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== January 2013 ==
== January 2013 ==
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tripura/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2012 tour of She Has a Name/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2012 tour of She Has a Name/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Poor Folk/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Poor Folk/archive1}}

Revision as of 20:02, 16 January 2013

January 2013

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 20:02, 16 January 2013 [1].

Tripura

Nominator(s): Dwaipayan (talk) 07:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because following a peer review and successful GA nomination, the article appears ready for FAC. This is a small state nestled in the northeastern corner of India. Geographically marginalized, it has notable biodiversity and is making gradual progress in human development and economy which lacks any large scale industry. Many topics on the state have no wikipedia articles, so you will find a number of red links. I believe those redlinks deserve individual articles, and so kept the red links on. Hope you enjoy the article. Regards. Dwaipayan (talk) 07:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, the prose style of the lead paragraphs is not of sufficient quality to meet the requirements of Good Article, never mind Featured Article. It really needs tweaking by somebody who is a native English speaker. This is a shame, as the rest of the article is well written from what I can see. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Some attention is also required to the positioning of images in the text (which should have been picked up at the Good Article review). Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images advises that you should "avoid placing images on the left at the start of any section or subsection, because it makes it harder for readers to find the beginning of the text. Images on the left are best placed somewhere after the first paragraph." It also advises that you should "avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, and between an image and an infobox or similar."
It may also be an idea to improve the image captions, which in may case appear more like "alt text" than "image captions". Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions states that the caption should "draw the reader into the article". It warns that "Different people read articles different ways. Some people start at the top and read each word until the end. Others read the first paragraph and scan through for other interesting information, looking especially at pictures and captions. For those readers, even if the information is adjacent in the text, they will not find it unless it is in the caption—but do not tell the whole story in the caption—use the caption to make the reader curious about the subject." It continues "While a short caption is often appropriate, if it might be seen as trivial ("People playing Monopoly"), consider extending it so that it adds value to the image and is related more logically to the surrounding text ("A product of the Great Depression, Monopoly continues to be played today.")." Skinsmoke (talk) 17:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply to Skinsmoke Hi, thanks for the initial review. I am going to correct the positioning of the image/tables now. Actually, some images were left-aligned after the GA review, because some of them were overflowing to the succeeding section/subsection. Are you aware of any MoS guideline that warns against such overflowing? If not, we have no problem. If yes, we my have to do away with one or more images.
Regarding the prose, first of all, thanks that you told this. I was unsure of the quality, but the peer review etc did not raise strong doubt. In any case, FAC is for this purpose, that is improvement. Let's wait if someone can help with at least the lead. If you feel ok, you can go ahead and do improvement in the lead paragraph, or suggest ways to improvement. Prose has always been a major problem for articles related to India, and this case, unfortunately, is also no exception.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:57, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've replied to the points you made on my Talk page (not copied here as they don't directly relate to the review), where I've also offered my help if you feel you need it. Let me make it clear, this was not an "initial review" as such, just comments on the submission which hopefully are in time to prevent problems when a reviewer picks it up. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your help. Looking forward to your reply in your talk page.--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm wondering whether the discussion (which has become rather involved) at my Talk page should be moved here. And whether we should ask the reviewer to put things on hold for a few days, while we sort things out and do a copy edit (no point reviewing the same stuff twice). Perhaps Nikkimaria (the reviewer) has a preference. Skinsmoke (talk) 12:14, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's a very long discussion, so perhaps just a link to it rather than moving the whole thing here? Or maybe put it on the review talk page? Either way, if it's going to take a few days to sort out the issues being discussed, it might be better to withdraw this nomination for now and bring it back in two weeks with everything done - the delegates generally don't like reviews to be on hold while they're still listed here. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Nikkimaria (talk) 03:09, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Withdraw Deegates, I am the nominator of this FAC and major contributor to the article. Following the suggestions of Nikkimaria and Skinsmoke, I request you to please close/archive this nomination. We plan to re-submit this at a later date after copyedit and addressing other issues. Thanks for the help. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 20:14, 13 January 2013 (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 19:19, 16 January 2013 [2].

2012 tour of She Has a Name

Nominator(s): Neelix (talk) 02:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it meets all the featured article criteria. I split this article off from the She Has a Name article because the split was recommended by other users in that article's FAC, which I withdrew to be copyedited upon recommendation in that discussion. I learned much from the other FAC discussion and I have implemented that knowledge in improving the 2012 tour of She Has a Name article. Neelix (talk) 02:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what policy or guideline applies here, but why isn't it "She Has A Name tour (2012)"? By the way, if you decide to change the name, please ping Maralia or me to make sure the FAC and all of its pieces end up in the right place.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked through the naming conventions and I believe that the appropriate guidelines are the naming conventions for events. If I understand those guidelines correctly, the title of this article is correct as it stands; none of the examples place the year in parentheses. Please let me know if you interpret the naming conventions differently or if you believe that a different set of naming conventions apply. Neelix (talk) 21:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find anything at the page that supports this unusual article name (read the info on "when"). Why do you need the 2012-- has there been another tour? If you need the 2012, what is wrong with She Has a Name Tour of 2012? Or just She Has a Name tour, dabbing it later if there is another year tour. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The initial run of the play in 2011 might be considered a tour because it included performances in two different cities. What do you object to in the current title? Would you find "She Has a Name 2012 tour" preferable? That way, the title is shorter (removing the "of"). Neelix (talk) 20:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that would be better (avoids the "of" and avoids starting with a "when" number instead of a "what" event); let's see what others think. Should you decide to move it during the FAC, the FAC pieces, templates, etc have to be fixed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:21, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Nick-D

Oppose Sorry, but while it's clear that a lot of work has gone into this article, I think that it would require substantial editing to meet the FA criteria. In particular, the article seems to be based around an assumption that readers are already highly familiar with the play, the quality of the prose isn't great and it reads like an advertisement for this production and the play. I have the following specific concerns based on reading the lead and first section and randomly selected parts of other sections:

Addressed comments from Nick-D as at 4 January
  • The lead doesn't introduce what what the topic of this article is. I had no idea whether this is referring to a single theatrical performance or a series of theatrical performances which toured together.
  • Other parts of the lead assume readers know all about the subject. For instance, the first para includes "As with the initial run in 2011, the 2012 performances were co-produced by Burnt Thicket Theatre and Raise Their Voice and were directed by Stephen Waldschmidt. Carl Kennedy portrayed Jason, Evelyn Chew portrayed Number 18, Glenda Warkentin portrayed Marta, Alysa van Haastert portrayed Ali, and Sienna Howell-Holden portrayed Mama." makes little sense to readers who've never heard of this play and aren't familiar with its characters or the history of previous productions.
  • " Andrew Kooman, the playwright, was glad to have the tour conclude in his hometown of Red Deer, Alberta because the people of Central Alberta were very supportive of the play." - trivia and PR-speak
  • The second paragraph provides way more detail than is appropriate for the lead
  • The third paragraph of the lead reads like an advertisement
  • The first sentence of the 'Preparations' section isn't well phrased, and doesn't really introduce the subject
  • On that subject, this section doesn't provide any background on what the play is, and appears to assume that whoever's reading it is highly familiar with the play
  • Much of the content of the article is quotes from people closely associated with the play commenting how important it is, how terrible conditions are in the developing world, etc. Pretty much all of this material could be removed or summarised, and the net impact of it is to make the article read like promotional material for the play.
  • Much of the other material is trivia. We don't need to know absolutely everything associated with this string of performances (for instance, 'Chew was planning on returning to drama school', 'Chew is fluent in English, so dialect coach Nathan Schmidt trained her to speak in such a way that she would sound as though her first language was something other than English' (isn't this normal for an English-speaker portraying someone who's not fluent?) and 'there was a fundraiser for the tour at Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary, featuring desserts, hors d'oeuvres, an art auction,').
  • "statistics gathered by the federal government of the United States suggest that there are approximately 300000 forced prostitutes in North America between the ages of 10 and 17" - is this actually true? (eg, which US federal government report provides this information?). The number seems horrifyingly high.
  • "Some Americans expressed an interest in staging She Has a Name in the United States as well." - which Americans, and what's the relevance of this to the subject of the article? (the tour of this play through Canada).
  • Watch out for advertisement-speak such as "A Better World (ABW), an organization based in Lacombe, Alberta, partnered with Raise Their Voice throughout the tour"
  • The 'Talkback panels' section could be reduced to a single paragraph: we don't need to know who spoke at each session and what their message was
  • The 'Impact' section actually says almost nothing about the play's impact - most of it is text describing the work of the charity which was involved in the production and outlining what they hoped to spend any money raised through the play on
  • What's the relevance of the first half of the para which begins with "The day that the play opened in Ottawa, MP Joy Smith presented Bill C-10 to the Senate of Canada;" - this section makes no connection between the tour and the bill entering parliament.
  • This section also states that "Smith personally supported the She Has a Name while she was in Ottawa and when the play was performed in Winnipeg where she serves as MP", but the supporting reference states "Member of Parliament Joy Smith is going to be part of the talk back in Winnipeg and Ottawa" which doesn't establish that she 'personnaly supports' the play (eg, 'personally supports' is vague advertising-talk, and 'Smith participated in the talkback sessions in...' is true to what happened - though you need a source which states that she actually was able to make it to these sessions rather than the current one which states that she intended to take part).
  • "Nonetheless, The Chronicle Herald consented that the play was well-rehearsed and ran smoothly." - what 'consented' means here is unclear (I presume you mean 'conceded' - which is rather POV), and if this is the only thing positive they said about the performance it's not worth mentioning.
  • While the coverage of this review in the article summarises it as: "The Chronicle Herald was very critical of the play, blaming Waldschmidt for directing the actors to shout their lines and writing that Chew was the only actor who performed admirably", on my reading the reviewer was mainly focused on what he saw as major problems with the script. He seems to have thought that the actors were generally OK (with Chew being the stand out) and the production standards were good.
  • File:DisciplesCelebrate.jpg probably needs an ORTS release Nick-D (talk) 05:54, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have introduced the subject in the lead, added more background information and reworded sentences so as to not assume the reader's prior knowledge of the play, removed trivial information and PR-speak, reduced the level of detail in the second paragraph of the lead, made the third paragraph of the lead less advertisement-like, removed quotations from people closely associated with the play, removed the sentence about Americans expressing an interest in staging the play in the United States, shortened the "Talkback panels" section to one paragraph and merged it with the following section, removed the word "Impact", clarified the relationship between Joy Smith and the play, and summarized the Chronicle Herald review better. I hope I have addressed these concerns to your liking; please let me know if I have not. The only two of your concerns that I know that I have not addressed are the concern about the accuracy of the "300000" statistic and the ORTS release for File:DisciplesCelebrate.jpg. I have tracked down a book that states that the report itself is cited in a journal article, and I should be able to find the journal article through my local library; I will try to do so soon and then add the name of the report. As for the ORTS release, how do I go about doing that? The image appears to have been uploaded by someone who claims to be the copyright holder. Neelix (talk) 21:22, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That was quick! Those changes look good, and I'll post a more full review over coming days (hopefully tomorrow). I might be able to help with checking the journal article BTW (I'm a student at a major university with an excellent online library system) - please let me know if you can't find it. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 10:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your offer of help. I have found an article in the UN Chronicle and another in The Christian Century that both state that the United States Department of Health and Human Services report a number of 300000. Unfortunately, neither article names the report. Does the US Department of Health and Human Services name their reports? I have added both the UN Chronicle and The Christian Century sources to the article. A publication by the United Nations should be reputable, but it would be nice to be able to cite the report itself. Do you find the additional sourcing sufficient? If not, any help you can provide in locating the report itself would be greatly appreciated. Also, I know that your offer of help was specific to finding a source for this particular statistic, but if you would be able to help in performing (or locating someone to perform) the copyedit that SandyGeorgia has requested, that would be greatly appreciated as well. Neelix (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The 1995 UN reference seems rather outdated. Googling the figure returns various advocacy websites which claim that this is (variously) the number of prostitutes and/or children at risk in the US or South East Asia but nothing I can find backs this up. It's hardly unknown for well meaning human rights campaigners to use outdated or wrong data I'm afraid. You could ask at WP:GOCE for a copy editor or approach Dank (talk · contribs) (though I don't think he usually copy edits whole articles). Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments:

  • I'm afraid that I agree with Sandy's comments on prose - many of the paragraphs don't flow well (for instance, the first para of the 'Background' section is about two quite different topics and the sentences don't run together all that well). This makes the article heavy going.
  • While the shorter length helps, I still think that the article is over long - this is about a small scale production which has had no lasting impact, and very few people are going to read through all this detail.
  • The following as some examples of issues with prose and the amount of detail in the article:
    • "Actively opposing human trafficking on a political level" - this doesn't mean much as worded (eg, any citizen can advocate for or against things politically; I think you mean 'government level' or equivalent, and even then its a bit vauge - is Smith a member of the Government and was this a government policy? - and I'm still not seeing any clear connection to this string of performances).
    • "She Has a Name was selected to be performed in this festival by lottery. Of the total 34 spots in the festival, 13 spots were reserved for shows local to Calgary; 30 local shows applied, and She Has a Name was one of the 13 successful applicants." - if the play was accepted on the basis of luck, this could be expressed much more concisely.
    • "Local supporters in Victoria" - this is redundant - people living in Victoria are obviously locals of the area. In general, 'local' can be avoided.
    • "These supporters worked to bring the play to Victoria in order to increase awareness about human trafficking on a local level, bringing attention to cases like that of Stephen Charlie, a man who was charged by the RCMP with forcibly prostituting a sixteen-year-old girl in Victoria and advertising her online." - who were these 'supporters'? (and avoid terms like 'these supporters worked' which are fairly leaden)
    • The reference provided doesn't support much of this BTW (eg, the appeal for $10,000 in donations was still going at the the time and there's no mention of Stephen Charlie.
    • "Opening night in Edmonton coincided with President of the United States Barack Obama's speech about human trafficking to the Clinton Global Initiative." - what's the relevance of this? Was this a deliberate tie-in or pure chance?
  • I think that a spot check of references is also needed.

All up, and I really don't want to come across as harsh considering the large amount of work which has clearly gone into this article, I'd suggest that you consider withdrawing this nomination until it's thoroughly copy edited and trimmed down. Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would be glad to follow whatever course of action you deem most expedient in improving the article to featured status. I have addressed all of the concerns you have mentioned to the best of my ability. Would the trim you suggest be part of the copyedit the article will likely eventually receive through GOCE or are there further points you wish to make before I send the article there? I want the article to be fully prepared for its next FAC. Neelix (talk) 15:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While hopefully the copy editor will weed out unnecessary material, I'd suggest that you also go through the article paragraph by paragraph and weed out material which isn't directly relevant to the topic of the article or which you judge would be considered too much detail by someone with a keen but not deep interest in the topic (which is essentially the key audience for Wikipedia articles, IMO). Regards, Nick-D (talk) 10:40, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have attempted to follow your advice. Have I weeded out the unnecessary material you mention? I have contacted Dank (talk · contribs), but he is too busy to copyedit this article. I have therefore listed the article at GOCE, but there is a nearly two-month backlog there. If there is anything that I can do in the meantime, I would greatly appreciate instruction. Neelix (talk) 16:19, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That helps, but there's still heaps of surplus detail. For instance, I'm still not seeing the connection between this tour and the bill outlawing human trafficking or Barrack Obama's speech and the Victoria News article simply doesn't support the claim that the performance was linked to raising awareness of the Stephen Charlie case. Nick-D (talk) 22:49, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Joy Smith visited Ottawa to present the human-trafficking-related Bill C-10 to the Senate; she agreed to speak at a performance of the human-trafficking-related play She Has a Name while she was in Ottawa to present this bill. Obama's human-trafficking-related speech (the first by a United States president) occurred on the same day that She Has a Name opened in Edmonton, and this fact was noted as a significant coincidence by a reviewer. Can you think of a way to make these two connections clearer? I have removed the note about Stephen Charlie. Neelix (talk) 21:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There doesn't actually appear to be a clear connection between the bill's introduction and the play, and there's obviously no connection between Obama's speech and the play other than pure chance so it's not worth including. Nick-D (talk) 22:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the references to the bill and the speech. Are there any other details you feel should be removed? Neelix (talk) 03:50, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't want to be unkind, but there's still lots of surplus details, and I'm not going to work through the article and list them. As I suggested above, a good approach would be to systematically go through the article and summarise or remove everything which is unlikely to be of interest to a moderately motivated reader. As some examples to help you: "Brad G Graham served as stage manager", "Programs also included warnings about subject matter and language.[22] These find correlation in the play; the play deals with mature themes[1] and includes profanity." (could be a single short sentence noting that the play contains this stuff and audiences were warned accordingly), "Like Waldschmidt,[27] Wiebe had previously acted as Jesus in Drumheller's Canadian Badlands Passion Play", and the 'reviews' section could be cut back by reducing the use of quotes (also, I'd suggest a more common word than 'approbating'). I hope that's helpful. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 06:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have followed your advice and have removed the details you mention in addition to a significant amount of other information from the article. I believe that what remains is not trivial. Have I removed detail to your satisfaction? Neelix (talk) 14:01, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Those changes look really good (sorry for the slow response BTW). Regards, Nick-D (talk) 09:52, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad the changes meet with your approval. Does that mean that you support the nomination or is there something else you wish me to do to improve the article? Neelix (talk) 03:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, the article is now in pretty good shape, and I've struck the above oppose (meaning I now have no objection to the article being promoted) and collapsed the comments related to it. I've undertaken a small amount of copy editing, and have the following further comments, however:

  • "Because there was so much interest in the play in early 2011 that there weren't enough tickets for everyone who wanted to attend the initial run, a second run was planned." - this is a bit wordy
  • "Plans for a cross-Canada tour of the play were realised in May of the following year.[10] It was then that She Has a Name began a fringe theatre tour." - ditto (this could be one sentence)
  • "Kooman directs Raise Their Voice.[13] The 2012 tour of She Has a Name lasted twenty weeks.[14] The tour encompassed approximately 80 performances in total." - these sentences are rather abrupt; the last two could be combined and the first merged in somewhere else
  • "nearly $100000 was fundraised between various private donors" - 'was fundraised' is awkward; how about 'nearly $100,000 was raised from various...' (note the comma in the $100,000 also)
  • "On May 5, there was a fundraiser for the tour at Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary" - bit wordy: how about "A fundraiser was held at the Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary on May 5..."
  • "that he wrote himself and had already performed" - this could be a little bit more concise
  • The links between the performers and church groups and religious plays jumped out at me a bit on re-reading the 'Background' section: does the theatre company have a religious motivation, or are these connections the result of a human rights focus? (I know that not-very religious actors in Australia often perform in religious plays as a way of finding work/experience, so there may not be much of a religious link)
  • "These performances were part of the Calgary Fringe Festival.[10] She Has a Name was selected to be performed in this festival by lottery." - these sentences could be combined
  • "Supporters in Victoria" - still unclear I'm afraid ('supporters' is a totally inexact term) - and "These supporters, a group of people led by Sarahanne Tolsma" is a bit awkward. I'd suggest starting this para with what's currently the second sentence (tweaked a bit) and then have a sentence on how the money needed to perform the play was raised, which would probably get around the problems here.
  • "The Vancouver Fringe Festival hosted the play when it arrived in Vancouver.[34] The Firehall Arts Centre was the location for these performances." - could be combined, and did the festival 'host' the play? (how about something like "The play was performed [not sure if this is the best word] at the Firehall Arts Centre as part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival from X Date to Y Date...")
  • "The final performances of She Has a Name in Red Deer occurred in October.[7] The Scott Block Theatre hosted these performances." - how about something like "The final performances of the tour were conducted at the Scott Block Theatre in Red Dear from X to Y October"?
  • The first para of the 'Talkback panels and fundraising' section is still a big lump of text. You could chop out some of the names, leaving the positions they hold, which would help a bit would probably still be too long.
  • "The purpose of these talkback sessions was to raise awareness about national and international human trafficking." - how about "to raise awareness about the human trafficking which takes place in Canada and in other countries" [or "overseas" if this is an appropriate term for countries outside of Canada]
  • "While She Has a Name toured across Canada to raise awareness about human trafficking, A Better World (ABW), an organization based in Lacombe, Alberta, raised money to help women and children who had as part of the country's prostitution industry." - material noting the fundraising activity associated with the play seems to have gotten lost in the editing
  • "All five members of Raise Their Voice had previous connections with ABW, and the plan to have the two organizations working in conjunction had been developing since 2011" - could this be moved to the 'background' section where the process of developing the tour is discussed?
  • "Audience reactions to the play as it toured across Canada in 2012 were deeply emotional." - this wording is a little bit awkward
  • "Critical reviews were also strong." - I know what you mean here, but this sounds contradictory. How about "Reviews from theater critics were also generally positive" or similar?
  • What's Bloody Underrated?
  • "The Winnipeg Free Press was uniformly approving in its estimation of Carl Kennedy's performance." - this is a bit vague and awkward
  • "Waldschmidt's directing garnered positive reviews." - this is cited to only a single review
  • "The special effects were also praised" - by whom?
  • "At the Calgary Fringe Festival, She Has a Name was again singled out as more poignant and weighty than the other plays" - by whom?
  • Should the table of ratings also include 'favorable' and 'unfavorable' for the reviewers which didn't use stars? (I'm not sure if this approach is still used)
  • I think that a spot check of references remains necessary Nick-D (talk) 10:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the thorough independent copyedit. I have made all the changes you recommended. You seemed to question the reliability of the Bloody Underrated source, so I removed it from the article. You asked about adding "favorable" and "unfavorable" to the table of ratings; I would be glad to do so if you think it wise, although I don't know how to determine which reviews should be added because there are so many. You also asked if Burnt Thicket Theatre is a religious organization. I read in one source and then wrote on the main She Has a Name article that Burnt Thicket Theatre "aims to produce new Canadian plays in a way that integrates spirituality and art", but I don't know if the troupe has any particular religious affiliation. I haven't found any declaration of such an affiliation in any of the sources I have found. Have I addressed all of the issues you raised? The only one I can see is the reference spot check, which I assume I cannot do myself. Neelix (talk) 22:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just weighing in re. one of my bete noires, I've always considered labelling unrated reviews as "favorable" or "unfavorable" to be simplistic and a form of original research, so I'd have no problem with leaving that out. OTOH, last time I recall this being discussed at WP:ALBUMS and I raised this, it was overruled so it may still be policy there, don't know about the film or theatre wikiprojects. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My preference would also be against adding the unrated reviews; I agree that the "favorable" and "unfavorable" labels are borderline original research. Still, I am willing to add such entries if there is consensus to do so and there is some objective way to determine which reviews should go in the table. Neelix (talk) 02:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Review by SandyGeorgia

  • Oppose, this article was spun off from and has the same prose problems that were apparent only a few weeks ago when Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/She Has a Name/archive1 was archived. Dropping down the page for one random section reveals:

    After the Saturday matinée in each city, there was a panel discussion. These "talkback panels" were open to the audience and anyone else who wanted to attend, and included a question-and-answer period. The talkback panels were chaired by several people including Kooman. The purpose of these panels was to raise awareness about human trafficking on a national level in Canada and also on an international level.

    These few sentences contain so much convoluted, repetitive and redundant prose, that I wonder if I really need to list it. But I suppose I must for this oppose to be actionable:
  1. The "in each city" is redundant; re-casting the sentence would avoid the redundancy by doing something like:
    Panel discussions were held after the Saturday matinées.
  2. Two consecutive sentences that begin with "The(se) talkback panels", strangely one use in quotes, the other not.
  3. The audience and anyone else who wanted to attend? Anyone else who wanted to attend is an audience!
    The talkback panels had several chairpersons, including Kooman, were open to the public, and included a question-and-answer period.
  4. "on a national level" is redundant:
    One purpose of these talkback sessions was to raise national and international awareness about human trafficking.

Please locate an independent copyeditor to go over the entire article; fixing this one random paragraph sample will not suffice. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I performed an extensive copyedit of this article before submitting it for FAC; I would be glad to do any further copyediting that is required, but I cannot compel someone else to do so, and the Guild of Copy Editors has a substantial backlog. If you are willing to identify the problems you have with the text, I would gladly take all the time that is required to go through each one of them, just as I have done with Nick-D's concerns above. As for the specific concerns you mention, I have addressed them all, but not quite by taking all of your suggestions. The intention of the "audience and anyone else who wanted to attend" is that one did not need to be a member of the audience of the play in order to attend the panel discussion; I have reworded that sentence to make this meaning clearer. Also, it is not the awareness that was both national and international, but rather the human trafficking; I have reworded that sentence for added clarity as well. If you would be willing to identify the other specific concerns you have with the wording of the text (or if you would be willing to perform the independent copyedit you mention), I would be greatly appreciative. Neelix (talk) 20:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nick-D has performed a thorough independent copyedit of the article. Do you have remaining concerns regarding the article's flow, level of detail, etc.? Neelix (talk) 20:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I continue to believe the article is incorrectly named (see discussion at top of this FAC), and will review prose again later. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Second revisit: I went to one section (Talkback panels ... ), where the first thing I encounter is another example of the kinds of prose problems I originally objected to:

  • In several of the cities in which She Has a Name was performed in its 2012 tour, the human trafficking experts who appeared on the talkback panels after the performances included RCMP officers.
    Why "in which"? Why not "where"? We already know the article is about the 2012 tour of the play, and this is only an image caption, so why are we repeating so much info? Too many clauses that leave the reader struggling. Why are we linking human trafficking again? Why are we making the reader click on RCMP to know what it is? Would something like this work ??
  • Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were among the human trafficking experts who appeared in the talkback panels following performances in some cities.
    No need to take my suggestion literally, but this is an example of the overly convoluted prose that troubles me. My concern about the name of the article reflects similar overuse of clauses ... what is wrong with "She Has a Name 2012 tour"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:53, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was the one who initially recommended the title "She Has a Name 2012 tour"; you suggested that we wait for input from other users. If there are no objections to the proposed title, I would be grateful for your help in fixing the FAC pieces to facilitate the move. Neelix (talk) 16:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I mentioned this again in the hope others will provide more feedback. Changing a name when an article isn't at FAC is just a move, and the FAC archived pages go with in articlehistory. Changing a name while an article is at FAC can be tricky, and I'll be glad to help if you ping me when/if others have weighed in. We don't want to change it twice on the chance someone disagrees or has a better suggestion, and so far, only you and I are opining. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:34, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is still unnecessary wordiness, sample para:

  • Panel discussions were held after each of the Saturday matinées during the tour.[44] These discussions were open to anyone who wanted to attend, and not just the play's audience.[45] The discussions were chaired by several people including Kooman.[44]

Would something like this work, to eliminate wordiness and merge choppy sentences:

  • Panel discussions were held after the Saturday matinées during the tour; they were chaired by different individuals including Kooman and were open to anyone—not just the play's audience. The purpose of these talkback sessions was to raise awareness about the human trafficking that takes place in Canada and in other countries.[45]

Next we get into a long list of who's who that results in a long para, why not a paragraph break here? What follows looks like a string of tangential information not that relevant to the article, but I won't object on that basis. The prose still needs work, though. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As Einstein's razor states, we should not make things simpler than they can be made. The simplifications you recommend introduce ambiguity and error into the prose. I have taken some of your suggestions, for which I am grateful. Still, the sentences cannot be shortened to the extent you suggest. For example, take the portions you crossed out above: "The purpose of these talkback sessions was to raise awareness about the human trafficking that takes place in Canada and in other countries." Without the "the" and the "that takes place", the sentence suggests that it is the raising awareness rather than the human trafficking that is taking place in Canada and in other countries. Likewise, simplifying "these discussions" to "they" in the previous sentence is grammatically ambiguous; "they" could refer to the matinées. The reworded image caption you recommend could easily be interpreted to mean that human trafficking experts appeared on only some of the talkback panels while others were chaired by non-experts. I would be glad to address any specific concerns you have about the article's prose, but I am not convinced that the article is simply lacking in general, especially after the thorough copyedit that Nick-D performed. Neelix (talk) 22:47, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you provide a diff of the changes you made, it makes reviewing faster. I had a look and am not satisfied that more can't be done to make the examples I gave less wordy. More examples, looking at the "Reviews" section to vary things:
  • Audiences reacted with deep emotion as the play toured across Canada in 2012.[14]
    Plural (audiences) based on one source. And that one source is from one source at londoncommunitynews-- is that a reliable source? "Across" is redundant at minimum. We already know from the title it was 2012, and we already know the tour was in Canada ... is that wordiness necessary?
  • I have altered the sentence as you have recommended, as per this diff. I had previously retained the words "Canada in 2012" because I believed it wise to start sections with topic sentences that reintroduce the topic of the entire article. The plural is of audiences and not of sources; the one source attests to multiple audiences, therefore the plural is valid. The London Community News is a well-established newspaper of the Metroland Media Group; it is reliable. Neelix (talk) 19:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Standing ovations were common.[60]
    Plural based on one source, what is that source?
  • While the plural does not refer to sources and there is therefore no contradiction, I have added an additional reference for this sentence per this diff. The source you initially asked about is the Red Deer Express, a well-established newspaper of the Black Press; it is reliable. Neelix (talk) 19:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reviews from theatre critics were also generally positive.[12]
    Also is redundant. Reviews plural based on one source.
  • While I think the word "also" improves the flow of the sentences, I have removed it per this diff. The Calgary Herald source refers to multiple references being positive, so the plural is valid; nonetheless, I have added additional references to this sentence. Neelix (talk) 19:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The organizers of the festival announced that attendance was up by 23% as compared to the previous year, a fact that the Calgary Herald attributed to the popularity of She Has a Name and the other two plays that were performed with it at the Lantern Church Sanctuary: Loon and The Last Man on Earth.[71]
Would something like this work?
  • Festival organizers said attendance was up by 23% from the previous year; the Calgary Herald attributed the increase to ...
  • At the Vancouver Fringe Festival, She Has a Name was again received with standing ovations and then speechless audiences.[72]
From a marginally reliable source, and the opinion should be attributed to the writer of that blog if it is to be used.
These are only samples; similar is throughout the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would be grateful if you would provide me with the other concerns you have with the article so I can address them. Thank you for your advice thus far. Neelix (talk) 19:54, 12 January 2013 (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 19:19, 16 January 2013 [3].

Poor Folk

Nominator(s): Tomcat (7) 16:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The debut novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I feel it is very comprehensive, using English, Russian and German sources. It is well-written thanks to User:MathewTownsend, User:Yomangani, etc. I used high-quality sources only. The structure is interesting. Unfortunately, non-contemporary commentaries about this book are rare (there was a Guardian article which gave it an unpleasant review). The work was (and perhaps still is) almost unknown outside of Russia. Tomcat (7) 16:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Quotes longer than 40 words should be blockquoted
  • FN4: pages?
  • FN14 should include translation info
  • FN27: formatting
  • Be consistent in whether you include publisher locations
  • FN30: should include original publication info
  • FN35: publisher?
  • Publication information for Writer's Diary?
  • Compare formatting of the two Frank bibliography entries

Comment: I've been looking at the lead prose. Some issues:

  • "Inspired by the works of Gogol, Pushkin, Karamzin and similar stories from English and French authors..." You have mentioned authors, not stories
  • "...written in epistolary form, consisting of letters between the two main characters, Makar Devushkin and Varvara Dobroselova, who are poor second cousins". This is verbose: why not: "...written in the form of letters between the two main characters, Makar Devushkin and Varvara Dobroselova, who are poor second cousins".
  • "As is the case with many naturalistic books..." This reads like an editorial aside, and is inappropriate.
  • "...their relationship with rich people of the upper class..." This phrasing excludes rich people not of the upper class, and upper class people who are not rich. Is this your intended meaning?
  • What do you mean by a "classical clerk"?
  • "can not" → "cannot"
  • What were the Fatherland Notes?
  • Who published the first English edition?

Reading on Brianboulton (talk) 21:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - There seems to be some mis-wording in the translation of Nikolay Dobrolyubov's quote: "The book's compassion [...] did not escape the truth of life, and he highly straight put the edge between official temper, ..." MathewTownsend (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cryptic C62 · Talk 22:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • The first sentence of Themes and style tries to present too many details all at once, making it somewhat overwhelming to read. I am of the opinion that it should be split into two sentences, and that "Poor Folk explores..." should come before "Largely influenced by...".
  • "He later visited Dostoyevsky in the Pesky district after asking the Fatherland Notes journalist Andrei Kraevsky for the location of Dostoyvesky's home." Why does it matter how Sollogub learned the location? For that matter, how does this visit inform the reader's understanding of the reception of the book? Sollogub could have visited Dostoyevsky for any number of reasons.
  • "The following is a list of English versions (publication date in brackets)" False. The publication dates are in parentheses.
  • On a slightly more substantial note, I find it a bit odd that there are 8 known English translations of this book without any indication of why so many exist. Which version is regarded as the most authoritative? What did Garnett set out to achieve in 2007 that had not already been achieved in the previous 7 efforts?


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 19:19, 16 January 2013 [4].

Hyderabad, India

Nominator(s): Omer123hussain (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because, since it is GA, we initally work a lot on the article and thought it qualify for FAC, thus we nominated it for FAC, which was withdrawal very soon after realizing our lack of inconsistency in grammar and copy editing. Thus after every attempt of c/e and peer review, we approached for FAC, and every time we experienced lack of native english peer review. Then we approached Stfg for peer review and copy editing, which he accepted and with lot of his experience and patients he is copy editing and guiding us since more than one month and we completed all the required corrections and errors advised by him. We all now see that the article is ready and meets the standards of FA. :)--Omer123hussain (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Review by SandyGeorgia

Oppose, mainly on prose. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please see WP:ACCESS-- I believe I've corrected most.
  • Further reading is out of control; please trim.
  • An independent copyedit is needed; prose deficiencies are everywhere. I had typed up a long list of samples when the webpage timed out. I will come back later with samples, but Wikipedia is glitching just now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Trimmed further reading.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Will wait some of your copyedit samples, Sandy. The main contributor (who is the nominator of this FAC) of the article realized the need of copyedit several months earlier. I helped him initially, but the expertise needed is beyond my ability. So, the article underwent independent copyedit by a member of the league of copyeditors. Still there were problems. Stfg (talk · contribs), another League member and independent reviewer, then kindly stepped in and did a really thorough copyedit as well as source evaluation. So I was wondering how else can we get yet more independent copyedits. Anyway, we'll wait for your input. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:32, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry folks, Wikipedia was whacky this morning. I'll put up samples momentarily. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:57, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Random sections indicative of ce needs:

Its predominant topography is sloping rocky terrain of grey and pink granites. Several small hillocks are scattered throughout the area. Hyderabad has an average altitude of 1,778 feet (542 m) above mean sea level. Its highest point is Banjara Hills at 2,206 feet (672 m). In 1996 the city had 140 lakes and counted 834 water tanks smaller than 10 hectares (25 acres). The city's lakes are often called sagar (sea). Hussain Sagar, built in 1562, is near the city centre. Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar are artificial lakes created by dams on the Musi.

  1. Redundancy, a hillock is "small" isn't it? Granite is rocky. Its predominant topography is sloping terrain of grey and pink granite, dotted with small hills.
    • "Large" and "small" are relative to the class of the noun they qualify. Thus, one may speak of a large mouse, even though it is smaller than a small man. Hillocks come in a range of sizes. So a small hillock is just smaller than most hillocks. Not redundant. Your revision reads well otherwise. --Stfg (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Short choppy sentences, merge these two: Hyderabad's average altitude is 1,778 feet (542 m) above mean sea level; its highest point is Banjara Hills at 2,206 feet (672 m).
    • Do you really believe that replacing a full stop with a semicolon makes any difference to "choppiness"? --Stfg (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, that whole paragraph needed work and better merging of sentences. I'd rather see more interesting prose and construction. I only offer suggestions to highlight issues, but how to best fix them is better left to a copyeditor who would rework the entire para ideally, incorporating the notion that "hillocks" and "altitude" might be somehow related. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Why do we have an "as of" date (1996) on the number of lakes-- are they going to change? We have a mix of lakes information and water tank information, where the water tanks need to be separated from the lake info. Why are we mentioning only smaller water tanks? Are there larger ones? The water tanks don't belong in this section (topography); why are they here? Are those little lakes? Why do we define lakes (sagar) after we talk about them? The flow is all off. Why "and counted"? The city had 140 lakes samller than 10 hectares ? Is that what is meant? Is tanks meant to refer to reservoirs ??? I can't fix this section without knowing what it's trying to say.
The term water tank gave rise to much of the confusion in this case. Water tank means ponds/ resvoirs/ smaller water bodies (smaller than lakes). These are bigger than the ponds that we see in the lawns or gardens of homes in the United States, but smaller than dedicated reservoirs. those usually serve a small population in the vicinity, who visit the ponds for bathing/ washing cloths, washing utensils, and sometimes for using the water for drinking. I added ponds within parenthesis after water tanks in the article. The sagar is defined after the lake and water tanks sentence because the sentences succeeding the sagar definition sentence mention three examples of sagar. The readers will learn what sagar means, and then right after that they will see three such example. That's why the sagar definition comes after the number of lakes and before the examples of sagars.
The year (1996) is given since the statistics is from then. Indeed the numbers of ponds may change. Many face landfills as those lands sell in high prices in urban areas with land shortage. Indeed local governments have rules against land filling of existing ponds. (This trend has, fortunately, significantly decreased now).--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:45, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is more understandable now (most English speakers woulndn't assume a "pond" is a "water tank", but as of this version, we still have the same choppiness in the lake situation that I mentioned with the hill situation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, tried to copy-edit this area. Not sure if the choppiness is smoother. Please have a look.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Skipping around, I see prose issues everywhere I look:

  1. The foreign population declined after Hyderabad State became part of the Indian Union. (why?)
  2. The Telugu spoken in Hyderabad is a dialect called Telangana and the Urdu spoken here is called Dakhan ... spoken "here"? The dialects can be merged with the earlier sentence, for better flow.
  3. According to a 2012 report submitted by GHMC to the World Bank, Hyderabad has 1,476 slums with a total population of 1.7 million, of whom 66% live in 985 slums in the "core" of the city (the part that formed Hyderabad before the April 2007 expansion) and the remaining 34% live in 491 in suburban tenements. ... don't know how to fix this, but at minimum, redundancy, Accoding to a 2012 GHMC report to the World Bank ... don't even know what the "of whom 66%" refers to .... is this trying to say ... According to a 2012 GHMC report to the World bank, 1.7 million residens of Hyderabad live in 1,476 slums; 66% of those slum residents live in 985 slums in the part of Hyderabad that was its center before the 2007 expansion, and 34% live in 491 suburban tenements.
    • It's a little difficult to respond helpfully when you splatter comments between ellipses, and don't distinguish quote from commentary. "of whom 66%" refers to the previous noun phrase, "a total population of 1.7 million", as grammatically I'm told it must. Yes, that's what it means. What else could it mean? Are you not slightly uncomfortable about three occurrences of "slum" in one sentence? --Stfg (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, I'm uncomfortable with three occurrences of "slum"; as I said, I don't know how to best fix this, but it is a recurring issue in many India articles. As I discovered on a different Indian city FAC or FAR, slums have some sort of official designation, which is a foreign concept to US readers, and then we get all tangled up in the construction of the population and number of slums. What is there in the version today is still impenetrable and appears grammatically incorrect:
        • Hyderabad has 1,476 slums with a total population of 1.7 million, of whom 66% live in 985 slums in the "core" of the city (the part that formed Hyderabad before the April 2007 expansion) and the remaining 34% live in 491 in suburban tenements.[88] About 22% of the slum-dwelling households had migrated from different parts of India in the last decade of the 20th century,
  4. Of all the cities of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad is the largest contributor to the state's GDP, tax and other revenues. ... "of all the cities" is awkward, Andhra Pradesh is a state, no? ... Hyderabad is the largest contributor to Andhra Pradesh's GDP, tax, and other revenues.
    • The sense of the original, which your version loses, is that Hyderabad is the largest contributor among cities, not considering other classes of contributor. You should explain the "awkward" -- it looks like a personal style preference to me. The fact that Andhra Pradesh is a state seems irrelevant to this. --Stfg (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Hyderabad is known as the "City of Pearls" on account of its role in the pearl trade. ... On account of?
  6. I don't know what it means for "cuisine to become prominent". Don't know what that wants to say, so can't suggest how to fix it.
  7. "Skilled" use of spices? Don't know what is meant by skilled there.

These are just random samples, I didn't even try to read through everything, and there is too much for me to list it all. An independent copyedit is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:30, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There have already been two "independent" copy edits, the most recent of which involved very extensive and detailed discussion. as you may see from the article's talk page. However, I have posted at WT:GOCE asking for help from a writer of professional standard. Having done so, I shall stand aside now and let whoever comes forward work their magic. --Stfg (talk) 20:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Revisting, I still find things like:

  • Hyderabad underwent very sudden growth in the first decade of the 21st century.
  • What's the difference between "very sudden" and "sudden"? Reading the rest of the text, it seems like it was, well, instant and based on a redefinition, in which case better adjectives could be found.
Removed very. Could not think of a better adjective. Suggestions?--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rapid? --Stfg (talk) 12:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The chief materials used in these constructions are granite and lime mortar.
  • Convoluted, is something like "Granite and lime mortar are mainly used in these structures"?
Changed.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, no, Sandy. Your revision now says that these structures are the main uses of granite and lime mortar. That's absurd. I have revised to restore the correct meaning. --Stfg (talk) 12:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I made no revision, I asked a question ... it is up to those who know the material and the sources to copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hyderabad's first dial-up Internet access became available in the early 1990s but was initially limited to computer software development companies.
  • Why "but"?
No but anymore. Please have a look.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Schools in Hyderabad are affiliated to the CBSE, the SSC or the ICSE,
  • All acronyms, but linking to real names ... the US reader not familiar with these terms has to click to find out what the setence means.
Changed to full names.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This article is not in terrible shape, but the prose is not yet at FA standard ... another set of eyes should be able to bring it across the line. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's at least a bit more moderate, but it's still a sweeping dismissal, and in the light of the number of plain errors in the review, doesn't inspire much respect, frankly. A further, expert copy edit has been requested. I fear that my continued activity here could discourage the next one from starting, so I definitively will not post here again. SandyGeorgia may have the last word. --Stfg (talk) 14:30, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's an unhelpful attitude, and your read on "mistakes" is simply a failure to collaborate and recognize that when something is unclear to the reader/reviewer, it's best left to the editors who know the material to fix it. I'm sorry you feel this way about my review ... Dwaipayanc and I, on the other hand, have a long history of working together to clear up prose on Indian articles, so I hope you'll learn from him how to interact in content review and reconsider your position. Perhaps you feel that my critique was aimed at you: for the record, I don't typically look at history when reviewing, precisely so I won't be influenced. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments by Adam Cuerden

  • Issue: The map is rather... awkward. Lots of colours used, no key or labels to explain what they mean, and, while it does make an effort to show where other population centres are, they aren't actually labelled, and you'd only know this if you clicked on it, which removes the Hyderabad label. Still, it should be easily usable to make a more suitable map. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:13, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Which map are you referring to? The one in info box , or the one in geography section? The one in geography section is from open street, so probably beyond our capacity to change. The one in info box is probably in the same pattern as other indian city articles. I will check.--Dwaipayan (talk) 02:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think it is better to use the File:India location map.svg, as exemplified in the article Delhi? That would be easier to understand for readers, rather than using the map of the state.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Neither are entirely ideal - the India locator map doesn't include other cities, so it's not particularly informative, really. Perhaps just use grey text and to put in the other city names onto the map that's already there, and use a different icon for Hyderabad? Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Showing other cities isn't a requirement for pin maps. In fact it makes it look cluttered. A simple svg quality grey shaded neutral map just showing the city will suffice. You can use wikiatlas or google maps to see in relation to other cities.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 22:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Blofeld

Surprised to see that not many book sources have been used to write this. I personally prefer to rely on book sources for major cities. dubaicityguide.com, asiawaves.net etc are not ideal source material, maybe they're not replaceable with better book sources but still... The further reading section at least could be much better I think, I can improve the books listed there at least. I'd prefer to see a little more detail on some of the major landmarks, but generally I think its a nice summary of the city. I can try to improve the prose tomorrow if desirable. I'll try to get you a decent svg locator for Andhra Pradesh, can't stand the shoddy colored maps, so 2005. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:26, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that would be great ( everything, improvement of further reading, prose, and the svg map). Feels great when we see the most prolific wikipedian helping out.--Dwaipayan (talk) 21:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Made a map for you, added a state locator in India; ideally all Indian state maps should have an Indian corner locator too.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 22:26, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please do work on the prose, Dr. Blofeld. It may not have been understood, but I wanted to step aside to make room for precisely that, not for the "attitude" that has been ascribed to me. Please go ahead. --Stfg (talk) 23:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Blofeld, I changed your sub-heading to a fourth level since we have new FAC instructions on subheads as of just this week-- seems that our old convention had WP:ACCESS issues and we were asked to change to fourth-level sub-headings. Thank you for stepping up here; would someone pls ping me when Blofeld is done so I can revisit my oppose? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it'll pass anyway, so count me out.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 19:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Senra

I have been invited to comment here following my offer here.

Structure of the article

I have compared the structure of this version of the article with the guidelines in Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cities and with the existing featured article Kolkata (promoted 2006 and reviewed as keep in 2012). See also the comparably sized featured metropolitan city article San_Francisco (promoted 2006 and reviewed as keep in 2008). I see the following ...

  • Kolkata closely matches the recommended section headings and order of such headings in the guideline; Hyderabad does not. As an example (but there are more examples) the Education section follows Government in the guidelines and in Kolkata but is near the bottom of Hyderabad and is four paragraphs long in Hyderabad against the recommended maximum three. There are many other structural anomalies including but not exclusively Hyderabad's Economy section being too far down the article --Senra (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment noted. Excellent suggestion, will work on this soon. Thanks a lot, --Dwaipayan (talk) 05:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly disagree with this comment. Failure to conform with a WikiProject guideline is not a valid criticism unless you can demonstrate why the suggested layout is better than the one currently in use. The goal is to create excellent articles, not similar articles. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Toponymy
  • Toponymist Everett-Heath (2012) marginally disagrees with the current sources in the article. He says that this former princely state was previously called Bhāgnagar after one of the sultan's concubines, a dancing girl named Bhāgmati. Hyderābād, named in 1591, comes from haydar (lion) and ābād (city). Haydar was the nickname of Ali ibn Abī Tālib (c.600–61), the fourth caliph (651–61) --Senra (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Everett-Heath, John (2010). The Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names (2 ed.). England: OUP. ISBN 9780199580897.
Where is the disagreement? That's what the article says, perhaps with slightly more detail available in other sources.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This comment has made me rethink my reviewing of this article. I am done. I am trying to help but the combative responses from both main editors of this article makes it hard to continue. I am sorry. To close this one off: the section currently does not say what Everett-Heath says. The section does not say it was a princely state nor does it directly say it was previously called Bhāgnagar (note the diacritic). The section does not say that Hyderābād, named in 1591, comes from haydar (lion) and ābād (city) --Senra (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Changes made in the article, Hayder (lion) included. Please have a look. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Everett-Heath's book suggests that the name is from the Caliph Abi Talib, whose other name was Haider (Hyder). This view now comes first in the toponymy section. However, I found two sources that support the alternate view that the city was named after Haider Mahal, the name of the concubine Bhagmati after conversion to Islam. One source is a publication of Government of India, and the other a book on the life of Quli Qutb Shah, published by Sahitya Akademi. I have added these two sources to the existing sources (three publications by Chicago University Press, and I do not have access to those). Additionally, another book that lists origin of names of places suggests the city was named after Quli Qutb Shah' son Haidar. I have added that too with reference. Please have a look. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • In addition, I am struggling (with myself) trying to determine whether the section heading Toponymy is correct. I suspect it should be Etymology but I am gathering my facts about this first. I think (at the moment) that on balance, the three references currently cited in this section are not toponymy references and therefore, if you stick with those references, call the section Etymology. However, if you use an establish place-name (i.e. a toponymist's) source (such as Everett-Heath [2012] above) then indeed, it should be called Toponymy. Note that I might change my view here after further research. I would welcome input from an establish FAC reviewer on this before the principal editors respond
This toponymy versus etymology debate happened here.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)There was a discussion about that here, if you'd like to take a look. Please excuse the tangents. Cheers. —Torchiest talkedits 16:56, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not a tangent. Thank you both for pointing me there. My reading of that debate suggest that Toponymy is correct but is probably too academic and thus less easy to understand for an article directed at a global audience --Senra (talk) 17:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, extremely sorry that I sounded combative. This won't repeat. Next, I must have overlooked the lion part (abode of lion) -- again sorry for that. At that point of time, I was editing from iPhone, and perhaps that led to mistake in reading; given that I am not the primary contributor to the article, I do not know everything from heart, so should have been careful. However, I did not find Torchiest's comment combative at all, he was probably pointing to the tangential (off-topic) comments in that discussion.
Again, sincere apologies. And we really want you back,as you have been doing great. As you have noticed, I did not reply to your initial comments (article structure), as I was planning to re-structure it based on your recommendation. Please resume your detailed review.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:31, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Apology accepted. To be absolutely clear, and as stated elsewhere, I have no issue with reasoned responses such as yours here and Torchiest's here. To further clarify, it had nothing whatsoever to do with a so far nil response from my structure comment—I am very patient. What upset me was your comment here coupled with responses elsewhere by Stfg (talk · contribs). A reviewer is putting time, in my case over three hours this afternoon, into helping editors. I fully accept that not all reviewers comments are correct. Indeed, editors could and should take some reviewer comments with a pinch of salt. But don't snark back. Bad form. Especially (in my opinion) you were wrong. In the case above, I was comparing my source and the article was missing the derivation of the city name of lion. This is, in my opinion, inexcusable from a toponymy point of view. I'm done here. Good luck with the article. It deserves to be featured and I am certain it will be in time --Senra (talk) 18:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I absolutely agree with you in two points—I was ill-mannered in replying you, so apologies once again. Next, the lion is surely needed, and I just reworked the toponymy section to include the meaning, and "lion city" parts. The article will gain through your detailed review, so please reconsider your decision. I understand my wrong comment which was put hastily (unnecessarily) and I am ashamed for that. Please pardon my rash behaviour, and please resume your review. Regards,--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Done --Senra (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Version of English used

I notice some reviewers commenting on some of the terms used in this article such as flyover and men of letters. Question: would it be useful to add the template {{Indian English}} to the top of the article talk-page? Having said that, editors seem to be justifying a few article terms against the OED so perhaps the article is written in {{British English}}? --Senra (talk) 18:03, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose from Cryptic C62

I started at Economy and worked my way down, and I saw a number of problems with sentence/paragraph organization and a lack of context. Adjacent sentences often have no relevance to each other, and phrases are used which meaningless without additional explanation. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • The first paragraph of Economy needs help. The first and last sentence both mention GDP, so why aren't they adjacent?
  • Why does the acronym "GDP" appear before "gross domestic product" is spelled out?
  • The paragraph as a whole paints a picture of a bustling private sector, but the claim "As of 2006, the largest employers in the city are the governments of Andhra Pradesh (113,098 employees) and of India (85,155)" feels totally out of place. A much more meaningful statistic for this paragraph would be the largest private employers in the city.
    • the theme of this paragraph has now been changed. It discusses general statistics (largest employer, employment percentage, leading sector). The sentences suggesting bustling private sector have been moved to the paragraph discussing primarily newer private sectors. Please have a look.--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:37, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 2010, the economic analysis group GaWC ranked Hyderabad in its third tier (Beta+) of world cities." This is a problem of content without context; while the statement may be factually accurate, not enough explanation is given for it to have any meaning for the lay reader.
  • "Hyderabad's commercial markets are divided into four sectors..." This has nothing to do with the other information presented in the second paragraph of Economy.
  • "According to a government survey, 77% of males and 19% of females in the city were employed in 2005." Same problem as above. This is not related to the paragraph it lives in, so why was it placed there?
  • What are "pedestrian facilities"? Sidewalks?
    • Here is what the source (FN116, p.63) says: "It was observed that about 40 % of the accidents occurring in the city involve pedestrians as the victims. This can be attributed to the poor pedestrian facilities in city road network. The fatal accidents involving pedestrians were observed to occur during the road crossings." My understanding is that "pedestrian facilites" would include sidewalks (pavements in BrE), pedestrian under- and overpasses, road-level pedestrian crossings of any kind, stop/go lights, ... However, I don't believe either source justifies "either lacking or blocked by street vendors", so I've changed that. --Stfg (talk) 09:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is the acronym "APSRTC" used before the full name is spelled out?
  • The second paragraph of Transport is primarily about expressways and highways, but this chunk is irrelevant: "Like many other Indian metropolitan cities, Hyderabad faces parking problems, particularly in the city centre. Roads occupy 9.5% of the total city area."
  • What is a "flyover"?
  • Redundancy in the Transport section:
    • "Public modes of transport such as buses, auto rickshaws and light railways are the most commonly used in Hyderabad."
    • "The bus service ... is the most frequently used means of public transport within the city"
    • "Hired transport includes taxis and the widely used auto rickshaws."
      • Removed redundancy. Re-structured the section. Now, the first paragraph provides general idea, and statistics. Second paragraph is on problem (congestion, accident) and solutions (new roads, overpasses). Third paragraph describes bus, train and air services.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Hyderabad received royal patronage for arts" When?
  • "men of letters" What are these?
  • "The Kuchipudi and Kathakali styles of dance were popular in the Deccan region, and continued during the Qutb Shahi period." When were they originally popular?


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 18:49, 16 January 2013 [5].

God of War (video game)

Nominator(s): JDC808 ♫ 06:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I have put a lot work into the article since the beginning of the summer (not including over the past couple of years, but these past few months have been a greater improvement to the article than the past couple of years). It became a GA in August and received a copy-edit in September. A Peer Review was just archived about a week ago and I tried to address all the issues brought up in that PR in which the purpose of that PR was to get this article ready for FAC. JDC808 ♫ 06:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment the last few sentences of the lead completely digress from the subject by naming sequel after sequel. I think you can move the "God of War series" phrase from before and summarise "It is the first installment in the God of War series, which feature ## sequels as of 2012."—indopug (talk) 17:22, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I had done it that way was because I was using Halo: Combat Evolved (which is an FA) as a model and it similarly does that. --JDC808 ♫ 06:19, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Halo earned the bronze star six years ago, when standards were a lot laxer, and in any case didn't have the long lists of sequels in the lead. Featured articles aren't perfect; often they gather a lot of cruft as the years pass. You have to be careful which articles you choose as models, and also take care to avoid their less-than-stellar features.—indopug (talk) 16:21, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, implemented your suggestion. --JDC808 ♫ 23:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments by Hahc21
  • Okay. I'll take a look.
    • "features four sequels and a prequel with another prequel in development" I am afraid that "features" is not the right word. Maybe "The game's story has been expanded into, as of 2012, four sequels..." or something like that. Also, "a prequel with another prequel" reads a bit odd. My recomendation is to write: "Two prequels, one of them in development." or something similar.
Changed.
    • "it is revealed," Unnecessary detailed, in my opinion.
That was what a copy-editor wrote, but I removed it.
    • I suggest to expand a bit on how the game ends. It is pretty notable that, at the end of the first game, he successfully defeates Ares and becomes the god of war.
I'm not sure how much more can be said about their fight without over-detailing it. Ares death and Kratos becoming the God of War is all there. I may have confused where you're talking about.
Oh. I am talking about the lead, sorry.
Okay. Done.
    • " and forms part of a saga with vengeance as a central theme." You have already explained above that it belons to a series. I think it's a bit redundant to state this again. You may add that "Chronologically, God of War is the third chapter in the series, developed with vengeance as a central theme."
Changed.
    • Nitpicky: Why add this to the lead: "in 2012, Complex.com named it the eleventh best PlayStation 2 game of all time."? Complex.com is a relevant videogame website? A highly valuable honour? I guess you should expand onto the original awards.
It's the most recent (that I know of) "best of PS2" list. I have no idea of its relevancy as a video game website. From what I know, it's reliable though. It is in the Awards section.
Okay. Although my point was if it was notable enough to be on the lead. But it's okay :)
    • "for the PlayStation 3." The second usage seems a bit redundant to me. My recommendation is to merge the last two sentences to avoid repeating unnecessary words.
Merged.
    • "and platforming and puzzle games." games? or elements? or else?
A copy-editor removed "elements." Not sure why, but added it back.
    • "neutrally colored chests." Actually, the chests are white colored. You should add this, as "neutrally" is a bit confusing.
They're actually grey like a metal or maybe rock. Anyhow, a copy-editor chose "neutrally" as the word to use.
Mmm Okay. The issue is that neutrally does not resemble any color, but it may do the trick, after all.
Most have been done, a couple may need responses. --JDC808 ♫ 06:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. --JDC808 ♫ 08:14, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Reception
    • "Mikel Reparaz of GamesRadar criticized the amount of detail in the game which he said meant "the graphics occasionally stutter"" I don't find the sense here.
A copy-editor reworded it like that. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by "I don't see the sense here?"
What makes no sense gramatically [or semantically] is using "which he said meant" (??) and starting the quote with "the graphics...". This should be fixed writing: "..criticized the amount of detail in the game, elaborating that as a consequence of the aging hardware of the PS2, "the graphics occasionally stutter or even slow down". However, he gave the game a perfect score concluding," [the use of still us also useless]. Another issue is that I'm not sure that he criticized the amount of detail, but how "the developers pushed too far the boundaries of the PlayStation despite of the console's hardware limits." This should explain it better. Notwithstanding, I will read the review to see that the reviewer tried to say.
Okay. I have extracted what the source says: "The PS2's aging hardware, unfortunately, can't always keep up with the sheer level of detail the developers shoehorned in. As a result, the graphics occasionally stutter or even slow down." Then, stating that the reviewer "criticized the amount of detail in the game" is incorrect. He noted that the hardware limits of the PS2 were subpar to the graphics the developer have crafted, and as a result, they "occasionally stutter or even slow down."
Okay, I implemented your suggestion, but changed "criticized" to "noted", so it's "Mikel Reparaz of GamesRadar noted the amount of detail in the game, elaborating that as a consequence of the aging hardware of the PS2, "the graphics occasionally stutter or even slow down." However, he gave the game a perfect score concluding,"
Good :)
    • I feel that the reception section, the reviews, is a bit too short for such an influential game. Also, you should avid using that much number of quotes and try to synthesize the information, writing in your own words what the reviewers tried to transmit, and quotate only when necessary.
Will try to have this fixed, or at least better, by tomorrow.
Reception expanded. --JDC808 ♫ 23:03, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Soundtrack
    • "Spence D", Spencer?
"Spence D." is how his name appears in the source.
Ooh, then you got it wrong on the references... [ref #42, "Spencer D. (March 25, 2005)..."]
Woops, fixed.
    • "but complained of the uneven transitions between tracks", what about writing "but criticized the transition between tracks" or similar?
Done.
  • On Novel
    • I think you need to [brifely] state, out of quotes, the plot of the novel. Has it differences from the game? Was it a best-seller? Or is it all the information available about it?
I need to read it to be able to expand upon the plot differences. I'll try to search more online to see what I can find, as well as sales info etc.
Expanded section. --JDC808 ♫ 22:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Film
    • "and he eventually" this second usage of "he" is redundant.
Done.
A couple are done. A couple others need further comments. --JDC808 ♫ 02:22, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I'll still look for info on the novel though. A friend has let me borrow it so I'm actually able to read it now. --JDC808 ♫ 21:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As noted above, novel section has been expanded. --JDC808 ♫ 22:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Archive and access dates should be in the same format.
Okay, I had only been informed that date and accesdate format don't necessarily need to be the same, but all dates need to be consistent and all accesdates need to be consistent. I'll fix archivedate. --JDC808 ♫ 06:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. --JDC808 ♫ 22:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to thesixthaxis, I can't say for sure. It's not listed as reliable and it's not listed as unreliable. There's a discussion about it and the OP makes good points of how it could be considered reliable, although the only response doesn't agree. --JDC808 ♫ 06:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the about page for that site. The best claim for the source is in the last paragraph: "A large proportion of the site's success is due to the contributions of staff members and the site administration led by Chris and Don. Its staff include journalists from GameSpot and IGN, producers of the Eminence Symphony Orchestra and Video Game Orchestra, game designers at Capcom and Ubisoft, and graduates from the University of Oxford and Berklee College of Music." —Torchiest talkedits 02:52, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moved my resolved comments to talk page.
  • Suppport: I already commented on the problems with improperly quoting in the development section; those have since been corrected. I checked sources 13–17 (the first paragraph of the release section) and 36–40 (the awards and accolades section) and they were all fine. Taking all that into account, along with the fairly extensive copy editing I've done and all of the other corrections, I think this is good to go. —Torchiest talkedits 20:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you!! Both for the support and for helping correct issues. --JDC808 ♫ 20:59, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much. --JDC808 ♫ 21:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Will the reviewers who are using the green template please read the instructions at WP:FAC and refrain from doing so? Templates at FAC cause errors in the archives per Wikipedia:Template limits triggered by transclusions; that is why the use of templates at FAC is discouraged. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Review by SandyGeorgia

Oppose: There are glaring prose issues throughout; I do not intend to list all of them. Check for "also" and "as well as" (which are almost always redundant), and here are two samples demonstrating the need for a thorough independent copyedit:

  • It's received aggregate scores of 93.62% from GameRankings[24] and 94/100 from Metacritic. It's ??
It's as in "it has"
I think I forgot to pint it out, but guidelines recommend not to use abbreviations. I think I overlooked this. — ΛΧΣ21™ 00:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • God of War began production in 2002 ... It began its own production?
...No.

Please locate a copyeditor; fixing these few samples will not address my concern, and FAC is not the place for a line-by-line copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two different copy-editors have already copy-edited the page. Once in September (and this editor did a couple of more edits where necessary afterwards) and another editor just last week. --JDC808 ♫ 23:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with JDC808. — ΛΧΣ21™ 00:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are contractions throughout the article, check for "it's" and "they're". Check also for preceding ellipses in quotes; these are not normally needed unless it is particularly important to emphasize that the quotation is drawn from part of the way into a sentence. I also noticed several instances of the use of curly apostrophes rather than straight apostrophes (particularly in quotes that were probably copy-pasted from elsewhere); see wp:MOSQUOTE for recommended usage. Another issue: the frequent use of "claim" when "say" (or equivalent synonym) is better; see WP:SAY for pointers. Hope this helps. Sasata (talk) 01:59, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Sasata too. — ΛΧΣ21™ 02:01, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I believe I took care of all of those issues ("it's", "they're", and the issue of "also") though it's possible I missed some if someone could double check. I think I took care of the elipses issue, unless I misunderstood what you said. I think I took care of the apostrophes. It was kinda tough so I may have missed a couple if you could double check. Changed "claim" (or "claimed" or "claiming") to "said" or ("stated" or "stating"). --JDC808 ♫ 04:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Second visit from SandyGeorgia: Thanks for addressing the earlier issues.

  1. There is a considerable amount of prose that doesn't make sense to me (as a non-gamer); I could list it all, but there's a lot of it. So, generally, how about having a non-gamer go through and check for jargon? For example, what are "dial in combos" and what is the significance of the game being the antithesis of one?
  2. "because Sony gave him nearly complete creative control to create a game of his own design" ... creative ... create ... repetitive prose. Please review throughout with an eye to varying the prose.
  3. Logical puncutation issues are throughout: See WP:MOSLQ.
  4. In one para, there's a lot of Jaffe said, Jaffe elaborated, Jaffe etc ... but no other person is mentioned in that paragraph, so why not just "he"?
  5. Do you want a comma in here? Commenting on the story of the game, Tom Lane said that it was "compelling"[33] while Chris Sell said that the story is well laid out and that it rarely stalls.[34] Also, said, said in same sentence, try to vary ?

These sorts of prose issues persist; please give a thorough going over or locate someone who is not close to the text to copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I've went through and tried to fix some things, including your examples. --JDC808 ♫ 01:19, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will read the article again and try to make it non-gamer compliant. — ΛΧΣ21 03:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Third visit from SandyGeorgia: An independent copyedit is still needed; JimmyBlackwing (talk · contribs) just copyedited another video game FAC, perhaps he can be consulted. For a random sample of the prose, I went to the "Release" section, random issues:

  • The game itself was released on March 22 ... it was the first product containing PS2 material to be available via download.[21] PlayStation Plus subscribers can download a one hour trial of each game.
  • PS2 is an undefined acronym (it should be defined on first-use in the article), and one-hour should be hyphenated. I have no idea what "containing PS2 material" means, so ...

Still opposing on prose, please locate a copyeditor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed what you pointed out and contacted JimmyBlackwing, but he cannot help. --JDC808 ♫ 05:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Darn. Have you approached David Fuchs (talk · contribs) ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have now. He said he'll look over it this week. --JDC808 ♫ 22:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
He made a couple of edits. I thought he would have made more, but I guess he didn't see anything else. --JDC808 ♫ 05:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fourth revisit, I went to the Development section:

  • it was unveiled two years later at SCEA Santa Monica Gamers' Day
  • I had to click on the citation to understand what the acronym SCEA is.
  • GameSpot noted that players would be able to "sunder enemies with a single move, such as by ripping them in half." GameSpot said the ...
  • GameSpot noted followed by GameSpot said, can those be merged together somehow to avoid repetitive prose?
  • At E3 2004 in a meeting with GameSpot, the developer said that there would be about 15 to 25 different attack moves with the Blades—the player's main weapon—in the final game, and the combo system would be free-form so that players can string these moves together in just about any order.
  • Holy cow :) By the time I finished that sentence, I didn't know which end was up.
  1. Why must I click on a link to discover what E3 2004 is? And even when I click, I'm plopped in to the middle of some article where I still don't know it is. Then when I go to the top of that article, I find I'm in a History of article that still doesn't tell me what E3 is. So, many steps later, I figure out the first part of the sentence may mean " "In a 2004 meeting between Electronic Entertainment Expo and Gamespot (is that what is meant ???) ...
  2. ... the developer said the final game would include between 15 and 25 attack moves using the player's main weapon—the Blades.
  3. Next, why is the combo system added to this info, making the sentence harder to sort? How about, new sentence, and why would be ... can ... "The combo system would be free-form, allowing players to string moves together in almost any order" ???

I'm not sure what else to do here ... the article is close, but the prose needs work throughout-- I am only pointing out samples from one section each time I visit. I haven't checked for accurate representation of sources yet, either. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, okay, I'm starting to get what you mean about a non-gamer having trouble. I parse E3 so instantaneously that I'm not even able to see it as a problem, but clearly it's meaningless for someone who isn't deeply involved in gamer culture. I've been doing more work on this, so I'll tackle the issues you mentioned and look for more cases of confusing lingo. I checked about a dozen sources before supporting, and got corrections on a number of them, so I think that part at least is fine. Thanks for the comments. —Torchiest talkedits 21:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC):[reply]

  • "Furthermore, he obtains a relic called Poseidon's Trident" Instead of the meaningless fluff word "furthermore", perhaps it would be more helpful to state when this happens in the game. Even "Later in the game" would be better.
Changed.
  • The majority of the content in the Setting subsection is redundant with the Plot section. I suggest merging the unique content into Plot and deleting Setting. I also suggest renaming Synopsis to Story.
I get what you're saying, but I don't agree with removing the section altogether. Any video game article (other articles as well) that have both a Setting and Plot sections are going to have some redundancies.
Thought of a way to expand it and explain the environments without being redundant as much as possible. Will work on tomorrow. --JDC808 ♫ 07:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With the help of Torchiest, the section has been expanded with a focus on the environments and what kinds of enemies are found in each. --JDC808 ♫ 23:32, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Much better. I have just now noticed that the Setting and Plot sections are entirely without citations. If it is common convention for a synopsis section to be written in such a manner? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:44, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
From my experience and from reading into that issue, at least in regards to video game articles (and maybe films too), yes. --JDC808 ♫ 02:12, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Referencing Prince of Persia, he said that while each puzzle in that series was a slight variation of the last" This phrasing can be simplified: "He said that while each puzzle in the Prince of Persia series was a slight variation of the last"
Changed.
  • "He praised how quickly the game progresses and noted its extreme violence." Noted how? Was the extreme violence seen as distasteful, or did it add to the fun?
Changed. --JDC808 ♫ 00:15, 6 January 2013 (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 18:49, 16 January 2013 [6].


Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

Nominator(s): Khanassassin ☪ 19:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been here at FAC many times, and always failed; the first time I nominated it was when I promoted it to GA, still a novice editor, who didn't know what a FA truly is. After editing on Wikipedia for a longer time, I learned how to create FAs, for example Ed, Edd n Eddy. Although latter nominations of this article weren't as negatively received as the early ones, they weren't positively received either. So after even more improvement, and a great copy-edit by the Guild of Copy Editors' Miniapolis and fellow gamer JimmyBlackwing, I'm completely sure this is a FA.

Thank you, Khanassassin ☪ 19:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Quick comment good work overall, but a few clarifications are still needed, eg "Leaving the cafe, he sees a journalist (Nico) photographing the scene.", who is leaving from the cafe? (Actually, both of the men leave this cafe, but you still need to explain).--Tomcat (7) 11:49, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should the cities, eg "Marib", be linked? Or are they fictional?--Tomcat (7) 11:52, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The only non-fictional locations are the actual countries and Paris. The rest, Lochmarne, Marib, etc., all fictional. :)
  • More comments
  • From the "Gameplay" section:
  • "by selecting from multiple commands." - shouldn't that be simply "by selecting multiple commands"? Also perhaps replace "multiple" with "various" (sounds better imho)
    • replaced "multiple" with "various", but kept the "from". You choose from various commands, eg look at, pick up, interact with. You choose one of these, so it's from. "By selecting multiple commands" sounds like you select more of them at once. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but I think it's so.
  • Can you also use keyboards or just mouse or gamepad?
    • No keyboard. Just the two.
  • "George must collect various objects which can then be used with other collectible objects, parts of the scenery, or with other people in order to solve puzzles and progress in the game." - many errors here. "which can then be used" - weak wording, perhaps which can be pieced together, or something like that. The wording beginning with "parts of the scenery" is odd
    • I'm sorry, but I don't find any of this as weak wording...
  • "the player gets a description and clues" - why is description in singular?
    • Oh. It's done now, I fixed it.
  • Skipping next section
  • From the Development section:
  • " (after 1992's Lure of the Temptress and 1994's then-upcoming, Beneath a Steel Sky)" - this part can be merged with the sentence. For example, "After working on.... Charles Cecil stated in an interview..."
    • I simply removed the brackets, I think it reads better than if it would be put in the beginning of the sentence.
      • Not really. Please read this sentence aloud.--Tomcat (7) 12:51, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • The problem is if the beginning of the sentence would read "After working on LotT and BaSS...", it would sound as if work on BaSS was already finished, but it wasn't.
          • Anyway, the sentence was now split.
  • " a reason he thought the Knights Templar an ideal subject.[8]" - something is missing here? Would be an ideal...?
    • Yeah, heh. Sorry, it's fixed now.
  • "(which used a question-and-answer conversation system)" - I don't see a reason why this statement is in brackets.
    • Sorry, it's fixed now.
  • "The game uses the Virtual Theatre engine,[16] previously used for Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky.[17]" - to avoid repetition, perhaps "As is the case with...,"
    • OK.
  • In the last paragraph of that section, why is "Beneath a Steel Sky" linked?
    • Oops. The link's removed now.
  • "were released in September 2, 2010" - replace in with on (as exact date)
    • Done.
  • Ok, that's all for now.--Tomcat (7) 16:56, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the Reception section:
  • "Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut also received praise" - I would delink the game and just pipe-link "also received praise"
    • Done.
  • " iOS versions" - are there different versions?
    • Yes - Wii, DS, PC, Mac and Android.
  • Overall this seciton is fine
  • From the Listings section:
  • " #4" should be spelt out
    • Done.
  • From the Legacy section:
  • Do we really need to add 6 in-line citations after one simple statement?
    • The more links the better. If just one publication would say that The Da Vinci Code was influenced/carried similarities to Broken Sword, it wouldn't be notable. But if there's a lot of them, then it is, so I added them all. They all make the same claim, so there's no need for quoting what each and every one of them said.
  • From the Future film section:
  • "silver screen" - sounds rather glossy, simplify
    • Done.
  • "the series was already successful, meaning a film would not be necessary" - suggest "the series was so successful that a film would not be necessary"
    • Done, but slightly differently.
  • "Cecil believed if the film would be bad, it could only damage the series" - believed could be replaced with, eg, meant, thought. "Would be bad", a bit childish, perhaps: "would be proven as a failure"
    • Done.
  • "it could only damage the series" - damage is weak in this case. Perhaps damage its reputation?
    • Done.
  • Several mistakes and odd wordings in this sections, eg "and that he was re-writting the game to "make it work as a film treatment" - comma missing ahead "and"
    • Done with ", and re-writting the game into a film"
  • or "In August 2012, Cecil said that he was Revolution are trying to", section needs a clean-up--Tomcat (7) 12:47, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done.

Comments

  • "for Broken Sword in 1992" I though this game was "Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars", if you are referring to the game series, provide a link per WP:REPEATLINK
    • It's for the game, not the series, so I'll simply say "for the game in 1992".
  • "is serious in tone" does that represent a neutral point of view
    • No, Cecil said that was his intention in all of his games, and many reviews/articles say so to.
  • Unlink "animated films" per WP:OVERLINK
    • Done.
  • Same goes for "2D", "mouse", "gamepad", "puzzle", "player character", "Ireland", "Scotland"
    • Done.
  • "with sales totaling one million copies by the mid-1990s" not very good prose at all here to be honest, change to "with over one million copies being sold by the mid-1990s" for clearer prose
    • Done, just that I said "around" rather than "over" - Cecil, and other sources as well, say either "around one million" or just "one million.
  • Not the best prose in "all part of the", would suggest changing to "all of which are part of the"
    • I wrote, "collectively know as the Broken Sword series," I think it sounds nice.
  • Link "Paris" upon first mention after lede as well per WP:REPEATLINK
    • Done.
  • The non-free rationale for the plot section needs expanding per WP:NFCC. How does the image help the reader's understanding, would right now suggest removing, unless its rationale is expanded completely
    • Done.
  • Check for consistency in some references; why is in ref. 20, "App Store" not in italics, while in ref. 21 it is, please check for concerns like that
    • OK, I'm finished with this now.
  • Don't "shout" in reference titles
    • OK. :)

More to come later. TBrandley 23:50, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reflecting on what TBrandley said, "iOS versions"? Wii, DS, PC, and Android do not run on iOS. I don't think being based on that version = that version. « Ryūkotsusei » 20:24, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What I wanted to say with "iOS versions" is that they received the most praise. Very positive, you're not going to find a score for the version below 80% percent, the average grade being 90-100&, while the DS/Wii versions were more 80%, with the PC, Mac and Android version receiving little, though still positive, reviews (in fact, there's not a single review for the Mac version, which isn't weird, because Mac doesn't support too many games). So, yes, what I wanted to say is "Wii/DS etc. reviews were positive, while the iOS versions were highly acclaimed." For now, I only tracked down only two reviews for the Android version - they're both "acclaiming", but you can't call the whole version acclaimed based on two reviews. --Khanassassin ☪ 20:55, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Brief review from SandyGeorgia
  • Oppose for now: Because the length of this review suggests that this article was not prepared for FAC, I looked at one section, mid-article. Samples only, this list is not exhaustive:
Comments moved to talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Second visit from SandyGeorgia

Thanks for pinging me, Khanassassin, and for working quickly on issues raised. This is another random, partial check-- not a complete review:

Comments moved to talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, overall, progress has been made, but more attention to prose is needed; bringing in a non-gamer to copyedit might be the best approach. Good luck! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Third visit from SandyGeorgia;
Comments moved to talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:09, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you had any luck in locating an independent copyeditor? Not there yet, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:19, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are no signatures on the responses above (now moved), which makes it very hard to tell who said what, and who is resonding to this FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Because I see that User:JimmyBlackwing has performed an independent copyedit, [7] and because I don't have time to evaluate the article further due to the holidays, I am striking my oppose. Good luck here! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments -- I made a few random comments, all of which were resolved and can now be found on the talk page. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:21, 10 January 2013 (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 15:29, 13 January 2013 [8].

Greg LeMond

Nominator(s): joepaT 20:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating Greg LeMond for featured article status because it is representative of Wikipedia's very best work and complies fully with Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. This well-written, comprehensive and timely article has been vigorously & thoroughly researched and reflects the relevant coverage of the topic, and all claims presented therein (supported by properly-formatted citations) can be verified against countless and innumerable high-quality reliable sources. The article is neutral, and stable, and it has undergone more than a month's worth of intense review and consensus-driven enhancement in preparation for this nomination.

Furthermore, the article conforms to Wikipedia's stylistic guidelines, and the lead (summary) section is an excellent example for BLP's covering individuals like the subject, whose accomplishments are in the field of professional sport. The structure of the article is appropriate and it includes a useful - and not overwhelming - table of contents that serves as a helpful road-map for the reader. Special attention has been paid by the editors to ensuring that citations are formatted consistently and in a manner that provides useful reference points to those readers interested in further study. Lastly, the article makes outstanding use of succinctly-captioned images that provide wonderful visual context for the material, and respect all copyright rules/regulations (I know because I personally negotiated the licensing and inclusion of each image that was sourced externally but then added to the wikimedia commons specifically to support this article!). My collaborators and I eagerly await your review and decision, and we thank you for your time. joepaT 20:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - This article seems to be more about LeMond the cyclist and has nothing about LeMond the person. In its current form, the article looks as if it should be renamed "Cycling career of Greg LeMond" as it would be a lot easier to rename than to spend many weeks researching his early life. At two paragraphs, the lede is too short for an article which is knocking on the door of 100,000 bytes and is not a true reflection of the body see WP:LEAD. It appears we have a brief mention of his early life within the lede, but absolutely no mention at the start of the body; it simply launches straight into his career. Sorry, but this is not a biography, more a prose list of sporting highlights, and career achievements. -- CassiantoTalk 11:22, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It seems logical that the bulk of professional's article would be about their profession—that's what makes them encyclopedic. A musician's article is mostly about their musical career, an actor's article is mostly about their acting career, and so on. Take a look at other FAs of athletes such as Dominik Hašek, Derek Jeter, and so on. You have a brief section for Early Life, and then the bulk. Your point about organization is correct; Early Life should be first. --Laser brain (talk) 21:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi LB, great to see you back! I agree that the bulk should be about his profession, my oppose is because it tells us nothing about him as a person early on so you simply start off reading about his cycling career and your left with a whole load of questions. When did he first become interested in cycling, what triggered his interests, schooling, family, etc. I like to read about the whole person, not just about what they are famous for. My interpretation of a biography is just that. If the article is organised like that chronologically, with an extended lede to fully summerise the full body of the text, then I would be happy to embrace it at FAC. -- CassiantoTalk 22:05, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cassianto and Laser_brain, thanks for the feedback thus far, happy to make the improvements you suggest as this is a long-term project for us and well within the scope of our competencies and knowledge - and our access to research done by others. One question - how to best distinguish b/w the subject as general person, vs. what they're notable for, which, in this case, is principally sporting achievement. For example, to what degree should scandal in the person's personal life be included in their wikipedia biography? We have not made major mention of the abuse LeMond suffered as a child, nor its later impact on his family life, bouts of substance abuse, marital discord, etc. W/ respect to questions about how they came to the sport, is that not answered in the first sentence to the early career, here: LeMond's introduction to [[cycling]] came thanks to [[freestyle skiing]] pioneer [[Wayne Wong (skier)|Wayne Wong]] in 1975.<ref>{{cite book|last=LeMond|first=Greg|title=Greg LeMond's complete book of bicycling|year=1987|publisher=Putnam Publishing Group|location=New York|isbn=0399132295|page=352|edition=1st|coauthors=Kent Gordis|page=16|quote=Wayne Wong taught me a lot about skiing. One thing he especially recommended as an ideal off-season exercise was cycling. As a result, I started paying attention to my bike for a change.}}</ref> Would early-life, once repositioned, be a section intentionally stripped of all references to his cycling career, even though he started racing while still a child? Or would a possible strategy be to merge into an early life section both all of the information concerning his family (mom, dad, sisters, where he grew up, how he came to cycling, his early results and that he was a victim of sex abuse)? Your insights here are appreciated. Regardless, I'm totally willing to address the reasons for which you oppose the nomination and improve the overall quality of the article. In light of this, your honest feedback and guidance is greatly appreciated. joepaT 23:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can't answer for Laser Brain, but I like articles to run chronologically. The very first section should be about his early life, family, upbringing, schooling etc. The end section should be either death if that's the case or what they are currently doing or awards earned thus far etc. Everything else in-between should be about his cycling career; how it started, struggles, training, races entered, achievements etc. In conjunction with that, talk about his personal life including marriages, personal tragedies, children etc, all in a chronological order. To get an idea of general layout simply look at other FA's. Once this has been expanded, increase your lead section to four paragraphs. This, I envisage, will take the article well over the current 100,000 bytes so the lede should reflect that. -- CassiantoTalk 09:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – This is a most worthy subject of an FA, and different from the usual sports fare that comes to FAC. Unfortunately, I don't think the article meets the criteria at this time, due to apparently uncited content. I saw the following items lacking citation:

  • 1984–1986: "Regardless, LeMond rode as the dutiful lietenant, and his support enabled Hinault to win his fifth Tour."
  • "LeMond later stated the 1986 Tour was the most difficult and stressful race of his career." A statement of LeMond's opinion like this clearly needs a cite.
  • 1989: Almost all of the section's second paragraph lacks a reference
  • 1990: The whole second paragraph has no reference
  • 1991–1994: "Something was amiss." In general, this is a short, vague sentence that doesn't do anything for the reader. The quote beforehand makes it obvious that he thought something was wrong.
  • "The watt is the measure cyclists most often look to gauge their performance today." Also, this is missing a word by "to", and "today" is a time-sensitive element that should be avoided if possible.
  • Business interests: "LeMond also won the 1989 Tour and World's—and his final Tour de France in 1990—on carbon fiber frames, which had begun to feature 'Greg LeMond' branding." Also, should the apostrophe be there in "World's"?
  • Much of the second paragraph of Anti-doping stance and controversies, which contains multiple quotes.
  • "LeMond was one of the first prominent professional cyclists to openly decry the sport's descent into the corruption of doping." This is quite POV in addition to being unreferenced.
  • Where is the quote in note 1 coming from? I don't see a reference attached to it.

I hope you continue working on the article, as LeMond would be a great subject for the main page and certainly deserves the best possible article. Giants2008 (Talk) 03:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi Giants, thanks for all of this feedback, especially re. Note 1, where the reference (Wilcockson) must've been inadvertently omitted upon an edit made by one of my co-contributors. With respect to all of the other instances you cite, I'm happy to delve back into the archives and ensure appropriate references. Question: how much time would one spend slagging-off LeMond in the article for it to be considered POV-free? After all, Armstrong is far from his only critic and, especially since announcing his willingness to replace Pat McQuaid as UCI president, he has come in for criticism from journalists such as Ed Hood in the UK. Just to note, I'm intentionally not responding to each point in specifics at this point b/c I haven't had even a moment to make a single subsequent edit. But all of the feedback is great and super-appreciated.joepaT 23:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wouldn't spend time "slagging off" LeMond at all. What we want to avoid is sounding like we are pushing an opinion on an issue, such as using the phrasing "descent into the corruption of doping." I happen to think that cycling is quite dirty now, but we don't want the article to read like we're presenting a POV on the subject; as Cryptic said below, it's important that we stick to the facts. In this case, the problem is in the writing style and not a lack of critical coverage. Writing something like "LeMond was one of the first prominent professional cyclists to openly decry the drug use of competitors" would be perfectly neutral while getting the important fact across. If you do withdraw the nomination for more work, I recommend opening a peer review, where you can ask for input from the opposers without the immediate pressure of an FAC. There's a short waiting time before a peer review can be opened, which you can use to address the issues that have been raised so far. Keep up your enthusiam and I think a future nom can pass. Giants2008 (Talk) 03:17, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – A clear driveby as was the original GAN. It seems that the nominator is more interested in the status rather than the actual quality of the article. It as been resubmitted for a GA review. I did have a suspicion that the GA review was done by a sock puppet, so could be investigated further. BaldBoris 20:35, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • How is it a driveby? The nominator has over 100 edits to the article. At most you could say he is rushing the article through the process (I'm not certain what the point of the GA process was, if he intended to take it to FAC that very same day), but I don't see much basis for your other accusations. This is not an actionable oppose. --Laser brain (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Laser Brain. Joepa, if you have the intention of improving this article further, which I believe you do, you should feel free to ignore BaldBoris's comment. We all have to start somewhere! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:52, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. There is a style of writing that is appropriate for memoirs, and there is a style that is appropriate for encyclopedia entries. The writing throughout this article is the former:

  • "His enormous talent"
  • "LeMond's spectacular comeback"
  • "After his storybook 1989-season"
  • "They put on a showcase of strength"
  • "In a surprising turnaround"
  • "he again out-dueled Fignon"
  • "Something was amiss."
  • "What he did not say was that the help was contingent upon LeMond demonstrating that he was clearly the better rider." If he didn't say this, why do we know it?

Our aim is not to tell a fascinating and over-embellished story in a sexy narrative voice. It is to provide the reader with a summary of the important facts. The entire article needs to be rewritten with this in mind. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:49, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hello Cryptic C62, thank you for your feedback. I believe that I understand what you're conveying about style, and, while I may have added at least one of the phrases to which you object, I think the majority were already in place or added by others not involved in our editing project. Or I simply avoided rewriting everything b/c I didn't want to be accused of trying to dominate the article and impose my own style upon it, even if that style would be more appropriate for wikipedia. Clearly what you're all saying is that, even while the article may have potential, there are improvements that need to be made, and you've provided specific examples that were not elucidated previously. All of this is very, very welcome, because I personally do not have the experience here of previously having edited an article up to the FA-status. But I'm more than willing to invest the additional time on top of 139 edits I've already made, which represent over 13% of the total edits to the article. One question, does additional factual material need adding to the article concerning the subject's sporting career or even their family/early life (see my comment above re. adding less-flattering information to the article) or would you characterize your objection and counsel based on stylistic and organizational deficiencies? Also, since it is clear that the consensus is that there is more work to be done, what is the formal process - will the nomination be failed and terminated, and I'll/we'll have to nominate again, or is it better tabled for a time and then reconsidered after a period for editing was allowed for? joepaT 23:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Joep01. I think the best strategy would be to request withdrawal of the nomination. The FAC delegates will archive the nomination, and you can bring it back later after you've worked on it (two weeks minimum). Consider contacting those who offered actionable opposition here before you renominate, just to ask if they believe their concerns were addressed. --Laser brain (talk) 13:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate note -- Joep, I will be archiving this nomination based on the reviewers' comments and my own scan of the text, which also indicates that rewriting in neutral language is called for. A number of people here have offered constructive and specific suggestions that I'm sure you'll take on board. After work is completed (including say a Peer Review, as suggested above) and provided at least two weeks passed since archiving, the article may be renominated for FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2013 (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 15:29, 13 January 2013 [9].

Jainism

Nominator(s): Rahuljain2307 (talk) 06:57, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because the article has been improved substantially since last review. It has addressed all the issues raised and now meets the criteria for FAC. Rahuljain2307 (talk) 06:57, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose regretfully. I can see the article has improved a lot, but unfortunately, and typically, all the previous FAC comments concerned technical matters of referencing rather than the actual content, which I don't think is at FA standard. Indian religious philosophy is notoriously difficult to write about for a general mostly Western readership, and I don't think this article pulls it off in various places.
  • There is a general problem with the history. The article starts by saying in the lead: "Jainism has its roots in the Indus Valley Civilization, reflecting native spirituality prior to the Indo-Aryan migration into India." which is a somewhat bold statement, and misleading without qualification and reference to wider shramana traditions, which comes in the next sentence, but with an unclear connection to this. The link to shramana is earlier, hidden away in "Ancient texts also refer to Jainism as shraman dharma (self-reliant)". All of this needs setting out more clearly as soon as it is introduced, and the implication that all the shramana traditions can be treated as Jainism or proto-Jainism should either be set out clearly, or modified. A, even the, key explanatory point as far as the recoverable history of Jainism is concerned then appears in the next section on non-violence, more fully than in the actual history section, which doesn't connect the various early periods it mentions, and is written pretty chaotically. The first para of the "comparative studies" section, right at the end, contains key information that should be at the start of of the history section, or even in the lead.
  • "Ahimsa (non-violence) is the heart of Jainism" - well sort of, but is this the best way to describe Jain philosophy? It is certainly the most distinctive and best-known aspect of Jain religious practice, but that's not the same thing. To me it seems a bit like saying "Wearing 18th century styles of clothing is the heart of Amish religion". The next sentence is "The understanding and implementation of ahimsa is more radical, scrupulous, and comprehensive than in any other religion." which miught be true, although in the past Jains have not shrunk from military activity, which other religious groups have.
  • the timing and causes of the relative decline of Jainism in India are not covered at all. Or has it always been a merchant-class religion with a very small proportion of the total population?
  • I notice that much of the article contains the same text as other articles on the different aspects - I don't know what the direction of travel has been, but reading the article does not contradict the impression that it is something of a patchwork of bits from elsewhere.
  • What solution do you propose?
Only general improvement, I'm afraid. Johnbod (talk) 22:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No mention of Jain art and architecture, for which we don't have any main articles beyond Jain temple.
Ok, really only covers architecture, & in a rather muddled way. I might add some myself. Johnbod (talk) 22:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are probably too many references, not all of good quality. Robinson and Voorst appear to be secondary school textbooks. I don't like links to Amazon pages about a book with no preview. Equally most points here could surely be referenced equally well to 5 or 6 of the better books. better to pick 3 or so main good refs & do the basic stuff to them.
  • Is it right that the priests at Jain temples are traditionally Hindu Brahmins? Worth mentioning if so.

Johnbod (talk) 02:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have addressed most of the points you raised. The lead section now clearly mentions about the Shramana tradition and its relation with Jainism. I have made a small section on the art/architecture and the decline of Jainism in India. The number of references are justified by the size and the scope of article. I am not aware of any such information that the priests at Jain temples are traditionally Hindu Brahmins. However, if you can find a reliable source for that, I'll make sure it is mentioned in the appropriate place. Rahuljain2307 (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
On the last point, try p. 170 in your source Jainism: The World of Conquerors, Volume 1, By Natubhai Shah - doesn't exactly say what I did, but getting there. There are other points in this section that could be covered. Johnbod (talk) 22:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have added information about priesthood in the section on monasticism. That should be sufficient, I think. Rahuljain2307 (talk) 19:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - I commend your efforts in taking on an article of this magnitude, but unfortunately I disagree that it currently meets FAC criteria. Some specific points for further improvement:

  • General copy-editing needed for prose quality, clarity and flow. For example, "Whereas consumption of most terrestrial vegetables doesn't kill the plant" is not a complete sentence, while "The symbol of hand" is not grammatically correct
  • Not done - those specific examples have been edited but were examples only. A thorough copy-editing for quality and clarity is needed. For example, "converted many Jains to Muslim by his fluency" is both ungrammatical and unclear
  • WP:MOS cleanup is needed - hyphen/dash confusion, use of contractions outside quotes, etc
  • Pick one variant of English and stick to it - for example, you've currently got both "behaviour" and "behavior"
  • Check automated suggestions here - includes dead link and double redirect
  • Many inconsistencies in reference formatting - changes in date format, missing dates or publishers, etc
  • Use of sources of uncertain reliability, like Goodreads
  • Still problems here - unclear and ungrammatical captions, File:Jainsects.PNG and File:Jain_universe.JPG need sources for the information they represent, File:Shantinatha.jpg contains engraved art despite lack of FOP in India for such, etc. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As per your suggestions, I have made changes in the article. Some copy-editing was done to make the article grammatically correct and to improve its quality. Contractions outside quotes are now removed. British English seems more appropriate for Jainism, hence I have changed -or to -our. Removed the dead links, double redirects and unreliable citations. Almost all of the references use the same template, so the issue of reference formatting should not be there. I have reorganized the images. Rahuljain2307 (talk) 12:25, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your efforts, but I'm afraid that problems persist here so my oppose will stand for now. You might consider seeking an independent copy-editor to help you with the prose. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, per Johnbod and Nikkimaria. I popped down the page and the first thing I found was "Meditation in Jainism aims at taking the soul to status of complete freedom from bondages." A thorough independent copyedit is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually that is probably accurate in the special sense of "bondages" given elsewhere in the article, but I agree it is not clear. Buddhist material usually uses "attachments" for what is maybe the same concept; not sure if that is worth using, or at least giving as an alternative. Johnbod (talk) 22:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Johnbod. Is "status of" not redundant in this context? Some of it reads like psychobabble and it's hard for the non-initiated to know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, on both points. I have been reading around a bit & I think the material is generally accurate, but as I said in starting my comments, it's really difficult to convey Indian philosophy to a Western audience. Johnbod (talk) 22:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have made the required changes in the section on meditation. It should be clearer now. Rahuljain2307 (talk) 18:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate query -- Three early opposes but no suggestion to withdraw; is current consensus that improvement to FA-quality is possible in a relatively short time, or rather that the nom should be archived and work done away from FAC before another try? Talk to me, people... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know you waited for "withdrawal" declarations ... I always acted on the principle that whenever a nomination had demonstrably not addressed previous issues, it was automatically archived per the FAC instructions (which state that previous issues must be addressed before nom). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Granted, Sandy, but a) withdrawal recommendations have been common in similar situations at least in the time I've been on the job and b) I don't see anyone above clearly stating that their opposition is due to the nominator having "demonstrably not addressed previous issues" -- I am on the go at the moment, so did I miss that? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. Last time only referencing points were really raised, which I admit I haven't examined much. Sandy recommended withdrawing & doing a peer review, but one had just been done before, with no comments at all, so I can't blame the nom for not doing another. This time reviewers are getting round to prose & content, effectively the first real examination this has had at PR/FAC. Johnbod (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, crud, Ian ... my apologies ... I was confusing this with another FAC I had just reviewed, where it had been mentinoned that previous issues had not been addressed (and which I believe you archived). My bad. Johnbod is in better position to evaluate whether issues here can be addressed in the course of a FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:50, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ian, how long is "relatively short"? The nominator is obviously willing to work on issues, but said issues are still considerable (and possibly require the involvement of helpers other than the nominator). Nikkimaria (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, "relatively short" in FAC-time for me is a couple of weeks or so, and it looks like there's still a good deal of progress to be made a week after my query. I can see that despite the nominator's efforts to action your objections they effectively all remain, as do Johnbod's and Sandy's. I will be archiving this now and suggest that, once further work has been done (including an independent copyedit and/or input from Johnbod if he's willing and able), if Peer Review has been a dead-end previously then the FAC reviewers could be contacted to offer their opinion on whether concerns have been addressed before the article is renominated (which in any case must be at least two weeks after this current nom has been archived). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2013 (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 00:20, 10 January 2013 [10].

The Emancipation of Mimi

Nominator(s): CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 01:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it meets the FA criteria. Thanks in advance for taking a look :)--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 01:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Initial Comments This article is pretty big (123 KB). Look at ways you can more effectively use summary style. For instance, there's not need to go into so much detail on the singles as they have their own pages. Dispense with a Singles section and only keep what is absolutely necessary for context. Make sure you are citing works properly. You are citing ref 150 to the UK Singles Chart, but the actual website is TheOfficialCharts.com. You're relying an awful lot on reviews for factual information; reviews are opinion pieces, not reporting. Compare the way sources are used here to In Utero (album), Loveless (album), OK Computer, and Modern Life Is Rubbish. Are there any biographical books on Carey that can be sourced? WesleyDodds (talk) 03:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wesley, I pruned a good 15KB of fluff, so I hope this helps satisfy your itch. As for the references, I look them through, but I believe they are pretty on point. Lastly, I definitely see your dilemma. Unfortunately, the latest biographies of Carey date to around 1998-99, so they would be of no use here. Online reviews are really all we have to go by. And just to comment, the album you linked to has some very large and detailed sections, so I don't think it's fair we prune too much important info here. Thanks and let me know how it looks and any more comments!--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 01:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Another comment. I looked at that reference and don't quite see the issue. Maybe you mistook the number. Also, any factual information (sales, recording info, release dates etc.) are all from reliable websites reporting from actual interviews etc. The professional reviews are only there to give light on the artist's progress or summaries of their material.--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 21:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Support Oppose – Hello Nathan. Here's the review you requested. Unfortunately, I think there are issues in the article that warrant an oppose. I didn't get a chance to have a complete look at the article in the last FAC, but after reading it once over, I'm afraid there are some problems. With that said, I have to commend the fact that you've worked so hard on the article and have already trimmed it some. I think the article has a chance, a very good one, at FAC, with the right amendments.

  • Note: Resolved comments moved to the talk page.
  • I've added my support and need to thank you Nathan for your saint-level patience throughout these weeks. I'm glad I spent my time with this FAC because it's come a long way. Well done! As always, I'll continue to make copy edits as I feel necessary. One final suggestion right now would be to specify when the Adventures of Mimi tour happened to differentiate it from the April 2005 tour. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 01:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just to clarify (already done in the article): The promo tour was during the album's release, whereas the actual tour started 16 months later in July 2006. Well thank you very much WP! I couldn't have done it without you :) I again appreciate all the fixes, comments and times you've spent helping me with the article. You're a good friend :)--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 01:53, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Publishers aren't required for newspapers, but if you're going to include them you should do so for all (ex FN30)
  • You're mostly doing link-on-first-occurrence in footnotes, but there are a few inconsistencies with that (ex FN27)
  • FN32: spacing
  • Be consistent in whether you include location for newspaper that don't include location in the title (ex FN81 vs 82)
  • FN86: hyphens should be dash
  • FN102: missing italics
  • Compare FNs 87 and 107 (and similar)
  • Some missing publishers (ex FN171). Nikkimaria (talk) 20:37, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addressed. Thanks for checking them out.--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 04:19, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Comments

  • Add alt text to the images per MOS:IMAGES
  • ""comeback album" by critics" I find it hard to believe that all critics stated that, perhaps a rewrite
  • "The album revealed a more intimate side of the singer" does that represent a neutral point of view, could you state how said that?
    • Tried to fix that, but it really is explained in the actual body of the article. I mean that's the point of the lead, to give you a brief summary. I'm sure if you read the article, you'd be more than satisfied at the whole "more intimate" etc.--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 20:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "billed it Carey's" missing "as" between there
  • Avoid contractions such as "don't" per WP:MOS, unless it is in quotations
  • WP:OVERLINK of "Kanye West" don't link again after first mention after lede. See WP:REPEATLINK
  • "On Reid's recommendation" grammar fail, would change to "Based on Reid's recommendation"
  • Link "MTV" in Writing and recording section, see WP:UNDERLINK
  • MOS:IMAGELOCATION problems, images should not start on the left side of a section, hence it should be moved to the right side, or moved further down on the left side
  • "64/100" to "64 out of 100"
  • Add related portals to the article using {{portal box}} or {{portal bar}}
  • "On June 4 she" use American English here, please place a comma after "4"
  • "In composing the album" check your grammar there

More to come, that's just lede, infobox, and general formatting concerns. Ping me if I don't leave further comments quite soon. TBrandley 19:43, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Addressed comments from Aaron moved to talk


  • Comments: Generally a very nice read. I have made a handful of minor edits of things I noticed. A few comments:
Writing and recording:
  • "During one of her routine visits to the recording studio, Carey produced a beat with The Legendary Traxster.[10] She later met American rapper Twista backstage at one of his shows.[10] After discussing her collaboration with Traxter, Twista revealed that he had already written lyrics, and expressed interest in what later became "One and Only". By November, Carey felt that she had composed enough material for The Emancipation of Mimi.[" A couple of things in here. One is the use of "routine", which builds up the expectation that something extraordinary happened. But what happened? She went into the studio and... produced a beat. Isn't that what people do in the studio? I understand that her collaboration with Twista was the unexpected element, but I don't think the routine vs unexpected logic quite flows, and would recommend removing "routine".
  • Maybe tweak *Twista revealed that he had already written lyrics". I don't think "already" works here. He had written lyrics for himself (that presumably didn't have any music to go with them yet), but didn't know until now that Carey had music that might fit them, right? But it's also not clear whether he offered the lyrics after he had heard Carey and Traxter's beat (did she play it for him backstage, or maybe she sang it for him), or did she just mention it and they play it for him later?), and at what point he had an inkling that it might be a good match.
  • The source says "I got a beat from Traxter and did a song called “One And Only”. I saw Twista backstage at a show and I was telling him about the track, and he said that beat was supposed to be for him and he had written something for it, so we did a collaboration." That sounds like Traxter gave Carey a beat that Twista had already heard and was under the impression that Traxter had given it to him. It also sounds like he had already written lyrics for that particular beat. She also doesn't say that it was necessarily Twista's concert that she saw Twista backstage at. Additionally, she doesn't say that she played the material for him, just that she told him about it. Moisejp (talk) 03:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mention the collaborations on "Stay the Night" and "One and Only" (two songs) and then suddenly "by November"... Carey had an album's worth of songs. Six songs from the album are mentioned in the section as being written with Traxter, Twista, or Dupri. So presumably the other eight songs on the album were written before November? Are there any stories behind these other songs, which were also all collaborations? If not, maybe a transition sentence or two (right before the "by November" one) along the lines of "Meanwhile, Carey also wrote and recorded several other songs, with songwriters and producers including..." Also, is the timeline clear enough leading up to November? Do you have any information about when the writing and recording sessions began, or at least whether the sessions leading up to November were over several weeks, or several months? Moisejp (talk) 17:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(I'm going to continue re-reading the article and may have some more comments in the coming days.) Moisejp (talk) 17:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Based on Reid's recommendation, Carey met with Jermaine Dupri in Atlanta for a brief studio session, since she had written some of her best work with him." Should this be "since Reid felt that she had" or possibly "since Carey and Reid felt that she had". As is, it's not clear whose opinion it is. Moisejp (talk) 03:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The singer described her frustration with the overproduction on many of her previous albums, due to the inclusion of what she considered unnecessary 'bells and whistles'." When did she describe this? Did she tell this to Reid? Moisejp (talk) 03:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Composition:
  • "Carey described The Emancipation of Mimi as her most most expressive album to that point" When did she describe this? I would specify or else use the present perfect ("has described").
  • "The album's motif of professional and cultural emancipation is demonstrated throughout various songs. Many feature Carey's "lack of restraint" and incorporate a musical diversity not featured on Charmbracelet." Possibly consider specifying in the text whose views these are. Well, assuming the answer is in the citation, I think the intelligent reader can figure out that its the viewpoint of the author of the citation. But it seems like most FAC reviewers want it spelled out in the text itself, so for consistency of style and expectations, it would be an idea to spell it out here, too. Moisejp (talk) 04:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your comments Moi, I believe I have addressed them all. Thanks!--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 19:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Done Moi. Thanks.--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 02:46, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your changes about the Traxter/Twister collaboration are a definite improvement. I did a little tweak. I accidentally pressed return before I'd finished typing my edit summary, but I just thought the more general "lyrics" matched the source better than "a verse". Also, I thought "mention" flowed better than "discuss" but there's another verb you want to use in there, that could be cool, too. Moisejp (talk) 19:11, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Composition: Structure and Style) This needs fixing: "During the interview, Carey spoke on the album's lack of creative restraint she felt was not featured on Charmbracelet." What interview? The last mentioned interview (from Fox News) is from a different source. Moisejp (talk) 19:56, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's great. I think this article is definitely making progress. Another comment: "While most tracks derive instrumentation from live bands and musical instruments, some of the uptempo songs feature computerized arrangements and synthesizers." I understand the contrast you're trying to make, but I'm not sure it completely works, because isn't a synthesizer a musical instrument? What if you cut "and synthesizers", would it still be true? Moisejp (talk) 03:21, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Comments from Cryptic C62:

  • Other charting songs does not have enough content to exist as a subsection, or even as a paragraph.
  • ""So Lonely" reached number 65 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart due to limited airplay on R&B stations.[11]" This sentence is not supported by the citation given.
  • "Carey ultimately sued the promoter, claiming $1 million in damages for the concert's abrupt cancellation." What was the result of this lawsuit?
  • In the Professional ratings chart, why is Entertainment Weekly's score placed in parentheses?
  • The Credits and personnel section would be more readable if the slaves were grouped by role, rather than listing them all alphabetically. Songwriters: Thom Bell, Darnell Bristol, Calvin Broadus, etc.

-- Cryptic C62 · Talk 23:10, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Media review

—Andrewstalk 07:55, 25 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on criterion 3 only Adabow (talk) 05:23, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - Pretty much there in terms of prose. References seem reliable.
Lead
  • many of whom appeared as featured guests on some tracks. - The "some" doesn't flow well for me. There must be a better way to phrase it
General
Removed "over"s at the last second. Simply not a fan of it; more than is so much better!

Good work. I'll probably come back tomorrow; I have an eye infection and it's likely I missed some things. ceranthor 03:01, 27 December 2012 (UTC) Running through and fixing things. Still seems good to me. ceranthor 13:59, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Review by SandyGeorgia

Oppose, 1a, prose.

  • Repetitive prose, first sentence in "Promotion" begins with:
  • Carey embarked on a promotional tour in support of the album ...
  • and the first sentence in the next section, "Tour", begins with:
  • In support of the album, Carey embarked on her first headlining tour in three years, ...
  • The tour received a positive response from fans and critics, many of whom praised the quality of Carey's vocals.[81][82] ...
  • Many of whom, based on two sources.
  • In Tunis, Carey played to more than 80,000 people during the span of in two concerts.[78] Midway through the tour, she booked a two-night concert engagement in Hong Kong, which was scheduled for after her Japanese shows.[83]
  • "Span of" is redundant and unhelpful -- it was two concerts. Midway through the tour, she scheduled a two-night concert in Hong Kong following her Japanese shows.
  • Although tickets had gone on sale, the performances were cancelled. According to Carey's then-manager Benny Medina, the cancellation was due to the concert promoter's refusal to pay the singer her agreed-upon compensation.
  • Convoluted, wordy. The performances were cancelled after tickets went on sale; Carey's then-manager Benny Medina said the cancellation was because the concert promoter refused to pay the agreed compensation.

These are samples only from one small section I checked. This article has come very far in its several FACs, but the prose isn't over the line yet. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:21, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sandy. I appreciate your review, but I have some concerns/comments. I've addressed all your comments, and hope you can return for a more in-depth review. I'm honestly concerned about your oppose, and don't think its completely justified. A FAC nom is not supposed to be perfect; its striving for perfection (with the help of reviewers). Obviously you're going to find a few small errors, but I'm concerned with you only posting 4 small grammar issues taken from two sizable sections. Yes, if "over the line" means Sandy is not going to find even the smallest grammar error, then no nom would pass. I hope you can revisit and possibly work together with me in a more in depth analysis. Again, I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just trying to express a concern I have in the best possible way. Cheers.--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 03:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, please ping me once you've worked through Laser's concerns, and I'll take a fresh look. No, articles are never perfect, but we should get as much covered as we can before we let 'em through the door at FAC. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:16, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Laser brain

  • Oppose. I unfortunately have to concur with Sandy's assessment. I know it's disheartening to have an FAC open this long only to have opposition, but problems are readily apparent in the prose. I started reading randomly at the Release section:
  • The prose is extremely repetitive (ie "it was release here, then it was released there, then it was released there")
  • Why was it released in Mexico first? It seems a relevant detail given Carey is not a Mexican artist.
  • "Available in digital download and physical CD" As opposed to what kind of CD?
  • "In the United Kingdom, The Emancipation of Mimi was distributed through Mercury Records." Why are we being told this? The UK release date is not even given in this paragraph.
  • Since you called out the exceptions for Mercury in the UK and Universal in Canada, are we to assume Island Def Jam released the album everywhere else?
  • Why is there no "rest of the world" release date given? Are the countries listed the only places the album was released?
  • The next section begins with another "was released" sentence—too repetitive.
  • "co-written and co-produced by Carey with Jermaine Dupri" And Jermaine Dupri, surely.
And:
  • MoS: Do not use single quotation marks unless inside double quotation marks.
It's probably not miles off, but it needs a lot of fit and finish. A featured article should not have so many issues that don't require much digging to find. --Laser brain (talk) 21:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Request - Alright delegates. This has been going on for quite some time, and I don't think I have much time left (nor do I think this should be left open). Unfortunately, Sandy and Laser weren't able to bring this to my attention sooner, but alas. I started university again, and don't have the time to try and cram all this within the next few days. What can I say, I thank you all for the help and support I received. Maybe one day, if I'm bored enough, I'll give this another try. Please Close the nomination. Thanks.--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 23:55, 9 January 2013 (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 23:38, 5 January 2013 [12].

Wing Coaster

Nominator(s): Dom497 (talk) 18:55, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe the article meets all the FA criteria. Dom497 (talk) 18:55, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's comment - I suggest you read this because there is an ugly fused participle in the second sentence of the Lead, and there is "where...where" in the first sentence. There are redundancies later – as in "around the world" and "Due to the fact that" – and clichés, as in "not only...but also". There are Manual of Style issues such as "above/on", and bad grammar as in "The design of a Wing Coaster is different to many traditional steel roller coaster around the world." This candidate has little hope of promotion until the prose (and I suspect the comprehensiveness) receives a great deal of attention. Graham Colm (talk) 22:54, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think I fixed the structure issues.--Dom497 (talk) 15:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Sorry, the prose is not at the "professional standard" required of a FA-level article. I would expect an article this short to have been immaculately proofread. Samples only:

  • "The design of a Wing Coaster differs from many traditional steel roller coaster."
  • "Also, because there is nothing on top of the track and only steel beams holding each ends of the train together,"
  • "a restraint that sits on the riders waist"
  • additionally, I doubt criteria 1b (comprehensive) and 1c (well-researched) been met. A Google and Highbeam search reveals several sources that have not been used:
  • Popular Mechanics article
  • Investment Business Weekly, April 15 1992, "$20 Million Wild Eagle Takes Flight at Dollywood; First Wing Coaster in the U.S. Soars to Rave Reviews"
  • Manufacturing Close-Up, March 31 2012, "$20 Million Wild Eagle Soars at Dollywood"
  • The News Sun - Waukegan (IL), May 11 2012, "X Flight takes wing"
  • The News Sun, May 12 2012, "Test riding the steel beast"
  • nothing useful to add from Steve Alcorn's 2010 book Theme Park Design?
  • aren't there any writeups or mentions in Funworld, Amusement Today, or RollerCoaster! magazines?
  • I would expect the ride summary table to have more information like track length, ride time, max speed, features, or, if not convenient to fit in a table, to be discussed somewhere in the article.
  • what's the weight of a train? What g-forces are typically experienced by riders?
The above comment came from Sasata (talk · contribs). ceranthor 21:29, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, for two main reasons. First, much of the article reads like an advertisement for Bolliger & Mabillard. Second, the article is clearly incomplete. Roller coasters are not just machines that are designed and installed. They are ridden by people, a concept which is entirely absent from this article. Is this design comfortable? Is it fun? Is it safe? I expected to see a Reception section or something similar, and I was disappointed to find it absent. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's closing comment - Clearly, there is more work to be done before this article is ready to be featured – it would be best to do this away from the pressures of FAC. Graham Colm (talk) 23:36, 5 January 2013 (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 23:31, 5 January 2013 [13].

Otis Redding

Nominator(s): Tomcat (7) 12:02, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because after receiving an excellent copyedit and making additional edits I definitely feel it is ready for the next step. Regards.Tomcat (7) 12:02, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Forgot that I have another nomination. I will seach a co-nom.--Tomcat (7) 12:45, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, 1a. The writing is very awkward and in some cases grammatically incorrect. It needs a thorough copyedit by someone fresh before it's ready for deeper examination. Misplaced modifying phrases are a prominent problem.
  • Examples just from the lead:
  • "he wrote and recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" with Steve Cropper, which became the first posthumous number-one record" The placement of the modifying phrase "which became the first posthumous number-one record" modifies Steve Cropper, which is not correct.
  • "Born and raised in Georgia, United States, at age 15 Redding left school" Awkward and badly organized. "Redding" should follow the comma, since the modifying phrase refers to it.
  • "He and his group first played small gigs in the South, then performed at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub, their first concert in the western United States." The modifying phrase "their first concert in the western United States" modifies "Whisky a Go Go nightclub"
  • "His premature death devastated Stax, already on the verge of bankruptcy, which later discovered" Bankruptcy discovered?
  • Other random pot shots:
  • In the lead you state "he helped to craft the Stax Sound". Later you write that he "exemplified" the Stax Sound—these are not the same concept. Being an exemplar of something does not mean you helped craft it, or vice versa. Also, the "to" is not needed in that phrase.
  • "He later worked as a well digger, gas station attendant and guest musician in the following years." Why do you need "later" and "in the following years"?
I'm sorry but this seems a long way off. I have not looked at the sourcing other to than see that you integrated at least two of the sources suggested by Ling.Nut in the last FAC. However, the writing needs a lot of work. Peer Review and light copyediting won't do—many parts require rewriting. --Laser brain (talk) 03:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please wait before I search a co-nom. Thanks.--Tomcat (7) 11:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The article has recently received a good copyedit.--Tomcat (7) 11:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand what you mean by "search a co-nom". A co-nominator would have to be someone who substantially contributed to the article, and should be readily apparent if there was one. Based on your responses above, it seems that you do not understand the foundation of my comments. With all due respect, you will need to get someone more proficient in writing and grammar to go over the whole thing. If someone at GOCE either introduced or overlooked these and other errors, you will need to get someone else. Please withdraw this—it is not ready. --Laser brain (talk) 16:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Article needs to be proofread. Further problems include MOS:NUM inconsistencies (age fifteen, but age 19?). I'm not sure what to take of this: "In mid-1960, he moved to Los Angeles with his sister, Deborah, and wrote his first songs including "She's Allright", "Tuff Enuff" "Gamma Lamma". "Gettin' Hip". The latter was his first composition to be released as a single." Also, latter refers to the first of two items, not four. No hyphen in "Redding was well-paid at about $25 per gig" either. Those are stylistical and grammatical errors. There is general clarity and flow issues. For example, wouldn't "doubted" be more concise than "had doubts"? "He" is unneeded in "Redding was well-paid at about $25 per gig,[3][4] but he did not stay for long." and so is "as" in "As a member of Pat T. Cake and the Mighty Panthers, Redding toured the Southern United States on the Chitlin' circuit." Also, what is meant by "American pop music audience"? Pop music or popular music? —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 22:31, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comments - I am archiving this nomination for two reasons: First, it is out of process in that the nominator already has a FAC that is not ready to be closed. Second, it is clear from the reviews that the article is not ready for promotion and one reviewer has suggested withdrawal. Despite the admirable service that Guild of Copy Editors provide, they do not guarantee to achieve FA level prose. Graham Colm (talk) 23:28, 5 January 2013 (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 13:02, 5 January 2013 [14].

Stones Brewery

Nominator(s): Farrtj (talk) 02:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I have created it from scratch to GA status, and I feel that it is now ready for FA status.Farrtj (talk) 02:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose An initial scan suggests to me the article is not ready yet.
Section header "The Cannon Brewery" should not include the definite article per WP:MOS.
References:
A noted beer historian's blog is (a) a blog and may not be an RS, and (b) incorrectly formatted.
"The Observer. 11 April 1986." is not a complete reference. It needs a title, ideally an author if there is one identified and the place of publication i.e. presumably London. There are numerous examples.
UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Lawrence H. Officer (2010) has no retrieval date.
"Herts CAMRA Newsletter 2008" (PDF). Retrieved 18 May 2012. has no publisher.
In all honesty it would be easier to list the satisfactory references rather than those that seem to be flawed.
At a glance the text itself seems passable and a few very quick comments follow.
Where is the Shalesmoor district of Sheffield? e.g. NSEW.
Re: "In 1919 The Crown Inn opposite the Cannon Brewery was purchased and rebuilt to serve as the brewery tap and flagship public house (in 1992 it became the brewery's visitor's centre)." Why is Crown Inn italicised? Why refer to 1992 in a section that refers to an earlier period?
(£116,359,137 in 2012 adjusted for inflation)[9], - you have the reference before rather than after the comma.
Is it normal practice to italicise trades names of beers?
"Stones Bitter became popular across the United Kingdom during the 1980s" is not referenced
I'm sorry I am not more knowledgeable about brewing or Sheffield's history, and that's all I have time for right now. Ben MacDui 15:39, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – Per Ben MacDui's source issues and others that I found. I commented at the last FAC on how some of the references didn't have titles, and I'm disappointed to see that this hasn't been fully addressed before bringing the article back here. Moreover, the print references have now been made less verifiable than before, as the page numbers have been removed in almost all of them. There had been some excess information in the citations before, such as word counts, but if page numbers can be provided to make verification easier, they should be. I don't understand why they have been removed. In addition, I noticed that When Saturday Comes goes to an article about a magazine, not a movie as is implied in the article. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:09, 29 December 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 15:40, 1 January 2013 [15].

Josiah Willard Gibbs

Nominator(s): Eb.hoop (talk) 07:00, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Over the last year or so, I've put in a substantial amount of work into improving this article on a very important but not very well known scientist. It was promoted to "Good article" in June and received a favorable peer review in August. I have also implemented the changes requested during that review, including finding more suitable images to illustrate the article. - Eb.hoop (talk) 07:00, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Concerns I actually know who this guy is (how I loved thermodynamics...) and I was thinking of reviewing, but from an initial glance I thought the article showed clear signs of under-preparation. The following comments are without reading any of the text. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:40, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are nearly 40 duplicated links in the main body of the text (ie, excluding lead section and captions)
The reviewers and I looked into this. Of course, further improvement might be needed, but repetitions are mostly because: 1. A link appears in both the main text and within the infobox, references, etc., or 2. A name recurs in the text after several paragraphs and in a different section. I don't think that there are significant link redundancies within the same section of the text. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone ahead and removed most of the duplicate links in the main text. I left a few that seemed sufficiently important and far enough from the previous link. - Eb.hoop (talk) 00:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead seems very brief
I personally don't see how it could be significantly expanded without introducing technical detail that might discourage an average reader without university training in science. Both the GA and the peer reviewer expressed satisfaction with the lead. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last four references lack page numbers (may be more, only checked these)
For ref. 78, this is because it is a web document. For the other three, it is because they are refs. to the complete book, as is clear in the context. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I couldn't discern what the ordering principle was for the primary sources.
They're in chronological order with respect to when Gibbs produced the material. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Article name shouldn't normally appear in captions, we assume the photos etc are of Gibbs unless you tell us otherwise
I prefer more stand-alone captions, for clarity. But if this is not the accepted usage, it should be an easy fix. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "See also" shouldn't include items already wikilinked in text
In that case, much of the "see also" should be cut out. But I think, as it is, it's of much help in conceptually organizing the areas in which Gibbs worked. Perhaps a solution would be to call it something else. (The "Named for Gibbs" could be eliminated, though, since it includes mostly links that are also in the infobox.) - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on referencing – you should be consistent in whether the first name of an author is listed before or after the last name.Aa77zz (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:06, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More Comments This is a fine article which I enjoyed reading. I knew nothing about the man (although I've worked at Yale and taught both vector calculus and the concept of free energy). I'm close to supporting but I still have some nit-picks on the referencing:

  • The Bibliography section includes publications that are not cited in the article. These should be moved to a Further reading section. It might be also be useful to include a separate list of Gibbs' more important publications.
I'm not sure that it's necessary to separate the works in the bibliography that are used as citations from those that aren't. It others think this is necessary, it should be easy to do. As for identifying Gibbs's more important publication, I don't think this is needed. By far his most important works are also the longest: "On the Equilibrium of Heterogenous Substances" and Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The volume containing Gibbs publication "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances" is dated 1874-1878 (not 1875-1878) as one can see here.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be helpful if the article included links to scans of early publications that are now in the public domain. For example Hastings 1909 is here. Note that the first page is 374 (not 372 as given in the article). The two volumes of Gibbs' collected works (published by Longmans and Green in 1906) are also available: Volume 1, Volume 2. Aa77zz (talk) 13:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ref 5 is to Bumstead 1928 – but the editors of the 1928 edition of "The Collected Works" are given in the Primary section as W. R. Longley and R. G. Van Name. Is this correct? I notice that the 1906 edition of "The Scientific Papers" has an intro by Bumstead with the identical page numbers: xiii-xxviii. Is "The Collected Works" simply a reprint of "The Scientific Papers" Aa77zz (talk) 14:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is a reference to the same obituary that Bumstead first published in 1903. It appeared with some additions in the Scientific Papers. I think that the version in the Collected Works is just a reprinting of that extended version. I've added the page numbers from that reprinting to the entry in the bibliography. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support This is an accessible article about an important scientist. Technical details of his achievements belong in more specialised articles. Clearly all FAs can be further improved after promotion but this is already a high quality article. Any remaining issues with the prose are likely to be minor – and perhaps to some extent a matter of personal taste. Aa77zz (talk) 17:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: A beautiful article on a beautiful man. I really like how it read pleasantly and how it told me something of the mystery of the man. (I only knew he was super famous for thermo but not appreciated in his day.) Think you do a great job of showing the man's personality as well as giving the general reader understanding of his (pretty hairy math) contributions to thermo. It really reads "slick" (meant positively).

I do agree with the previous reviewer about cutting most of the see also (I would leave perhaps the lists). Although it is a style thing and I don't mind if you want to keep them.

I like the short lead. And the organization of the material seems pretty smooth.

The primary and secondary sources is kind of cool too. Little more info on what is going on...

I did not nitpick the formatting. There may be some small issues, but the overall look seemed smooth.

I liked this caption "Portrait of Prof. J. Willard Gibbs, taken around 1895. According to his student Lynde Wheeler, of the existing portraits this is the most faithful to Gibbs's kindly habitual expression.[31]". Very helpful...

Outstanding job and I really can sort of "feel" that you really researched the fellow in books and such (and reading the previous talk, I see evidence of comparison of sources and the like).

TCO (talk) 23:34, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I left only a couple of lists under the "See also." The rest I put into a different section, as an Outline of his major work. I cut out the "named after Gibbs" altogether, since most of it was in the infobox. - Eb.hoop (talk) 00:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Josiah_Willard_Gibbs_-from_MMS-.jpg: when/where was this first published? Should use publication rather than upload date, and translate source identification if possible
  • File:Jwgibbs_sig.jpg: can source be more specific than "from original"?
  • File:Thermodynamicist_Willard_Gibbs.jpg: when/where was this first published?
  • File:JWGibbs.jpg: if the author is unknown and the image was created in 1895, it's quite possible that the creator died less than 100 years ago - licensing needs fixing here. Also, page number for source?
  • File:Wykres_Gibbsa.svg needs US PD tag for Gibbs. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:30, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that I've addressed the issues raised by Nikkimaria. It's difficult to figure out the first date of publication of the portraits, since they're reproduced without attribution in the biographies by Rukeyser and Wheeler. There's certainly no issue with the first image, since it's also used as frontispiece in a book published in 1906, along with the signature, which in any case isn't subject to copyright. The diagram (File:Wykres Gibbsa.svg) is from a paper published by Gibbs in 1873. The two other portraits were used in the bios without any claim of copyright and must've circulated in Gibb's lifetime or shortly thereafter. - Eb.hoop (talk) 06:07, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, signatures are subject to copyright in the UK (you give two publication locations for the original, one of which is London), but given the age this wouldn't be an issue. File:Thermodynamicist_Willard_Gibbs.jpg, though, might be - though it was certainly taken well before 1923, there's no indication it was published that early. This would apply also to File:JWGibbs.jpg. What have you done to try to locate initial publication date? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The earliest source I can find for both of those portraits is Wheeler's book, from 1951. Neither has any copyright notice or indication of the author or source. File:Thermodynamicist_Willard_Gibbs.jpg is simply labelled "Gibbs the tutor", which dates it to 1863-6. File:JWGibbs.jpg is used by Wheeler in the frontispiece. In the list of illustrations it is only labelled "Gibbs in the Mid-nineties". On p. 179 of the text, it says "the best likeness of him is in my opinion that shown in the photograph taken in the early nineties and reproduced as the frontispiece of this book". I also checked the preface and the appendices, and there's nothing about where the pictures came from. There's only a thanks to "my colleague Dr. Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, to whose advice as a photographer in getting the most of old and faded prints is due the excellence of certain of the photographs." The pictures must therefore have circulated after Gibbs's death or Wheeler would've thanked Gibbs's family for them (as he thanks them for providing him with letters and other personal documents). The book by Seeger, from 1974, uses the same frontispiece as Wheeler, identifying the picture only as "J. Willard Gibbs (photograph about 1895)", with no other explanation. - Eb.hoop (talk) 04:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with suggestions: Gibbs was painfully isolated, yet much appreciated after passing. Perhaps to tie him into his time the article could mention distant work at points where Gibbs made his statements. For instance his pruning of the quaternion product into two separate "products" has the pragmatic basis of staying in three dimensions. The article raises his vector analysis three times, but might better describe its evolution from pamphlet to Nature to the Wilson book. Mathematical physics as a proper university subject in the US perhaps begins with Gibbs.Rgdboer (talk) 00:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Rgdboer: Thanks for your comments and support. I'm not quite sure what you mean by mentioning "distant work at points where Gibbs made his statements". Also, I think that it's not easy to reconstruct Gibbs's line of thinking on any subject, including vectors, because of his characteristic reticence. But I'll try to say a bit more in the article about his motivation for separating the quaternion product into a scalar and a vector part. Also, please feel free to edit the article yourself as well, to improve the treatment of this or any other point. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on prose, citation, and MOS concerns, an independent copyedit is needed. There are other minor issues as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:47, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm striking my oppose since the article has now improved sufficiently since its nomination, [16] and I don't have time to review and strike every issue I raised. The lead has been expanded, the prose has been tightened, and most MOS issues have been addressed; I haven't checked citations for consistency. I did not do a thorough review of the article, so I am not in position to support. Thanks to the nominator for the effort, and best of luck here! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:51, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all of your input. It's certainly been very valuable. I think that the article is in good shape. Hopefully we can get another experienced FAC editor to look at it now. - Eb.hoop (talk) 03:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. There is uncited information in the infobox (see for example Rudolf Clausius)-- that is, information that is given in the infobox but not mentioned or discussed anywhere in the article. If they aren't cited somewhere, they shouldn't be there, and if they are worthy of being in the infobox, the mention should be in the text and cited. Please check all of them.
    Done. I added a mention of the fact that Gibbs wrote an obituary of Clausius. All the other people mentioned in the infobox are also in the article. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The Bibliography does not use a consistent style; sometimes editors are given before title, sometimes after. Would you not rather list last name first on authors to make it easier for the reader to locate the corresponding biblio entry for a reference, since they are last name first?
    Done, as far as position of the editor's names. I personally prefer to give author names as initials followed by surname, which is what I'm used to from scientific journals. I could change that, if necessary, but I'd rather not unless others feel strongly on the subject. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll review later, but no-- don't feel strongly about one format or another, just that they are consistent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Minor citation inconsistencies (looks like different citation methods used by different editors ?); pls review throughout, samples only.
    • Yale scientist featured in new stamp series", Yale Bulletin & Calendar, May 20, 2005 Missing accessdate, volume, and number.
    • The format used for dates within citations should be consistent ... there is one format for dates, and another for accessdates. (Sample: Samuelson, Paul A. (5 Sept. 2003). "How I Became an Economist". Prize in Economic Sciences. Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 16 June 2012)
    I had already gone through all of the citations to standardize them, using templates. I'll go over them again tonight, but other than things like different format for the access dates, I don't think there's much of a problem. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. "As a mathematician, he invented modern vector calculus (independently of Oliver Heaviside)." The lead should stand-alone, and the reader should not have to read the rest of the article to understand the lead. The reader doesn't know at this point who Heaviside is or why he is mentioned here. Mention of Heaviside should either be dropped from the lead, or a few words of explanation of who he is and why he is mentioned here should be added.
    I'm not sure how to address your concern. Heaviside is mentioned here because he invented vector calculus, at around the same time but independently of Gibbs. It would be unfair to say just that "Gibbs invented vector calculus" and leave Heaviside out of the picture, but I don't think any further explanation is needed here of who Heaviside was. If I'm wrong about this, please suggest how to clarify. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, there are many ways to fix this, I don't want you to necessarily do it this way, but one suggestion (and the parenthetical is unncessary) is something like:
    • As a mathematician, he invented modern vector calculus, working independently of and at around the same time as British Oliver Heaviside, also credited with the invention of vector calculus.
    My suggestion is wordy and awkward, but the point remains-- either we don't mention Heaviside in the lead, or we explain to the reader who he is and why he is mentioned. Don't obligate the reader to scan down to understand why Heaviside is there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. as "the greatest mind in American history." See WP:MOSLQ-- the punctuation in that case should be outside of the quotes. Pls review throughout.
    I will look a this later tonight, but I think it's rather a minor issue. - 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
  6. The WP:LEAD is short. The "greatest mind in American history", with a substantial article, warrants more than two short paragraphs. Per WP:LEADLENGTH, it could be three or four paragraphs.
    I added half a sentence about his work on optics. I really don't think that a significantly longer lead would be a good idea. Gibbs had almost no public or private life outside of his scientific work, which is extremely important but rather abstruse. I think that the only way to lengthen the lead would be to add technical details about his work, and that this would probably discourage casual readers. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I suggest expansion to give more context to why he was described as the "greatest mind ... " ... the article is worthy of a longer lead, and the reader is left wanting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  7. "Gibbs was the fourth of the five children, ... " the five?
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  8. " soon after his graduation for college" ... graduation for college?
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  9. "Gibbs's principal mentor and champion appears to have been the astronomer Hubert Anson Newton, a leading authority on the subject of meteors." Why "appears to have been"? What is the issue? Appears to have been according to whom and who disagrees? The reader is not given information to understand why the "appears to have been". ... leading authority on the subject of meteors (prose redundancy).
    The documentation on Gibbs's life, especially his early life, is very sparse. We don't even know for certain which classes he took at Yale, or from whom. When the article says that Newton "appears to have been" his principal mentor, it's just paraphrasing what the citation says. Otherwise, I eliminated "the subject of". - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    But don't explain this to me here-- that won't help future readers. These kinds of things need to be clarified in the article (and they are only samples, not an exhaustive list). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  10. "This, as well as a defect in his eyesight, probably explain why he did not volunteer to fight in the Civil War of 1861–65. His name was never reached by the Connecticut draft and he remained at Yale for the duration of the war." This ... probably explain? grammar. His name was never reached?
    I fixed the first concordance issue. I'm not sure what your concern is about "his name was never reached" by the draft. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not an English construct I'm familiar with-- I don't know what it intends to say, so can't explain any more than that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  11. (This was also the fifth Ph.D. granted in the US in any subject.) No need for the parens.
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  12. After his term as tutor ended, Gibbs travelled to Europe with his sisters, spending the winter of 1866–67 in Paris, where he attended lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. From there he went to Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Magnus, and to Heidelberg, where he was exposed to the scientific work of Kirchhoff and Helmholtz. At the time, German academics were the leading authorities in chemistry, thermodynamics, and natural science in general.
    • This paragraphs is uncited, it appears to be the basis for some of the names in the infobox (influenced by Kirchhoff and Helmholtz) so the paragraph should be cited (and the influence explained if worthy of inclusion in the infobox), and we should use full names, not just last names.
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll check in on these things later to see what I can strike. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  13. "It was probably also around this time ... " Why probably? What is the debate or confusion? A statement like this should be attributed in text to the author who holds the "probably" opinion. Something like, according to historian Joe Bloe, it was probably ...
    Again, this is just a paraphrase of what the citation says. The reason for the confusion is the scant documentation. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Then we should tell the reader that. "There is little published information (or whatever), but historian so-and-so says it was probably also around this time ... " Sample suggestion, awkward, but you can get the idea. Don't leave the reader wondering what you mean. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  14. "In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics at Yale, the first such professorship in the United States. His position was unpaid, a situation common in Germany ... " What does his position at Yale have to do with Germany?
    I'm not sure what the concern here is. The point of this sentence is that it was common in Germany at that time to appoint unpaid professors. Germany provided the model for the organization of research universities, especially in the US, but I'm not sure that we need to spell that out here. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, he's at Yale, which is in Connecticut, USA. Why are we talking about Germany? The reader doesn't know. Tell the reader something like:
    • His position was unpaid, a situation common in Germany which provided the model for the organization of research universities ...
    Don't leave the reader wondering why information is there. This is an issue in several instances in the article, and it can help to get someone to copyedit who has some distance from the text and can point out similar. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's as far as I read: a copyedit is needed for basic grammar issues and the other list of issues-- particularly citation-- needs attention. It's a fine start, an excellent article will result, and I'd be glad to read further once the copyedit is done. I agree with Jimfbleak that the article appears underprepared for FAC, and suggest that work might proceed more efficiently off-FAC, with a return to FAC once an independent copyeditor has been located and citations and MOS issues have been addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I urge you to reconsider your vote to archive the current FA nomination. I really don't think that the remaining issues are very significant. I've been working on this for many months and have put it through both a GA and Peer review already. I don't believe there are significant issues with the writing or the organization, whereas remaining inconsistencies in the format of the refs., the placing of punctuation marks with respect to quotes, and any other typos, can be easily fixed. It's doubtful that, outside of the context of an FA nom., this article would be likely to attract the level of scrutiny from an experienced editor that you've just given to the first few paragraphs, so I think we should make the most of it while we're at it. - Eb.hoop (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will look in again later today or tomorrow (out of time for now), but I hope my non-exhaustive list of concerns gives you enough to chew on in the meantime. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've struck the suggestion to withdraw as the article is now within striking range of FA standards; I'm still in the process of reviewing and striking other resolved commentary. Nice progress! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Second visit
  1. Dates are still inconsistent in citations; in some, we find Month day, year and in others Day month year, and there is a (1904/6).
    I couldn't find the inconsistencies, but I did change the 1904/6 to just 1904 in the ref. to Poincaré. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Please review page ranges for consistency and WP:ENDASH.
    I've reviewed this, but perhaps a more experience editor would like to re-check it. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. There are still incomplete and inconsistent citations, here is one example:
    Bibliography on J. W. Gibbs, The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, School of Mathematics and Statistics.
    Missing date (Feb 1997) and missing accessdate.
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Logical punctuation mentioned above still needs attn, sample:
    "for his contributions to mathematical physics."[2]
    Ditto for the Einstein quote in the lead, and the last quote in the lead-- pls review the info on logical quotation above.
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These are minor stylistic matters, but nonetheless they need to be addressed on FAs. Perhaps the nominator can enlist someone familiar with citation styles, dashes, page ranges, date formats, logical punctuation, etc to collaborate to clean up the above. Once the prose is clean, and if I have time later in the week (that's a big if), I will try to help. Moving on to prose, I'm happy to find the lead now expanded, nice job of fixing the Heaviside matter, and that people mentioned in the infobox all appear to be cited within the text-- nice improvements!

  1. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics in terms of the ... term, terms ... it would be optimal to find another word to vary the prose ...
    Done (by Dirac66). - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Gibbs was the fourth of the five children, and the only son, of Josiah Willard Gibbs ...
    Still "the five children"? Why the commas for "and the only son"?
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Still seeing some redundancies, sample:
    He was also an active abolitionist and is now chiefly remembered
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    We still have "He was an active abolitionist and is now chiefly remembered ... " Now is redundant ... there is no difference between he is now chiefly remembered and he is chiefly remembered. Also see WP:MOSDATE#Precise language (review throughout?). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not wholly convinced that the "now" here is meaningless. I think that the point is that in the 19th century Gibbs Sr. might've still been remembered chiefly for his books and his teaching, while his role in the Amistad trial was then only a footnote to his career. More recently, the situation has been reversed. That, at least, is my reading. I need to think a little more about how best to convey this in the article without too much of a digression. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok (unless another reviewer disagrees. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Why the comma?
    Gibbs was educated at the Hopkins School and entered Yale College in 1854, at the age of 15.
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. " ... Gibbs's principal mentor and champion appears to have been ...
    "Appears to have been" is still unexplained, so I'm guessing the nominator is still working. I stopped there, and will revisit again in a few days to see if a copyedit has been completed.
    Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Third re-visit;
This article still needs an independent copyedit. I am not going to go through line-by-line highlighting issues so the nominator can indicate "done" and wait for more; that is not the purpose of FAC. Here is but a sample paragraph-- randomly picked scanning down the page-- fixing this will not resolve the need for a copyedit throughout:

Gibbs's first published work, which appeared in 1873 when he was already 34 years old, was on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities. That work appeared in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, which had few readers capable of understanding Gibbs's work, but he shared reprints with his correspondents in Europe and received a particularly favorable response from James Clerk Maxwell, at the University of Cambridge, who made three plaster casts illustrating Gibbs's construct with his own hands and mailed one to Gibbs (see Maxwell's thermodynamic surface). That model is still on display at the Yale physics department.[24]

  1. Why "already" 34 years old? unnecessary
  2. Why "That" work? How about "It"?
  3. Why the parenthetical (see Maxwell's ... many of these parentheticals are indicative of poor prose flow
  4. Why "particularly"?
  5. "Still" on display is redundant.
  6. The second sentence goes on forever ... it should be three sentences (run-on).

Please find someone to copyedit. I will unwatch for now; please ping my talkpage when an independent copyedit has been performed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how I would look for someone to copyedit this. Where am I supposed to ask for it, and from whom? I submitted this to a GA review in June, which it passed, and then to a peer review in August. I did what I could to improve it, waited a while for input from others, and submitted for FA when I thought it was ready, which seems to me to be the indicated procedure. I notice that very recently A. Parrott (who was the peer reviewer) has done some copyediting. But I can't tell whether this is what you are looking for or not. I don't really think that any of the points you raise about the paragraph quoted is a major concern. At best, there might be disagreements between editors about what is the most elegant phrasing. (And in the first instance I'd strongly object to removing "already", since 34 is an extremely unusual age for a major scientist to publish his first paper and the issue has been raised at the end of the previous section.) I understand if you don't want to do the copyediting yourself, but that leaves me in the dark about how I should proceed with this or any future nomination. - Eb.hoop (talk) 03:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh. I increasingly worry that I'm not stringent enough as a reviewer and tend to see small issues but not larger ones. As far as this article goes, it's definitely stronger than it was after my peer review. Since reading Sandy's comments I've tried to examine the article more carefully and edit it on that basis, but I really do not see major problems with the text. From Sandy's example, the most serious issues seem to be the long sentence and the parenthetical links. I could go over the article again while on the lookout for those types of problems, but I doubt she'd be satisfied with that. Sandy's accustomed to copyeditors with extensive FAC experience, like User:Dank or User:Tony1. They're usually in high demand and (unlike the variable-quality volunteers at the Guild of Copyeditors, to which I belong) aren't listed in any one place. A. Parrot (talk) 06:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fourth revisit;

Peeking in, I see the article is slowly improving (but my list above is too much for individual review and striking-- such work usually proceeds easier off-FAC). I found a few issues that should be addressed and left sample edits-- see my edit summaries. I'm still seeing convoluted prose and wordiness-- no suggestions on how to fix these, but samples:

  1. In the course of this effort ...
  2. ... and intense focus on his scientific work were such that he was generally unavailable personally

I responded to Ed.Hoop on my talk page about ways to find copyeditors who might collaborate on this article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:59, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support This article is a model biography which does a very good job of covering the life and work of a scientist who is not as well known as he should be. Including it as a featured article would both help to show how scientific biographies should be presented on Wikipedia, and also make J.W.Gibbs a little better known to the general public. Dirac66 (talk) 04:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Gibbs and Charles Sanders Peirce have been said to have been the greatest US minds in the 19th Century, and a FA article on either would be a monumental undertaking, because of the comprehensiveness requirement of FAs. In this case, there should be an expansion of the scientific and mathematical discussion. (Incidentally, Peirce's discussion of the vectors versus quaternions is worth reviewing.) The legacy discussion seems adequate, although there is no indication that the Gibbs lectureship is the premier recognition by the AMS of applied mathematics---it is not just another lecture, but is comparable to the von Neumann lecturer of SIAM. More copy editing is needed, also. The Peirce article gives an idea of appropriate comprehensiveness. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems odd and counterproductive to require such a level of comprehensiveness for FAs that the articles about important topics are unlikely ever to be featured. This is, after all, an encyclopedia for general readers, not a forum for specialized discussion. In any case, the work of Leonhard Euler, on math, physics, and engineering, is much vaster, and probably also more important than Gibbs's, yet the Wikipedia biography of him is featured, while presenting only a general and mostly nontechnical treatment of his scientific work. That, it seems to me, is the more sensible approach. - Eb.hoop (talk) 01:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Euler's article should not have featured article status, then....
I did not write the comprehensiveness criterion, which does not allow for importance: I voiced this concern in the Signpost interview with the mathematics project. (However, the last year's badly managed attempts to redo FAC will make any change impossible for a few years....)
The article is a great achievement, but I don't think it is comprehensive. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Kiefer, Thanks for the refs. I've now added a mention of Gibbs's influence on convex analysis, citing Simon. The article already included references to Wightman and even gives a long quote from his talk at the Yale Gibbs symposium. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:06, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I try to help, a bit. :) Wightman wrote a book on convexity and statistical mechanics, which probably has much more. I would think that the Centennial Symposium would be one of the best sources for Gibbs's importance.
There should be a discussion of partition function, which is of great importance in physics, material science, and mathematics.
BTW, your citation cite-doi doesn't list Edwin Hewitt with Edwin (only with E.); Edwin Hewitt was an expert on abstract harmonic analysis and Hilbert's fifth problem, and his authorship would be interesting information to list.
I would like more discussion of Gibbs's phenomenological physics and statistical mechanics, and their influence on macroeconomics and Paul Samuelson. Perhaps there was influence on Asimov's Foundation trilogy? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:45, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Kiefer, I would again argue against significantly extending the article or the technical discussion of Gibbs's scientific impact, since this is supposed to be an encyclopedia for general readers, not a repository of specialized knowledge, and this is a biographical article. For instance, I don't think it's a good idea to bring up the partition function here. Wightman mentions it in his Gibbs Symposium lecture (p. 29), but it would appear that Gibbs did not call it that and did not make much of it as such. Working in terms of the partition function is more natural in quantum systems, which Gibbs didn't know about. In any case, we've already discussed his work on ensembles at a level appropriate for a general encyclopedic biography, and I don't think that mentioning the partition function or trying to disentangle its history is a good idea. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:56, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You should use the book on Convexity and statistical mechanics (with an introduction by Wightman) by Israel, a student of Simon's. Perhaps Wightman did not write another book on the topic. The Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society would be good for finding statements putting Gibbs's work in perspective.Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Kiefer, Thanks for the suggestion. I read the book review by Lenard from the AMS Bulletin, but about Gibbs it only says what is already in the article: that his early papers on thermodynamic potentials contain important ideas that were later rediscovered by mathematicians and incorporated into convex analysis. The introductory essay by Wightman to the actual book sounds fascinating and when I have access to a university library again after the winter break I will try to get a hold of it. If there's something in it that can be summarized in this general biographical article, I will incorporate it then. But I don't think this should hold up the current FA nomination. I insist that, in my opinion, a Wikipedia bio. is not the place for a detailed technical discussion such as you would like to see. - Eb.hoop (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wightman's introduction to Israel seems to be the reference for Gibbs's influence on statistical mechanics and convex analysis, and I don't think that the article can be passed at FA level with an admission that it has been ignored. I am glad that you can look at it in January. Gibbs discussion of multiple subgradients for the primal was important too. (Some general discussions of variational principles for a general audience include L. C. Young, previously mentioned Strang, Tromba and Hindenbrandt's Mathematics and Optimal Form [Scientific America library].) Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Kiefer, I added the intro. by Wightman to the bibliography. I'm not using it as a citation because a. I haven't been able to read it yet, and b. I think that the issue of Gibbs's influence on convexity is adequately summarized already, with a citation to Simon. Also, please note that the influence of Gibbs on statistical mechanics (as opposed to convex analysis) is very well known and is discussed in all textbooks. From what I can tell from Simon and Lenard, the intro. by Wightman to Israel's book has nothing to add on that. - Eb.hoop (talk) 20:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Convexity and Legendre transforms appear in more places than just statistical mechanics. I would check these references for discussions of Gibbs:
  • Barndorff-Nielsen, Ole (1978). Information and exponential families in statistical theory. Wiley Series in Probability and Mathematical Statistics. Chichester: John Wiley \& Sons, Ltd. pp. ix+238 pp. ISBN 0-471-99545-2. MR 0489333.
  • Dharmadhikari, Sudhakar; Joag-Dev, Kumar (1988). Unimodality, convexity, and applications. Probability and Mathematical Statistics. Boston, MA: Academic Press, Inc. pp. xiv+278. ISBN 0-12-214690-5. MR 0954608. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  • Pečarić, Josip E.; Proschan, Frank; Tong, Y. L. (1992). Convex functions, partial orderings, and statistical applications. Mathematics in Science and Engineering. Vol. 187. Boston, MA: Academic Press, Inc. pp. xiv+467 pp. ISBN 0-12-549250-2. MR 1162312. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1= and |2= (help)
  • Entropy, Large Deviations and Statistical Mechanics by R.S. Ellis, Springer Publication. ISBN 3-540-29059-1
  • Large Deviations Techniques and Applications by Amir Dembo and Ofer Zeitouni. Springer ISBN 0-387-98406-2
  • Martin-Löf, Anders. Statistical mechanics and the foundations of thermodynamics. Lecture Notes in Physics, 101. Springer-Verlag, Berlin-New York, 1979. ii+120 pp. ISBN: 3-540-09255-2
I also listed some more books from statistical mechanics and large deviations theory that have lots of convexity. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctant oppose I commented very early on this, with the intention of doing a detailed review, but walked away because I felt the principle editor's initial responses were on the lines of "well, I like it as it is". On revisiting, I see that in fact there has been considerable progress, but there are still prose problems. A few examples from a random dip into the text Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:43, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pulmonary — despite the significant overlinking of thermodynamic terms, no link here
Well, the thermodynamic terms are very important if a reader wishes to follow to meaning of Gibbs's work. I think that reading about the human lung would hardly add to the reader's appreciation of the text. The point here is only that doctors were afraid Gibbs might develop tuberculosis as a young man. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have added this link to help readers who might just want to know what the word means. It is clear to French-speaking readers who know that poumon=lung, but not all readers of this article will understand French. Dirac66 (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • After his term as tutor ended, Gibbs travelled to Europe with his sisters, spending the winter of 1866–67 in Paris, where he attended lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. From there he went to Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Heinrich Gustav Magnus, and to Heidelberg, where he was exposed to...
I will go ahead and fix this. But I insist, in spite of the opinions expressed by you and SandyGeorgia, that this kind of issues are not really serious problems that are best deal with by archiving the nomination. If the nomination is archived, in all likelihood only I and the few other editors who've worked on the article over the past couple of years will stay interested in improving the article, and it is very unlikely that this will lead to fixing the prose infelicities that you've pointed out. This is, after all, an article on an important but somewhat difficult subject, and probably has a smaller readership than other FAC's. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gibbs's monograph is now deemed to be one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 19th century and one of the foundations of modern physical chemistry. — source for "now" dated 1928
This is followed, almost immediately, by a long quote from 1997 that says the same thing. If you prefer, we can use that ref. rather than the article by Bumstead in the first instance. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gibbs deliberately avoided speculating about the microscopic structure of matter, which proved a wise course in view of the revolutionary developments in quantum mechanics that began around the time of his death — Speculation from the author of what appears to be a fairly hagiographic biography doesn't turn his/her mind-reading or opinions into fact.
I can assure you that this is not speculation by Wheeler. We have a long quote under "Influence" by A. S. Wightman from 1990 that says the same thing. If you think it necessary, I can ether add that ref. there, or replace it for the citation to Wheeler. (Also, I've read Wheeler and it's not really an hagiographic account, despite its title. It's mostly a summary of Gibb's scientific work, with a few personal impressions from the author's time as his student.) - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As I read this paragraph, it seems to clearly attribute the opinion to Wightman. But if Jimfbleak insists, we could change "which proved a wise course" to (Wheeler and/or) Wightman has suggested that this proved a wise course", to clarify that Wikipedia does not present the opinion as fact. Dirac66 (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the effort that has gone into researching this article, and you appear to have made genuine efforts to engage with your reviewers. It's difficult to copyedit your own text, we all tend to be blind to our own infelicities, and I think it's asking too much to expect a full copyedit while it's at FAC. We had a similar problem with asymmetric hydrogenation, which was withdrawn on prose issues. We're working to get that up to FA, but away from the fires of FAC. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:43, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Jimfbleak; checking for extensive prose, citation and MOS issues on an article that appeared prematurely at FAC is the hardest way to do this work. Considering I felt I was copyediting the article alone, line-by-line, while Support was registered in spite of clear prose issues, I struck my oppose and called it a day (week). I'm curious to know why Supports are lodged when issues are easy to spot. Also, Nikkimaria should be pinged to doublecheck image issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I disagree that the issues flagged at this stage are serious, or that they would be best addressed outside of an FAC review. In fact, as I've said here, I don't think that all of the edits requested so far were really necessary, but I'm quite happy to comply with any reasonable requests that do not affect the meaning, and to defer on issues of prose and style to more experienced editors. But I'm afraid that if this nomination is archived, it will be very difficult to attract enough attention from the right quarters to modify it so that it would be likely in the future to meet the standards of SandyGeorgia, Jimfbleak, et al. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You aren't getting the point. I still haven't read the full text, I dipped in at random, found issues. If I had read the whole article and these were the only issues, I would be quite happy, but I've no reason to think this is the case. It's like Sandy said, you're given some illustrative examples, you fix those and wait for more instead of getting the whole article copy edited. to meet the standards of SandyGeorgia, Jimfbleak... it's quite clear the that the FAC criteria include prose criteria as well as content. In the end, the delegates will decide what weight to give to the supports and opposes, and it's not unknown for articles to be promoted with "oppose" comments — it's not a vote. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Jimfbleak: Just to clarify, I agree, of course, that prose criteria are very important. I am also happy to defer to experienced editor like you on such matter. Not only have I implemented every single one of copyedits suggested (even the ones I thought were not really necessary), I have made a substantial efforts by copyedit the entire article and to correct the text at other places where similar issues to those raised occur. And I have not been the only editor who's been working on this. (You can see that A. Parrot and Dirac66 have also been active in that regard.) It's just that I can't know if you or someone else will, on another dip into the text, find some other issue with the prose, which I hadn't noticed or where I thought it was OK. If you insist in choosing a few passages that need copyediting and on those grounds oppose the FAC, then I don't see how the article can pass, in this or any future nomination. At least, I have no way of knowing how to improve the article to make it likely to meet your standards. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I left you some tips on my talk page about how to find independent copyeditors to audit the prose. Sometimes people familiar with the topic or the article are too close to see the issues; an independent copyeditor is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear SandyGeorgia, Thanks for the suggestions. If this nomination is archived, I will try to see if someone else can audit the prose. But I expect that it'll be hard to find someone willing to do it, especially someone new to the article, and there's no assurance that such an audit would be more effective than the GA, peer, and FAC reviews that this article has been through already. I'd also like to say that I think that at the start of this FAC review, important issues were raised: consistency in the format for the refs., use of "see also", overlinking, length of the lead, use of punctuation in quotes, some typos, and a few redundancies. These have been fixed. I really can't see that the remaining prose issues are very significant, at least not from what you and Jimfbleak have flagged in your most recent visits, or from what I can see myself upon rereading the article. - Eb.hoop (talk) 17:43, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Maralia - In a departure from my usual method, I read this article after having scanned over the concerns raised here. I did not notice significant remaining prose issues or MOS concerns, but the number of issues raised above gives me pause and I'm not quite ready to support. A few quibbles:

  • I really, really dislike the left-aligned images at the beginning of sections; the break in continuity while reading is so very jarring. FWIW, MOS:IMAGELOCATION advises against it for this reason. Something to consider.
Done. -Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The handling of the school names (in respect to their changing over time) is bothersome. The lead anachronistically uses Yale University, but the Early years section properly uses Yale College (although it refers to "the University" which confuses things). Then we have Samuel Willard anachronistically referred to as President of Harvard University before it became such, but the College of New Jersey appropriately described as not-yet-Princeton University. Can these perhaps be resolved by simply shortening to "Yale" and "Harvard"? The lingering mention of "the University" would need altering as well.
Done. -Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would be easier to follow the trail from a short-form cite to the corresponding long-form cite if the latter also used lastname, firstname format.
Is this really necessary? I'd be happy to do it, but I had used only the surname on the short-form because it seemed to me to be in accordance with the Harvard-style format I've seen used in other articles. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well no, you needn't solve it in the way I've suggested. The underlying issue is that the order in which the long-form cites are presented is somewhat inscrutable. They're not wholly in alphabetical order by author or title; they're not grouped by whether they have listed authors or not... I think I almost understand the order in the Secondary sources section after a few readthroughs—I guess you've ordered the sources with editors by the editors' names, but as the citation style you've used puts their names in the middle of the citation, it was hard to figure them out—but I remain completely baffled by the order of the Primary sources section. Perhaps you can explain? I don't want to impose any particular scheme here, but I truly had a hard time locating long-forms from the short-forms. Maralia (talk) 03:15, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The primary sources are in chronological order. I guess that the confusing part is that the first one was published in 1947, but it contains the earliest work that Gibbs did, while he was still interested in mechanical engineering. Perhaps I could add a sentence explaining that. The secondary sources were in alphabetical order by author. That was slightly obscured because at one point we decided to move the names of the editors after the titles. If you have a better solution I'm open to suggestions. - Eb.hoop (talk) 03:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the longform "On the Equilibrium" cite, the 'reproduced in' statement should read "Reproduced in both The Scientific Papers...and The Collected Works..." as "The" is the first word of both titles, as listed below.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The caption for the sine integral image is not a complete sentence and should not end with a full stop.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This sentence appears to be missing a word: "it was Gibbs who first combined the first and second laws of thermodynamics by expressing the infinitesimal change in the energy [of] a system in the form...".
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:39, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the article body we have "Gibbs–Duhem equation", with an endash, but all of the eponymous equations/effects in the infobox use hyphens. Should these not all be endashed? The linked articles follow that pattern.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The spelling of "travelled" is not typical for American English.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the German article, I learned of Gibbs (crater) which was named for him and perhaps warrants mention in Commemoration.
Done. - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done (but under "Influence" instead of "Commemoration"). - Eb.hoop (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

None of these is a major issue. Spotchecks of the references by someone familiar with the subject matter would also help sway me. Maralia (talk) 17:46, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Spotchecks I checked six sources with on-line text. In each case the reference adequately supported the index statement, and there was no close paraphrasing other than clearly indicated and referenced direct quotations. No obvious issues with sources or their use Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:46, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, yes. Point taken. But in this case it looks doubly redundant. The information is there in the article, summarised once in the infobox, then summarised again in this secion. I think the section should be removed. --MarchOrDie (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The outline at the end is intended to group his major contributions by subject matter, which the infobox does dot. And the overlap between the two lists is only partial. - Eb.hoop (talk) 06:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are there many Featured Articles with such a list? It looks like a See also list, and a long see also list is a sign of an immature article. Based on this I would have to oppose. This is before I even red the article in detail. --MarchOrDie (talk) 12:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it fair to suggest removal of text (which is what matters) because text is summarized in an infobox when infoboxes are always redundant and should be removed from Wikipedia. The issue here is a broader one of those (me included) who hate infoboxes vs. those who force them into articles. We don't remove article text; we should remove infoboxes. But this is not a valid reason to oppose. A more valid reason to oppose would be that the "Outline of principal work" is listy, and the relevance of that outline, those particular links should be better explained in prose rather than a list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's well said. Let me amend my comment then to oppose unless this section can be rewritten as prose. I do agree that infoboxes are redundant, but do not agree that they should be removed from Wikipedia. Like templates and categories I think they aid navigation, within reason. --MarchOrDie (talk) 18:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The text discusses all of the subjects in the Outline. But I think the Outline is useful to give a reader a conceptual overview picture of the topics covered by Gibbs. It might be especially useful for readers with scientific training who have skimmed the biographical discussion. If anything, it's the long list of disconnected topics in the infobox that I think is of questionable value. But I think it reflects a well-established usage in Wikipedia. - Eb.hoop (talk) 20:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Very well, I oppose over this issue. WP:PROSE is a good summary of why we do not do this sort of thing. --MarchOrDie (talk) 13:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've now read the discussion of the use of lists in the Manual of Style carefully, and I don't see anything that would clearly forbid the Outline currently in the article. This list does not replace the prose discussion of the corresponding topics, but it is also not entirely redundant. For example, I think it's a useful thing to see at a glance that the "phase space" and the "phase rule" are different concepts, one relating to statistical mechanics, the other to physical chemistry. (Elsewhere in Wikipedia I've seen some confusion about this point, since it might not be immediately clear that the word "phase" is used in two entirely different ways.) Also, the article is long, dealing as it must with both biographical and scientific material, and some readers may benefit from such a conceptual summary at the end. The Outline was not my idea, and I've only culled it to make it more conceptual and less like the list in the infobox. I would therefore like to hear from other editors about whether they agree with MarchOrDie that the Outline should be removed. - Eb.hoop (talk) 18:13, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's closing comments - This FAC has become inactive but there is still no clear consensus to promote. It is not clear that the image issues have been resolved and that reviewers are satisfied with the quality of the prose. Graham Colm (talk) 15:38, 1 January 2013 (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 14:54, 1 January 2013 [17].

M-1 (Michigan highway)

Nominator(s): Imzadi 1979 → 07:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because this is about Michigan's Main Street, The Father Road, the first urban National Scenic Byway and only All-American Road in Michigan. Its history as a roadway originates in the Detroit Fire of 1805, but as a transportation route, it dates back to pre-colonization days. Woodward Avenue is the number one road in Michigan in a number of categories. Imzadi 1979 → 07:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments While I'd never heard of this road before reading the article, it appears to be very comprehensive article. However, its prose needs a bit of work. I have the following suggestions, but I'd also suggest a more general copyedit with a focus on ensuring that the sentences in each para flow together well in the 'Route description' and 'Cultural significance' sections; the current material is heavy going as the sentences don't always work well together.

  • "The highway follows "Detroit's Main Street" from Detroit northwesterly to Pontiac." - how can the highway follow a street?
    • Highways follow streets all of the time in the US. In this case, M-1, the highway, runs along Woodward Avenue, the street. BUS M-28 follows Lakeshore Drive, Division and Ready streets, County Road, Silver, Jackson and Main streets, and Teal Lake Avenue... all streets, for another example. In both cases, the highway designation follows a route along a set of city streets, or in the case of M-1, a single street. I hope this clears that up. —Imzadi1979
  • "The avenue has been listed as the Automotive Heritage Trail, an All-American Road by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and it has been designated a Michigan Heritage Route by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT)." - this is a bit awkward
  • "and provides access to countless businesses in the area" - it's obviously possible to count the businesses, and probably this wouldn't be difficult for a government agency to do if they have the addresses of businesses registered in the area.
    • Changing to "many" then. —Imzadi1979
  • "The name Woodward Avenue has become synonymous with Detroit, cruising culture and the automotive industry." - what cruising culture is needs to be explained here (via a wikilink, ideally)
    • Wikilinked to the Woodward Dream Cruise, since there isn't any other article just on the phenomenon. —Imzadi1979
  • "It followed the route of the Saginaw Trail, an Indian trail that linked Detroit with Pontiac, Flint, and Saginaw; with the Mackinaw Trail, the Saginaw also connected north to the Straits of Mackinac at the tip of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan." - the second half of this sentence doesn't flow on from the first half; I'd suggest splitting this into two sentences.
    • Done. —Imzadi1979
  • "Woodward Avenue is home to the first mile (1.6 km) of concrete roadway in the country." - the use of 'home' here seems odd (the roadway obviously isn't going anywhere); I'd suggest "Woodward Avenue included the first mile (1.6 km) of concrete roadway in the country" which is clearer.
    • I'm not going to rehash an avenue of disagreement this from the H-58 FAC; tweaked. —Imzadi1979
      • I'm not a fan of the new wording either to be honest - "Woodward Avenue was the location of the first mile (1.6 km) of concrete roadway in the country" implies that the road was concreted along its entire length, which doesn't seem to have been the case Nick-D (talk) 09:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, I used the past tense here because most of the roadway surface is asphalt now, at least on the surface. (MDOT will build a highway out of concrete and topcoat it with asphalt, so I can't say for sure that the historic mile isn't still concrete underneath the asphalt visible on satellite photos or Google's Street View.) I don't see how that wording can imply the whole roadway is/was concrete when it's many times longer than a single mile. Imzadi 1979 → 16:57, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "When the state created the State Trunkline Highway System " - watch for duplication
    • Tweaked. —Imzadi1979
  • "Since 1970, it has carried the M-1 designation. The roadway carried streetcar lines from the 1860s until the 1950s; " - ditto ('carried')
    • Tweaked. —Imzadi1979
  • "the northern edge of the park is bounded by Adams Avenue, which is where state maintenance begins." - that's a bit awkward
    • Tweaked. —Imzadi1979
  • "The signs took 18 months to design and fabricate in consultations with the local communities," - typo
  • "WA3 is offering replicas of the unique signs to discourage theft and to raise funds for future sign maintenance.[21] In addition to funding maintenance, proceeds from the signs and other merchandise is used to support the Woodward Avenue Beautification Fund.[22]" - this is a bit repeditive and over-complex
  • "the sounds of church bells and horse hooves were common along Woodward Avenue in the early 20th century." - I'm not sure what the purpose of this sentence is.
    • Reworked that a bit, drawing in a little more content from the source and the next paragraph to better highlight what one journalist called "a precarious balance between the sacred and the profane" in terms of the mix of religion, music, and alcohol in the area. —Imzadi1979
  • "During the 1940s, ministers lobbied for a law to prevent the issuance of additional liquor licenses in their neighborhood. The area, while known for churches, also had plenty of bars and even burlesque shows as late as the 1970s" - these sentences don't work well together. Am I right in reading it to mean that the ministers' lobbying wasn't successful?
    • See above; they were only partially successful though. —Imzadi1979
  • "Employees at the plant used the streetcar system along Woodward to get to work, unaffected by the additional distance to the new plant." - I imagine that they were affected; they just had a tram to catch rather than a walk
    • Tweaked. —Imzadi1979
  • "The annual event draws thousands of classic car owners and admirers from all over the United States and the world to the Metro Detroit area to celebrate Detroit's automotive history." - this reads like PR-speak (surely most of them are there to check out the historic cars rather than to purposefully 'celebrate Detroit's automotive history')
    • Just repeating what the sources say. They point out the wide geographic scope of the attendees. They also point out that the history is a part of the event. —Imzadi1979
  • "The event evokes nostalgia of the 1950s and 1960s, when it was common for young drivers to "cruise" with their cars on Woodward Avenue." - already discussed in the previous para (and why the "cruise"?)
    • It's repeated to tie the event to the previous discussion one paragraph up. —Imzadi1979
  • "Detroit created 120-foot-wide (37 m) rights-of-way for the principal streets of the city in 1805." - this reads a bit oddly (eg, it says that the city created the rights of way)
    • The city did create them though; they are the government entity that would have set aside a right-of-way for a municipal street and then maintain said roadway at that time. —Imzadi1979
  • "This street plan was devised by Augustus Woodward and others following a devastating fire in Detroit,[1] on mandate from the territorial governor to improve on the previous plan." - 'on mandate' sounds odd
  • "In 1996, though, the bypass would be renamed Woodward Avenue" - watch for passive voice
    • Passive voice is not incorrect though, but tweaked all the same. —Imzadi1979
  • "the remaining cars were sent to Mexico City." - were they donated as this wording suggests?
    • I don't read any suggestion of donation in that sentence. The sources I have don't explicitly discuss a completed sale though. The one cited here says, "The last Woodward streetcar track was taken up in 1956, the cars were shipped to Mexico City, and Detroit's transit system became one that ran entirely on rubber tires." The Metro Times article says that the mayor "urged [the] City Council to sell the city's recently purchased fleet of modern streetcars to Mexico City," which implies a sale, but that source never explicitly says that the were sold, just shipped there. —Imzadi1979
  • The 'Future' section doesn't read well - the sentences jump around a bit, and the chronology isn't clear. This could also be merged with the 'Streetcars and subways' section given that its entirely focused on proposals to reintroduce light rail
    • In the future, should the plans be totally cancelled or completed, it will be merged up into that subsection of the history. For now though, it is not "history" yet, but still something on-going. As for now, the text has been rearranged a bit. —Imzadi1979
  • Check for over-linking - for instance, World War II is linked at least three times Nick-D (talk) 11:09, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The second link was removed, but given the distance between the first and the third, the latter was retained as a link. In other cases, items may be linked in this article once on first appearance in a section, which is allowable given the relative size of the sections. Did any others stand out? I know that there is a lot of blue in places, but there are a lot of specific locations, businesses, districts that all have articles that should be linked.
    • Replied above. Imzadi 1979 → 15:12, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have an editor contacted to give the prose some additional polish, btw. He should be looking in shortly. Imzadi 1979 → 15:41, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I actually don't think the text needs that much work. I made a few changes, but everything seems tight and well-worded otherwise. I think some of the wording may be too concise to the point of being choppy, but it's not overwhelming and it could just be differences in personal preference. I'll take a closer look as soon as I get a chance, but I foresee supporting the article right now. Juliancolton (talk) 02:48, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Because the support seems (??) to mostly come from involved editors, I took a brief look (at the lead). My prose isn't the finest, but no egregious problems stood out that I could jump all over. I did link plat because I only heard that word for the first time in ... my older years. If you all think that is WP:OVERLINKing, pls revert. I didn't check anything else. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Sorry, but I can't support the promotion of an article which deliberately uses vague wording and some includes meaningless statements to FA class. This isn't an attempt to enforce my preferences on others or whatever, but is based on what I think FA criterion 1(a) means. As noted above, I think that this article has a lot going for it, but the prose issues here are problematic in my view. Nick-D (talk) 09:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • You're opposing over three disagreements in the prose? --Rschen7754 09:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, I am per the above discussion of these concerns. I don't post 'oppose' comments lightly, but this article can't be an example of Wikipedia's best work if it deliberately includes meaningless statements. Nick-D (talk) 10:00, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • On reviewing the copy editing, the overall quality of the prose also remains patchy; for instance most of the way through the para starting 'The area around Woodward was once nicknamed "Piety Hill".' we're again told that "The area, while known for churches"; the next para states "Curfews across the river in Windsor, Ontario, meant that many patrons during the war years were Canadian in addition to the Americans who worked in the factories of the Detroit area." (this implies that only the Americans who worked in those factories visited this area, which doesn't seem likely), and the next sentence states "Since the 1990s, the theatre district has undergone its own renaissance" without the previous/other renaissance comprised ever being identified in the article. The first para of the 'Woodward Dream Cruise' section starts with "Starting in 1848, when the roadway was converted from logs to planks, young carriage drivers would race along Woodward Avenue" (passive voice for no clear reason). I note also that while the article strongly stresses the importance of the automotive industry to the street (and, to some extent vice-versa), it only has half a paragraph on what the relationship actually involved (the first half of the final para in the 'Religion, entertainment, and cars' section) plus a few passing mentions in the 'Route description' section. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I perhaps should have looked beyond the lead :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:45, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pertaining to the three specific sentences mentioned above:
    • The municipality now known as the City of Detroit would have been the Town of Detroit in 1805, so I revised that sentence to use the formal municipal name with a footnote/cite backing that detail.
    • As for the church bells/horse hooves line, that is there intentionally to contrast with the next sentence in the paragraph; the sentence isn't "meaningless" and it provides "color". The lack of color is something usually noted in highway FACs, so it's surprising to me when a reviewer calls for its removal here.
    • "celebrating Detroit's automotive history", is valid considering this is a major roadway in the Motor City, the historic home of the American automotive industry and the major American auto manufacturers. Given the connection between that industry and the city, in my opinion, it's not meaningless to parrot that phrasing from the various books and news articles.
  • About some of the other comments more recently added:
    • There are auto assembly plants in Canada, so there were and are plenty of factories across the river to employ Canadians without them commuting to the US.
    • renaissance... tweaked.
    • Active voice is great, when the actor is known. In the case of the 1848 sentence, the source doesn't not specify who converted the road from logs to planks. If you have an alternate wording, please suggest it.
    • This is an article about a state highway; it isn't about the Detroit auto industry. Yes, this is the "Automotive Heritage Trail" All-American Road, but the article here follows the weight applied to that subject in the RSs used. This highway, and the street it uses, touch upon other subjects in the Motor City.
  • Imzadi 1979 → 10:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • In regards to your last point, this article stresses the importance of the road to the automobile industry, but hardly mentions what this involved. If your current sources don't describe this, I think that you need to find more sources to flesh out the kind of claims the article makes (eg, if this road is historically significant to the industry and/or vice-versa, you need to explain why, and discuss how this evolved). My point in regards to the "curfews across the river in Windsor, Ontario, meant that many patrons during the war years were Canadian in addition to the Americans who worked in the factories of the Detroit area" wording is that if read literally it states that the only Americans who went to these clubs were automotive factory workers, which seems unlikely. The 1848 sentence could read "Young carriage drivers raced one another along Woodward Avenue after the roadway was converted from logs to planks in 1848" or similar. Note that these are only examples of the prose problems. Nick-D (talk) 06:18, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • All of the applicable locations on FHWA's Woodward Avenue Auto History Tour are mentioned in the text. The agency's two-day suggested tour includes a private residence located off the main street, a cemetery that is the final resting place for many early auto pioneers, and a private school that's tangentially related; those three stops were omitted. All of the notable landmarks connected to the history of the auto industry along Woodward Avenue and adjacent side streets are listed then based on a survey of the sources. (The Woodward Avenue Action Association, stewards of the National Scenic Byway/All-American Road designation also list the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in their pamphlet, but that site is about 4 miles away from M-1's northern terminus.) Imzadi 1979 → 02:04, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • OK, but that's not my concern: the article includes text such as "if Broadway = Theater and Rodeo Drive = High Fashion and Jewelry, then Woodward = the Automobile", "Woodward Avenue put the world on wheels", yet only briefly explains what this connection actually involved. Nick-D (talk) 07:46, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Would you mind clarifying what your oppose is based on? Tone, prose, and/or not giving full details for some of the cultural relevance? --Rschen7754 07:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • All of those options, I'm afraid: the article is vague about what's apparently one of the road's main claims to fame, the prose is unclear at times, and the tone is not appropriate for a FA in parts (I also agree with HJ Mitchell's comment below about over-reliance on people who are out to praise the road). Regards, Nick-D (talk) 08:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • Two questions: so you're saying that nothing short of a complete rewrite will solve the problems? Also, with checking sources, are you sure that there are sources out there that reflect negatively upon the road and its associated culture? --Rschen7754 08:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                  • That's not what I'm saying at all. In response: 1) I think that the article needs a genuinely comprehensive copyedit to weed out flabby or imprecise wording such as the examples I provided above. The 'bones' of the article are essentially OK. 2) Where have I called for sources with a negative opinion on the road? My concern here is the use of vacuous quotes and paraphrased passages from people who are saying or writing gumph. Nick-D (talk) 09:58, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm afraid I agree with Nick here. I read through the "cultural significance" section, which was certainly interesting, but the tone makes it read more like it was written to entertain than to inform. I think part of it is the over-reliance on quotes from people who are obviously going to say nice things about it and the combination of anecdotes and other things that (while interesting) are bordering on trivia. For example, the factoid about replica signs being sold to deter theft and raise money looks out of place. That's not to say it should be removed entirely, but I think it would work better if it were cut down and used more creatively. I'm not going to oppose a such because Nick already has and I haven't read the whole article, but I think a little attention to the style bearing in mind the target audience of an encyclopaedia is needed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since this isn't a matter of content, but of presentation/phrasing, I will ping my trusted copy editors again to re-engage with the article and comment here. However, my WiFi and Internet access is spotty/inconvenient at best these days. Imzadi 1979 → 06:07, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have made a copyedit [18] but still stand behind my support of the article. I generally don't focus on cultural history or points of interest (though I really should a bit more) so I can't say that that matches my writing style, and Imzadi1979 and I are different people; however, I also see nothing inherently wrong with the entire "cultural significance" section. --Rschen7754 10:37, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


  • I will be reviewing this article in the coming day or two and adding my support or opposition accordingly. Given the age of this nomination I wanted to insert a placeholder to prevent a closure before then. - Floydian τ ¢ 04:25, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments (neither opposing nor supporting at the moment)
Lead
  • You mention that Woodward Avenue is an All-American Road, but the accompanying link shows it as simply a National Scenic Bypass. I'm assuming that article is the incorrect one, but figured its worth bringing up.
  • "Later, it was part of US Highway 10 (US 10) after the creation of the United States Numbered Highway System." - I wonder if "following" would be more suitable here?
Route description
  • "The plaza is regarded as the birthplace of the Ford Motor Company,[10] and it is located near Cobo Center and the Renaissance Center, headquarters for General Motors (GM)." - The second clause is dependant, so I don't believe it's necessary to repeat the it since the independent clause already establishes the subject.
    • I need to let this one stew around a bit to come up with a different wording then. It's only dependent in the sense that the pronoun relies on the first half, but it has a subject (it) and and a verb (is located) so it can be a separate sentence on its own, making it an independent clause. Imzadi 1979 →
  • "After that historic district, the avenue travels through the middle of Grand Circus Park;" - I had to check Grand Circus Park after reading this to see whether or not it was also a historic district. I can't think of a better way to word this though without completely redoing the final two sentences of that paragraph.
  • "home of the Major League Baseball Detroit Tigers and the National Football League's Detroit Lions, respectively." - Some parallelism issues here I believe... One instance is possessive and the other is not.
  • "The DIA and the nearby Detroit Historical Museum each have exhibits featuring the city's automotive history" -> "The DIA and the nearby Detroit Historical Museum each feature exhibits showcasing the city's automotive history"
  • "left turns along this section of roadway are made using a Michigan left maneuver using the U-turn crossovers in the median." -> "left turns along this section of roadway are made by performing a Michigan left maneuver using the U-turn crossovers in the median." (gets rid of the double "using", which I don't believe is the correct verb in the first case)
  • "Further north in Pleasant Ridge, the north-northwesterly path of Woodward Avenue changes as the road turns to the northwest." - Looking over the road on Google Maps, this curve seems almost unnoticeable. Is it worth mentioning?
    • I think so, if only because the road does appear to have a bend in angles when viewed on the KML-based map links. Imzadi 1979 →
  • "The highway crosses the River Rouge and returns to its original routing north of Maple (15 Mile[16]) Road.[7][9]" - Wouldn't it be better to lop that citation [16] in with the other two?
    • The citation in question only cites what's in the parentheses, so moving it to the end would imply it also cites the rest of the paragraph, so no, I'd prefer to leave it as is. Imzadi 1979 →
  • "That suburb's downtown is centered on the intersection with Long Lake Road, and Woodward passes between a pair of golf courses north of downtown." - There's some redundancy here, and two separate thoughts best separated by a period or semi-colon -> "That suburb's downtown is centered on the intersection with Long Lake Road; Woodward passes between a pair of golf courses north of there." (perhaps?)
  • "At the intersection with Square Lake Road, M-1 terminates; Woodward Avenue continues northwesterly into Pontiac carrying the BL I-75 and BUS US 24 designations. Woodward terminates in downtown Pontiac after the two directions of the boulevard diverge and form a one-way loop around the city's business district." - I'd r4earrange this a bit, as the two Woodward's in this chunk of text are slightly repetitive. -> "At the intersection with Square Lake Road, M-1 terminates. Woodward Avenue continues northwesterly into Pontiac carrying the BL I-75 and BUS US 24 designations; it terminates after the two directions of the boulevard diverge and form a one-way loop around the city's business district."
Cultural significance
  • "The area also had plenty of bars and even burlesque shows as late as the 1970s.[8] Nightclubs hosted a burgeoning music scene in the early days of rock 'n roll.[31]" - switch the order of these. The early days of rock and roll are the late 40s and early 50s, s I think it improves the continuity to have the rock and roll sentence after the repealing of the liquor licence law.
  • "Employees at the plant used the streetcar system along Woodward to get to work,[8] and these lines also provided transportation options to assembly plant workers affected by gas rationing during World War II." - I'd get rid of the comma / and, and change it to a semi-colon.
  • The whole Woodward Dream Cruise section is odd to me, as it begins with a paragraph on the history of street racing, then moves on to the second paragraph about the cruise. Aside from driving, there doesn't seem to be a connection between the two, unless the cruise was started to make that connection to history.
    • Yes, but the Cruise's big draw is related to the nostaglia of the 1950s and 1960s. The one article about the history of the road brings up the 19th century history in connection to the event, while a whole book on the cruising culture around Woodward Avenue explores the history of cruising in the 1950s and 1960s before exploring the specifics of the Dream Cruise's foundation as a one-time fundraiser turned annual event. Imzadi 1979 →

-- Floydian τ ¢ 16:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Replied above so far. Imzadi 1979 → 01:45, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Everything above looks good. Your explanations for the few things you didn't change make sense to me so I have no issue leaving those. I'm continuing my review below:
History
  • "In spite of the attempts..." - I'm not sure this is the correct verb to use. The way you describe the context leading up to this, it seems various sections each came to have their own short-lived local names, rather than attempts to rename the road, but correct me if I'm wrong.
  • "and the initial roadway to connect Detroit north to Pontiac along the Saginaw Trail was started in 1817 by laying down logs and filling in the gaps with clay or sand." - may be worth throwing in a link to / mention of Corduroy road.
  • "The Michigan Legislature authorized the construction of a private plank road with tolls to connect Detroit with Pontiac in 1848. By the next year, 16-foot-wide (4.9 m) and 3-inch-thick (7.6 cm) oak planks were laid along the road from Detroit to Pontiac" - repetitive use of Detroit with/to Pontiac.
  • "The first automobile was driven in Detroit by Charles Brady King along Woodward Avenue on March 3, 1896, a few weeks before Henry Ford drove his first car in the city." - this alludes to the first vehicle ever, which is something you have to be careful with given the whole auto history connection of this road. I'm assuming this was the first in Detroit since the first was driven a few years earlier in Springfield, MA... in which case it should the "The first automobile driven in Detroit was by Charles Brady King..."
  • "The first crows nest traffic tower in the US was installed at the intersection of Woodward and Michigan avenues on October 9, 1917." - Can't say I've ever heard of one of these things before. Should be linked or explained.
  • "The crows nest was replaced in October 1920 with the world's first four-way traffic light,[40] and since 1924, Woodward Avenue has hosted America's Thanksgiving Parade,[54] the second oldest Thanksgiving Day parade in the United States." - I'd move the crow's nest half up with the above sentence, and separate out the parade stuff into a new sentence, being two separate thoughts.
  • "Later, on September 18, 1886, a separate electrified line through Highland Park, the Highland Park Railway, was added that ran along Woodward Avenue." - this has a weird flow with the two instances of "Highland Park" so close together... perhaps reorganize it as "Later, on September 18, 1886, a separate electrified line, the Highland Park Railway, was added that ran along Woodward Avenue through Highland Park."
Future
  • No grammar/structure/flow issues that I can see.
  • You mention that the feds pulled out of the longer line in favour of the BRT. Would this be built along Woodward or elsewhere? generally these also require the same degree of street reconstruction and modification as an LRT. If the BRT wouldn't be along Woodward, perhaps just mention that to add some closure to the subject.
Junction list
  • Looks good
KML
  • I notice the KML only shows the state-maintained portion of Woodward, yet the article still has some coverage of the ends and the old section through Birmingham. Maybe include these three sections as non-red lines?
Images
  • All check out. The two fair use are acceptable; however I assume one will be replaced once the monuments are up and a replaceable free photo can be taken.
  • Look at that nose on Woodward!
  • Awesome work getting the OTRS on the LRT rendition!
  • Captions all check out

-- I think that's all. Pending support following a handful of fixes / responses. - Floydian τ ¢ 23:27, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The last set of prose suggestions implemented. (A recent news article does say that Woodward will get a dedicated bus lane, so I added that. Feel free to tweak the placement as desired.) The updated KML should be active soon. Thanks for the reviews. Imzadi 1979 → 08:17, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - with the above changes made, I believe the prose and style are up to par. I checked a few citations at random and found no issues; however, I did not check the consistency of the citations themselves, as I assume this was done at the ACR stage. - Floydian τ ¢ 18:09, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's closing comment - This has been a difficult decision, but I have decided to archive this long-running FAC since there is no clear consensus for promotion. No doubt the article will be back at FAC soon, and with many of the issues already resolved I hope a clear consensus will be reached. Graham Colm (talk) 14:53, 1 January 2013 (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 14:31, 1 January 2013 [19].

Casting Crowns (album)

Nominator(s): Toa Nidhiki05 03:00, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ladies and gentlemen of the FA jury, I present to you Casting Crowns - the first (and in my opinion, best) album by the Christian rock band Casting Crowns (hence the name). The album is the result of a truly unique set of circumstances - in short, the band was discovered by a country singer looking to start a record label. The singer was so impressed that he brought in an acclaimed singer/songwriter to co-produce it, and a record label CEO was so impressed that he fast-tracked the album's release. This is all despite the band having no previous touring experience, having a bulky seven-person lineup, and recieving half the usual time for artist development (four months as opposed to the normal nine).

The record, primarily a Christian rock record with a "no-nonsense" lyrical approach, peaked at number fifty-nine on the Billboard 200 and yielded three number-one Christian radio singles as well as a heap of awards nominations. It was critically well-received for a debut album, in part due to its unique lyrical approach and high production quality. Just recently it received a double-platinum certification from the RIAA, making it one of only eight Christian records to hit that status.

Now, on Wikipedia the article passed GAR with flying colors from reviewer/admin Jclemens back in July. I believe it meets the FA criteria - the prose is great, all aspects of the album are covered, it features a slew of reliable citations, it is neutral, and all files are tagged with fair use labels. In short, it is an excellent article on an interesting topic. Toa Nidhiki05 03:00, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Quick comments
  • The AllMusic review on the album is a glaring omission for the reception section of the article.
  • "Although Casting Crowns defied the norm for bands, having seven members and never having toured before, Provident Label Group CEO/President Terry Hemmings was outspoken in predicting success for the group and made them one of his top priorities." In addition to being a clunky sentence, I didn't get this meaning at all from the source. In fact, one of the actual factual things it does say is that the CEO was friends with the band, which is worth noting.
  • Four samples is a bit much, especially since there are two describing how a pop rock ballad sounds. "Voice of Truth" is the obvious weakest link, but I would cut to two samples, if not one.

--Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 00:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've added it, don't know why I didn't have that.
  • Actually the source says Hemmings was friends with Miller, not the band, but the main issue with the citation is that the bulk of that information is cited in citation 4 ("Breaking the Mold"), not citation 7 ("Miller Starts Christian Label"). More or less the point of it was to demonstrate several factors working against the band - their size (much larger than most American rock or pop bands) and lack of touring experience. I've reworded it to note Miller's friendship with Hemmings as well as the addition of Steven Curtis Chapman as co-producer, as well as
  • I wanted to include all singles or radio releases, in part to show the diverse album tone (from acoustic rock to pop rock/AC to hard rock). Showing one simply isn't practical because one song doesn't demonstrate the album as a whole. I'll remove Voice of Truth as it makes there be two pop/rock songs that sound pretty similar in the music section, but I'd prefer the other three stay. Toa Nidhiki05 01:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The main reason I am using that source is that I don't have the album notes. I have the physical versions of every Casting Crowns album but this one, which I own digitally and which was bought before iTunes added digital booklets to their albums. I normally cite the album notes (look at any of my other articles), but an alternative source is required for this because I lack them. In this case, CD Universe is an online retailer which sells physical and digital CDS. It has been around for a while and has access to this information, both from Beach Street/Reunion and the liner notes. It isn't ideal and I'd gladly switch if liner notes become available, but I think it is sufficient.
  • JFH is a very reliable source in the Christian industry. It has been around since the mid-90s and is of sufficient clout to record labels secure interviews from a wide range of artists. The website posts reviews and interviews, which adhere to journalistic standards as well as press releases from labels. The former (journalist-quality reviews from a major CCM source) and latter (releases from record labels) are both reliable.
  • I can go back and find them, it is just easier to group them with About. I can get them from the site, as the Dove Awards keeps track of all winners in their archive, but I'll have to dig through cached pages to find the nominations that didn't win since the Doves don't keep a running total on their site. Toa Nidhiki05 01:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    To determine the reliability of the site, we need to know what sort of fact checking they do. You can establish this by showing news articles that say the site is reliable/noteworthy/etc. or you can show a page on the site that gives their rules for submissions/etc. or you can show they are backed by a media company/university/institute, or you can show that the website gives its sources and methods, or there are some other ways that would work too. The best method is a mix of all of the above. It's their reputation for reliability that needs to be demonstrated. Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches for further detailed information. As for CD universe - can you not find someone who has the liner notes in a wikiproject? Ealdgyth - Talk 14:05, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I will see what I can do about the liner notes - the Christian music project is mostly inactive at this point, but there are a few guys who can help. If I can't find it I'll have to remove the information which would leave a major gap, but if the source isn't reliable I suppose that is what must be done. For JFH, they note what they follow here for reviews - "strict journalistic standards" with their editorial staff being independent of any label or management firm. They are also a non-profit organization. As this album isn't an indie review, their rules for indie albums submissions don't apply. For interviews, their method is to arrange them through the record label, publicist, or management of the band they are interviewing and then to record and transcribe the interview for accuracy (but this doesn't apply to this article). Out of the five JFH sources, one is a review (citation 50). The other four are all repostings of press releases from record labels, which are reliable in and of themselves. Toa Nidhiki05 15:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll leave these out for other reviewers to decide for themselves - I do think if you can't get the liner notes that CD universe will be adequate, but just barely. The JFH review should be fine as long as it's clearly attributed. It might be best to get the press releases from the record label themselves... Ealdgyth - Talk 22:17, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll do my best to find the liner notes, I agree CD universe is not fantastic as a source. As for the press releases, I'll see what I can do. Toa Nidhiki05 22:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I am satisfied that JFH is a reliable source for these usages. I have two of Casting Crowns' CDs but not this one so I can't help with the liner notes. Royalbroil 05:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Interesting article, well-researched and generally well-written. Some comments below:

  • All images should have alt text.
  • Contemporary Christian music should be spelled out before it is abbreviated.
  • The fact that the album "was produced by Mark A. Miller and Steven Curtis Chapman" is repeated several times in the article; this statement should only occur once in the lead and once in the body.
  • Many instances of the word "it" are ambiguous.
  • There should be a comma after "By March 2004", "In May 2004", etc.
  • sinlge → single
  • The first sentence of the "Musical style" section seems excessive to me. Is it necessary to state that "influences from pop music are also present" after having already stated that the album has been classified as pop rock? Having ten references for this one sentence also seems like overkill. Much of this information is duplicated later anyway in the discussion of the individual tracks.
  • Maintain present tense when discussing the qualities of the album. For example, "Some critics noted that the album sounded..." should be switched to "Some critics noted that the album sounds...". The critics noting something is an event that took place in the past, but the album sounding a certain way is ever-present; the album sounds now as it always has, and statements regarding the album's sound should therefore be in the present.
  • There is much overlinking. I would highly recommend using the "Highlight duplicate links" function to identify the excess links.
  • The second chapter in which book of John? There are three. "Where" should also be "in which" in that sentence.
  • Is there supposed to be a question mark after "And if we are the body"? It's a sentence fragment, not a standalone question.
  • Bare surnames should be used after the initial mention of a person's name.
  • The words in quotation marks suggest that they are quotations from a source; these sources should be mentioned in the sentences themselves. Words such as "convicts" and "harmony-rich" are subjective and should not be stated as fact, but as opinion.
  • "Compel" is not the right verb to use at any point in this article. Perhaps "encourage" is what is intended?
  • "fear of sharing the gospel" should be prefaced by the word "their". There is also no need to include the lyrics from the chorus in this sentence.
  • I see the comments above about About.com. Whether you find alternate sourcing or not, the About.com source should be removed; an About.com entry in an academic paper's bibliography would be enough to prevent the paper from getting published.
  • Semicolons are overused.
  • The words that start the "Track listing" section are a sentence fragment and should either not conclude with a period or should be fashioned into a proper sentence.
  • The article is undercategorized.

Neelix (talk) 03:51, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've addressed most of these issues with the exception of track listing, and categories. With track listing, that is part of the template and isn't something I can change about that without removing it from the template. As for categories, I'm not sure what to add. Toa Nidhiki05 03:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed the track listing issue. As for the categories, there are plenty to be added. There are genre categories like Category:Christian rock albums, Category:Pop rock albums by American artists, etc. Category:2003 albums can be replaced with Category:2003 debut albums. Category:Albums certified multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and Category:English-language albums should both be added as well. Neelix (talk) 03:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The lead image still has no alt text. Also, several of the quotations are still stated as fact rather than opinion. Specifically, the last sentence of the first paragraph of the "Musical style" section suffers from this problem, as does the last sentence of the "Tracks 1-5" section. Neelix (talk) 20:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I believe all these issues have been fixed now. Toa Nidhiki05 00:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The only remaining issue I can see is that Reference 52 is dead. Neelix (talk) 02:10, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support - All issues I had with the article have been addressed. The article looks FA-worthy to me. Neelix (talk) 22:14, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Royalbroil

  • I read the article and I am impressed by the prose, neutral tone, etc. First, I'm wondering if Jesus Freak Hideout did a review of the album since most Contemporary Christian Music albums articles have a JFH critique/rating. Second, how did the singles place on R&R (magazine)? We (the people in WikiProject Christian music) discussed the Billboard vs R&R charts several years ago Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christian music/Archive 3#Chart stuff and I think that the R&R peak position for the singles would be a nice addition to the article. Or is were the R&R positions used? Royalbroil 02:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • JFH does not have a real review, no. They have a 'user review' and a really, really short 'staff review' that was posted in 2008 and doesn't really add much. As it isn't a contemporary review I didn't include it. As for the charts, the Billboard Hot Christian Songs and Hot Chrisitan AC charts, as well as the R&R Christian CHR, chart are used in the singles table. Single peaks on the R&R AC and INSPO charts are noted in the 'Release and promotion' section; the former is not listed in the table because the Billboard AC chart is listed, while the latter is not listed in the table because only the last two singles were released to the chart format. Toa Nidhiki05 03:07, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Support good decisions about 1) to not use the JFH user review and 2) how you used the chart placements between Billboard versus R&R during that transition time (considering that Billboard was too new with Christian charts). Thanks for the explanation. Royalbroil 03:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support after checking for MOS issues, none of concern jumped out. I moved two cites to immediately after a quoted word or words. There was a doubled over period and a misplaced comma. I don't see any issues with overlinking and the article is informative and comprehensive, having a balanced section of critical reviews as well as discussion on the various tracks, the instruments used, who wrote each and the major contributors.--MONGO 15:32, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate notes

  • Hi Toa, is this your first FAC? If so I'd like to see a reviewer carry out a spotcheck of sources for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing.
  • Tweaked the prose in a couple of places but there's still this in the second paragraph: "Led by lead single..." -- can you rephrase/reword to avoid the redundancy?
  • Pls use consistent ndashes in the Credits and personnel section.
  • While we're at it, why credits and personnel anyway -- one or the other should be sufficient...
  • I was under the impression that succession boxes appeared at the end of articles, not before the References.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Tks, and I do apologise for not remembering you as I should have from at least the first-mentioned review. In any case, neither of those FACs got as far as a spotcheck of sources so still expect one here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem on either count. Toa Nidhiki05 18:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've never done a check for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing before, but I'm willing to give it a go. How many sources are normally checked in a spotcheck? I've checked four of the sources, and there are no accuracy problems, but there may be paraphrasing problems in one of the sources. Are the following considered too close?: 1) "fast-track the album's release" (source) and "fast-tracked the album's release" (article) 2) "was outspoken in predicting its success" (source) and "was outspoken in predicting success" 3) "instead of sharing the gospel" (identical in source and article). Neelix (talk) 01:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Tks Neelix, this is why we spotcheck. We should be able to avoid reusing such phrases from the source text pretty well word-for-word in the WP article: "fast-tracked the album's release" and "was outspoken in predicting its success" need to be reworked (the former, presumably, could have been paraphrased as "rush-released the album"); as for "sharing the gospel", not such a big deal IMO but we could've used "spreading the gospel" for variation. Anyway, I've double-checked these examples against the sources myself, and I can see that the duplication is related to fairly short phrases, not entire sentences or passages, which suggests to me that, generally, effort has been made to paraphrase but it's fallen down in a few places. Given that, and the fact that this is not a terribly long article, I'd be happy for Toa to go through it and check for any similar instances, rewording as necessary, after which we'll spotcheck again. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:34, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Most of those are cases where I couldn't come up with adjectives to replace or I overlooked something. I'd be more than happy to go through and fix those. I don't think a spot check would take too long - by my count, 34 of the 59 citations are sources like chart positions, lists, and adds dates that couldn't possibly have close paraphrasing issues because there isn't much (or any) text to paraphrase. I don't think a spotcheck would take very long because 25 citations shouldn't be too much to go through. Toa Nidhiki05 16:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comments – good work, but after such a long running FAC, I didn't expect some of the following concerns.

  • There should always be punctuation after a mdy date, be it comma or period. I.e. "Released on October 30, 2003 through..." should be "Released on October 30, 2003, through...".
  • "Released on October 30, 2003 through Beach Street Records and produced by Mark A. Miller and Steven Curtis Chapman..." – not chronologically coherent. It wasn't released, then produced, was it?
  • Fused participle needs to be reworded: "with instrumentation mainly consisting".
  • Per MOS:NUM, comparable values should be consistently written as words or figures. You can't have both "number one" (words) and "number 59" (figures).
  • "2x Platinum" should be "2× Platinum".
  • Preferably, citations are placed after punctuation.
  • For ranges (eg. "Tracks 1–5"), en dashes are used, not hyphens.
  • Got a source for the track list?
  • Chart tables need plain row headers, per WP:ACCESS.
  • Chart peak tables with different years should not be merged, as this renders them unsortable. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 18:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've addressed most of the issues except a few. I have never seen any album FA with a citation for the tracklisting unless bonus tracks are listed, which is not the case here, and adding a citation would result in it being before the period due to the Track Listing template. The chart tables already have plainrowheaders, but I have removed the sort function since their really isn't any need for it. As for citations, the ones that are listed before punctuation are done for one of two reasons - because it is a claim that needs direct confirmation or the citation only covers a specific claim in a particular phrase or sentence and adding it at the end would make it seem like it confirms the whole thing. For example:

"Voice of Truth" was written around Hall's struggles with dyslexia and learning issues as a child.[48] Co-written by Chapman, the track is a pop rock[46] ballad,[42] encouraging listeners to tackle their personal fears and replace them with faith.[42][45]

Citation 48 supports the entire first sentence, so it is used there. Citation 46 only supports the 'pop rock' claim, not anything after it, and the claim is not supported by citations 42 or 45, so it is placed there to avoid confusion and provide immediate support for the claim and to make it much easier for readers to confirm it. Toa Nidhiki05 19:02, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The track list gives information like lengths, writers, and the order itself of the tracks as they are played. Perhaps, you could cite the CD notes. Per MOS:CHARTS, you should have separate tables for each year. Although I've never used the function myself, the tables should be sortable. I'm fine with the citation locations, given your reason. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 19:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can add the Allmusic citation (which is what the information is coming from), but it would place it before the period at the end of the first sentence in that section. I'll work on the charts, shouldn't be too hard. Toa Nidhiki05 20:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You can alternatively write out the sentences manually instead, and cite after the period. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 21:56, 22 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Struck through some points. "With the main instruments used in the album being" is still a fused participle, if "the main instruments used in the albums" is altogether a noun. —WP:PENGUIN · [ TALK ] 18:07, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source spot-checks – Checked 10 citations from five Billboard articles and found one close paraphrasing issue and a few assorted minor concerns. I'd like to see them cleaned up, but there's nothing to make me question the integrity of the article as a whole.

  • Reference 4, use b: A little bit of closeness in the source here, which says "They were being produced by a country artist with no track record in the Christian industry." Article: "and being produced by Miller, who had no track record in the Christian music industry."
  • Reference 4, use d: No problems here. The article's content is supported without close paraphrasing.
  • Reference 4, use e: No problems here either. The statistic is supported by the article and date of publication.
  • Reference 4, use f: This covers the content and is acceptably paraphrased.
  • Reference 4, use g: "sharing the gospel" appears in both the source and article, and could arguably be put in quotations here. Also, the part about the song opening the second half of the album is not supported by the article; perhaps the reference for the track listing could be copied into this sentence.
  • Reference 7, use a: Everything checks out.
  • Reference 10, use a: Given that "a huge radio hit" appears verbatism in the source, I'd argue for making the quote in our article cover more material. At least some quoting is acknowledged here.
  • Reference 10, use b: The sentence is supported with no close paraphrasing.
  • Reference 27: The sales figure is supported by the source.
  • Reference 37: Minor, but the source doesn't say the album sold over 1.7 million copies, just 1.7 million. Maybe you could try adding "about" or similar to indicate that this isn't an exact figure? Giants2008 (Talk) 03:30, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, while I'm here, the last source I checked needs an access date. Giants2008 (Talk) 03:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed all of the issues listed - with the last one, Billboard does round their numbers slightly so I changed it to 'around'. It has sold more at this point (Christian labels don't print 300,000 extra albums because that costs a ton of money), there just isn't any citation to prove the exact sales figure. Toa Nidhiki05 17:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Access date still needed for the one source; otherwise the comments appear resolved. Also, I noticed that ref 10 is appearing before punctuation in its first usage (should be after), and the "single was a significant hit at Christian radio" bit is odd; changing the latter part to "on Christian radio stations" should be a sufficient fix. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:10, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Cryptic C62:

  • I'm a bit puzzled by the organization of the Musical style section. Firstly, it seems misleading to divide the album into two chapters unless the artist or other sources have specified that that was the intent. Second, why is there so much more prose about the first half than the second?
  • In the Background and recording section, why is there a huge paragraph followed by a two-sentence paragraph?
  • "student worship band" What is this?
  • "While most artists in a similar situation as the band faced would have received 9 months to develop" I suggest cutting out "as the band faced", as it is clunky and does not add any meaning to the sentence. Also, develop what?
  • "an approach which was described ... as a "no-nonsense approach"" I like peanut butter on my peanut butter.
  • I'm seeing hyphens where there should be endashes, particularly in the Personnel section.
  • The Album charts section is, in my opinion, a violation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE.
  • Did this album get any attention in countries other than the United States?

-- Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:52, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • In designing that section, I didn't want it to be some huge mega-section so I divided the album in half (10 tracks total, 5 for each section). The album has been described moreso in that the first six songs are CCM while the last four are worship. The reason one is larger than the other is that the first six songs on the album received much more critical attention while the last four were essentially lumped together and not discussed as much individually. I can't really fix that, that is an issue with reviewers not reviewing each song on the album.
  • I see three plausible ways to organize this section. The first is to simply leave it as is, which arbitrarily divides the songs in half, despite there not being any significance to the halfway point in the album. The second is to shift it to a 6-4 split, which is not arbitrary, but which exacerbates the problem of the last subsection being tiny compared to the first one. The third is to simply remove the subheadings altogether. I don't think the size of the resulting section would be problematic, but we could easily make it appear less bulky by moving the Mark Hall image into the Release and promotion section. Does this seem reasonable? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merging seems to be the best option to me, so I'll do that here in a bit. The 6-4 setup would be ideal in that it is critically regarded as a major shift in album tone, but the information would just be tiny in comparison to the first header. Toa Nidhiki05 19:36, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've merged them now.
  • A student worship band is a band that performs worship songs at the youth group of a church, so basically the church band for youth group.
  • Artist development - getting the name out, learning to do interviews, getting used to touring and recording, etc. Most of the time labels spend a while on acts that they want to hit it big.
  • Good idea, linked.
  • Redundancy removed
  • I've removed all the hyphens in the Personnel section
  • Not sure why this falls there - weekly and year/decade-end charts are common (if not virtually required) aspects of music articles.
  • As someone with no experience reading or working on music articles, I look at Album charts and see two things that raise an eyebrow: The first is that every entry is from Billboard, and the second is that some of the chart positions are utterly unremarkable. With both eyebrows raised, I think to myself "This is just a meaningless pile of data. This is not what Wikipedia is for." If the album charted on any other lists, I would love to see the mundane Billboard entries swapped out for ones which actually convey some notability. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I could remove the year-end ones, but I'd prefer the decade-end and weekly ones stay - I could remove the catalog chart if that makes it better. In terms of remarkability, it isn't really so - the album is more known for its longetivity than its peak (like many debut albums are), but the information itself is notable. Toa Nidhiki05 19:36, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Depends on what you mean by attention - in global terms, the UK, Canada, and Australia are really the major countries where Christian music has a degree of popularity, but even there most Christian albums don't chart highly or even at all unless the artist is local (like Matt Redman and Delirious? in the UK and Hillsong in AUS). Casting Crowns did not chart in any other country, but it did receive coverage in Cross Rhythms, a UK publication that supplies three citations for this page. I would imagine other Christian publications in either country might have covered the album as well. Toa Nidhiki05 20:53, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would suggest doing a bit of digging to find those Christian publications from other countries. It's possible that additional coverage may provide more material on the last few songs of the album, yes? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Just from the Background and recording section, I raise my eyebrows at "the as-of-yet unnamed record label" (huh?), "However..." and "Additionally..." (these are indicators of poor writing; just leave them out and the meaning is unaffected). I'll try to review the rest of the article but this first sample shows some work needs to be done on bringing the prose to the required quality. --John (talk) 18:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate's closing comment - This candidate has been here a long time, but problems with the prose remain. There is redundancy "The album eventually peaked at number 59 on that chart" and poor grammar "with the main instruments used in the album being guitar, keyboard, and violin." I have decided to archive this FAC and suggest a thorough copy-edit from an uninvolved editor who can bring some strategic distance, before re-nominating. Graham Colm (talk) 14:28, 1 January 2013 (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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