on producing such a comprehensive article. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 19:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Thanks for the changes - it all looks good to me, bearing in mind I didn't review referencing or images. Simon Burchell (talk) 18:58, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Shouldn't generally have external links in main article
  • In order for your shortened citations to link correctly, you'll need to add |ref=harv to your bibliography entries and use the last-first rather than author format (sorry, didn't check all of them the first time)
  • FN 15 appears to be the same as one of the bibliography entries, but the title is slightly different
    It's an earlier version of "Marines in Iraq: Into the Fray". All they really did was add a bunch of pictures and maps. Have added the first to the bibliography and distinguish by year. Palm_Dogg (talk) 17:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Avoid repeating full bibliographic info in footnotes for sources that appear in the bibliography - use shortened citations consistently
  • Be consistent in whether shortened citations use author-date or title
  • Check alphabetization of bibliography

Oppose - while I recognize the massive amount of work that must have gone into this article, citations need extensive cleanup. Many are inconsistent and some are incomplete. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More on sourcing - see also a few yet unaddressed above. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:05, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Don't notate either authors or titles in all-caps
  • Check for consistency in italicization and wikilinking
  • What is Unk?
  • FN 31: linked source gives a lot more citation details than you do
  • Ranges should consistently use endashes
  • Check for titling consistency - for example, The Boston Globe or just Boston Globe? Time or Time Magazine? etc
  • Don't italicize publishers
  • FN 67: AFPS is the agency, not the work or the publisher
  • Be consistent in whether you provide retrieval dates for online newspapers
  • Check for glitches like doubled periods
  • FN 119: publisher, page?
  • FN 125: formatting
  • Why do some of your citations list archive dates as not applicable or unknown?
  • "pp." should be used for multiple pages, "p." for single
  • FN 168: April of what year?
  • Where is North County?
  • FN 269: formatting
  • FN 245: formatting
  • Be consistent in when you provide locations for newspapers, and how these are formatted
  • FN 312: issue, page?
  • FN 153: publisher?
  • Be consistent in whether agencies are spelled out or abbreviated

Update - sources mostly good. There are a few remaining with issues: FN 101, 298 vs 30, 163, 167 (needs pages), 233, 130 vs 252, 40 vs 270, 328, 330 vs 331. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

329 needs publisher and then we should be good to go as far as sourcing is concerned (although I didn't do spotchecks). Nikkimaria (talk) 03:26, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Added publisher for 329. Palm_Dogg (talk) 15:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, looks good. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:52, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. - Dank (push to talk)

  • Regarding the first sentence, WP:LEAD says: "Do not place a link within the bolded title, even if that seems to provide a graceful way to link to an appropriate context-setting topic. Bolded links look neither like bolded text nor ordinary links, and appear jarring."
  • "many in and around the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, part of an area known as the Sunni Triangle": See WP:Checklist#conciseness. "many in the Sunni Triangle around the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi"
  • "Sunni–dominated": Sunni-dominated
  • "over two more years": technically right but not usually written that way; probably better would be "through at least (date)" or "through (date)"
  • "total country's landmass": country's total land mass (usually, "landmass" is something else)
  • "Temperatures ranged": Temperatures range
  • "Statistics from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) estimated the population in 2003 at 1,230,169 ...": The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) put the population in 2003 at around 1,230,000 (unless the sources indicate that they didn't buy their own statistics). There's disagreement on whether a number with 7 significant digits should be called an "estimate"; it's probably safer either to approximate or not to call it an "estimate".
  • "95% of the population are ... 95% of the population lives ..." : Per WP:ORDINAL, Chicago, etc., either move numerals away from the front of the sentence, or write them out. And be consistent (here at least) on whether "95%" is singular or plural. Also, "lives" is present tense, so it raises questions about when this applies, since you're using past tense before and after.
  • "from the Dulaimi Tribe, making it the only province ...": See WP:Checklist#dangler. Remove "it", or move it closer to what it's referring to.
  • "conditions in Anbar were extremely favorable towards an insurgency": Would "conditions in Anbar favored an insurgency" be wrong?
Copyeditors regard "extremely" with extreme prejudice, and it's "favorable for", not "towards" ... but tighter is "favored". - Dank (push to talk) 22:32, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "may not have felt defeated.": I'm not positive what this means ... maybe that they felt that their province was still effectively autonomous? It's better to talk about conditions on the ground than feelings. (That is, "felt that" is a little informal but okay, but "felt defeated" not so much; See WP:Checklist#mindreading.)
  • Following the invasion, the general consensus in the US was that we had defeated the Sunni population and would have a free hand in remaking Iraq. However, almost all the fighting was in the Kurdish-Shia areas of the country, meaning most of the Sunni areas (including Anbar) didn't actually see any fighting; most of them didn't see any Americans until the invasion was over, so instead of a war-weary populace ready for peace, the Anbaris were actually primed for a fight. Not sure how to phrase that. Palm_Dogg (talk) 22:35, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to be more careful about how the word "insurgent" is used; I guess the answer is to follow your sources. M-W defines it: "a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially: a rebel not recognized as a belligerent". So, if you buy the idea that the US and various provisional governments were the "established government" in Anbar at every point after the fall of Baghdad, and that opposition was never organized, then of course all the rebels fighting us would have been "insurgents" ... but this article says the opposite. Alternatively, you could just say that "insurgent" as used in the Iraq War meant "anyone targeting the US or allied provisional governments" (whether organized or not, and whether we constituted the civil authority in that region or not). If truth is the first casualty of war, language is the second. - Dank (push to talk) 21:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm obviously biased in this regard. I've avoided the Orwellian-sounding "Anti-Iraqi Forces" that the US military used for most of the war, as well as "terrorists" or "rebels", and limited "AQI" only to specific actions or members of the group. Am obviously open to suggestions. Palm_Dogg (talk) 22:35, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "summer 2002": See WP:SEASON (which I disagree with btw ... just doing my job)
  • "preparing the groundwork for future resistance": Would "preparing for future resistance" be wrong?
  • Oppose Okay that's just through the first section, so there's more here than one guy can do. Maybe someone else will jump in and finish up, or maybe it would be a good idea to run this through Milhist's A-class review for some copyediting help. - Dank (push to talk) 21:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • All of the above has been dealt with except "statistics" and "felt defeated". Adding some discussion or clarification on "insurgent" was just a suggestion. - Dank (push to talk) 01:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Right, I suggest not saying "statistics" or "felt defeated". When you say "X has statistics that ...", it raises the question whether that's actually X's position, or whether they're waffling. I made a specific suggestion above; of course you're free to say it any way you like. On "felt defeated", my suggestion is not to tell us what was in their heads, because we don't know. Say something similar to the reply you gave me above. - Dank (push to talk) 13:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Made specific changes you requested. Palm_Dogg (talk) 21:47, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That works. Direct quotes need attribution in-text; I added it (to Thomas E. Ricks (journalist) ... does he go by "Thomas Ricks"?) Also ... I see Nikki is copyediting, so I may be able to finish this one up after all. - Dank (push to talk) 22:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Tom Ricks", but I fixed it. Thanks again for your help! Palm_Dogg (talk) 23:47, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sure thing. I'd like to see this one make it, I may do some research on the 82nd in Fayetteville this summer. I've put in a request for help at WT:MIL#Iraq War in Anbar Province. - Dank (push to talk) 01:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just FYI, it's been hard to attract editors dedicated to copyediting to FAC, so I'm guessing this one isn't going to make it at FAC without going through Milhist's A-class review first (but would be happy to be proved wrong). In the next subsection after I stopped, just two problems: The Pentagon -> the Pentagon (per M-W and others), and "an economy of force" -> an "economy of force" (unless the "an" is an inseparable part of the expression, which would be odd). - Dank (push to talk) 15:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Continuing. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "Human rights organizations accused the Army of "over-aggressive tactics ...": Direct quotes need attribution in the text. Also, probably it was just one human rights organization that the quoted text comes from, not "Human rights organizations".
  • "When Iraqi insurgents set off a mine, the Americans drop bombs on houses with arms caches; when insurgents fired a mortar round at American positions, the Americans would respond with heavy artillery. American forces would conduct "hard knocks" on local residents, kicking in doors and manhandling individuals, only to discover they had misidentified the target.": The verb tenses are confused here (drop?), and I can't always tell whether you're talking about one incident or a pattern of behavior. - Dank (push to talk) 03:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the Marines stopped a white Opel sedan carrying five Iraqi men and shot them,", then "In addition to the five Iraqi men killed by the sedan": were the five men by the sedan, or in it?
  • "soldiers flooded an area": with water, or metaphorically?
  • "The 1st BCT moved into some of Ramadi's most dangerous neighborhoods and built four of what would eventually become eighteen Combat Outposts. The first outpost was built in July 2006; they brought the territory under control and inflicted many casualties on the insurgents in the process.": I don't follow.
  • Original Sentence: "With insurgents fleeing the city in anticipation of a big battle, the 1st BCT instead moved into some of Ramadi's most dangerous neighborhoods and built four of what would eventually become eighteen Combat Outposts. The first outpost was built in July 2006; not only did they bring former insurgent territory under American control, but the insurgents also lost many men attacking them." Should I revert, or is that also unclear? Palm_Dogg (talk) 12:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Ramadi was viewed as a backseat to the ongoing civil war in Baghdad": What does "backseat" mean here?
  • "Multi-National Force – Iraq almost moved two of MacFarland's battalions to Baghdad": In a narrative, it's generally better to talk about what did happen or what was said, rather than what didn't happen; it's hard to assign a meaning to something that didn't happen.
  • The significance is that, even though most people credit the victory in Ramadi with turning the tide in Iraq, that was only in hindsight. At the time MacFarland was doing his clearing operations, General Cassey was trying to siphone off units from his command. The commanders in Baghdad were very slow to grasp the importance of Ramadi, and later the Awakening Movement, and only really accepted it as a fait accompli (hence the later importance of Captain Patriquin's brief). Palm_Dogg (talk) 12:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Check caption on AO image
  • What's with the strange linking for infobox flags? Some link to the entities they represent, some to image description page, and a couple not at all
  • Captions that are complete sentences should end in periods, and those that aren't shouldn't
  • Some of your alts seem to be redundant to captions
  • "How to Win in Anbar" needs to be slightly bigger to be legible, and is causing sandwiching with the following pull-quote on my (small) screen. Also, do you happen to know what kind of drug cocktail inspired that creation?
  • It's difficult to tell what the first 2007 image actually shows - any way to fix that?
  • It shows a US helicopter being struck by a missile and bursting into flames. I would honestly rather just upload the video, but don't know if it's PD. This brings up an issue I had: are insurgent pictures and videos PD? I really don't want to just be limited to US military images, but no one's been able to give me a straight answer on this one. Palm_Dogg (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check grammar on "Coalition abuses" image caption
  • Maybe add that to the image description?
  • File:Cougar_Hit_By_IED.jpg: what's the original source of this image?
  • File:NickBergandFiveMen.JPG: the tag you're using requires that you explain why the image is significant, not the event it depicts - amend the FUR to include that info.

Nikkimaria (talk) 02:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments:Reference currently #171, from arlingtoncemetary, does not appear to be an appropriately scholarly source. Does #172 cover the same ground? It should be removed or replaced, I think. Also the external links need a look to format them or otherwise tidy them up a bit. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • ArlingtonCemetary.net is the site that's hosting the article; the actual article was written by The Virginian-Pilot. 172 mentions the incident, but 171 actually gives the details. Removed "External links". Palm_Dogg (talk) 01:47, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Will defer further comments until later. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:55, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm not going to perform a full review, but would like to comment on the MRAP section. I have two large concerns with this and one smaller concern:

  • The wording is a bit confusing: in the first sentence the Marines "developed a technological breakthrough" through MRAPs. However, in the second sentence the MRAP was "designed by a small team at Force Protection Inc". In the fourth sentence we're back to the Marines designing the MRAP.
  • The above also basically credits the development of the MRAP concept (if not also the design of the actual vehicles) to the USMC. This isn't at all correct: MRAP-type vehicles had been in service for decades before this, and I think that the Rhodesian or Apartheid-era South African Defence Force were actually the first to deploy this type of vehicle back in the late 1970s.
  • It was revealed last year that a very large scale, but hugely secretive, program of deploying electronic jammers was very important to countering IEDs in Iraq. As such, the figures attributing the drop in casualties to MRAPs alone are unlikely to be accurate. I'm not sure what the availability of sources on this topic is yet; my source is Wired magazine's Danger Room blog (which is a reliable source). Nick-D (talk) 09:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Have mentioned the JIEDDO in the 2005 section on IEDs, but I found nothing that talked about Anbar Province. My sources specifically talk about the impact MRAPs had in Anbar Province. I'm not going to lie, though, I'm not a big fan of the JIEDDO program - I think it helped on the margins (especially with remote-control IEDs), but did nothing to address victim-operated or command-wire IEDs. And obviously neither program was as effective as the Awakening movement, which removed most of the trigger-men. Palm_Dogg (talk) 23:23, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments on Human rights abuses from Cryptic C62. I don't intend to do a full review, but I am quite satisfied with the neutrality, accessibility, and clarity of the material in this (potentially) contentious section. The details of my review can be found on the FAC talk page. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment First para in "Background": all four sentences each have a [7] reftag. This is a bit much. Why not one reftag after the fourth sentence. The ref is not a hard-copy book, but an ultra-accessible pdf file that can be downloaded immediately if a reader wants verification. BTW, is a military-financed document guaranteed to be neutral? Tony (talk) 12:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed "Background" paragraph. For American military-financed documents, my reflexive answer is yes: the US military is pretty big on history and finding out what happened. The main problems are 1) this is VERY recent history and 1st drafts aren't always the most accurate 2) the problem is less with what they say and more with what they don't say (i.e. screw-ups that make us look bad, material which is still considered classified), which is why I've augmented them with a lot of press reports. Was there a specific statement you had in mind? Palm_Dogg (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not a specific statement, but just the [7] ref I talked about above, which sparked a little concern when I checked it out. A host of recent films, both docos and fictionalised accounts, have reminded everyone how thin the line is between neutral facts, PR, and propaganda, and I'm afraid anglophones are just as bad as others on this count. But I've no reason to take issue with any particular ref you've used. I wanted to say that on face value, it's a really classy article on a complex, touchy topic. Congrats and well done. (Something in me wants to ask whether you're being paid, but I think the answer is no!) Tony (talk) 07:42, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's why I threw in those PBS documentaries and "Dreamland" at the bottom: they pretty-much hit the same notes. Thanks for the compliment! I'm not being paid, but I did two deployments to Anbar, so this is kind of a labor of love on my part. Palm_Dogg (talk) 16:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments, leaning toward supporting. This is very good, and has clearly been carefully researched and written. Some fit and finish is needed before it is fully ready—I will be happy to support once these items are addressed.
  • "Outside of the Euphrates area the terrain is overwhelmingly desert" I believe "desert" is an expression of climate, not of terrain.
  • I'm somewhat puzzled by the occasional use of past tense in the Background section (ex. "Ramadi, the provincial capital, was more secular"). Are you saying it's no longer secular?
  • "Military service was compulsory in Hussein's Iraq. These weapons armed the insurgents in Anbar and elsewhere." Too much of a jump in logic between these two sentences. It's not a given that weapons would be in the province because of compulsory military service. Maybe they trained and deployed elsewhere.
  • "Future AQI leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi spent part of 2002 in central Iraq" I think AQI should be defined here again and treated as first-use. Some readers skip the lead.
  • If an acronym is never used again ("3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR)"), just write it out and omit the acronym.
  • "That same month General Swannack gave a briefing on Anbar where he boasted about improved security" Consider "in which he boasted".
  • The January–March 2004 section gets a bit formulaic when three paras in a row begin with "In date,". Actually, this construction repeats with fair frequency throughout the article. Try to introduce some more variation.
  • There is inconsistent comma use after intro phrases such as the one above (ex. "On 15 March, 3rd Battalion 7th Marines operating near Al Qaim got into a firefight" but then "On 5 April the Marines began their attack")
  • You use unspaced em dashes in most places but I spotted at least one set of spaced en dashes (Invasion section). Make consistent (unless it's part of a quotation).
  • "As the campaign in Al Anbar entered its fourth year" Are "Al Anbar" and "Anbar" meant to be interchangeable? Is one more formal than the other?

--Laser brain (talk) 04:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate note -- Hi Palm Dogg, can you point to a spotcheck of sources performed on one of your FAC noms recently? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Someone needs to go through a few randomly chosen passages and check that the sources cited (assuming they're available, e.g. online) support the information in the article, and that there's no copying or close paraphrasing of the sources. This is now SOP every so often in a FAC nominator's life. If no-one volunteers in the next day or so I'll have a look myself. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:24, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • For whoever does, most of the books should be available in PDF. The ones that aren't should be viewable via Google Books. If anyone has trouble accessing them, let me know. Thanks. Palm_Dogg (talk) 01:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks of 10 sources

  • This link appears to go to the wrong place, so cannot be readily verified
  • "cornered and killed up to 70 fighters" - source says "more than 70
  • "President Bush had very publicly committed to taking Fallujah and did not want to be seen as backing down. However, Iraqi and world opposition limited his options." - source?
  • "The assault was similar to the Battle of Ramadi: insurgents attacked the Marine garrison and were repelled, and five Marines and 150 insurgents were killed" - source? This isn't covered in the source at the end of the paragraph
  • FN 182: "dynamite or gunpowder mixed with nails, and buried beside a road" in articles vs "dynamite or gunpowder mixed with nails and buried beside a road" in the source
  • "tore into the sides of vehicles" is a direct quote from the source.

Nikkimaria (talk) 16:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose after further spot-checks. Out of the first 4 I checked, I found 3 problems. Combined with Nikkimaria's finds above, these represent significant issues with the accuracy of the text and sourcing. I could not support until an independent editor performs a thorough source audit.
  • Ref 305, fails verification
  • Article text: "Three days later, on 13 September 2007, Sheikh Sattar and three of his guards were killed by a bomb planted near his house in Ramadi."
  • Source text: "Two bodyguards and another man were also killed, police said."
  • Ref 313, fails verification
  • Article text: "On 2 May, a group of insurgents crossed the Syrian border near Al Qaim, rounded up 11 policemen, and beheaded them."
  • Source text: "Abu Rishah said gunmen killed two military officers and nine policemen in Al-Qa'im before fleeing across the border into Syria." No mention of 2 May, or beheading, and numbers aren't accurate.
  • Ref 341, OK
  • Article text: "In December 2010, the 25th Infantry Division assumed responsibility for Anbar Province from the 1st Armored Division."
  • Source quotation: "[O]n 20 December 2010, as commanding general of the 25th Infantry Division, I assumed U.S. command responsibility in Anbar and Baghdad provinces for the U.S. Division-Center."
  • Refs 356–358, fail verification
  • Article text: "On 19 May 2004, 42 Iraqis were killed near Al Qaim when American planes mistakenly bombed a wedding party."
  • The three citations variously state "between 42 and 25", 42 (which is the claim of a local hospital), "up to 45 people"; I'd say there is no reliable consensus for 42. Additionally, one of your sources says it was a plane bombing, one says it was bombing and soldiers shooting, and a third says it was a helicopter. --Laser brain (talk) 15:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, I know when to throw in the towel. Obviously I need to take some time and hash out these source issues, and the FA Nom page isn't the place to do it. Reluctantly withdraw (FOR NOW!) and thanks to everyone for their help. Palm_Dogg (talk) 17:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 16:43, 7 May 2012 [12].

21st Century Breakdown

Nominator(s): Yasht101

I m nominating this as I have gone through it and feel that it is well written. I made edits and improved whenever there was a need. Though I m not an regular editor at the article, I feel that it is well written and eligible for FA Yasht101 09:17, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: No discussions prior to the nomination with regular editors, as is required by WP:FAC. No serious attempt to prepare the article for FAC against the criteria; the last formal review was a very superficial PR 18 months back. Looks premature. Brianboulton (talk) 10:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will not call it completely premature. I dont find major problems in the article and it is good for FA when compared to existing FA articles. Also recently there have been no regular editors who contributed to a thing a lot. So nominated it. But still if you feel that it is premature, should I withdraw this and come back after a good 1 or 2 weeks? Yasht101 14:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 11:03, 5 May 2012 [13].

Paul McCartney

Nominator(s): — GabeMc (talk) 02:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because this long neglected important article deserves our full attention. — GabeMc (talk) 02:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I removed the spaces around the em-dash in the lead; otherwise, I couldn't find anything to fix in the lead. Well done. - Dank (push to talk) 03:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comments: These comments relate to the first two columns of citations, though some of the points raised are more generally applicable.

  • Non-print sources, e.g. BBC, IMDB.com etc, should not be italicised. Use the publisher rather than the "work" fiels in the citation template
  • Why are citations 30 and 31 formatted differently?
  • Something wrong with citation 47?
  • Cit. 49: Surely a citation to an online source should have a link?
  • What is the format of the source in cit. 57?
  • Cit. 68 page no. missing
  • Cit. 81 links to a default page
  • Cit. 84: What makes http://www.jpgr.co.uk/p3113001.html a reliable source?
  • Cit. 86: The web address is not "mccartney.net". This looks like a tribute site rather than a high quality encyclopedic source.
  • Cit. 91: What information is being cited to theis online biography? Is this really the best biographical source for McCartney?
  • Cit. 110: Page ref?
  • Cit. 119: There is nothing in the source to indicate where this undated interview transcript has come from or to link it to the original. It's a typed transcipt - how do we know it's accurate (compare with 121 below)?
  • Cit. 122: Page ref?
  • Cit. 126: page no. missing

I will check out the others shortly. Brianboulton (talk) 15:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your sourcing comments Brian, I believe I have fixed everything you mentioned above, through cite 126, with the exception of the 1984 playboy interview cites. I have an original copy of the magazine issue on order that should arrive any day now, and I'll double-check the text, and improve the sourcing when it arrives. Thanks again, I look forward to your further suggestions when time allows. — GabeMc (talk) 01:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose from Cryptic C62. I strongly suggest that the author withdraw the nomination, as there are way too many problems in this article.

For starters, I'm disappointed to find that the lead doesn't seem to summarize the article at all, but is instead a collection of superlative trivia designed to convince the reader that McCartney is the coolest person in the universe:

  • "...most successful musician and composer in popular music history"
  • "...most influential and successful songwriting partnerships in the history of popular music"
  • "...greatest composer of the millennium"
  • "...more than any other song in the history of recorded music"
  • "...most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history"
  • "...one of the UK's wealthiest people"

Seriously, we get the point already. The lead should, ideally, contain some information from each of the main-level sections of the body; Childhood and Contact with fellow ex-Beatles are not represented in the lead.

What's worse, the body of the article itself is also riddled with single-sentence paragraphs, unsourced statements, and meaningless trivia (often all three at the same time):

  • "He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs." meaningless trivia
  • "On 2 June 2010, McCartney was honoured by Barack Obama with the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in a live show for the White House with performances by Stevie Wonder, Lang Lang and many others." single-sentence paragraph
  • "In an interview in 2004 he stated that he no longer smoked marijuana; he also admitted to taking heroin, LSD and cocaine but said his drug use was never excessive." single-sentence paragraph
  • "In 2008, he donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami." single-sentence paragraph, citation needed
  • "The day McCartney flew into the former Soviet country, he celebrated his 62nd birthday, and after the concert, according to RIA Novosti news agency, he received a phone call from a fan; then-President Vladimir Putin, who telephoned him after the concert to wish him a happy birthday." the trifecta of uselessness
  • "The minor planet 4148, discovered in 1983, was named "McCartney" in his honour." Single-sentence paragraph
  • "McCartney received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 9 February 2012, the last one of the Fab Four to receive the honor." Single-sentence paragraph, only instance of "Fab Four" in the article
  • "McCartney received the MusiCares Person of the Year honour on 10 February 2012." Single-sentence paragraph, meaningless trivia.

I also find it rather odd that Discography and Tours don't even contain summaries of the contents of the daughter articles. Perhaps this is standard practice for larger articles, but it just looks sloppy. I think that after the bushels of meaningless trivia are scooped out of this article, there will be plenty of space to put summaries in these sections (which, ironically, are among the few that the reader might actually care about).

There are also some problems with the sourcing:

  • What makes contactmusic.com (currently Ref 197) a reliable source? Also, this ref is incomplete.
  • What makes everyHit.com (currently Ref 209) a reliable source?
  • Why is the sidebar of this catalog page used as a source (currently Ref 51)? If she's notable enough to be mentioned in the article, surely she must be notable enough to be described in a non-self-promotional piece of writing somewhere, right?
  • "Sir Paul McCartney's agent was Hubert Chesshyre, LVO, Clarenceux King of Arms" Unless I'm missing something obvious, this statement is not supported by the source (currently Ref 247):

    From the outset the most important Heralds were called Kings of Arms. The rank still exists today and on our visit Hubert Chesshyre, Clarenceux King of Arms, was our guide. He explained the history and showed us archives dating back 600 years. We saw example of arms ranging from ancient knights of old to more recent ‘clients’ such as Sir Paul McCartney.

    Chesshyre was a guide for some tour, and one example that he showed the group was the coat of arms created for McCartney. This does not in any way imply that Chesshyre was McCartney's agent. Even if that were true, there would have to be a better source for it than this non-scholarly non-peer-reviewed non-authoritative newsletter for some completely obscure guild.

And I'm sure there were plenty of others that I missed. I reiterate my advice: Withdraw the nomination. The article is simply not ready. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments and suggestoins. I think I've fixed your specific concerns above. On "too much trivia", I'll trim what I can but I would like to hear others weigh-in on that issue, on, "you need summaries for "tours" and "discographies" I respectfully disagree, the info belongs there, and a redundancy is not needed in this case IMO. — GabeMc (talk) 04:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I hadn't looked at the prose when I started to review the sources. But when I read "In 1999, BBC News Online readers voted him the 'greatest composer of the millennium' I immediately thought: "Oh dear!" That kind of meaningless accolade might be worth a wry aside in the body of the article, but to parade it in the lead as though it was a considered judgement is a different matter. How did a self-selecting online poll of web page readers measure McCartney's greatness as a composer against that of every other composer who has lived in the last 1000 years, and determine that he is the tops? The statement is frankly laughable. Don't get me wrong, I think McCartney is great, but his greatness doesn't need to be puffed, in an an encyclopedia article, by this kind of absurd hyperbole. The article should focus on his achievements, rather than reflecting the over-enthusiasm of his fan clubs. Brianboulton (talk) 10:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, I trimmed that part out of the lede. — GabeMc (talk) 10:38, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, I'll go on an overlink patrol tonight, and fix the dab. — GabeMc (talk) 02:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Does, "Avoid linking the names of major geographic features and locations" include cites, towns, neighborhoods, etcetera? — GabeMc (talk) 02:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cities, towns, and neighborhoods are fine to link, countries and continents shouldn't be. Not sure about states, I've seen it both ways. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:31, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The article is fundamentally flawed in terms of WP:WEIGHT and WP:Summary style. The amount of material given to things like drugs and football is quite excessive compared to the amount of material given to his actual musical career. This is an article that goes into considerable detail about this or that FA Cup yet never mentions "Hey Jude". (Many other of McCartney's best and most famous songs are never mentioned either, including "Eleanor Rigby", "Long and Winding Road", "Live and Let Die", "Maybe I'm Amazed", etc, and others like "Let It Be" and "Band on the Run" are only mentioned in passing when describing later performances.) It talks about his LSD trips but never mentions that he was a highly inventive and influential bass player. It talks about his ups and downs with John but never describes what it was about their songwriting that was so acclaimed and important. It talks about an asteroid named after him but never mentions Beatlemania or Paul's persona as the 'cute' one during that era. His 30-year partnership with Linda is given the same space as his first girlfriend and less space than a long quote about Everton FC. To be honest this article looks like the pieces of an article left over after the important parts were shipped off to other articles. But that's not how summary style works, you still have to summarize the important parts and the summary sections still have to be in proper balance with the rest of the article. You cannot assume that readers will look at subarticles, because in fact, they won't. Last month Paul McCartney got 267,000 views while Paul McCartney's musical career got less than 2,000 (figures for other months are comparable). What kind of understanding of McCartney did the 99% of readers who didn't click the subarticle get? Not a very good one. This article has to tell the most important things about McCartney, and right now it too often tells the least important things. If you look at the George Harrison article, it while not perfect, has a considerably better weighting. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:32, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, re Wasted Time R. I agree with everything s/he said, and thought the exact same thing when looking at the article. Thank you for working on the page, it certainly is important, but some attention needs to be paid to the content and layout. Far more focus needs to be given to his musical career and importance, and far less given to other aspects of his life (I like personal life info, but this is a bit excessive). --Lobo (talk) 09:13, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I am entirely in agreement with User:Wasted Time R's posting (above) -- Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 09:19, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 19:01, 4 May 2012 [14].

Jim Carrey

Nominator(s): Samgibbs (talk) 22:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that it gives a thoroughly detailed and insightful look into the career of Jim Carrey, while maintaining the high standards similar to other featured articles. The information is frequently referenced with highly reliable sources, and is well written. The article does not go into unneccessary detail, staying completely on-topic. Moreover, the article is expanded through different media including images, giving the article a balanced structure that is extremely engaging and colourful to read. Samgibbs (talk) 22:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose for now. Someone may help with the prose, but if not, it's not ready. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "he has been described as one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.": He hasn't gotten attention for having a label, he's gotten attention for his work.
  • "with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; which soon followed with its sequel ...": sentence fragment, and it didn't follow itself with its own sequel
  • The release years for Dumb and Dumber and The Mask are ambiguous.
  • "in highly popular productions The Cable Guy (1996), and Liar Liar (1997)": in the highly ..., and no comma
  • "in which he earned": for which he earned
  • "soon after" and "then" are a little redundant; you'd be better off without them.
  • That's just in the first two paragraphs, so I'm gonna stop there. - Dank (push to talk) 00:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • P.S. I prefer this version of the lead from about 5 days ago, before this nom started working on the article. - Dank (push to talk) 02:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: By no means a bad article, but the prose is certainly rough in places (see above comments), and the lead needs to be more than a roll-call of Carrey's films and awards. As far as I can see this article has never been subject to formal review. It has been compiled by hundreds of different editors (3000+ edits with no single editor contributing more than 90), and looks to me to need some careful shepherding through the review processes before it is ready for FAC nomination. I suggest that peer review is an appropriate route here, and should it be nominated there I will be happy to take on the review and help prepare the article for an FAC resubmission. Brianboulton (talk) 10:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Lots of problems.

  • "Unfortunately, Carrey's impersonations bombed..." and "In 1984, Carrey was soon cast, surprisingly, as the lead..." are just two examples of the highly unencyclopedic language throughout the article.
  • Whosdatedwho.com, currently Ref 45, is not a reliable source.
  • Twitter, currently ref 50... there is literally no circumstance under which a tweet should be used in favor of something more substantial.
  • The fourth paragraph of Early life contains no inline citations
  • The third paragraph of Continued success also contains unsourced statements
  • There is a one-sentence paragraph in the lead, and another at the end of Continued success.
  • Worse, Citizenship contains a single sentence in its entirety.
  • Inconsistent usage of hyphens and endashes in the Filmography table.

I agree with Brian: The nominator should have made an effort to obtain feedback on the article before coming to FAC. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ian Rose 23:37, 1 May 2012 [15].

Bankers' Toadies incident

Nominator(s): Steve Smith (talk) 01:49, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first time here in a while, and I'm nominating an article on which most of the work was done a couple of years ago. It's short, but I believe it's comprehensive; about the only area that could be significantly expanded from reliable secondary sources if the background to the incident, and I've deliberately kept that fairly short to avoid just repeating material found in other articles. I also happen to believe that it's interesting, which makes it a pleasant change from most of the drek I submit. It's received good article and peer reviews, both of which significantly informed the article's content.

The obvious sourcing question is about my use of the Alberta Online Encyclopedia. It was published by the Alberta Heritage Community Foundation (though it's now been taken over by the University of Alberta, the pages that I'm citing don't yet seem to be online at the U of A's version), which partners with a wide variety of academic and archival institutions. While where possible I have preferred work by named, academic sources, I believe that the AOE is suitable as a source for the purposes for which I have used it. Steve Smith (talk) 01:49, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Additional point: I note that the linkchecker claims that the link to the audio of Unwin's account of the incident is dead; I have just confirmed that it is not. Steve Smith (talk) 01:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Welcome back! Nikkimaria (talk) 16:09, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review.
  • References should be after Notes
  • Done.
  • Don't italicize archive dates
  • That's the template - I'll raise the possibility of changing it on the template talk page.
  • Check for minor glitches like doubled periods
  • Fixed the one instance of that. Had a quick scan and didn't see any other issues.

Images are unproblematic, captions are fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:18, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support with nitpicks. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Are the Social Credit Party and the Social Credit League the same thing?
  • "He also recommended that he be deported following his sentence" - where to?
  • Where is the Fort Saskatchewan Penitentiary?
  • Did the Order in Council dismissing Gibson come from the provincial or federal government? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review. The answers to your questions, in order:
  • Yes.
  • To the UK; I clarified this.
  • Wikilinked Fort Saskatchewan.
  • Provincial - clarified.
Thanks again. Steve Smith (talk) 00:00, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support with one minor comment: (Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

  • Aftermath, why is Criminal Code of Canada italicized?

Otherwise, a very nice little article on an intriguing incident. Good to see you back at FAC! Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks - Everything looks fine, no concerns. These are just of web refs, as I don't have access to the book refs. Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to withdraw this, if I could; I've found some issues with the sourcing. My thanks and apologies to those who have offered their reviews so far. Steve Smith (talk) 01:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to hear that when it seemed to be going well; hope to see you back here with it when you've resolved those concerns -- and thanks to Dana for alerting me to your request. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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