Wikipedia:Featured article review/Race

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[edit] Race

Article is no longer a featured article

[edit] Review commentary

Race was featured on the main page on October 26, 2004.

I have not attempted to notify the original authors who brought the article to FA status, as I have not been able to find the original FAC in archives (can anyone help?). The edit history shows a preponderance of anon edits, so I am leaving a message for User: Slrubenstein, the editor who appears most often in the edit history.

I will leave (2a) prose to Tony, and am not able to evaluate the article for (2b). There is a pending To Do list on the talk page, which includes removing redundancy and editing for NPOV (2d) needed. I found no evidence in recent talk page or edit history of stability (2e) issues. I have not checked the images for copyright issues (4), since I don’t speak that language yet.

The article needs review mainly on 1) not our best work (general cleanup, article tag and reorganization needed); and 5) length and summary style.

2c) Factually accurate (references)

• There are three different citation styles employed, which does not provide an example of our best work.
• There is a concern on the talk page, from 9 May 2006, that “the whole thing smacks of original research”.

3b) Headings and 3c) Table of contents

• There is a talk page concern from 13 April 2006 that a major reorganization and cleanup is needed. The Table of Contents is overwhelming, rambling, and disorganized.

5) Length and Summary Style

• There is a {{summarystyle}} tag on the article. Overall size is 110 KB, and prose size is a very large 76 KB. In October 2004, the article was 49KB overall, so it has grown considerably since it received FA status. The article is not “of appropriate length, staying tightly focused” on its topic. The large increase in size warrants a new review of the article.

Sandy 21:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is a version from the date it appeared on the main page: [1]. Sandy 03:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:Cavalli-SforzaMap.jpg has a nonsense fair use rationale. It should probably be deleted. Jkelly 04:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

This article dates back to the Brilliant Prose days. Here's the archive of the promotion — not much to look at. Boy, have we come a long way since then! Pagrashtak 04:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks: I left a talk page note for User:JDG. Sandy 05:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Per User: Slrubenstein, I also notified User:FrankWSweet and User:Guettarda.

• Which variety of English is it written in? I see "color" and "rigour". There are far too many instances of "as well as", which is a marked form of "and". There is unscientific language, such as "presumably". The article appears to be not well organised. Tony 13:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Status? In the two weeks since it was nominated for review, the article has grown from 110KB to 116KB overall size. Here is the compare: [2]. No activity to clean up the problems, suggest moving to FARC. Sandy 13:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

• The refrences section here is rediculous. It takes up 3 whole screen legnths on my monitor. I know we want good sourcing and that most wikipedia articles are under refrneced, but there is such a thing as over refrencing. And with no inline citations, it would take days to find the proper refrnece here. There needs to be some way of organizxing the refs so that we know what refs what here. I have never seen a larger more confusing refs section. I would have to vote to remove the article Tobyk777 06:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Criteria 2a, 2c, 2d, 3b, 3c, and 5 are at issue. Tony 14:40, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. There's been a little work performed on this article since nomination, but not nearly enough, IMV. Looking at random, there are problems such as:
  • "The term race distinguishes one population of humans (or non-humans) from another." (First sentence.) I hate the reference to "non-humans"—what does it mean? Can the last two words be removed as redundant ("The term race distinguishes populations of humans on the basis of relatively superficial genetic differences, and culture."? ... or something liket that?
  • "physical anthropologists at PhD granting departments, rising from 41% to 42%"—Yuck to the "PhD granting" bit; is the rise from 41–42% statistically significant? I doubt it, from that small sample.

Too many problems, and no one seems to care. Tony 03:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. No effort to address all of the issues raised, and no one apparently even trying. Sad, since the original FA was a good article. Sandy 22:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
• Remove or roll back to the version that was featured.--Peta 05:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The original featured version – while far better than what is there now – had only two inline citations. I'm so disappointed the original authors and involved editors and Projects didn't take this on. :-( Sandy 22:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Sandy. I'm afraid it's more than I can handle right now. I'm quite ill (cancer, unfortunately). It needs a whole rewrite with good inline cites and I'm just not up to it. Oddly, if you go back to around June, 2005 you'll see quite a fine article with more sourced research than the original FA, and written pretty intelligently. It looks like a couple editors with shaky prose skills got hold of this only recently and really did a number. If you roll back, I'd say a version in early-mid `05 would be best. I'm surprised User: Slrubenstein is happy with the current version. I agree with most of the comments here that the writing, in many spots, verges on embarrassing. I think Slr was so close to it for so long, he must have lost perspective... Ah well, I suppose demotion is the best thing for it now. JDG 09:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

My best wishes for a good outcome, JDG, and thanks for letting us know. I will raise questions about the possibility of a rollback on the FAR talk page. Best, Sandy 14:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Adding cites to a good article is easier than cleaning up a bad one.--Peta 00:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Here are some older versions for comparison before, during, and after the 2005 growth phase. --Rikurzhen 05:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

• Remove, problems not addressed. --jwanders^Talk 10:34, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per jwanders Niz 12:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
• Remove NCurse _work 19:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)