Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates
| FACs needing feedback view • | |
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| Fôrça Bruta | Review it now |
| Phillip Davey | Review it now |
| History of the Nashville Sounds | Review it now |
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Contents
Image/source check requests[edit]
FAC mentoring: first-time nominators[edit]
A voluntary mentoring scheme, designed to help first-time FAC nominators through the process and to improve their chances of a successful outcome, is now in action. Click here for further details. Experienced FAC editors, with five or more "stars" behind them, are invited to consider adding their names to the list of possible mentors, also found in the link. Brianboulton (talk) 10:17, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
FAC source reviews[edit]
For advice on conducting source reviews, see Wikipedia:Guidance on source reviewing at FAC.
Source review workshop: status and next steps[edit]
See above for the background to this; for brevity I won't repeat much of that here.
The source review workshop has effectively concluded. The workshop page is here. Five articles were submitted for review; two passed, two failed, and one has had no review yet. Some comments on the reviews:
- Roger B. Chaffee. Nominated by Kees08. I reviewed this; I'm not particularly experienced as a source reviewer but I was as thorough as I knew how. This passed; the review was short and painless.
- Lion-class battleship. Nominated by Sturmvogel 66. No review. I think/hope that this is just because this was a workshop, not a real process, though we do have plenty of nominations that hang about waiting for source reviews here at FAC.
- Me, too! Although maybe it's a function of my mad sourcing skillz! ;-) Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:48, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
- Parliament of 1327. Nominated by Serial Number 54129. A long and extremely thorough review by Factotem -- far more thorough than most FAC reviews. This passed and the review was copied to the FAC as evidence of an existing source review.
- Saving Light. Nominated by MicroPowerpoint. Reviewed by both RL0919 and Outriggr. Failed; Laser brain noted "Concerns include issues with WP:RS, verification, and close paraphrasing that require further work."
- Shannen Says. Nominated by Aoba47. Reviewed by Nikkimaria. Failed, without any particular problems noted; the review is incomplete. Laser brain noted in his closing that this was a case that would need discussion if we go ahead with a separate source review process.
The goals of the workshop were to determine if a source review process could be:
- Well-defined: what is reviewed, how are reviews done, and what are the pass/fail criteria?
- Useful: does it eliminate work elsewhere, rather than duplicating work?
I believe the answer is yes to both questions. Source reviews are already taking place at FAC so the question of definition just means identifying the criteria at issue. The workshop took 1c and 2c from WP:FACR as the requirements:
- (1c): well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;
- (2c): consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)
The reviews are useful: one of the passed articles was cited in that article's FAC, and I expect the other passed article will do the same. If Saving Light should come to FAC, I think a reviewer would be justified in saying "what about the sourcing issues that were identified?" and suggesting withdrawal if they had not been addressed. If we have a separate source review process we can go further and insist that the article pass the source review before absorbing reviewer time at FAC. SarahSV, Ealdgyth and others have repeatedly pointed out that polishing prose based on unreliable sources is like painting over rotted wood. Let's make sure the wood is sound before we bring the article to the paintshop.
Some points that would need to be hammered out if we adopt this process:
- Do we allow multiple simultaneous nominations? Or immediate renominations of fails? I'd suggest we start with the same rules FAC has, and tweak if necessary.
- How long can an article wait before it is failed as incomplete? I think we should leave this to the coordinators, who can choose to nudge the reviewers to try to get a declaration, if they think fit. See the review for Shannen Says, listed above, as an example.
The next step is to get feedback from the community in the discussion section below. If there's enough support, I'll draft an RfC page for further discussion. At this point it might also be good to ping in others who might be interested. For example, the FLC coordinators, Giants2008, PresN, and The Rambling Man, may not have seen this discussion, and FLC might be interested in using a separate source review process such as this. (Note: this section was deleted and re-added to make the pings happen, because I screwed up the pings first time round.) Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:19, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Discussion[edit]
- I'm a bit confused by the result re: Shannen Says. I did the same source review I would have done at FAC. Is the review considered incomplete simply because I didn't add Support/Oppose at the end? Or was I meant to do a spotcheck? Some other reason? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:51, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- I was looking for feedback on that one. I know your reviewing style and I would of course accept your review as comprehensive at FAC, but if this is going to potentially live outside FAC, do we need to ask reviewers to make some kind of definitive statement of support? --Laser brain (talk) 02:51, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- Would it need to be a "support"? Would some statement of closure, "Passed source review" suffice? Image and source reviews are the only reviews which can individually sink a nomination, in contrast with a single prose oppose; I always think of them as absolute reviews, which need to be passed, not just changed to get support. – SchroCat (talk) 06:10, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- That would be a reasonable move. I do not generally say "support" after an image review but that does not mean that the images aren't fine. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 06:14, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, in the context of a normal all-encompassing FAC, I assume that if all points raised by a source or image reviewer have been acknowledged/actioned and it's evident that the reviewer is satisfied with the responses then we're good to go. I don't think we need "support"s as we do for other aspects of review, but I'd be happy to see a clear "pass" or some such comment to confirm the source or image review is okay -- that would be helpful whether we go for separate source and image review stages, or stick with our current all-through reviewing system. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:21, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I would prefer source review to occur first. I have John Glenn going through the FAC process, which has almost 300 citations. While it has gone through a prose review and a partial image review, since it has not received a source review it could be a long ways from FAC. Kees08 (Talk) 06:24, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- On the larger question of whether we should separate source and image reviews from the rest of the FAC process, I can see some advantages and disadvantages so I'm keeping an open mind and await further community input. If we were to adopt this concept then, yes, I think it would make sense to do the source review first. On the question Mike raises of whether we would permit multiple noms for the source/image review stages, I tend to agree we should stick to the principles we have at FAC now, i.e. one nom per person at a time, two if one is a co-nom. I don't think it makes much sense for people to build up a cache of source/imaged-reviewed articles if we continue to only permit one at a time at the general FAC stage, because the 'parked' articles could change between the source/image review stage and the general FAC stage. Similarly, the two-week pause after an unsuccessful nom seems to make sense for the source review stage (it may not be quite so big a deal for the image review stage). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:38, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- I think this would take FAC in the wrong direction. Nikkimaria, your review seemed (to me) unfinished in part because you didn't say whether you'd checked the text against any of the sources, and because you didn't reply when the nominator asked whether you had any further comments. I assumed that you were planning to return to it. If this does go ahead, it would make sense for reviewers to say pass or fail. Mike, this two-step process would work if we had enough reviewers willing and able to offer thorough reviews. But we don't, so you're going to end up with inadequate reviews and/or a bottleneck as nominators wait for the attention of the tiny number willing to do it. (And note that there might be more source reviewers at the start of a trial because of the novelty factor; you have to imagine how many there will be in two years' time.) There would be two other consequences of this separate process. (1) It would make FAC more GAN-like, in that moving an article to the second stage would depend on a single editor's opinion, so that other editors may not even get the chance to review it; and (2) it will make other reviewers even less likely than they are now to check the sources, because they'll assume that it's been done. We should be trying to get everyone involved in checking sources. SarahSV (talk) 20:28, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- That goes to my question above - is this process meant to include what has been called a "spotcheck" at FAC, or not. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- 1c says: "claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources". Mike also didn't do a spot check. I can't see the point in creating a new source-review process that doesn't ask reviewers at least to try to make a spot check. SarahSV (talk) 01:00, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- (ec) Nikki, I think it should include that, yes, but I think spotchecks at FAC should still be encouraged -- editing prose can cause it to drift away from correctly representing a source. Currently we require spotchecks at FAC for new nominators, and I think we should continue to do so. (Post ec: Sarah, I did a spotcheck but did not note it.) Sarah, I have no crystal ball, but here are some thoughts. We already have that bottleneck, and having it inside FAC does not seem to be driving many people to source reviewing. I think placing the bottleneck before FAC will make it more likely that nominators will review. Here at FAC we can tell ourselves we don't need to do source reviews because we've done lots of prose reviews, but a separate source review process would make it clearer that that's a fallacy. Your two numbered points would be serious problems if they turn out to be true, but I suggest (a) any article nominated at FAC should disclose any sources added since the source review, and those should be reviewed at FAC (and if the new sources are too numerous the coordinators can require a return to the source review process); and more importantly (b) any editor can do a source review at FAC if they wish to. I've seen experienced source editors here add second source reviews when they thought they were necessary, and that practice can continue. I don't think our best reviewers will hesitate to challenge a source if they think it's unreliable or has been misused, just because another reviewer passed it. It's a minimum bar: you may say that's too low a minimum, but it's no lower than it is now.
- The main benefit I hope will accrue is that we will no longer waste prose/MoS reviewers' time on reviewing material that is poorly sourced. I have skimmed through over a thousand FAC nominations in the last month or so, harvesting support/oppose data, and I can tell you that many, many hours have been spent by reviewers on reviewing articles that would have not made it to FAC had they undergone a source review first. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:15, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- (ec) As things stand, the FAC standard for source review may be lower than the GAN and DYK standards.
- Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles: "At a bare minimum, check that the sources used are reliable ... and that those you can access support the content of the article ... and are not plagiarized ..."
- Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewing guide: "Check that the article does not contain plagiarism or close paraphrasing" and "If the article includes information about living individuals, make sure it does not violate Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living people."
- Wikipedia:Guidance on source reviewing at FAC: "Reviewers should carry out spot checks to ensure that sources have been used appropriately, that the sources do indeed support the text, and that the article contains no plagiarism, including close paraphrasing without in-text attribution. The extent to which spot checks are pursued is a matter for each reviewer. ... The FAC coordinators will usually require spot-checking for first-time nominations.
- I think we should remove the final sentence and stop requiring them only for first-time nominations. SarahSV (talk) 01:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- I might support that (I'd want to see some discussion) but I think there's no linkage between that and having a separate source review process. Either change could be implemented without the other. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:31, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- Mike, I agree, but I think we need to remove it either way. We could say something like: "The extent to which spot checks are pursued is a matter for each reviewer, but the FAC coordinators will not promote an article unless they are satisfied that spot-checking has been done." Either that or we should remove from 1c: "claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources", and make clear that FAs should be well written with consistently formatted citations to reliable sources, but that we don't care whether the sources actually support the text. SarahSV (talk) 15:53, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- I don't disagree, but I'd rather the discussion of altering 1c get its own heading at some point. I've found startling errors when I conduct spot-checks of even experienced nominators. --Laser brain (talk) 16:01, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- Spotchecks of sources have never been required of every FAC. I would prefer they were, but the community, several of whom have remarked on the time it takes to get articles through the process, will need to decide if it wants that. At the moment the coords require a spotcheck for newbies, and for old hands who've been out of the game for a while, the rationale being that lessons will be learnt from those checks. It's true though that even the most experienced nominators can make errors in this regard, and several regular reviewers do some spotchecking as a matter of course (I do myself occasionally as part of my copyedits) but I would not object if we made it mandatory for every review, the caveat being that by their nature, spotchecks can't be guaranteed to eliminate every error of accuracy or close paraphrasing, they can simply give a feel for how good the article is in that respect. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- Proper spotchecks are not required by DYK and GAN either (and to claim "FAC standard for source review may be lower than the GAN and DYK standards" just isn't true). If you actually read the requirements, they ask for no close paraphrasing: that's not whether the text reflects the source claimed (except for a BLP), but a check for plagiarism. In other words to run the article through Earwig's Copyvio Detector and accept or reject on that basis. I think we already pass this (fairly) low hurdle as it stands. In other words, 1c. is still a higher hurdle than any other review process we have. - SchroCat (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- Spotchecks of sources have never been required of every FAC. I would prefer they were, but the community, several of whom have remarked on the time it takes to get articles through the process, will need to decide if it wants that. At the moment the coords require a spotcheck for newbies, and for old hands who've been out of the game for a while, the rationale being that lessons will be learnt from those checks. It's true though that even the most experienced nominators can make errors in this regard, and several regular reviewers do some spotchecking as a matter of course (I do myself occasionally as part of my copyedits) but I would not object if we made it mandatory for every review, the caveat being that by their nature, spotchecks can't be guaranteed to eliminate every error of accuracy or close paraphrasing, they can simply give a feel for how good the article is in that respect. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- I don't disagree, but I'd rather the discussion of altering 1c get its own heading at some point. I've found startling errors when I conduct spot-checks of even experienced nominators. --Laser brain (talk) 16:01, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- Mike, I agree, but I think we need to remove it either way. We could say something like: "The extent to which spot checks are pursued is a matter for each reviewer, but the FAC coordinators will not promote an article unless they are satisfied that spot-checking has been done." Either that or we should remove from 1c: "claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources", and make clear that FAs should be well written with consistently formatted citations to reliable sources, but that we don't care whether the sources actually support the text. SarahSV (talk) 15:53, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- I might support that (I'd want to see some discussion) but I think there's no linkage between that and having a separate source review process. Either change could be implemented without the other. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:31, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- 1c says: "claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources". Mike also didn't do a spot check. I can't see the point in creating a new source-review process that doesn't ask reviewers at least to try to make a spot check. SarahSV (talk) 01:00, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
- That goes to my question above - is this process meant to include what has been called a "spotcheck" at FAC, or not. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
Here are a couple of examples of FACs that received multiple supports prior to a source review that ultimately sank the nomination. I can provide more examples if needed.
- Bentworth, 2nd nomination. Six supporters, including some very experienced and capable nominators, prior to an oppose on sources by Brianboulton.
- Of Human Feelings, 1st nomination. Several reviews, including a long prose review, and a source review that did not include spotchecks, prior to an oppose on sources by Quadell.
-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:10, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Mike Christie: Do you think it is time to put this up to a vote? How do we want to make this final decision? Kees08 (Talk) 00:52, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'll create an RfC page and post a link here when it's ready for review, before we launch it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:40, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, I've been lazy about keeping up with these threads. It seems important to spot-check for close paraphrasing and straight plagiarism—and that would-be nominators know that will happen. It's clearly important for first-time nominators' work, but also important that the risk of a spot-check not be absent for subsequent noms by editors, even it spot-checks occur less often for them. Spot-checkers need online access to books and academic journals, right? That means most of us can't do it properly. Tony (talk) 05:02, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- Sometimes WP:RX can help with non-online sources. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 06:08, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
- I've sent through copies of articles and scans of relevant pages that have been requested by reviewers before. It's not too much extra work to send through a selection of requested material. - SchroCat (talk) 06:38, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
"far more thorough than most FAC reviews"[edit]
Was my review too thorough? Factotem (talk) 20:04, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
- I don't think so; I said "more thorough than most", but there are plenty of equally thorough reviews in the archives. Brian has done some, and further back in time Squeamish Ossifrage did very detailed source reviews. I think any article would benefit from that level of detail; few reviewers can spare that much time on a regular basis, though. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:15, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
RfC draft is up; please comment[edit]
I have drafted an RfC page here; please comment, or jump in and edit. Once it appears to be stable I will make it live and post notices at the usual places, perhaps including a site notice if we all agree it's sufficiently significant. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:39, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Mike, thanks heaps for this. A few comments (and I've tiddled with a bit of wording on the page, withough substantively changing the meaning, I hope). Generally it would be nice to reduce the size of the text (by 20%?).
- Have FLC people been warned of this? Are they being made to feel part of the process? The lead doesn't immediately clarify whether the new sourcing check would audit both FACs and FLCs, but readers will automatically think it does. Later we find that it's just a teaser for FLC. But in my view this complicates matters. It's easy enough for FLC to take on the process later if they see benefits (this could be mentioned toward the bottom).
- There's no mention of the current perceived deficiencies at the top (but maybe my expansion of the "in a nutshell" banner does this?).
- Generally I think it's all a bit long.
- FQSR sounds like SPQR from ancient Rome: a mouthful. Any reason not just FSR, dropping quality"?
- We going with "would" or "will"? I see both.
- "if such an article is nominated without asking for leave, a coordinator will decide whether to remove it"—In my view this needs to be fixed for FAC itself. It invites rule-breaking. "if such an article is nominated without asking for leave, a coordinator will
decide whether toremove it". - This bullet:
" "Spotchecking" is FAC shorthand for checking sources against the article text to ensure the text is supported by and does not plagiarize or too closely paraphrase the sources. Spotchecks are only required at FAC for first-time nominators or nominators who have been away from FAC for several years, though any reviewer can choose to spotcheck at any time. The same will be true for FQSR."
I thought spotchecking meant a sample-check, at random; does it imply a full check? Unclear to me. And does this mean there's no source checking for second and subsequent nominations by an editor? I'd like to keep the option open, as a practical motivation through risk exposure for serial nominators. And what's the rule when one of two nominators is a first-timer?
Tony (talk) 03:54, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
PS Possible to remove lots of procedural text by simply stating that it's basically the same as for FAC (with a link to the process)? Tony (talk) 06:28, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- Your edits look fine to me. Serial Number 54129 just cut the length significantly by eliminating the bureaucratic paragraph about rules; I think that's probably a good move. Some replies to your points above:
- See this conversation. I did ping the FLC coords at an earlier stage, and will go ahead and leave a note at WT:FLC shortly. I'm not at all sure they'll be interested, but I felt it was necessary to be explicit in the RfC statement about FAC because FSR is only likely to be used if it's a prerequisite for at least one of FLC and FAC.
- I think your expanded nutshell does indeed take care of mentioning the deficiencies early.
- I agree on length and have trimmed a bit more; please keep cutting wherever you see an opportunity.
- FSR is a good acronym, though my OCD twitches at the loss of the Q: I think we need to retain "quality" in "featured quality source review", because the outcome of FSR will be featured quality sources, not featured sources.
- "Would" is probably better; I've edited in that direction but please scan again for consistency.
- Spotchecking does refer to a sample, not a complete check; I've added "some" to clarify this.
- -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:20, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- Adding a note, since I see I didn't respond to your final point: typically no spotchecks are required if one or more nominators are experienced, though any reviewer may choose to spotcheck any nomination. In the discussion section above Sarah proposed requiring spotchecks for all nominations. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Mike Christie: Apologies for my terse edit summary in that edit—I hit return to early and got distracted elsewhere. The reason I removed it was that, in replicating a piece of general FAC guidance, it seemed only tangentially relevant to the actual source review element of the page. On the FSR/FSQR thing; I noticed the Roman thing a while ago, and...actually quite liked it in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. As in, there was the Empire—and then there was Rome. On put it another way: There are articles—and then there are Featured articles :D geddit? There's no harm, I think, in a touch of light-hearted, good-humoured self-indulgence when it is also accurate and self-explanatory...my 2p anyway. ——SerialNumber54129 10:08, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- I also saw the SPQR connection and didn't really object -- but I think shorter is better. However, I did just notice that WP:FSR is taken (though not by a high-traffic page) so we may end up with WP:FQSR. No worries on the edit; it was an improvement. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:18, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Mike Christie: Apologies for my terse edit summary in that edit—I hit return to early and got distracted elsewhere. The reason I removed it was that, in replicating a piece of general FAC guidance, it seemed only tangentially relevant to the actual source review element of the page. On the FSR/FSQR thing; I noticed the Roman thing a while ago, and...actually quite liked it in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. As in, there was the Empire—and then there was Rome. On put it another way: There are articles—and then there are Featured articles :D geddit? There's no harm, I think, in a touch of light-hearted, good-humoured self-indulgence when it is also accurate and self-explanatory...my 2p anyway. ——SerialNumber54129 10:08, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- Adding a note, since I see I didn't respond to your final point: typically no spotchecks are required if one or more nominators are experienced, though any reviewer may choose to spotcheck any nomination. In the discussion section above Sarah proposed requiring spotchecks for all nominations. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Reviewers are expected to make it clear that they have fully evaluated the article on both criteria.
Why force reviewers to take on the whole review which, if done thoroughly, represents a significant amount of time and effort for one person? Wouldn't allowing partial reviews spread the load and maybe encourage more reviewers?
Is it also worth adding the actual steps of a source review in the process section, i.e.
- Technical checks for formatting (inline refs are consistent, p/pp, ISBN format, publisher locations, etc.);
- External link checks (the most important of which I think, and the most overlooked, is checking that ISBN/OCLC/etc. links lead to the correct editions);
- Verification that sources are both high quality and reliable;
- Survey of sources to ensure comprehensiveness;
- Spotcheck verification of sources for accuracy and plagiarism.
Breaking it down in this way might provide a framework for consistent source reviewing and again encourage wider participation. Factotem (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with your first point and have edited the RfC to suit. I'm not convinced we need to add the steps of a review to the RfC, though I like the idea of adding them to the instructions for the nominations page, if the RfC passes. I think adding them to the RfC would make it longer without helping contribute to commenters' decisions to support or oppose. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:23, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
I will probably start the RfC tomorrow night unless there are further edits that require discussion. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:40, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
Hi Mike. Thanks very much for your work on this. One thing: My impression above was there's some good consensus between SarahSV, Laser Brain, and Ian Rose that it could well be a good idea to make spotchecks more mandatory for more than just newbies and people away from the game a while. I was surprised there was no reflection of this in your draft (or did I miss consensus to leave this question for later?). I've always thought it was a no brainer that these should be required for everyone. As has been said above, even experienced editors can make mistakes. I'd go further to say that if experienced editors know they're not going to be spotchecked, it's only human nature for them to sometimes be lax about putting in the extra effort before nomination to double-check the integrity of all cited information. Moisejp (talk) 01:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
- In view of the scarcity of reviewers, perhaps mandatory for first-time noms, and possible for subsequent noms? Tony (talk) 03:01, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
- That's more or less the current state. Moisejp, I omitted it because I didn't want to suggest introducing two changes at the same time -- there's no linkage between splitting source reviews from FAC, and increasing the spotcheck requirement. If you think we should do that I'd suggest waiting till the RfC is over, and then starting that conversation here. I agree with Tony that a shortage of reviewers is likely to be the main (or only) objection. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:01, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
...and since it just acquired a !vote and the text seems stable, I went ahead and made the RfC live. Please add your !votes and comments there. I'll add notifications in various places this evening, but have to head off to work now; if someone else wants to add some notifications that would be great. I would suggest WT:FLC, WT:RS, the village pump policy page, the central notifications page, and a request for a site notice, at least. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
- I listed at WP:CENT and posted notices to WT:RS and WP:VPR ("proposals" seemed more appropriate than "policy" to me, but feel free to add a notification there also if you like). It was already mentioned at WT:FLC. --RL0919 (talk) 18:09, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks. I've requested a watchlist notice. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:28, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Templates in FACs[edit]
The FAC instructions say not to include templates; I recall this was an issue years ago. I've been guilty of using {{tq}} extensively in my reviews as I'd forgotten this was still in the instructions. Does it need to be? Are computers now fast enough that we can ignore this? Personally I'm not keen on the {{done}} template, but that's just because I don't think it adds anything useful to the word "Done". Coloured quoting, as provided by {{tq}}, {{xt}}, and {{!xt}}, seems fine to me, if the speed problem is no longer an issue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- It's not a speed issue - it's a page limit issue. There is a limit on the number of templates that can be displayed on a page - it doesn't come up on the actual page itself, but it used to impact the archives of nominations - because of the number of FACs that were transcluded there - the pages would run into the template limit. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:17, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- If I recall correctly, Geometry Guy once pointed out in a conversation like this that it was nested templates that cause the problem. Didn't we once have a conversation that demonstrated that non-nested templates were not going to be an issue? I just searched the WT:FAC archives and can't find it; I'll dig around some more. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:20, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- No clue, I was just told it was a page limit thing with the archives. Personally I detest that gods awful geeen quote thing and thing it makes thing harder to read and makes pages look like they have leprosy. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:25, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- It was introduced in January 2008 because the template transclusion limit was cutting off the oldest noms: Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive26#Over 100 (and it was slow to load). DrKay (talk) 14:34, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- WP:DYK encountered a similar problem a few years back and it was rather disruptive leading to the creation of the approved page and associated bot. I would rather keep the general prohibition on templates and avoid having to think about the transclusion limit, though would suggest substing if you really need to use one and it's not particularly complicated. Wugapodes [thɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 18:08, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
- It was introduced in January 2008 because the template transclusion limit was cutting off the oldest noms: Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive26#Over 100 (and it was slow to load). DrKay (talk) 14:34, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Since a substantial part of all material in a given FAC is quoted text, I support a way to differentiate quoted material. I find it easier to read in the mess of bullet points, indented reply bullet points, confirmations of "doneness", and so on. I'll take even subtle differentiation. Is there a simple solution other than templates or subst'd templates? I can't think of one. A bot could subst certain templates once they hit the archives, for example, if there is still a technical problem. Outriggr (talk) 00:31, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- Yep. "Leprosy" aside, having a way to distinguish quotes from the article or sources from other text is extremely helpful to me. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 19:21, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- What he said. I kind of agree about the leprosy, and wouldn't be heartbroken if they changed the template such that it highlighted the text some other way, but in terms of function it's invaluable, given how often it's necessary to make it clear exactly which point is being commented on. As I understand it, it tends to be citation templates that push pages over the transclusion limit (because each citation template in turn transcludes multiple other templates); RexxS will know the technicalities. ‑ Iridescent 20:49, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Iridescent: If you can come up with the styling you'd like to highlight the text in some other way, I could easily make that into a template for folks to use. You're right that templates that transclude other templates are the ones most likely to hit a limit (maximum for "Highest expansion depth" is 40), although using Lua modules to implement citation templates removes much of the problem these days. The other template limits that might have once been a consideration currently allow up to 2 million characters passed to or produced by templates per page, so that's quite unlikely to be an issue. I doubt that using {{tq}} or {{xt}} or anything similar is going to hit the present limits. --RexxS (talk) 23:13, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- It sounds like we can update the instructions to remove the stricture on templates. If nobody objects (or beats me to it) I'll make that change this weekend. (Ealdgyth, I promise not to use them on your FACs.) Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:52, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- My advice would be to leave SandyGeorgia's discouragement of the "done" and "not done" graphics that seems to have enjoyed consensus for the last 10 years. No amount of technical fixes will alter the aesthetic arguments against graphics like those. --RexxS (talk) 10:42, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- I agree re. maintaining a general prohibition on the done/not done templates. Whereas highlighted text (incidentally, other colours are available without leprosy or template!) does help distinguish text elements, I feel the icons themselves actually do the opposite: they are bigger than the text that follows them, and so inconsistently increase line spacing , and generally make text harder to read through interruption.Incidentally, apart from apart
Done and
Not done, you'll all be glad to hear we've also got
Fixed,
Added,
Doing... and
Removed... ——SerialNumber54129 11:04, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not fond of the done/not done graphics either, but can we justify a proscription on aesthetic grounds? I can't think of a parallel to that sort of instruction elsewhere in non-article space. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- Probably not! But I don't think I (at least) did emphasise aesthetic grounds (certainly unintentionally): as I say, they actively interfere with the text, and thus they could easily interfere with the reviewing itself. I'd also suggest that a page covered in loads of multi-coloured blobs is likely to deter, rather than encourage, potential new reviewers to join a discussion—and that, surely, is the prize :) ——SerialNumber54129 11:23, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Mike Christie: Definitely! On Wikipedia we don't have prescriptive instructions. We have instructions that document our agreed best practices. The prohibition on gaudy graphics has enjoyed consensus for 10 years. The grounds of aesthetics are supplemented by grounds of functionality (poorer readability through distraction and increased line-spacing) and grounds of unnecessarily increased bandwidth usage for those with poorer or metered internet connections – a single tick mark costs more than 750 characters of text. --RexxS (talk) 11:59, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- Definitely. The purpose of those templates was for multilingual projects like Commons, where readers won't necessarily know what "abgeschlossen" or "heb ei wneud" means without a visual aid; they don't really have a useful purpose at a monolingual project like Wikipedia other than as a "look at my post, it's more important than yours" tool. ‑ Iridescent 23:59, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Mike Christie: Definitely! On Wikipedia we don't have prescriptive instructions. We have instructions that document our agreed best practices. The prohibition on gaudy graphics has enjoyed consensus for 10 years. The grounds of aesthetics are supplemented by grounds of functionality (poorer readability through distraction and increased line-spacing) and grounds of unnecessarily increased bandwidth usage for those with poorer or metered internet connections – a single tick mark costs more than 750 characters of text. --RexxS (talk) 11:59, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- Probably not! But I don't think I (at least) did emphasise aesthetic grounds (certainly unintentionally): as I say, they actively interfere with the text, and thus they could easily interfere with the reviewing itself. I'd also suggest that a page covered in loads of multi-coloured blobs is likely to deter, rather than encourage, potential new reviewers to join a discussion—and that, surely, is the prize :) ——SerialNumber54129 11:23, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not fond of the done/not done graphics either, but can we justify a proscription on aesthetic grounds? I can't think of a parallel to that sort of instruction elsewhere in non-article space. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- I agree re. maintaining a general prohibition on the done/not done templates. Whereas highlighted text (incidentally, other colours are available without leprosy or template!) does help distinguish text elements, I feel the icons themselves actually do the opposite: they are bigger than the text that follows them, and so inconsistently increase line spacing , and generally make text harder to read through interruption.Incidentally, apart from apart
- My advice would be to leave SandyGeorgia's discouragement of the "done" and "not done" graphics that seems to have enjoyed consensus for the last 10 years. No amount of technical fixes will alter the aesthetic arguments against graphics like those. --RexxS (talk) 10:42, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- It sounds like we can update the instructions to remove the stricture on templates. If nobody objects (or beats me to it) I'll make that change this weekend. (Ealdgyth, I promise not to use them on your FACs.) Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:52, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- @Iridescent: If you can come up with the styling you'd like to highlight the text in some other way, I could easily make that into a template for folks to use. You're right that templates that transclude other templates are the ones most likely to hit a limit (maximum for "Highest expansion depth" is 40), although using Lua modules to implement citation templates removes much of the problem these days. The other template limits that might have once been a consideration currently allow up to 2 million characters passed to or produced by templates per page, so that's quite unlikely to be an issue. I doubt that using {{tq}} or {{xt}} or anything similar is going to hit the present limits. --RexxS (talk) 23:13, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- What he said. I kind of agree about the leprosy, and wouldn't be heartbroken if they changed the template such that it highlighted the text some other way, but in terms of function it's invaluable, given how often it's necessary to make it clear exactly which point is being commented on. As I understand it, it tends to be citation templates that push pages over the transclusion limit (because each citation template in turn transcludes multiple other templates); RexxS will know the technicalities. ‑ Iridescent 20:49, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- Yep. "Leprosy" aside, having a way to distinguish quotes from the article or sources from other text is extremely helpful to me. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 19:21, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- No clue, I was just told it was a page limit thing with the archives. Personally I detest that gods awful geeen quote thing and thing it makes thing harder to read and makes pages look like they have leprosy. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:25, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- If I recall correctly, Geometry Guy once pointed out in a conversation like this that it was nested templates that cause the problem. Didn't we once have a conversation that demonstrated that non-nested templates were not going to be an issue? I just searched the WT:FAC archives and can't find it; I'll dig around some more. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:20, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- It was, historically, mostly a page limit problem, but it was not that exclusively. Reading through cluttered FAC pages is made unnecessarily difficult by the addition of templates, sub-headings, and the like. Done, not done, etc mean little to the delegate/coordinator who should be deciding such things on their own, rather than looking for checkmarks. Plain text is easier to sort; sub-headings, templates, extraneous colorful junk are sometimes used to mislead other reviewers, while only making the page more difficult for the one who has to look at what is actually done, and decide consensus. And today's FAC pages are much longer and more cluttered than they once were. (Thanks for the ping RexxS, as I rarely peek in here anymore ... still working on recovery from the tree that fell on me in a hammock-- curiously, I promoted that FA and it came back to whack me!) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Now done, with language that I hope reflects the discussion here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:06, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
FAC reviewing statistics for October[edit]
Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for FACs ending in October.
| # reviews done | Review type | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Editor | Image | Source | Content | Grand Total |
| Nikkimaria | 15 | 7 | 1 | 23 |
| Tony1 | 17 | 17 | ||
| Kees08 | 4 | 2 | 6 | |
| Peacemaker67 | 3 | 3 | 6 | |
| Casliber | 5 | 5 | ||
| Ceoil | 1 | 4 | 5 | |
| Sturmvogel 66 | 2 | 3 | 5 | |
| FunkMonk | 5 | 5 | ||
| Aoba47 | 5 | 5 | ||
| Clikity | 4 | 4 | ||
| Jo-Jo Eumerus | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Serial Number 54129 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Dank | 3 | 3 | ||
| Wehwalt | 3 | 3 | ||
| Carabinieri | 2 | 2 | ||
| Indopug | 2 | 2 | ||
| Tim riley | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Display name 99 | 2 | 2 | ||
| Dudley Miles | 2 | 2 | ||
| Ceranthor | 2 | 2 | ||
| Nick-D | 2 | 2 | ||
| Johnbod | 2 | 2 | ||
| Popcornduff | 2 | 2 | ||
| Factotem | 1 | 1 | ||
| Graham Beards | 1 | 1 | ||
| Dunkleosteus77 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Kailash29792 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Gligan | 1 | 1 | ||
| Gog the Mild | 1 | 1 | ||
| Alephb | 1 | 1 | ||
| TheJoeBro64 | 1 | 1 | ||
| FrB.TG | 1 | 1 | ||
| Moisejp | 1 | 1 | ||
| Bowler92 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Argento Surfer | 1 | 1 | ||
| Laser brain | 1 | 1 | ||
| Bilorv | 1 | 1 | ||
| Axl | 1 | 1 | ||
| CPA-5 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Vanamonde93 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Outriggr | 1 | 1 | ||
| SchroCat | 1 | 1 | ||
| Katolophyromai | 1 | 1 | ||
| Czar | 1 | 1 | ||
| Gerda Arendt | 1 | 1 | ||
| Redditaddict69 | 1 | 1 | ||
| R8R | 1 | 1 | ||
| Jenhawk777 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Veera Narayana | 1 | 1 | ||
| Kges1901 | 1 | 1 | ||
| MX | 1 | 1 | ||
| Hawkeye7 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Cplakidas | 1 | 1 | ||
| Kaiser matias | 1 | 1 | ||
| Fitzcarmalan | 1 | 1 | ||
| A. Parrot | 1 | 1 | ||
| Ian Rose | 1 | 1 | ||
| Slatersteven | 1 | 1 | ||
| Cwmhiraeth | 1 | 1 | ||
| Acroterion | 1 | 1 | ||
| Gonnym | 1 | 1 | ||
| Masem | 1 | 1 | ||
| David Fuchs | 1 | 1 | ||
| Red Phoenix | 1 | 1 | ||
| Pjoona11 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 20DKB03 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Lusotitan | 1 | 1 | ||
| RL0919 | 1 | 1 | ||
| PaleoGeekSquared | 1 | 1 | ||
| Jens Lallensack | 1 | 1 | ||
| IJReid | 1 | 1 | ||
| MarchOrDie | 1 | 1 | ||
| Grand Total | 21 | 17 | 122 | 160 |
There were 67 declarations of support, 13 opposes, two struck opposes, and one oppose that was converted to a support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:56, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, as always. I must say I don't really like my reviews being described as "Type: Prose". They certainly aren't that in the way say Tony1's are. I always try to review the content. I think this is actually the area where FAC is weakest, and not having a "type" column for it perhaps demonstrates this. Johnbod (talk) 03:09, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
- Mike, If its not too much bother, would like to see the opposes listed as a column. My strong opinion is that this is a minority activity, giving a result of lowering of the bar and clogging the process. FAC needs to be more aware of the gate-keeping and standard setting aspect - I often get get but x article passed thrown back, which is a race to the bottom. Separately, not sure how we can identify the type of expert reviews say Johnbod mentions and provides in his area, which of course are hens teeth. Frankly, I think one of these is worth 20 image reviews. Sorry Mike or Nikki for the angst; long day, and not at you; your energy here is badly needed. Ceoil (talk) 07:03, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
- Will list the supports and opposes in a few minutes; it's not much trouble. Johnbod, I agree; I just use "Prose" to make it clear that it's not a specialized source or image review, but I like "Content" better and will try to remember to use that. Have changed it above. By the way, I have now extended the historical data back to late 2012; I'm still planning on going back further but I have enough to do comparisons back that far. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
- Mike, thank you for all your work pulling this together. I have another request, but I don't know how much extra work it involves. Some of the prose reviews are indeed just that, and the reviewers say so. Is it possible to make clear which were acknowledged to be prose reviews only and which content reviews? In other words, I'd like to see these categories: source review, image review, prose review, content review. (A content review ideally includes checking prose, sources, source-text relationship, structure, whether it's comprehensive etc). If that's too much work, please ignore. SarahSV (talk) 00:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, I don't have that breakdown, and it can't be acquired with any reasonable amount of work. I've had to make some compromises just to get the data I do have, and broad-brush categories is one of those compromises. I'll write up a more detailed list of caveats about the data at some point, but the short version is that any marginally helpful comment, however short, counts as a review, and the only distinctions are source review, image/media reviews, accessibility reviews (very rare), and everything else. That makes the data of little use for the kind of question you're asking, I'm afraid. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- Is there a specific purpose behind all of the requests you get, and for collecting this data? I suppose this does not fall under big data, but when I was in charge of many systems I made sure that every request for data came with what the person was going to do with the data. Just want to make sure you are not doing a lot of extra work for low benefit! Kees08 (Talk) 04:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- Okay, thanks, Mike. SarahSV (talk) 04:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- Kees08, there were several extended discussions in 2016 (see this WT:FAC archive) which prompted me to start capturing the data going forward, partly in order to do the monthly reviewing statistics. I've been involved in many discussions about what to do about FAC over the last twelve years, and I've often thought that those discussions were full of assertions I wanted evidence for -- "citation needed", if you will. Some assertions were clearly true, such as "There are fewer FAC reviewers than there used to be"; or "FACs take longer now"; some were less clear, such as "reviewers these days are less inclined to oppose". In both cases I wanted to put numbers to the assertions, so in my mind I'm building a reliable source for discussions at FAC about what works and what doesn't. Other uses spring to mind, such as adding review counts after people's names, as is done at GAN (this was suggested in 2016 but not agreed to), or building a toolserver page to produce a FAC history for an editor, rather like the edit count page. If I ever get the dataset completed back to 2003, I could also do reports that show the correlation between FAC experience and success at FAC. There's a rather depressing table in the archive linked above that shows that correlation, done by hand. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, I don't have that breakdown, and it can't be acquired with any reasonable amount of work. I've had to make some compromises just to get the data I do have, and broad-brush categories is one of those compromises. I'll write up a more detailed list of caveats about the data at some point, but the short version is that any marginally helpful comment, however short, counts as a review, and the only distinctions are source review, image/media reviews, accessibility reviews (very rare), and everything else. That makes the data of little use for the kind of question you're asking, I'm afraid. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- Will list the supports and opposes in a few minutes; it's not much trouble. Johnbod, I agree; I just use "Prose" to make it clear that it's not a specialized source or image review, but I like "Content" better and will try to remember to use that. Have changed it above. By the way, I have now extended the historical data back to late 2012; I'm still planning on going back further but I have enough to do comparisons back that far. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
- Mike, If its not too much bother, would like to see the opposes listed as a column. My strong opinion is that this is a minority activity, giving a result of lowering of the bar and clogging the process. FAC needs to be more aware of the gate-keeping and standard setting aspect - I often get get but x article passed thrown back, which is a race to the bottom. Separately, not sure how we can identify the type of expert reviews say Johnbod mentions and provides in his area, which of course are hens teeth. Frankly, I think one of these is worth 20 image reviews. Sorry Mike or Nikki for the angst; long day, and not at you; your energy here is badly needed. Ceoil (talk) 07:03, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
- This seems like a good opportunity to thank Mike for tirelessly generating and proving these stats. Its a very interesting and valuable set of contributions indeed. Thanks Mike. Ceoil (talk) 22:12, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you, Ceoil, that's much appreciated! I do it because I think the data is useful, but it's nice to know that others agree. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:06, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
Bot report[edit]
FACBot notes that Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/List of Kolkata Derby Matches/archive1 has not been transcluded. However, I think that it should go to FLC, not FAC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:40, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Meghan Trainor/archive1 has not been transcluded on the nomination page. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:47, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Half a shekel for an FAC coordinator?[edit]
I'm just dropped in to beg anyone who's willing to take a look and help clear the image/source check requests above. One has been waiting for a spot check for more than a month. I can't offer much but I could perform select numbers from Camelot over Skype for the amusement of your family. --Laser brain (talk) 11:56, 16 November 2018 (UTC)