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Image check, please

Could someone do an image check for Heidi Game? There are only two.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:19, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:41, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FAC: Stephen, King of England

I don't want to be a grouch, but I am a little concerned about the form this FAC has taken. While I have no quarrel at all with the care and attention that reviewers are giving to this article, what is taking place is very clearly a peer review. It has been repeatedly emphasised, by delegates and other reviewers (including me) that FAC is not peer review; that articles requiring such a level of attention are almost certainly not ready for FAC, and should not be nominated. There is a danger that, by letting this case pass without comment, a precedent will be established whereby other articles will be nominated in the expectation that they can be brought up to FAC standard within the process. If there is a reason for treating this article as a special case, can we be told what the argument is? Otherwise, the general case for the rapid closure of underprepared articles—an issue raised earlier on this discussion page—already looks harder to justify. Brianboulton (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I regard what I'm doing as a content review primarily... should I NOT be checking the actual content of the article against the sources? I'm pretty much dammed if I do and dammed if I don't... if I do not check the article for its actual content when we obviously have someone qualified to do so, what happens when someone challenges the factual accuracy of something later? We say peer review isn't required, but then you seem to be requiring peer review. If I didn't think the article was close, I would indeed quick fail the article - I've never been noted for shyness about that. However, I am actually spot checking the sources for plagarism here .. which is bringing up some stuff that needs to be straightened out. Whatever. I can close the whole review out and just not bother content reviewing again at FAC if that's the consensus, but lately, we've had plenty of reviews just as in depth, but nothing has been brought up about them ... sorry if I'm seeming touchy, but I finally get something I can actually spot check and content review and now it's an issue... (sighs). I am seriously beginning to think that Wikipedia is a hobby I've outgrown sometimes... Ealdgyth - Talk 19:20, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember ever seeing an article where the reviewers simply posted "supported" and that's it. Since there is a long established tradition that some reviewers believe that an article should be turned into what they prefer, instead of being actually improved, I can't believe that we shall see simpler reviewers in the near future. P.S.: Nowhere I'm talking about Stephen, King of England's article or the editors involved in it. This a comment regarding the FAC in general. --Lecen (talk) 19:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So you're looking for "simpler" reviewers? As the competent ones get chased away you may have your wish in the future. Malleus Fatuorum 19:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brian, I'm not challenging your judgment about general standards, but I think general standards have to step aside here. We happen to have a reviewer who has in-depth knowledge. If she says she wants to keep going, and if the delegates choose to overrule her, then fine; but I don't think it's the place of uninvolved reviewers to overrule her. She's the one with the passion and the knowledge and the desire to make the article the best it can be, in this case, and (just my position) she's welcome to whatever tools she wants to use to make that happen. FWIW, I'm also reviewing. - Dank (push to talk) 19:34, 23 September 2011 (UTC) (P.S. I just realized I'm probably trying to defend my own right to fiddle with articles after they get to FAC as much as Ealdgyth's right, because I'd prefer to have the option, in some cases, of waiting until an article hits FAC before I finish up the copyediting ... that's not ideal, but it's sometimes more convenient than trying to guess when the article is just about to hit FAC, or trying to badger people into following my timetable.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear. I often don't bother to copyedit articles until they hit FAC. After all, who knows if they ever will? Malleus Fatuorum 20:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that articles often attract detailed scrutiny only at FAC. I cannot agree that the article in question was not ready for FAC. At a glance you can see that it looks like a featured article. It is detailed, comprehensive and well-sourced. It has been through GA and A-class reviews. Peer Review is nearly useless, as there are not enough reviewers. Ealdgyth is doing the right thing, and is to be commended. We need more reviewers like that. The article should stay at FAC as long as the reviewers have something to say, and the nominator wants to keep it there. The delegates can manage arbitrarily long FAC queues; the only problem is the onerous restriction of one article per nominator at a time. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Onerous it is, and I wish we could consistently get the page size below or around 30 noms so we could discuss removing that restriction. In the meantime, 1) review more to help reduce the backlog, and 2) if you have a FAC up that is close to maturing with no outstanding issues, then ask one of the delegates for an exception. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A question: At first glance it seems that 30 noms is a backlog of 30 days' worth of FACs. But of the 3,382 FAs at last glance, some 1,351 have not appeared on the front page, so you actually have three years' supply of FAs? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:10, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should make it clear that the question I raised is not Ealdgyth's or anybody else's right to review any article, merely whether FAC is the most appropriate forum for this kind of in-depth review. Personally I would have preferred to see this detailed scrutiny take place at peer review, or on the article's talk page. The danger is that editors may misunderstand this precedent and nominate underprepared and unreviewed articles believing that the FAC reviewers will do their work for them. However, if the argument here is that we have a willing expert prepared to comb through an already well-prepared article to make it even better, then I can accept that as a special case, though not as a general precedent.

I must take issue with the remark, above: "Peer Review is nearly useless, as there are not enough reviewers". This is an ignorant view, not to mention disparaging to the work of others. A high proportion – at least half – of the current FACs underwent detailed peer reviews. Take a look. There may not be enough reviewers, but the regulars at PR are dedicated, and spend many thankless hours going through often deeply unpromising material, and almost every article that looks a viable candidate for FA will get a thorough peer review. It's an important part of the review process that should be supported, not dismissed. Brianboulton (talk) 00:03, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: this was a special case, and the few dedicated peer reviewers are amazing. - Dank (push to talk) 00:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review obviously isn't always "nearly useless"; I have an article currently going through FAC that benefited greatly from its peer review. But I've also done several peer reviews where there's been no feedback at all from the nominator, not even a word of thanks for the time it takes to read through the article. FAC, for me, is where it starts to get serious, and I see nothing at all untoward in Ealdgyth getting serious. Malleus Fatuorum 01:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While sometimes peer review can be effective, but in my wikiproject, about 60% of articles that go to peer review (they are not that many) get one or zero reviews. However, I do think it should be required for article to go for GAN first, then FAC. BTW, as of this writing, we have 33 FAC's up at this time, three of which have at least three supports and zero opposes. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 16:02, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying there are thirty-three hurricanes at FAC?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, I mean total articles not just hurricane ones. Sorry for the confusion. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 20:52, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was not my intention to disparage the work of others, ignorant though I may be, and I apologise for any offence given. I was thinking of this article which was peer reviewed only to be quick-failed at FAC, then peer reviewed again, only to be quick-failed a second time at FAC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:05, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template preload

Would someone here familiar with template-speak please look at Template:Featured article review/Template:FAR/Wikipedia:Featured article review preload and figure out why the preload doesn't work? I mentioned it at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review#Preload. As far as I can make out, reviews up to February preloaded the article tools and links, and reviews after March did not. DrKiernan (talk) 14:50, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, I think. Ucucha (talk) 14:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if that edit will fix it, although I haven't thoroughly checked anything. I'm saying this because the template hasn't been edited since April 2010; are you saying March 2010 or March 2011? Gary King (talk · scripts) 19:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2011. It does look better after that edit: if I do a mock FAR, the tools seem to have come back. DrKiernan (talk) 19:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I actually stole the change I made from WP:Featured article preload, used at FAC, which does work. Perhaps MediaWiki 1.17, which was introduced in March, made some changes to the way noinclude is handled in preloads. Ucucha (talk) 20:20, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image check ...

On Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fairfax Harrison/archive1 please? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:31, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doing...Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please do an image check on [Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turban Head eagle/archive1 Turban Head eagle] ?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doing...Nikkimaria (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:07, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are the images okay with Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Willamette River/archive2? Jsayre64 (talk) 02:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Vukovar

A little help ... please see my oppose and let me know if I'm off base. I'm asking here because this one is headed back to FAC soonish. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to give in on this one; it's not urgent. - Dank (push to talk) 21:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Close under one day?

Is it now customary to close nominations in under a day (example? Even before the nom had the chance to reply, or others with interest in the article could have a chance to look at the nom and add their opinions? I think closing the noms so quickly is very unhelpful. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

3 detailed opposes, clearly requiring a lot of work, in less than 5 hours. Yes it is usual. The nominator has plenty to work on now. Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I replied at the FAC. Not really seeing how the nominator has been abused here. - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"gross overcitation"

While looking at this review, I was struck by several puzzling remarks: "gross overcitation" (Wehwalt), "The citation saturation was an immediate concern" (Graham Colm). Now, I agree with Nikkimaria's "Overabundance of citations in the lead - per WP:LEAD, much of this material should appear and be cited in the article proper". But I'd like to ask of Wehwalt and of Grahalm if this is what they meant, or is it something else? Looking at the body, while I may not favor this particular citation style, I certainly DO NOT see any overabundance of cites, in fact I still see some unreferenced sentences, and given that the article uses over 200 sources, and many paragraphs contain sentences from multiple sources. For example, consider the very first para, with the following structure: Sentence 1 - Reference 8, S2R8, S3R42, S4R8, S5R8a (different page), S6R43, S9R44, S10R45. In this example, one could argue that this para has one ref too many (S3 and S4), but frankly, I think that if it wasn't there one could be cautious of what reference backs it up (just like for all the sentences that do not have a references, I'd wonder if it is the following sentence ref, or was it moved from somewhere else, or inserted unreferenced)? This is in fact the problem with the second para (S1R46, S2R47, S3-unreferenced, S4R48, S5R44). Here there is most certainly not too many references, but a sentence making an important claim goes unreferenced and without checking the source (a book, without a Google Book link, making the verification that much more cumbersome), I, as a reader, cannot trust this sentence - it may be backed by the following R48, but it might also have been moved there from somewhere else, or added plainly unreferenced. Thus while I agree with the reviewers that the lead has overcitation problems, my primary comment would be inadequate citations in the rest of the article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I saw strings of six and eight citations following a sentence. That's over the top. We have footnotes for purposes of verification. If you have eight footnotes following a sentence, is that stated to give support to the proposition by showing that eight authors stand behind it? Or that facts in that sentence are drawn from eight different sources? It makes it very difficult for verification to have to deal with a plethora of footnotes. What I would suggest is that you source individual sentences or groups of sentences with no more than three footnotes, and three should be the maximum and rare.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And yes, it was especially bad because it was in a lede, which need not be cited so long as the material is reflected in the article body. However, I don't hold the fact that a lede is cited against an article, some people do cite their ledes. I personally don't think it is the best practice, but it's OK in my book--Wehwalt (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CITEBUNDLE recommends bundling citations to prevent them becoming a distraction from the text and interrupting the flow. DrKiernan (talk) 17:07, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I object to more than 3 references appearing like taxis in a row - it's ugly, and following Johnbod's law actually makes the reader more, not less, suspicious of the statements, as this is normally found only in the worst battleground articles. If you want to cite multiple sources, put them all in the same note. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That clarifies things to me. I can understand the benefits of the bundle, I was afraid some people were annoyed at the fact that too many sentences had cites. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Featured article candidates/Background of the Spanish Civil War/archive2‎

Hoping some kind person will do some copyediting on this one. It's not bad, and it sailed through the A-class review ... it's just in a dense, historical style that I'm not good with. - Dank (push to talk) 21:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review needed

Would someone mind doing a source review for Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Shapley–Folkman_lemma/archive1? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request for two scripts

Links are a constant problem at FAC. Two tools would save a lot of time:

a script that removes (bringing up a "changes" screen, so that the removal happens when you "save") the second and third link to the same term in an article (counting or not counting links in the lead).
a script that brings up a "changes" screen that will add links from a user-definable list.

Can I bribe someone (with free copyediting) to work on either or both of these? - Dank (push to talk) 13:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first one gives me pause. I will sometimes have a second link in the body to the same term if I feel the reader needs reminding, if it was only briefly mentioned earlier and we've had a lot go on since then.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it won't always be correct, but it's useful to be able to identify repeat links easily. I'll see what I can do. Ucucha (talk) 14:22, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote a little piece of JavaScript at User:Ucucha/duplinks.js (documentation at User:Ucucha/duplinks) that hightlights links that occur more than once in an article. It's prone to false positives (legitimate repeat links), though; I'll probably add some code excluding anything in an infobox or navbox. Ucucha (talk) 18:59, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice. Excluding any infoboxes or navboxes would help a lot; I tried it on HMS Eagle (1918), and it's highlighting a lot of links duplicated in the infobox. How hard would it be to make it configurable to ignore the lead section? Many writers link things once in the lead and once below the lead. - Dank (push to talk) 19:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ucucha, this will be useful (especially after you enhance the code as you suggest). Now how about a script that tells me what to write when I'm having trouble creating decent prose? Sasata (talk) 19:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the script to exclude any links in infoboxes and navboxes; I'll think about how to separate off the lead. I'll want it to also check the lead separately for duplicate links; Eagle, for example, has aircraft carrier linked twice in the first few sentences.

Sasata, something like:

$( function() { if(article.isBadlyWritten() { alert("Your prose is terrible. Go back to school."); } });

perhaps? Ucucha (talk) 19:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, Ucucha, if you write that tool for Sasata I'm going to need to steal it :) As for the link checker, I've installed it and like it. Agree with the above though that it would be nice if something could be done to separate out the lead, as I often re-link something in the body that was linked previously in the lead (especially if there are six sections and 3,000 words between the two!). Dana boomer (talk) 20:08, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to do the same. I've now rewritten the script to first create a separate container element for the lead, and then search for duplicate links in the lead and the rest of the article separately. Ucucha (talk) 20:56, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you (maybe optional) exclude file captions, templates, tables and references (named and unnamed) aswell please? Additional links in those "special areas" seem to be generally accepted. Many thanks for that nice tool. GermanJoe (talk) 12:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that would help. I'll encourage people to make some judgment calls on when (not) to follow the recommendations of the tool. After we've got some confidence that the tool won't be misused, then it would be really helpful if the tool pulled up an edit-changes screen that would actually remove the extraneous links when you hit Save. - Dank (push to talk) 14:54, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on a little homemade script for the first function, that analyzes a complete article and creates 3 lists: a list with all found links per section, a list of all duplicate links (including pipes) with total and lead count, and a listing of possibly problematic link situations. There are only 2 slight problems, it's written in Open Object Rexx (a common public license REXX variant) and it is coded as a simple tool without much regard to structure or professional coding guidelines. If any competent programmer wants to check it or expand it for Wiki-usage, i'll be glad to mail it. GermanJoe (talk) 19:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review needed

WP:Featured article candidates/Stephen, King of England/archive1. Nothing but the image check is missing. - Dank (push to talk) 13:57, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. One image I suspect you'll have to delete or replace, a few others need mild tweaking. Interesting article.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 15:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statistical analysis of how FAC handles articles on important topics

The experience of bringing brain here has revived concerns I have long felt about how FAC works, and finally motivated me to do some statistical analysis. My findings are reported in User:Looie496/Analysis of FAC. I would be interested in comments, and would especially like to know if I have made any incorrect assumptions. Looie496 (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats on the article though I don't consider medical articles within my sphere of expertise, and pleased that I managed to sneak on the list by proxy of Mr. Nixon. My personal opinion that any FA from before about 2007 had an excellent chance of being crap and therefore what you are seeing is a rise in FA standards. Possibly the fact that by 2009 almost no important articles were being written from scratch and so a subject had to attract someone's attention both to write it, and to improve it.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the vastly increasing standards (I have a half-drafted essay here) means what you're seeing is the result of a similar amount of effort throughout this time period. Hastily (by modern standards) promoted articles have continued to improve to merit their FA status; many articles that could have been FA then are GA now. So overall there is no doubt that fewer important topics are making it to FA, but this is not indicative of a fall in general improvement in these areas. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting essay, thanks for pointing me to it. Although I agree with much of what you say, my conclusions are not as sanguine as yours. I see no evidence that the rate of FA promotion of important articles will increase in the future -- my personal experiences tell me it will very likely not happen unless policies are changed. Looie496 (talk) 16:08, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I see a problem. Of the 3+ million articles on Wikipedia, how many of those would you consider "important"? If we use the core and vital lists as a rough indicator of "importance" then perhaps 3,000 articles? Is the ratio of 3000:3 million much different than the ratio of lesser:important articles being promoted at FAC? In general, "important" articles require a lot more work than those on minor topics, and those who wish to undertake this worthy task should try to make their FAC experience as smooth as possible by soliciting opinions of as many other experienced editors as they can before bringing the article to FAC. A collaborative strategy should be the norm for articles on important/core/vital topics. Sasata (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly think there is a problem, of which FA is just a symptom. Typically, certainly in the humanities, the more important the subject, the weaker our article is likely to be (at all levels), and we are just missing any article on many important topical subjects (eg Italian Renaissance sculpture - almost any general sculpture topic). We have done very well for nearly 11 years without any significant concerted editorial focus or direction directing our coverage, but that has now ceased to work. Coverage of narrower topics continues to expand, but few articles on large topical subjects get significantly improved, in my experience. Johnbod (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Johnbod, especially for humanities and social science topics. The higher level articles are terrible such as Language, Ethnicity, Anthropology, Culture, Kinship. etc. I work on some of them but I have dropped the idea of doing FA's long ago - the process is too taxing on one's nerves and selfesteem. It simply isn't fun to write FAs.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 11:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the concern - my own thoughts on it are in the written-up version of my talk to the UK Chapter conference in April. I could quibble with the selection basis of the stats - to my mind the weakness is best expressed as affecting all broad/large topical subjects, especially if abstract, rather than merely "important" ones. I'm happy the Statue of Liberty is "important", but at the end of the day, like the vast majority of FAs, it is a single discrete subject with a fairly limited literature. The bibliography lists 6 works, the earliest from the 1980s, though other sources are also used. Some ones you missed that are certainly broad, and I would say important, are my own Funerary art - for which the total literature is perhaps larger than any other FA except maybe Shakespeare, Mayan stelae, and Ancient Egyptian temple. In Funerary art, whose theoretical scope covered the whole world since the Stone Age, I think reviewers were happy to accept that an FA-size piece could only skim the surface, and had to skip large parts of that surface. Johnbod (talk) 16:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well put. Most of us work alone or in small groups and articles about subjects limited in scope and requiring only consultation of a limited literature are within our abilities. Articles on large amorphous subjects or with large literatures are harder, that is why I am impressed by your efforts on brain (and Johnbod's on the Funerary art article). There's a reason few core topics are FA.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's a limit on how much can be accomplished by focusing on what happens at FAC, because resources will always be limited at FAC. The key is finding a critical mass of interested reviewers at some step before FAC. Milhist started participating in a big way just a few months ago at WP:PRH, which is the regular peer review for history-related articles. I'll try to spend more time on all the PRH reviews, and more time discussing how those articles might fare at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 20:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see this as an FAC problem, but as an article-writing problem. It's hard to write those big articles. My pet project is the Texas Revolution, which I've approached in a bottom-up manner because there is so much written about it. The main article has improved (with LOTS of room to go), but I've now added two dozen articles that didn't exist before I started reading (not counting the dozens on topics just outside this scope). I've brought a dozen of these subtopics to FA status. Eventually, I will make that main article be up to FA standard, but it will take a while.

In my opinion larger articles truly need a collaboration. Truthkeeper and I tried fixing up Catholic Church and it was just too much for the two of us. If we can get enough people interested in a big topic, then hopefully it will be ready for FAC. But I do not think that watering down FAC standards is the answer. I also question the methodology of how articles were chosen as important. Karanacs (talk) 21:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's exactly right. I was surprised to see at least a couple of articles I've worked on in Looie's list, but not surprised to see none that I'd worked on pretty much alone. To take one example, just look at the number of supporting articles around Gunpowder Plot for instance. I'd also question this idea of "importance". One article not on Looie's list that I certainly consider to be important is Peterloo Massacre, a great example of a bunch of like-minded editors coming together and making it work. The key to "big" topics is effective collaboration, nothing to do with the FA criteria. Malleus Fatuorum 21:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reminded of the Donner Party as well, another article I'd consider to be important by any objective criteria and another good example of effective collaboration. Malleus Fatuorum 21:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[edit conflict] My experience has been similar to Karanacs's. I once wished to bring every U.S. President's article to FA standards. Lately, I've begun to doubt it's possible. Look at this list. The most obscure articles have the best ratings. It's not because I'm a big Chester Arthur fan (I'm not, he was a terrible President). The reason should surprize no one here: big articles atrract more good editors, but they also attract hacks, noobs, gadflies, trouble-makers, vandals, and POV-pushers. It's not a problem with FAC, it's just a by-product of our open editing process (and the profusion of sources for popular topics, some of which contradict each other). --Coemgenus (talk) 21:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ten out of forty-three is not that bad, really. I'm planning to do some work on Teddy Roosevelt, expect it at FAC sometime in late 2013 (I am perfectly serious).--Wehwalt (talk) 14:36, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely spot on: "The key to "big" topics is effective collaboration, nothing to do with the FA criteria." Graham Colm (talk)

Catholic Church is a good example of the problem I see, Gunpowder Plot and Peterloo Massacre not so much. The main problem arises where a lot of the information comes from textbooks. In an article like Brain, over half of the content is stuff that everybody who teaches an Intro Neuroscience class knows, and referencing it is a matter of paging through textbooks looking for something that comes close enough to be used as a source. That's excruciatingly boring and really a complete waste of time. The result is that writing an article like this for Wikipedia is about ten times as much work as writing the article for a real encyclopedia would be. That's not the only problem, but it's the killer in my opinion. Looie496 (talk) 22:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you were collaborating with someone else who had access to suitable textbooks, and who didn't find that kind of work excruciatingly boring, then there wouldn't really be a problem, as you'd be combining your strengths to make a better article :) Sasata (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Added to which, as Karanacs says, when the supporting articles are in place the lead article becomes somewhat easier to write.

In German there is a saying: Wenn das Wörtchen "wenn" nicht wär, wär mein Vater Millionär. Which means: If it weren't for the word "if", my father would be a millionaire. Looie496 (talk) 23:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have a similar saying in English, but was your father aware of the need to recruit collaborators if you want to progress any article you might consider important to FA status? It's a Wikipedia problem, not an FAC problem. Finding productive collaborators is difficult; finding brainless trolls is all too easy. Malleus Fatuorum 23:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Looie496: you make a good point about the need to trawl textbooks for facts that seem elementary to a subject matter expert. Perhaps one way to think about this sort of referencing is that it helps future editors defend the article against decay. I don't know if this is ever likely to happen to "brain", but I've seen plenty of cases where passing editors want to add their opinions to FAs without sourcing, and the ability to revert unsourced material simply because it is unsourced (or poorly sourced) is a big timesaver. (I rarely see this approach used when the added material is possibly useful -- most watchers of FAs seem very fair minded to me.) So the two things go together: the open nature of the wiki requires that expertise, when injected, should be identifiably expertise and not opinionation. References are about the only way to achieve that. Having said that, I agree with others above that a collaboration can take much of the sting out of this sort of work -- I haven't collaborated on many articles myself but I have watched the process, and tedious work shared among five or six is much pleasanter. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I wound up having to do much of the later work on Nixon on my own, though Happyme22's did a huge amount of work earlier on and the article could not have made it without him. A companion later on would have made life easier. As for maintaining FAs, I maintain those I contributed to politely but firmly. If not, well, what you did to improve it will slowly be blurred away. As it is, I wonder if I am not shouting at the tide to turn back and not destroy my little sand castles.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:11, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I think is one of the most important ideas in 20th-century linguistics: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. But it's basically no more than a start. Why don't some of these "important article" warriors help out? No article is more important than any other. Malleus Fatuorum 01:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, any definition of "importantance" is extremely subjective. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Looie could have worked from the existing article importance structure. While it is also subjective, and in my view very flawed, it has the advantage of community acceptance. (I am being somewhat tongue in cheek here)--Wehwalt (talk) 01:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reponding to Malleus; most recently I've been creating humanities stubs. Perhaps the most important ones were Australian settlement and settler society, both theoretical concepts in history. The latter very important to the history of Imperialism, US, Canadian, NZ, Australian, South African (and by exception and extension) Caribbean, Liberian, South American societies. The former of vital importance to the debate on Fordism. I think that our problem with the humanities articles (apart from the general problem of cranks, collaboration, and source requirements) is that the humanities' discursive model of evidence and theory generation is in conflict with the positivist mission of the encyclopaedist. The fact that I did a double take when there was no Australian settlement when I tried to refer to it off hand when talking about racism in Fordism indicates that humanities people don't realise the depths of theoretical construct they use. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:35, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- You're responding to me in what way? I have no interest in Loooie's idea of important topics. Malleus Fatuorum 01:46, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - You were discussing an article in the humanities and social sciences. I was responding because your mentioning Colorless green ideas sleep furiously prompted my thoughts. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:27, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

Two comments: As you disclaim yourself, "important" is a very POV concept. As a Canadian, people like Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky and John A. Macdonald are infinitely more important to me than Gerald Ford, as one example. So while your list might be complete from an American perspective, the numbers would change depending on the nationality of the individual. IIRC, there are several English Kings that are FAs that would be considered of greater importance in Great Britain than any US President. Second, I think there is a danger in using the gold star as a validation of a topic's completeness. It is a convenient benchmark, and certainly shows that such articles have received many reviews. But, an article such as Potato is very well done, and aside from a couple citation needed tags, looks to be a pretty good article. Not perfect, but for a project that itself is not perfect, remains a solid example of the community. That is just a general rambling though, and I am doubtful that it actually challenges most of your argument. I think your point about the 2009 change is valid. Bluntly, my first FAs, from 2007 and 2008, were pretty mediocre. I think the emphasis on form and the "nitpicking" was actually a general benefit to the project, as for myself at least, it has vastly improved my writing. I am not certain though that the broader number of sources is a real issue for generic topics, however. When push comes to shove, 100 books on cats will ultimately say the same things. I would be willing to bet that on such topics, you could write a FA quality article with just a couple books - so long as their scope is broad enough to match that of our article. Reso lute 03:52, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If an article is derived entirely from a couple of books, it is basically a disguised (usually not very well disguised) form of plagiarism. Looie496 (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What definition of "plagiarism" are you using that leads you to that absurd conclusion? Malleus Fatuorum 01:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism is not the right term, but there can be a problem if a Wikipedia article, rather than summarising a source, acts like a vampire bat and sucks all the information out of a source, leaving the reader no reason to consult the source (which is by this point a dessicated husk, tossed to one side by the Wikipedia editor). That is using the work of others to drive traffic to us rather than them. This might not, however, be what Looie meant. There is also the concept of 'reverse engineering' a Wikipedia article by consulting the original sources used by a later source. It comes down to whether Wikipedia articles should be comprehensive, leaving readers no reason to engage in further reading of the sources used, or whether Wikipedia articles should summarise sources and be willing to stop short of excessive detail and say "for more, see this source". Striking that balance is not always easy. For broad topics, this is never a problem, though. It is usually only a problem for narrow topics, where less sources exist. Carcharoth (talk) 02:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Importance" is not entirely subjective. Whatever their perspective, few would argue that, say, John F. Kennedy or Mao Zedong are historically more important than Tom Driberg or Richard Cordray, or that The Marriage of Figaro is a more important opera than, say, L'ange de Nisida or Trial by Jury. But to me, that illustrates one of the main functions of Wikipedia's featured articles: to provide well-researched and comprehensive articles on less exalted topics which don't get this level of attention in conventional reference books. I could give lots of examples, but the one that comes first to mind is Ealdgyth's delvings into the lives of obscure English medieval bishops—what a resource that will prove to be one day, and where else in one place is such information to be found, readily available? Even those occasionally tiresome articles on ephemeral pop songs/singers and nondescript lengths of road might in time be a goldmine for social researchers. So we should not worry too much if there is an apparent emphasis at FA on less important subjects. In a sense, that reflects Wikipedia performing its unique function. Brianboulton (talk) 11:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What really matters from a practical point of view is the size of the relevant literature. Lots of Wikipedia's current FAs involve a literature of well under 100 publications. For topics like electron or brain, the number of relevant publications is literally in the millions. Looie496 (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but good editors, as you are to get brain as far as it has gotten, know how to pick and choose from that buffet.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:43, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To make sure my basic point comes through, let me give three examples: (1) Venus is the second planet from the Sun; (2) The electron has a negative charge; (3) Richard Nixon's vice president was Spiro Agnew, until he resigned and was replaced by Gerald Ford. Finding sources for facts like that is a lot of work -- you might not realize how much if you haven't had to do it -- and it is a complete waste of time. Looie496 (talk) 16:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those things you mentioned probably could get by without citations, as they are well known, or unlikely to be challenged. Something like "He postulated that nerves activate muscles mechanically by carrying a mysterious substance he called pneumata psychikon, usually translated as "animal spirits"" is not. Sasata (talk) 17:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's what the policy says, in practice it's always interpreted at FAC as "reference everything, no matter how obvious or trivial". Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbleak is correct, in my view. And so is Looie. It is why I keep a small stock of reference books on various subjects.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get how Yellowstone and Yosemite NPs are on the list but Everglades NP is not. No great mountains in it? Must be. Damn the Everglades for not having mountains. --Moni3 (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it used to, but darn that global warming!--Wehwalt (talk) 20:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

O_o That's a whole lot of warming. --Moni3 (talk) 21:00, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Too lazy to check if you just added it but ENP is in the VA level 4 ("expanded", "10000 thing") list. I actually think it would be better to list the Everglades under geographic features and delete it as a park. I think the park aspect is less notable than the swamp (or slow moving river or whatever the fuck the proper term is) itself. that whole thing is very ungainly though. Should be a pivot table in Excel. Very laborious too look for duplicates or for entries that cover a concept (e.g. probably adequate to have a VA for History of the Pelleponesian War and skip having one on Thucydedes as a person.)

An absolutely fascinating thread. Not that it hasn't been discussed before, but this thread is one of the clearest articulations of this issue that I've seen, and the 3 or 4 userspace essays linked at various points are well worth reading. It is blindingly obvious, of course, that the breadth of a broad topic is what can make it difficult to write about, but broad topics are traditionally what general encyclopedias deal with, and specialised encyclopedias with more specific topics. Wikipedia is a mix of the two (and everything else as well). One of Wikipedia's strengths, though, is that the broad and narrow topics are all lumped together and it is easy to click around until you find the level of detail you want. The question tends to be whether the bottom up approach or top down approach to editing works best for a particular topic. The general answer seems to be to contribute and write at the level at which you are comfortable, and according to the range of source you have access to (or may need to have access to). I tend to agree that focusing on challenging articles (while not taking on a challenge that defeats you as an editor) is the way to go. Learn the ropes in an area you know well, and then try and contribute in other areas as well - even if not to the same degree, it will still help improve things. I guess what I'm saying is that if specialists gradually become generalists, that will help. Carcharoth (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree in principle but in practice I doubt that this happens. My own FA work is in highly specialized areas; in theory I could eventually progress to the summary articles but I don't have the breadth of learning in Anglo-Saxon topics to do that without a more knowledgeable collaborator, and there's just too much to do in the science fiction project for me to have a hope of getting to the top of that pyramid. I mentioned above that I believe the answer to Looie496's concern is collaboration; I think targeted collaboration is a possible way to go. The FA team, for example, had some successes, and I think a group of editors like that, if motivated by a significant article, could help push an "important" article to a higher standard without requiring a subject matter expert to put in the mind-numbing labour Looie496 describes. Not every topic is suitable for a given editor to help with, but good copyeditors and well-educated lay readers are useful for almost every article; and even I could go and find reliable sources for the kind of well-known facts that Looie496 gives as examples. The FA team ceased to cohere for a couple of different reasons, one of which was, I think, that there was no good way of picking the right articles for it to help with. However, if it's true some form of structured collaboration is necessary to get the more important articles to FA standard, then some venue for forming those collaborations would be helpful. I don't believe Wikiprojects can be the answer in most cases because so few of them have sufficiently many editors to provide enough active collaborators. How about a new version of the FA team focused strictly on the core topics? Or even just on the elite nine? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's maybe not such a bad idea; an article like science ought not to be too tough a nut to crack. I do question the importance of some of these so-called important articles though. Who on Earth is going to come to Wikipedia to look up house, or toy, as opposed to opening a dictionary? Malleus Fatuorum 01:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If anybody wants to organize a group to work on science or mathematics, count me in. Looie496 (talk) 18:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, house gets over a million page views a year. (Toy only a couple of hundred thousand.) Looie496 (talk) 01:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Probably people looking for House (TV series). Carcharoth (talk) 02:00, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which is an FA that gets about 6 million views per year - more per day than most FAs per decade. I'm also happy with popularity as one measure of "importance". Johnbod (talk) 18:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to calculate what percentage (zero point something) of clicks to articles are to featured content? In a way, that is what I am getting that a number of editors are saying is the stat that they say we need to improve.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FA could do more to be relevant

1. If one argues that DYK should be deprecated "because we need to concentrate on quality, rather than quantity", then the vast amount of work on low view, low importance FAs, kind of says FA is really not the solution either. (And the "four award" is the enemy, not the ally, of driving what our readers (our READERZ!!!) need.

2. Today, we have an FA running on an African game park that gets 30 views per day. At least, it is a decent article and covers its subject. A few days ago, we had an FA on an obscure, demolished rural train station. That article, should arguably NOT even be an article. Certainly, the writing does not mostly cover the topic of the train station, but instead is padded out about the obscure, expired railroad. And no one noticed this during the review! And this is an article from 2009. And that ran on TFA in 2011.

3. If we really care about our readers, we would CARE about how poorly we are covering topics that are either high view or high importance (almost all "vital articles" are also high view. If you don't believe me, wander over there and click on 5 at random.

4. The very highest level articles are somewhat difficult as they are really categories or entire subjects of human knowledge (e.g. history). However, obviously it is possible for someone to summarize a field, people do it all the time in the real world. And for that matter, the vast majority of "level 3" or "level 4" vital articles are on discrete subjects (a person, a species, an element). So, you don't feel up to an FA on religion, fine. That is no excuse, not to go after Erasmus, or Calvin, or St. Paul.

5. FAC has the stench of death and decline. I read a remark a while ago from someone saying she wanted the page to be "down" to 30 articles only. (And at that point, she would have multiple articles from specific people). Huh!? Why not want to grow? Imagine this thing 5 times the size. Then you could start to drive real improvement of the product for the reader. And the place is already dangerously in-bred (Sasata, Ucachaca, and Visionholder are some of our best, no doubt, but they are doing a huge amount of reviewing each others articles). Why not want to grow? In size, diversity, and RELEVANCE! Imagine if this were a project in the business world (or even an ambitious nonprofit). Where is the plan, the effort, the HEART to get better?

6. I can random brainstorm several ideas for overcoming the problem of low production of important content:

A. Fund some studies and bots (the vital article project is not really maintainable as is, we need an Excel pivot table, and automatic updating).

B. Shinier or new or different attagurl symbol for getting a more important topic to FA (or GA). You can say, no one responds to that, but I bet a lot of people do "care" about the stickers they get now (it drives work). And if we hear a lot of screams from the mushroom/coin/synagogue/busstop/hurrican writers, then maybe we know it does have an impact and they just want to keep getting rewards for irrelevant work.

C. A "ladder board" that accomplishes the same as alternate symbols. A simple thing would be to factor by pageviews. So Wehwalt, you probably need 50 towelhead coins to equal one tricky dick. Or use the vital article list (1 point for off the list, 5 points for level 4, 10 points for level 3, 20 points for level 2, 50 points for level 1).

D. Prioritized attention of reviewers and directors on the more important articles. Put them at the top, hector for reviews for them (I'm still remembering the request that I review a battleship article that the directoress said was dishwater dull (why not use psychic capital to drive the more important articles?))

E. Come up with a better method of doing reviews (the all on one page serves neither the writer nor the reviewers). It's not how reviews are done in the real world, not how done at open review journals, not how GA does it, etc. It is a way pain in the ass to go after any in depth topic, without the ability to do section breaks and the like. To really grapple with difficult and important topics (not check ref formatting on a sock drawer article), we need more space than the RFA-like process of these "old style" FAs.

F. For that matter, I really don't think directors should be "scanning down the page" and doing promote/archive. I have caught some where it was pretty obvious Karanac was not really engaging with the article and reading it well, but just doing sort of a clerical "wiki admin" close type process. Instead, divide up the articles by "editor". this means the specific director can immediately decide if an article should be cut without review and to watch the process and see if the thing is meeting needs or not. (The efficiency gain allows deeper engagement, than if it is just ad hoc "do you have time this weekend, to swing through").

G. Allocate TFA space prioritized by importance of the topic (page views or spot on vital list or what have you). But the train station? That thing is a sin. Just think what a normal "non wiki" person thinks when that is what you highlight? That is what you drive and reward? That is what you want? Jimbo's little kid in Africa needs more of that?

H. I wonder if GA is a part of the solution. I still see a lot of great important topics going through GA, but very few in FA. For that matter, while FAers say "we're not just a nitpick review", I can find several articles (like that damned train station) where it looks like no one really questioned the content, just went after sentence level prose issues and ref formatting.

I. A project to drive outreach to retired faculty.

J. More Jimmy Butler shit.

L. Prizes similar to the Declaration of Independence thing, that reward important articles. (And don't underestimate the nature of notoriety here. I can drive more competition in a salesforce by having a watch or a Harley (that is visible, that they show off) than just a cash reward.)

M. Some Jimbo/Sue editorials or the like.

N. Throw it out to the public (give talks on the PROBLEM) and see if it gets people to come. And not talks to UK wikimedia, but talks at nonwiki places.

O. A contest (project versus project) on how many Level 4 VAs, they can get to FA (or GA) in a specific time.

P. Require reviewing for FA submitters (I think it would actually drive LESS tit for tat reviewing, drive more diversity). Anyone capable of doing an FA is capable of doing a review. And

Q. Fill in more ideas...brainstorm, brainstorm.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.184.111 (talk • contribs)

You're not signed in. I THINK I know who this is. Couldn't stay away? :)--Wehwalt (talk) 20:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You think you know who this is? The edit summary names someone, so no need to guess. FWIW, I agree with much of what the IP posted above, but trying to change too much at once is a recipe for failure. Which of the proposed changes, if any, should be prioritised for further discussion and rapid implementation if everyone agrees on them? The reference to coins and Nixon was very funny. but I didn't get the Jimmy Butler bit. Carcharoth (talk) 01:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth, TCO added his comments day before yesterday, Karanacs and I commented then. He then deleted them. A few minutes ago, he restored them with the edit summary you mention. When he first put it up, he didn't say who he was.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

D'oh! I completely failed to see the date history there. Sorry about that. Carcharoth (talk) 02:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Np.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:14, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vanished users don't get to come back to their same haunts. If you want to reengage, let's go through proper channels to get your history restored. Karanacs (talk) 21:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Priorities

For Carchy:

(1) Why not tell me what YOU would prioritize? It's not even just about getting the right answer, but about forcing yourself to think.

(2) My quick priorities:

A. A set of four thermomometers (for VA levels 1, 2, 3, 4) that show quality composition. Displayed prominently at Sue Gardner's blog (like at the top). I think just putting it front and center will drive work by the community, and even people off line. I think that will work better than trying to "convince people" (especially holdouts or people with a big investment in the old priorities).

B. Some self-made, without authorization or discussion, system of new stars or a laddar board for people that get VAs to GA/FA. I think FA writers like to have more stars because it makes their dicks look longer. Just set up some new game for them to play and some of them will follow (and the ones who rebel against it, so what...but if they whine hard it is likely cause they hate the new priorities that diminish their old advantage from killing boars in the forest like Cartman.) Something like what Tony does with 4 award, but the inverse. And that old Tony discussion pretty much showed all these issues. And Sasata even admitted he could be incented with stickers.

C. Some money for someone to overhaul tracking and display of VAs. Really just a grant for one person could drive the stuff. And a re-energized program like this would give the gnomey assessors like Suncreator something to do that he enjoys and that is more a benefit than making Blofield stubs from translation. Even much bigger benefit than ranking turlte articles (a project that died). [I am trying to think of ways to work together...not just have everyone magically become a TCO/Carch.) 71.246.147.40 (talk) 02:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

quality of average pageview, first thoughts

Of course, there's probably a way to answer Wehwalt's question about the average pageview quality experience either by surveying or by sampling.

1. Random article viewing I tried hitting random article at first and copying down both quality and pageview. I got through 33 of them, but it was pretty laborious with all the stubs. Would need to do a huge amount of those to get a reasonable sampling of the higher pageview articles and the higher quality ones (it is such a tailed distribution).

That said, even plowing through 33 articles, you start to see patterns. Within that group there were 23 stubs, 6 starts, 2 C, 0 B, 1 GA, 0 A, 0 FA. (Interestingly, no lists.) Of course, with more sampling, you would start to see FAs in the right proportions and the like. But still...can see that on a per article basis, most are stubs. Also, stubs had very low individual views (avg 300 views in 30 days). But the starts averaged 2000 views, while the Cs averaged 1633 and the one GA was 1261. Seems like the real differentiation in viewing is stub versus non-stub. Looking at totals (average article times number in category), starts had the most views (12,000), but stubs were close at 8,000. I think the average page view "experience" is probably on the stub side of start, but closer to start than stub.

BTW, even just looking at 33 articles gives an interesting look at the 'pedia. Saw a couple Indian village stubs. Lot of BLPs. Bands and songs. Molecules. Stuff tagged for years as lacking refs. I saved notes into Excel, but kind of aborted the random article approach for now.

Here is the data dump (using bullets to get around the tabs, is there a way to just cut and paste into a wikitable)? I sorted by high quality to low, and within categories by hitcount.

name last 30 days grade comments

The Problem Solvers 1261 GA individual episode of a TV show
Battle of Smolensk (1943) 2003 C several projects have it as a C. Milhist has it at start. This is a former FA.
Undiscovered (Brooke Hogan album) 1263 C Was unranked, but I gave a C as similar to other album C's. Probably a *bit less external reffed prose than a normal C article, but for an album having a nice table of the songs is most important.
Saab 9000 6545 start sketchy sourcing, tagged since 2008
Almaty International Airport 2327 start main airport of Kazakstan
Nag (missile) 2250 start no comments
Kyle Craig 753 start Fictional character of a popular thriller writer. Unranked and judgment call on the quality. Is unreffed, but has several paras of writing. (could be a stub, not a C)
Joe Paopao 439 start unreffed BLP, CFL football coach (would pass an AFD, not like Pamela Sneed)
North Carolina Highway 181 170 start WasA C, but I lowered it. Lot of writing, but refs were very sketchy (google maps and the like) and only 5 and not inline. Looks like a lot of OR description of the road.
Molar conductivity 2311 stub no comments
Succinic anhydride 1825 stub a molecule
García Álvarez de Toledo, 1st Duke of Alba 1124 stub previous months more like 300 (this one had one big spike, not sure why, not conntect to content) Almost a start article in that there are some sections and writing. But all the content is just geneology and not specific to the person (a 1400s nobleman). Nothing on his life.
Luny Tunes production discography 426 stub Unreffed (marked since 2008). Looks like a non notable band.
Zhaotong 323 stub unreffed
Alexis LeVan 289 stub beauty pageant contestant (no hot photo either). Unreffed, but has an EL to her website.
Steven Oliver (footballer) 283 stub BLP football player, reffed.
Static discipline 236 stub unreffed single sentence (was ranked start, but I demoted)
Larri Passos 234 stub tennis coach BLP. tagged for 2 years for notability and refs. Unranked, so I ranked. Had one (wrong) ref, that I cut. Now unreffed.
Equalizer (k-os song) 168 stub unreffed single sentence. Tagged for lack of notability since 2010. Was start, but I lowered.
Jean-Louis de Cordemoy 154 stub orphaned since 2008
Xinhua District, Tainan 140 stub no comments
Water polo at the 1965 Summer Universiade 134 stub Unreffed, was unranked (I ranked it). Almost no content and ought to be merged into the 1965 Universiade article (which needs building up).
AppleWorks User Group 130 stub Unreffed, has EL to website for the group. Not sure why need an article (google would take them to that website. we add nothing).
Grasplatz 129 stub A small defunct rail station on a defunct rail line. Malice-idescent should take this to FA!
NRSN2 127 stub Orphaned since 2009. Two sentences. Is a human protein (function not described). Was start, but I lowered it. Possibly promoting some individual scientists paper, but I could not tell
Tawapuku River 96 stub 2 sentences. Only ref is a "place names database"
Ted Ranken 86 stub 1908 Olympian, unreffed DLP, non notable person
Chelamala, Malappuram 78 stub unranked, but I call it stub. Village in India, couple sentence article
Archibald George Campbell 75 stub I tagged it as an orphan
Mykhailo Tyshko 65 stub another 1908 Olympian
Pamela Sneed 62 stub unranked, but I rated as a stub. Is a promotional BLP for a normal person (should not be an article)
Motakondur 25 stub village in India. Unreffed. Has been previously deleted. Orphaned.

2. Looking at the FA, GA categories. Should be possible to either survey or sample FAs and GAs and see what sort of pageviews they have. Then if we know the total site pageviews, you could at least see what the fraction of user experience is in GA or higher (ignore A for convenience).

GA has a random article tool. (misbehaving now.) FA does not. Still, for either, could just do something arbitrary, like pick a few manually from the lists. Or look at most recent promotions (or for FA, most recent TFAs).

2.1 FAC queue: went through the 15OCT11 FAC queue and just looked at each article's "last 30 days" pageview count. The highest was brain at over 100,000. The lowest was that Somerset Cricket club at 93. More than 55% of the articles had less than 3000 views in 30 days (i.e. less than 100 looks per day). the median number was 2,192. The average was 11,435. Will try cutting and pasting my spreadsheet data (tabs did not hold, so I used bullets:

name pageviews, last 30 days comments

Brain 112,825
Fluorine 63,234
Australian Cattle Dog 50,521
Conan the Barbarian (1982 film) 32,532
Middlesex (novel) 16,480 region is 20,00 views
Stephen, King of England 14,301
McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II 14196
King Charles Spaniel 10,689
Battle of Vukovar 7,910
Roger Hornsby 6,758
Willamette River 6,593
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets 5,265
Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes 3,682 has an 800 "spike"
HMS Eagle (1918) 3,068 has a 400 spike
Standing Liberty quarter 3,003
Faryl Smith 2,723
Turning Point (2008) 1,661
Mothers of the Disappeared 1,474
Ernie Fletcher 1,296
Jovan Vladimir 1,269
1689 Boston revolt 1,030
Exchequer of Pleas 878
Background of the Spanish Civil War 791
Russian battleship Sevastopol (1895) 723 has a 100 spike
Arado E.381 589 3 days recent spike to 100
1860 Atlantic hurricane season 516 almost half is from last 3 days spike
Knowle West, Bristol 506
Chaplain-Medic massacre 489 name changed recently, so I used the dashed version from month before
Hudson Valley Rail Trail 365
Battle of Kaiapit 247 was a 24,000 spike from On this day, so used previous month
Peter Jeffrey (RAAF officer) 223 50 spike
Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009 93

Some other comments. obviously FACs are not the same as FAs. Would be interesting to know if high hit count articles fail FA more (could examine last 30 non promotes). Or just look directly at the FA list itself. Also, even if more important articles have the same chance of making it through, they may need more time in queue, so that could skew the numbers.

If anything, the "low count" articles get a little bit overcounted since there are some strange spikes at times that help them and I left in for all but one which was on the main page. (I think when new content is added to articles, the robots come and look at the article more...and for low count articles this is significant. I have seen this with my own editing. And articles going up for FA, tend to have a lot of recent bursts of activity.)71.246.147.40 (talk) 08:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2.2 OCT TFAs: Not trying to make any point on main page usage, but just wanted a way to select some passed FAs randomly. Grabbed the 01-16OC TFAs and looked at their page views. Granted, this is probably a little skewed to recent passes. I did look at June hit count to get 30 days and avoid issues with the spike given when they ron on MP.

Similar story as with the FACs. Top was "Film noir" at over 100,000. Bottom was that train station I hate at 291. Median FA was 2,305 views in a month. Average was verage FA was 9,664. More than 56% were under 3000 hits per month. Raw data:

Name JUN pv

film noir 107,163
Triton (moon) 12,640
Just Like Heaven (song) 8,224
Fridtjof Nansen 6,065
Indian Camp 5989
Mother and Child Reunion (Degrassi: The Next Generation) 3,179
Hermann Detzner 3012
Free State of Galveston 2,356
Battle of Valcour Island 2,254
Telopea speciosissima 860
2010 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final 762
Marojejy National Park 659
1964 Brinks Hotel bombing 529
1941 Florida hurricane 345
The Author's Farce 303
Waddesdon Road railway station 291

71.246.147.40 (talk) 10:39, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]