Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/archive/April 2006

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This is the archive of Featured Article Removal Candidates for April 2006. For the list of previous arhives, click here. For archives under the new Featured article review process see here.

Contents 1 Chetwynd, British Columbia 2 Mail 3 Labour economics 4 History of Scotland 5 Windows XP 6 Quantum computer 7 Great Mosque of Djenné 8 Venus 9 Rock, Paper, Scissors 10 History of Miami, Florida 11 Weather lore 12 Strategic management 13 India 14 Smile (Brian Wilson album) 15 People's Republic of China 16 Crime fiction 17 Zuiderzee Works 18 Fermi Paradox 19 European Union 20 Glass

[edit] Chetwynd, British Columbia

Article is no longer a featured article.

This was promoted to featured status despite several actionable objections not having been resolved (see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chetwynd, British Columbia). The nominator acknowledged this when he said most of your comments have not been actioned upon, not because they are invalid, but because they would require dramatic changes to the way the article is written and formatted [1]. I believe it fails to meet several FA criteria, most significantly that it is not well written, it is not of appropriate length, and it does not stay tightly focussed on the main topic.

• Writing quality - the second and third paragraphs in 'demographics' are definitely not compelling prose - they're just a regurgitation of statistics and that's very boring to read. The final paragraph in Economy is the same. Some of the writing doesn't make sense, for example The last major accident occurred in 2000 when a million litres (6,300 bbl) of crude oil spilled into the river from a ruptured pipeline near the intake pipe.[23] Its sewage is collected by 28 kilometres... is a jarring non sequitur.
• Appropriate length - there is a large amount of overly detailed cruft here, with sentences like 'The Canada Land Inventory rated the quality of the soil as class 5TP soil (a relatively infertile grade)'. The Canada Land Inventory's soil classification system is not in any way a generally known or understood thing, and the fact that Chetwynd has class 5TP soil is meaningless to the vast majority of readers. Pupil numbers for each school in town is excessive detail, as is information about what courses are available at the college. The demographic and economic paragraphs I mentioned already are also excessive detail. A few more examples of information that really bogs down the reader are:
  • The runway, paved in 1975, is 1,371 metres (4,500 ft) long and 30 metres (100 ft) wide
  • The District's 2005 property taxes charged single-family homes CAD$16.72 per month for drinking water and CAD$13.31 per month for sewer.[21]
  • Chetwynd is the last stop before the Pine Pass, which cuts south through the Rocky Mountains
• Focus - there is a lot here that is not actually about Chetwynd but applies more generally to the region it's in, such as the whole climate discussion, and most of the geography discussion. Also culture - does this town of less than 3,000 people really have a culture distinct from its surroundings? And according to who is it based on appreciation of heritage, public art, and outdoor recreation?
• Also, the lead section does not provide an adequate summary of the article's content - half of it is about the coat of arms, which is not even mentioned in the main article text. Worldtraveller 13:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
  • December 2005 FAC-1
  • March 2006 FAC-2
  • De-featured by Worldtraveller but reverted April 2006
  • De-featured by Bishonen but reverted April 2006
  • Concerns with article not listed on talk page prior to nomination
  • I have a question. Worldtraveller, you're a good contributor, so what would we have to do for people to see the guideline that they have to pass twice to make a nomination that issues with a FA should be brought up on the article's talk page first? I'm not being snarky, I'm literally asking. - Taxman ^Talk 14:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I believe I raised this point on WT:FA prior to the nomination... Johnleemk | Talk 14:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I know the guideline exists, but only because I saw some discussion it triggered further up the page. Maybe put it in bold? Semi-regular FARC-ers like me might not notice that a new guideline has been introduced since their last nomination. Myself, I'm not too much in favour of it - I'd prefer to see nominations left a week longer rather than require a pre-nomination step, but that's beside the point. In this case, which is somewhat unusual, the objections have been in the FA nomination for almost two months for everyone to see, and should have been dealt with when they were listed. The pre-listing guideline is in place to make editors aware of problems and give them time to fix them, and I believe they've had sufficient time already in this case. Unlike FARC's main business which is dealing with articles that have declined in quality, or failed to keep up with rising standards, this one is about an article which was never up to standards in the first place. I'm also ignoring the convention that you can't nominate an article because of things that have already been discussed in its FA nomination, and listing it only 7 weeks after it was promoted - again, because this case is somewhat different from the usual FARC fare. Worldtraveller 15:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Did you nominate this article because you believe these issues cannot be overcome? That is usually what justifies a removal of featured status. Btw, the deconstruction of the coat-of-arms in the introduction is meant to introduce the different topics of the article. --maclean25 16:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• I don't believe they can't be overcome, but if an article doesn't meet the FA criteria it should not be featured, and it certainly appeared during the nomination that no-one was actually willing to overcome the objections. As for the coat of arms, I'm not sure that's a very encyclopaedic way to outline the topic. I'd recommend a more direct approach, dropping the coat of arms in the intro and just summarising the article content. Worldtraveller 16:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• First I would like to get this off my chest: Worldtraveller, you have been disruptive in your attack on this article. The one possibility you did not consider during your criticism was that you could have been wrong. At the FAC you listed your concerns. Thank you for that, your objections were actioned upon by several editors to the degree that the comments were benefitial to the article. Meanwhile, others tried to explain to you that some of your actionable objections may actually degrade the article's quality. But since you could not be wrong, you did not listen but rather enlisted help. After it was promoted, you appealed knowing that you could not be wrong and since you did not approve it must have been a mistake. Knowing that you could not be wrong you appealed a second time. Knowing that you could not be wrong you appealed a third time. Then, knowing you were smarter that everybody else, you changed the FAC decision and de-listed the article from the FA page. After that was reverted you turned to revenge by listing it here on FARC (need to see a head roll? the talk page, request for comment, or WP:FAR too mild?) while ignoring proper procedure and guidelines (the article doesn't need fixing it needs demotion?). So here we are re-fighting the FAC. (thank you, I feel better now)

• Second, concerning Worldtraveller's purpose (assuming good faith) for being here, though not the reason, as noted above, I have made some edits to the page. I assumed that by "regurgitation of statistics" you meant to say that the article would benefit if the numbers were removed in favour of a description of their implications. I have done this for the second paragraph in demographics and to a degree at the economy section. I fail to see how I can do this for the third paragraph (on crime rates). By "overly detailed cruft" I assume you meant to say that the article would benefit from describing the implications of the details, rather than listing details themselves. I see your point and I have made edits accordingly (except the last stop before the Rocky Mountains - as this is much of the reason the town exists, I assumed you meant to put that in the "Writing quality" part of your criticism, not the excessive details part). As for the "focus" part I'm baffled. "does this town...really have a culture distinct from its surroundings?" Well...their museum covers the history of surrounding area, yes. However, their displays of chainsaw carvings do stop at the town borders. So...what should be done...? Concerning the climate and geography it seems your arguement is that because the climate does not stop at the municipal border but extends into the surrounding areas and therefore should be omitted from the article. If this is the case then Wikiproject:Cities is where you should argue this, not here. If this is not what you meant...then what? I changed the lead section to de-emphasize the coat-of-arms deconstruction. --maclean25 11:24, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Making a string of offensive accusations and then saying you're assuming good faith is well out of order. Please feel free to pick just one of those contradictory positions. Now, I took a lot of time to review the article and point out what I perceived as major failings. I did not see very much effort to address them, and in fact you even said you would only address them if the FAC nomination failed. As I seemed to be the only person to object, I asked someone whose opinions I respect to take a look. As it happened, she agreed - I did not ask or expect her to. The article was promoted despite the actionable objections being ignored, so of course I asked Raul654 why this was. I asked again because he didn't reply. I asked a third time because he still didn't reply, and this was over a month later. What would you have done in that situation?
  • I'm glad to see you are actually taking things on board now and editing. The article really is improving. As for the points you raise now, yes, talking about what numbers mean instead of merely quoting numbers is exactly what I meant, and your edits have substantially improved the parts of the article where you've done that. To further clarify, my problem with 'last stop' is that it assumes the reader knows which direction you mean. If I said 'Royal Oak is the last stop before Paddington', no-one would have much idea what I was on about except residents of West London. As for focus, well, the structure laid out by the cities project might work very well for a major city but less well for a town of 3,000. Slavishly following it doesn't make sense. Some day soon I might write about Øravík in the Faroe Islands - population about 10. Would you really expect me to include all those headings? Now major cities have a climate distinct from their surroundings, minor towns don't, so your climate section is describing the climate of the region and not the town. You could easily just say 'the town lies in the xx region, which has a cool maritime climate' or whatever it has, and leave it at that. A detailed description is excessive. Worldtraveller 22:25, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
    • There seems to be an opening here so I will stick with what is relevant to the content of the article. Thank you for clarifying the 'last stop' sentence problem. Concerning the focus, of course, as you can see, I did not explicitly follow the suggested headings of Wikiproject:Cities as entire sections for each topic would create many very short sections. Instead most of the topics were merged, with similar themes going into sections so that the article could have solid 3-4 paragraph sections without resorting to sub-sections. That list is of topics that would be expected to be found in city-related articles. I don't think you will find anyone that believes all those topics should be in all the articles. I didn't consider the schools or media to be important enough for these small towns until two people requested those. You apparently don't agree with climate (don't be surprised if you find more - it is subjective to whatever your interests/pov are). Actually, I'm not sure what the problem is here, is it that the climate paragraph is irrelevant or that you consider it too detailed or not worded appropriately? And please note (as you can see from the reference) those figures came from a weather station at the Chetwynd airport (they're not an average of the general area). I believe they should be present as they are the very basic stats and it would be reasonable to assume that readers would ask what the weather is like there. I put the stats in table off to the side (out of the prose - optional reading if they are interested). Since you have now shown interest in editing the article, per your statement below, please feel free. I would most appreciate help with the writing quality as it all just flows naturally to me now since I've read it so many times. --maclean25 08:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Right, you see, previously you said that I should complain at the Cities wikiproject because you were just following their guidelines, so I'm glad you agree now that an article about a town with a population of 3,000 does not have to cover the same things as one about a major city. As for climate, if Chetwynd has a distinct micro-climate that should be mentioned, but as it is, even if the data was taken at Chetwynd you're still writing about the climate of the area it's in and not the town itself. Like I said, you should simply say, like the (whatever area it's in), it has a (whatever) climate and be done with it.
      • As for my interest in editing the article, I think you misunderstood me. I said that if I thought my efforts would be appreciated, I might be interested in helping, but seeing as you've accused me of being disruptive and of being motivated by pride and ego, while still claiming you're assuming good faith, I don't think working with you on editing is likely to be worth my time. Worldtraveller 00:04, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove: No evidence of a bad-faith nom. His objection was never addressed, and is sitll valid. It will take some time to address this during which time I think it should be removed. If you can get Worldtraveller on board, it should attain FA status quite quickly the next time around. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 16:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think it is a bad faith nom either. I think he has genuinely convinced himself that there is something fatally flawed with the article that I just don't see. You apparently see it, too. Can you please help explain which of his objections still holds? Get him "on board"? The would be amazing, but which one of his past edits makes you believe that would happen? Concerning this article, all he has done is complain that it should not be an FA at FAC and FARC, complain to others that it should not be an FA at User talk:Raul654 and User talk:Bishonen, and remove it from the FA page. Despite all this dancing around it he has yet to make a single edit to the actual article that would satisfy even the smallest of his concerns (except the presence of the FA star). This leads me to conclude this is about pride and ego, not fixing the article. --maclean25 17:59, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Stop claiming that you're assuming good faith when clearly you're not, OK? All I have done, in fact, is offer a lengthy and detailed assessment of how the article could be improved, and all I have got is rudeness and irritability back. Given your refusal to address my concerns, why would I have thought that editing the article myself to address them would have been at all appreciated? If I thought my editing the article would be appreciated by the people who'd largely written it, I would be more than happy to help, but it really doesn't look like it would be. Worldtraveller 22:25, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

THe artice is to large it needs t obe shorted not linthened. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zginder (talk • contribs).

• Remove. Some of the writing is OK, but a closer inspection reveals many lemons, such as:

"An initial 1958 population estimate — inclusive of nearby work camps — associated with Chetwynd's application for incorporation recorded 750 residents".

Are the contributors having a war against the use of commas?

There are many redundancies and awkward wordings.

Tony 01:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mail

Article is no longer a featured article.

Among the last 16 FA's without references. There is one fact referenced to the Bible and to Herodotus, but that doesn't come close to meeting the current criteria. There has been an outstanding request for references for over a year, and that's not something that is likely to be able to be done well in a short time. - Taxman ^Talk 16:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Neutrality^talk 03:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. No ref. Skinnyweed 16:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as it has no references. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 09:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Labour economics

Article is no longer a featured article.

Among the last 16 FA's without references. There has been an outstanding request for over a year, and that's not something that is likely to be able to be done well in a short time. - Taxman ^Talk 16:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. No references. Skinnyweed 16:48, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Scotland

Article is no longer a featured article.

Among the last 16 FA's without references. Seems well written and structured enough so it's unfortunate, but there has been an outstanding request for over a year, and that's not something that is likely to be able to be done well in a short time. I'll stick to just four out of the 16 for now. - Taxman ^Talk 16:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Article is good in that many editors have written a lot; sadly it's just one of those articles that attracts too many editors of the wrong quality. Unfortunately, much of the medieval content is way off being up-to-date, and quite a bit is just awful. Of course, it badly needs references too. I'm very sorry to have to vote this way, I don't like to see the number of Scotland FAs reduced, but the article is no longer up to FA scratch, and makes FA look bad by being there; in fact, it wouldn't have even the tiniest of chances if it was nominated for FA now. It should probably have been removed long ago, it should definitely be removed now. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 18:28, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Neutrality^talk 03:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
• I've corrected and highlighted several errors in this piece, both major and minor. I have no wish to be unkind-and I fully realize how difficult the subject matter is-but I do not think this item is either well researched or well written. Rcpaterson 01:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:53, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above.Voice-of-All^T|@|ESP 23:06, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, with a heavy heart. I promise I will revisit this article as soon as I can and do my best to someday re-submit it to FAC. Unfortunately, as it stands today, it heavily fails the minimum required criteria. Phaedriel ♥ tell me - 16:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Remove as above. Tony 12:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Windows XP

Previous nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Windows XP/archive1.

Article is still a Featured article.

This article is clearly very incomplete. Among the biggest issues discussed in developer circles is the new TCP/IP connection limit per application. This is mentioned no-where in the article. I want to know (1) what the limit is, (2) why the limit is there and why Windows 2000 doesn't have it, (3) what a user can do about it, including whether Windows Vista will have the limit, and (4) what its impact was, i.e. the main problems it caused in existing and future applications. — I'm sure there are other, perhaps even greater controversies that I don't know about; as long as these are missing from the article, it must not be featured. — Timwi 18:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - It appears the article was nominated for removal before - Windows XP removal candidate discussion. Looking at the thread, I find a vast majority of remove votes, and yet the article was kept, supposedly for lack of consensus. That's odd and needs to be re-examined. — Timwi 18:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• A "vast majority"? I make it 7 for "remove" and 7 for "keep". -- ALoan (Talk) 21:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. I disagree that the article is "very incomplete" - the only omission you mention is "the new TCP/IP connection limit per application", and that seems neither very crucial to the article nor very difficult to add if you wanted. "I'm sure there are other, perhaps even greater controversies that I don't know about" - this is hardly a reason to criticize an article. "It appears the article was nominated for removal before" - and the decision was to keep the article, and the article has been improved since then. Your nomination to remove the FA status of this article seems somewhat groundless. - Brian Kendig 18:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I've resolved the only actionable part of the original complaint by adding this text to the article: In an effort to slow down the rate at which malicious programs can spread to uninfected computers, Service Pack 2 lowered the limit on outgoing TCP/IP connection attempts from 65,535 to 10. [2] There can be no more than this many incomplete outgoing connections being attempted at any one time; additional connection attempts will be queued. This limit can adversely affect legitimate software such as peer-to-peer applications. The "tcpip.sys" system file can be edited to raise the limit to its former value. [3] - Brian Kendig 19:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The nominator should have given this article sufficient time to address the issues. From what I see, it was put up for FARC before the issue was raised on the talk page. The nominator also put out-dated link to the FARC. I will give my review once sufficent time has elapsed and the article has had sufficient time to correct itself as I find it premature to discuss it now. I would suggest the editors to address the concerns raised by the nominator ASAP. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 19:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

• Invalid nomination—No notice was given on the talk page. This nomination should be removed so that the prescribed process can be pursued. Tony 11:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

• Invalid nomination. The article definitely needs some touch-up work (Wikipedia:Peer review could be a way to go here), but nominating an article for FA removal on the basis that it's missing an esoteric piece of information is in contravention of Wikipedia:What is a featured article?'s fifth attribute: "... tightly focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail." Warrens 21:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I dislike Microsoft, & I only use Winders because my job requires it (I'm contracting at that well-known CPU manufacturer), but I find it hard to see just how this article could be improved upon -- unless Microsoft is willing to allow its developers to discuss operating system theory. Yes, the "TCP/IP connection limit" issue should be mentioned, but I honestly can't think of any other issues unique to this OS that has been omitted. (Although I have long suspected that it's called "XP" because extreme programming, aka XP, was a hot new fad at the time this version of Windows was begin developed -- & only later did someone outside of marketing actually to a hard look at what "XP" meant.) -- llywrch 01:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep This article is very good - I'd like to see the TCP/IP stack stuff as well but (It is in there now... awesome!) basically every general point about XP is covered very well in this article and subarticles. More importantly it is free of the POV and other issues that often plague these types of articles. It is as it always was ^{T | @ | C} 09:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I am taking down this nomination as invalid: beyond the issue which has already been addressed, the nomination is not actionable (it is based on "perhaps even greater controversies that I don't know about") and the nominator did not allow a chance for the issues to be discussed on the article's Talk page before nominating this article. - Brian Kendig 17:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quantum computer

Article is still a Featured article.

A request for references was made back in April 2005, under this version. Since then there has been little to no improvement in that field. Just like in April 2005, there are a plethora of books and links in the further information section, but those are not references. A topic as foreign to most people as this one should be much better referenced. This article was promoted to FA under now outdated January 2004 standards. joturner 16:06, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm not able to analyze this in its specifics, but looking at it generally I don't think we should rush to de-feature. There is indeed a plethora of books and links in the ref section, so I have some confidence the page is factually accurate and comprehensive. The intro is a good length and the body is OK, if a little over-technical. Not brilliant but "well written" enough. Perhaps go hunting for individual editors, via its history or that of related pages. I think this keepable if you find one or two people. Marskell 08:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I think that in the article's current state it is only readable by specialists in physics and information theory. This is not helped by the article's bias toward NMR quantum computing, which has features which make it more complex than other implementations. I would move to de-feature this article until it is cleaned up. That said, I will work to add some references to this article in coming weeks. Bjohnson00 22:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Great Mosque of Djenné

Article is no longer a featured article.

Quite an old featured article, possibly conforming to older and less strict featured article criteria. In its current state, it is short and badly referenced — relying on a single source and not using any of the newer and more specific systems of referencing in Wikipedia, like inline citations. Don't get me wrong, it's really a good and well-structured article, but FA criteria have changed a lot since its nomination and it doesn't anymore cover them. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 17:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Per nomination. This article is much too short and completely lacks the references that are required of Featured Articles. A request was posted on the article's talk page requesting more references before I even joined Wikipedia: see here for the request for references, and here for evidence of how long the notice has been there. RyanGerbil10 19:50, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per nom and RyanG. Is that a featured article with a {{stub}} tag??? joturner 20:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Tobyk777 04:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Much, much too short, absent refs. It didn't get the two weeks immediately prior to this but there is no movement on the talk page for months at a time and last 50 edits stretch back to Aug 04. Marskell 08:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - it may not fall within the letter of the law, but certainly within the spirit of it. In redrafting the rules to exclude boring/rubbish FAs, we shouldn't start throwing out interesting ones on technicalities. We should let this one weather out this fad for hyper-referencing. A435(m) 23:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Venus

Article is no longer a featured article.

I left a comment on the talk page a week ago detailing serious concerns. It has not been acknowledged, and no edits sinces have attempted to address the problems, so I am listing it here. Here's what I said:

I think this article falls well below the standards we expect of FAs these days. The lead section is inadequate, there is nothing at all about the exploration of Venus, precious little about volcanism and the theory of global crust recycling, inadequate referencing, and an enormous and not particularly relevant list of books that mention the planet that should be replaced by germane prose. To be honest I think the article needs a rewrite largely from scratch. Worldtraveller 15:46, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

• Remove, non-existent lead, outdated and insufficient reference system, massive accumulation of cruft, and it's not comprehensive. Should look a lot more like the about-to-be FA mercury.--nixie 06:17, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per nom. Fails FA criteria. Joelito (talk) 03:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per nom. Sorry to say, but this article is not nearly as good as it could be. Same is true for most of the other planet articles. Note that one reason for the current lack of comprehensiveness is that a lot of the information originally in the article has been moved to other articles.--Jyril 08:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as per nom and "nixie". -R. S. Shaw 23:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rock, Paper, Scissors

Article is no longer a featured article.

No references is the real reason this has to be removed. It has a few external links, but many, many unverified statements, most of which I suspect may be unverifiable. I'm not satisified with its completeness or brilliant prose either, but the first objection should suffice. Sorry to see this go: I love the game, but we aren't fooling anyone with the FA tag. Passed a few years ago, would likely not even meet GA muster today. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 16:29, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Hold the press, folks. I just assumed you were right, but the article does have several references. There are though still quite a few other problems, so remove. - Taxman ^Talk 16:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, as per nomination. --Ragib 18:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per nom; may have been an FA years ago when it was promoted, but certainly not one today. Although not a requirement for FA status, I would like to see more inline referencing. joturner 13:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as per nomination. Also, this one's badly formatted, inconsistent in wikimarkup and looks ugly (not that it's a thing that can't be quickly fixed). The very organization, ordering and segmentation are badly done and a major cleanup is required. I wouldn't even name this a good or even fairly OK article in its current state. → Тодор Божинов / Todor Bozhinov → 17:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per nom. Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 00:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Tobyk777 04:37, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, fails FA criteria (lacks inline ciatations). --Terence Ong 03:59, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• Note that inline citations are not required. Referencing is all that is required. joturner 01:52, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Per nom.Hezzy 20:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Miami, Florida

Article is still a Featured article.

I am a experinced editor who just created a account and I would like for History of Miami, Florida to be removed as a featured article. It needs a copyediting and has a couple of cite needed in the article on information I can't find in the web. This is a FA on it's worse. Thanks --JuicyloveMiami 01:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• January 2006 FAC
• No request for citations or copyedit
• Comment: Juicy, if you're going to criticise the prose of the article, please fix your own before you press the 'save page' button. Tony 15:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
• I completely disagree. Plus, if you cannot find the citations, please point them out on the talk page and I'm sure someone will correct them. Oh, and you can be free to copyedit as well. ℬastique▼^parℓer♥^voir♑ 01:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep not a important reason for removal --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• SPEEDY SPEEDY KEEP Since when have a few missing citations and copyediting been reasons to removed an article from FA? For example, Columbine High School massacre has had 12 citations added to it since it received FA status and it has been copyedited various times, including having information added in over the last seven months its been up. If you have a problem with citations or can't find them yourself, mention what they are on the article talk page and someone will work on adding them or will reword the paragraph/sentences. As for copyediting, that can be done easily without having to have the article removed. -- SmthManly / ^ManlyTalk / ^{ManlyContribs} 02:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as per above PDXblazers 05:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep perhaps it should go if no one intends to work on it. For now, I agree it should be kept. Point out the need to cite extra references to relevant editors and it should be shiny again pretty soon. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:13, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per comments about, especially the shiny one.--Alabamaboy 16:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, I did some more copyediting. AndyZ _t 13:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove—2a. Have a look at the opening; if this remains a FA, it's an embarrassment to WP:

The area in which the city of Miami, Florida would later be founded by Europeans was previously inhabited for more than a thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men first visited and claimed the area around Miami, Florida for Spain in 1566. A Spanish mission was begun one year later. Fort Dallas was built in the mid-1800's and subsequently the area became a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War.

• • 'previously' and 'later' in the same expression?
  • 'begun' should be 'established'.
  • 1800's—ouch, no apostrophe.
  • Remove 'the area'. And shouldn't 'became' be just 'was'?

Tony 15:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the apostrophe is fine. This is not a sure thing. Some grammars (the one I teach from, for instance) and some professional style sheets (New York Times, for instance) insist on the apostrophe, and some (AP, for instance) don't. It's not a FARCing matter, really, although the other concerns are valid. (Well, actually, "begun" to "established" isn't a big one. It's more that the opening sentence is tortorous, with misplaced modifiers and referents far too far from their modifiers.) Geogre 20:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Please note that these specific comments mentioned above have been fixed; as this article could use some more copyediting, I will be working on the article more to fix up the issues. Thanks; AndyZ _t 00:23, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

When should you put an apostrophe in in dates and when shouldn't you then? Skinnyweed 23:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The apostrophe should never be there. If the New York Times really puts apostrophes in their years, they ought to be censured. Unless you're talking about something like 1990's best movie or 600's most famous character it should never be there. The apostrophe indicates possession and contractions; never plurality. I commend Wikipedia for sticking to that. In this article that can easily be rectified and therefore no FARC was necessary here. joturner 20:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Articles that need correction of one typo fall under {{sofixit}}. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 03:21, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, we know about the NY Times; their house style on this point is regarded with amusement by most writers. Aside from the one or two US authorities who still suggest using the apostrophe (and the many that say not to), what possible advantage does it have? Reserving apostrophes for the possessive has the advantages of simplicity, consistency and logic. Tony 10:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Who are "most writers?" Can you cite? There is a distinct advantage to the apostrophe. When is something IGFBPS and IGFBP-es? When is it SoS-7s vs. SoS-7S? The apostrophe indicates the contraction of a letter. The proper plural of a number or acronym would be -es. Because the /e/ is elided in the plural marker, an apostrophe indicates the elision. Additionally, the apostrophe indicates the end of the letters in an acronymn and the numbers. So, Tony, that is the advantage. Using them only for genitives is a monstrous simple mindedness that no one has yet proposed, as they're still used for contractions as well. Geogre 21:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The article is very good and thre is no reason to removal. Carioca 03:51, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep This issues mentioned could very easily be rectified. joturner 20:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Tobyk777 04:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. - Mailer Diablo 09:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep --Terence Ong 03:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Not a stong case for removing it. Cvene64 07:40, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep consense is to keep Zginder 18:16, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Minor issues don't require FARC procedure. {{sofixit}} is most apt. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 19:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weather lore

Article is no longer a featured article.

Was nominated in May 2004, references requested in April 2005, and not much happened. 2 references, 4 external links, no inline cites, and it doesn't look like there is any enthusiasm to add them. Batmanand | Talk 21:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Mistakenly added here rather than peer review? Move the request across, maybe? Brain on another planet, agree with removal, not on basis of inline cites, but inadaquate scope and sources. --zippedmartin 10:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - again - likely original research. Would never pass as a featured article if nominated today. Davodd 10:09, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - Apart from being a rather strange article, it is poorly written and many of the image captions talk as if various claims are real facts. The referencing is poor with no inline citations and it reads too informally in some places. Lewis 20:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Poorly written... Then how did it get to be a FA in the first place? If you want to be useful here you might try raising criticisms that are actionable. Denni ☯ 23:56, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It got to FA status by being nominated in May 2004, when both the criteria and the degree of scrutiny for FACs was considerably lower than they are today. Batmanand | Talk 00:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

That's bullshit. Those who voted it as a good article then would, I think, vote it a good article now. I will agree with you that articles must now meet stiffer criteria to succeed as FA, but I think it's nonsense to presume that those which no longer do are suddenly "poorly written". Denni ☯ 00:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Please be civil in your comments. I accept what you are saying, but this is a discssion about the article being defeatured; you have partially answered one of the criticisms (about the prose), but that does not change anything about the referencing issue, which IMO is the big problem with the article. Batmanand | Talk 00:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There's no need to be rude. What I meant by poorly written is that the article reads somewhat like an essay. There are also a lot of questions one might ask about weather lore that this article does not answer. For example, who were the first people to use it, who uses it now? how do they compare to modern methods of weather prediction? Most/all of the article is an evaluation of the validity of various rhymes and adages rather than about their history/origins, which I would think would also warrant some mention. In response to why it became an FA in the first place, it seems that a large reason that a consensus was reached was that many people simply liked the pictures. Lewis 00:53, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a complete article. Any topic can be extended. This one is no different. You may also wish to revisit the comments in the FA discussion. Of six supporters, four stated they liked the article, one did not differentiate between pictures and text, and only one comment related only to the pictures. Denni ☯ 20:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

All I am saying is that I don't believe the article is comprehensive enough to be a FA. FA Criteria #2 b) says that an article covers the topic in its entirety, and does not neglect any major facts or details. This really has nothing to do with what was said in the previous FA discussion, in its current state, I don't believe that it is sufficiently referenced or comprehensive, sorry. Lewis 21:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove Needs to be more heavily referenced. Request is almost a year old now. Borisblue 16:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove as per many of the points above, especially the OP. I can understand how it became a FA, though; despite its shortcomings, it's an enjoyable piece of writing and charming in its way. Much too superficial however. Matt Deres 00:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove For OR and basically no references. Staxringold 14:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

• Proper procedure: A year-old request concerning references surely does not satisfy the requirement that appears at the top of the FARC page: "Before listing here, leave comments detailing the article's deficiencies on its talk page, and leave some time for them to be addressed." The nomination should be withdrawn and comments left on the talk page so that the main contributors have a chance to improve the article before listing. That way, it's polite, traffic in this room is minimised, and standards are maximised. Tony 10:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

If you read the talk page, a request for references was made over a year ago, on 22 April 2005 to be precise. This diff was the result of that request. Then nothing happened for a year, until I nominated it for FARC. Batmanand | Talk 10:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Did you read my comment just above? To repeat, a year-old request hardly satisfies the requirement. The nomination should be withdrawn and its deficiencies flagged on the talk page. Here, people are pointing out a number of issues; these should all have been notified first. Tony 10:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

For the record, a year old request, if completely ignored, just shows how much long the problems in an article have been ignored, and to me, perfectly meets the guideline. But if the request have been at least partly fulfilled, as it has in this case (a couple references have been added), then I'm with you. But it's a little late in this case, and consensus is clearly that it should be removed, so given the situation, I don't see the sense in enforcing the guideline now. We should do it right away or not at all. - Taxman ^Talk 14:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

My nomination was about the lack of referencing. A request for more referencing, that was barely heeded, was made a year ago. Hence the "comments detailing the article's deficiencies" are already on the talk page. Hence, whilst the letter of the law may not have been followed, the spirit of the law most certainly has been. Batmanand | Talk 15:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• OK, but it demonstrates that the 'spirit' and 'letter' of the law should be brought into harmony. The requirement to post a notice on the talk page needs to be more explicit regarding timing. Tony 03:50, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove: Not only are the references lacking, the article style is totally unacceptable. Not very encyclopedic, and overuses the crutch of extensive primary source quotations. There is no need to have an explicit timeline for posts on the talk page, if inadequate time has been given (which is not the case here), that will be taken into account in the discussion. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 16:35, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - possibly one of Wikipedia's best looking articles - the photographs are outstanding, and the content is interesting. People concerned about the lack of references should recall the articles description of Weather lore as a "body of informal folklore" - by its nature it will not have as many references as an article based on scientific literature. I don't think this is a problem, because of the informal scope of the article. Brendanfox 00:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Article has been significantly referenced since voting began. Denni ☯ 18:37, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strategic management

Article is no longer a featured article.

The opening paragraph:

Strategic management is the process of specifying an organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve these objectives, and allocating resources so as to implement the plans. It is the highest level of managerial activity, usually performed by the company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and executive team. It provides overall direction to the whole enterprise. An organization's strategy must be appropriate for its resources, circumstances, and objectives. The process involves matching the company's strategic advantages to the business environment the organization faces. One objective of an overall corporate strategy is to put the organization into a position to carry out its mission effectively and efficiently. A good corporate strategy should integrate an organization's goals, policies, and action sequences (tactics) into a cohesive whole. To see how strategic management relates to other forms of management, see management.

This article was nominated in October, 2004. Prose like this arouses something close to moral revulsion in me. My judgment may be suspect, so please bear with me.

I'm not sure that "Strategic management is the process of specifying an organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve these objectives, and allocating resources so as to implement the plans" says anything more than "Strategic management is the process of running an organization" does. I also feel no wiser upon being told that "An organization's strategy must be appropriate for its resources, circumstances, and objectives." More than 32K of this stuff and I tend to get a bit glassy-eyed. I get the impression that if someone were to edit out all the empty abstractions, tautologies, and buzzwords from the article, we'd be left with a stub suitable for merger somewhere. I remember when "featured articles" used to be "brilliant prose" and this stuff ain't it.

Specific criterion not met: 2a. — Smerdis of Tlön 19:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• October 2004 FAC
• No request for references or writing improvements

• Comment: Smerdis, I haven't seen the article, but I've seen a lot worse prose than this in FAs. Sure, the paragraph you quote needs polishing, but why not explicate specific problems in it to support your nomination? Tony 00:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC) PS I have no problem with the "Strategic management sentence"—your suggested replacement removes useful detail.
  • My suggestions imply that I am probably the wrong person to try and edit this stuff, or even suggest how it could be edited. At least it goes to great lengths to state the obvious. How about "Strategic management is deciding what an organization should do, and how to do it?" Smerdis of Tlön 04:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• remove! Not only is this a poorly written and unsourced article, it turns out its a massive copyright violation of this PDF. I'm slapping a copyright violation tag on the article so if people want to read the article they need to read this version. I can't believe this is a featured article. This sad news about this article is that the copyright violations in it go back well over a year to before it became a FA.--Alabamaboy 20:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC) Thank goodness it wasn't a copyright violation and my bad on not catching that the European Union agency was committing plagiarism. Still, the article lacks any references (let alone inline citations), is poorly written, lacks illustrations, and should be removed.--Alabamaboy 20:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Actually it looks like that source is compiled from the wikipedia article... I guess it needs some looking into. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 20:12, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, Wikipedia is cited as a reference in that article at the bottom of the first page. We must be just even in the face of the Enemy. Smerdis of Tlön 20:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak remove: Wiggle words and empty, self-negating phrases are par for business, but we don't have to embrace that language. After all, we're not going to repeat the wording of the people spoken of: we're supposed to be clearer than the originals, as one function of an encyclopedia is to paraphrase and explicate knotted subjects. To the degree that "strategic managment" has any meaning at all, it's the article's duty to explain what it means in terminology that isn't so much a semantic Mobius strip. Geogre 12:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove, very difficult and opaque prose, not written in an encyclopedic style at all. Sentences like "SWOT Analysis: I/O Economics for the external factors and RBV for the internal factors" do not serve to explain much. Andrew Levine 16:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• remove per nom & andrew levine Zzzzz 11:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• This is an invalid request as nothing was brought up on the talk page to give the authors a chance to improve it. Please detail any problems on the talk page, contact the main author and give it some time to be worked on. Only then nominate here. - Taxman ^Talk 14:32, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
  • If you think that would help, I suppose I could try. Smerdis of Tlön 16:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

actually it is valid as the new criteria was only added *after* this article was already listed. Zzzzz 11:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that is not correct, it's been in there for quite a while, I just made it much more obvious because this and some other nominations have missed it. - Taxman ^Talk 11:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: were this a valid nomination, I would definitely say remove. Anville 18:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• This might be a case for invoking WP:SENSE. Derex 17:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
• After reading through the article again, it seems so horribly bad that I would eagerly ride roughshod over the niceties of FARC procedure. Remove to maintain the integrity of the FA system. Anville 12:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - Jargon-filled, bad grammar, poor use of punctuation, poor use of wiki markup bold text, subheads are not parallel in structure, possible original research, lack of any useful citations. Reads more like a wikibooks entry than an encyclopedia entry. (I'm tempted to list it as a transwiki) Davodd 10:18, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove vapid. Would clearly not pass as a FA under current standards, hence should be removed. Derex 17:44, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Several inaccuracies. Example: Porter's five forces model is not "like a SWOT analysis with structure and purpose". Since the five forces are a way of modeling the competition in a whole industry, they don't have anything to do with the internal characteristics of individual firms (strengths and weaknesses). Five forces analysis is industry-centric; SWOT analysis is specific to a firm. Rhobite 23:12, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. This is one of the longest and most arduous articles I have come across here. Not "brilliant prose" by any standard. --Danaman5 21:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
• Update. Per Taxman's suggestion, I raised a number of concerns about this article on the talk page. Rhobite pointed out that the article I nominated had been vandalized, or at least severely edited. Mike Rosoft reverted the article to a previous version.

  The reverted article now has references — extensive ones — but it still strikes me as full of buzzwords, tautologies, and empty abstractions of a kind I can only call "process-cruft": attempts to make simple aspects of planning appear regimented and complex by dividing them into finely ground categories. If business people actually planned like this, nothing would get done.

  I am slowly being moved to go on the warpath against this kind of hinkeldreck in business and economics articles. I still support removal, but would suggest that the discussion be extended and that people revisit the current version of the article. Smerdis of Tlön 14:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove reads like a seminar scam. Needs in-line citations, rather than a list of dubious "references" most of which appear to have never been incorporated anywhere in the text. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 16:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] India

Article is still a featured article.

Does not meet criteria 1, 2a, 2b, 2c. It also has a template underconstruction on the main page. It has two sentence paragraphs, almost no references for the curious, not comprehensive, badly formatted (the national symbols of India is sitting in the middle of the page) and has stublike sections.

1. Lack of easily verifiable references and citations Quite simply, for an article this size, it cites just a few references, and those hardly at all within the text.
2. Use of weasel terms
3. Short, choppy sentences

--Bob 01:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• September 2004 FAC
• April 2005 FARC
• No request for improvements

Keep First of all, you should try to be more specific about what you have issues with. That would be helpful. Only real issue that I see in your complaint is regarding the citation. This is a two-fold complaint:

1. Citation style is not user-friendly: I agree with you but as far as I know inotes are acceptable and the editors of the article decided to use those. So, unless I am wrong (a distinct possibility) about their acceptance you have no case in that regards.
2. Citations are insufficient: This is a problem potentially but you have not really explained which parts you feel need citations. Your argument is very generic and I am unaware of some article length to number of citation relationship that you speak of. Besides, you saying "article of this size" implies it is a large article. Last time I checked it was 33KB and probably one of the shortest country article with FA.

Finally, it would be nice if you had attempted to "Before listing here, leave comments detailing the article's deficiencies on its talk page, and leave some time for them to be addressed." As indicated in the talk page, their was a massive dump of information in the article during the past few days and it had not been cleaned up. You might have read the article at that point. (added later) Also, I do not see the national symbols in middle of the page or any other presentation problems. Did you check the history to see if you were not looking at a "Just been edited badly" version? --Blacksun 05:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment Citations are really, really inaccessible to the reader. inotes are absolute rubbish and do not aid the reader find the required citation at all. You say, click on edit to see it, I do, then I see a reference to something that I then cannot find. This issue was raised 22 March 2006 by user Blacksun, and was not acted upon. Thus, I felt no need to leave a message at all. One nice example of how few references are visible to the reader is the subsection demographics which has just one visible reference for the entire section, lots of inotes, but as the average reader has no idea what they refer to, if anything, it can not seriously be considered as Wikipedias best work.

Bob, yes I had brought that up. But don't you think you are being grossly inaccurate when you say my issue was not addressed?? A quick look at the talk page will easily prove that user Nichalp had addressed my issue? inotes are acceptable form of citation style in wikipedia. You have no case. If you dislike them feel free to start a thread in the talk page and maybe we can reach a consensus to change them. Also, I will go through all the inotes in the article currently to make sure they are formatted correctly. I agree that the inotes in demographis are formatted in a very strange manner. I had definitely not noticed that before. I have raised that issue in the talk page. However, inotes themselves are perfectly legible. --Blacksun 12:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

They are anything but legible. Especially in the demographic section. What, exactly, does inote|tongues or inote|languages mean? --Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Let me rephrase: The usage of inotes is completely legible but yes, their might be problems with how couple of them are formatted. But this is completely irrelevant to your claim that you need not bring it up in the talk page as I had already raised the issue and it was not addressed. My issue was completely different and was in regards to the general question of whether or not inotes are acceptable. I had never noticed or raised the issue of any specific problems with citations. Which means that your claim is false and at best you were mistaken. --Blacksun 02:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

We have one line paragraphs, for example - Mumbai (Bombay) serves as the nation's commercial capital, with the headquarters of many financial institutions located within the city. hardly brilliant writing.

I am sorry but I think you meant to say that their is/was A one-line paragraph - yes that is paragraph WITHOUT a s. That was the only one line paragraph in the entire article - quite possibly a cause of a recent edition. I am starting to wonder if you are being misleading on purpose.--Blacksun 13:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Why would I do that? Unless you are being paranoid.... --Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Lets just say that I am suspicious of people who do not take the courtsey to raise issues in the talk page first or a cursory glance at the edition history of an article before nominating an article for FARC. --Blacksun 02:20, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

We have weasel wording - Indian society is largely pluralist, multilingual and multicultural. - who says?

That is not weasel wording considering their are thousands of different dialects in India with hundreds of languages + many different religions and cultures. A quick look at demographics should back that up in my opinion. Otherwise a citation can be easily provided. --Blacksun 12:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Unless backed up by a reference, it is. --Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Bad formatting - the table National symbols of India is stuck in the middle of the page, why isn't this properly inserted into the page inline with the images?

Something is wrong with your system. I dont see it and neither does anyone else. Please refer to the screenshot posted by user Nichalp for how everyone else is seeing the page. Again something that would have been quicly addressed as a "bug in your system" if you had posted in talk page first. --Blacksun 12:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

This has been rectified by the recent edits, thankyou. And no, there is no problem with my browser. --Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

And this just proves, as I said earlier, whatever you were talking about was a result of dump of text by a questionable entity in the past few days. Bringing back to the point as to why one should bring up issues in the talk page or atleast check the history to make sure the current version is the stable version. Toodles --Blacksun 02:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The Himalayan parts of India have a tundra climate. India gets most of its rains through the monsoons. - choppy.

I dont understand why that is choppy.--Blacksun 12:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The constitution recognises 23 official languages. Hindi and English are used by the Central Government for official purposes. Two classical languages native to the land are Sanskrit and Tamil. The number of mother tongues in India is as high as 1,652. again, choppy.

Fixed. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. --Blacksun 14:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Traditional indigenous sports include polo, kabaddi and gilli-danda, which are played in most parts of the country. - lack of references. --Bob 00:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Each of that sport has its own article. I have added inote reference for Kabbadi too. --Blacksun 12:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Bob, I have fixed all the choppy phrases you have listed. Such issues should be raised on the talk page of the article itself; bringing it to FARC without discussion on the talk is a waste of everybody's time. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

No more a waste of time than posting on the talk page. Both should lead to improvements, which, as this article was cited as a good example of a country FA, it should be, because it did not meet 1, 2a, 2b or 2c. --Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

According to you, my dear. --Blacksun 02:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that constant improvements are needed, but listing it here instead of the talk page for just one valid clause (brilliant prose) is a little too harsh. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I think we all agree that this FARC was unnecessary and the consensus is not going to be problematic for the India article. Please post such things on the talk page first or at least give some time for your issues to be resolved. I agree with Nichalp, it was way too harsh to immediately put up an article that people have worked hours on for FARC without telling them that you are doing it. Nobleeagle (Talk) 07:13, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per above. --Gurubrahma 06:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, there is no real detailed reason you have presented to get it removed from Featured Article Status and as Blacksun pointed out, if you are unhappy with formatting and a bit of structure, then say so on the talk page of the article in question. Allowing us to fix it up. Nobleeagle (Talk) 06:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Per Blacksun. Copyediting may be needed in some areas. Otherwise it is still FA standard. Gizza^{Chat ©} 06:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep although I agree that the article needs upgrades. Rama's Arrow 11:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

  Could you expand on what upgrades are needed? =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per Blacksun. Specifically point out the problems here. --Andy123(talk) 15:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Bob. Citations insufficient, prose sometimes long-winded and awkward, but mostly with choppy phrases. Image placement in wrong sections at high resolutions, resulting in messy organization.Naus 16:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

  Wikipedia aims to set image placements at the standard web resolution (800x600), the most common resolution. As one increases the resolution, the images will obviously be clustered together. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

  I just reread majority of the article and I really did not find any awkward or "long-winded" prose. Please give examples. Infact, I find the prose to be articulate and concise. Obviously this is a very subjective criteria and once again, do provide examples if you are interested in improving the quality of the article. I also found citation for every thing that I felt needed a citation in the inotes. Again, provide examples if you feel like something is not cited that should be. --Blacksun 17:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Examples of sentences using weasel words and without sufficient citation in the India article:

India is a sovereign, secular, liberal democracy with quasi-federal republic.

What is "quasi-federal"? Who qualifies India to be a liberal democracy?

Quasi-federal is self explanatory if you look up the meaning of Quasi. I recommend doing a google search for "Define: Quasi." Infact, I believe that my American Government class text book in highschool (in USA) had that phrase in it and gave India as an example of other countries with that form of federalistic model.--Blacksun 22:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

So, this article has to fit with American idealogy? I was under the impression that Wikipedia was for the world. Cite sources. --Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I've copyedited it. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Since the early 1990s, India has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment.

What is your opposition to this sentence? Are you just randomly copy-pasting at this point? --Blacksun 22:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with this phrase. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that it lacks visible sources. --Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

As a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation, India has had some sectarian violence and insurgencies in various parts of the country, but has stayed together as a vibrant democracy. What qualifies as staying "together"?

Is this phrase "stayed together" even necessary for country articles? What is a "vibrant democracy"?

Yes considering that many political experts had doubted whether or not India can survive after its independence in 1947. It is not a weasel term. --Blacksun 22:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I've copyedited it. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

None of the sentences are "weasely". Please see WP:AWT for actual weasel phrases. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The following are examples of "prose not 'brilliant'" (to borrow the phrase from Nichalp):

The Constitution of India also recognizes Bharat as the official name of the nation. It is in wide popular use as is the colloqial name Hindustan. Second sentence is problematic.

Why is it problematic? It is afterall used as one of the names by Indians. It is also part of many important patriotic songs and has been in use for centuries (coined by Iranians I believe) --Blacksun 22:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Being home to over one billion people, India is the second most populous country in the world and also seventh largest country by geographical area.

This exact sentence forumlation was used for the People's Republic of China article, to which user Nichalp specifically cited as an example of "prose not brilliant." Fair?

Read my comment below regarding this. --Blacksun 22:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The comments above are related to a draft version and has since been reverted. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

My vote of Removal is tit-for-tat to the aggressive approach of Nichalp against the PRC article. The examples I gave above are trivial and can be easily fixed, just like many of the issues involving the PRC article. Naus 21:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Well if your vote for removal is as you say a "tit-for-tat" for whatever happened with some other article then quite frankly I find it pretty immature and I wonder whether or not your vote should be counted. Some might even consider it as a form of vandalism. Regards, --Blacksun 22:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

My vote was clearly done in a sarcastic tone, the issue here is that trivial reasonings should not be used for FARC as they can be easily fixed. The intention was to demonstrate this point. Please read the Wikipedia article on vandalism carefully if you believe my comments to be vandalism. Votes in Wikipedia are not binding anyway, the important thing is consensus and the comments associated with the vote, not the actual vote itself. Cheers and no hard feelings. Naus 07:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry but the fact that both India and PRC article are on FARC does not equate them in any manner. While the reasons for nominating India for FARC were arguably trivial and done without raising the issues in the talk page - the same cannot be stated about the PRC article. A quick look at votes and comments would back this up. --Blacksun 14:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

That last paragraph just ruined all of your points. You yourself have called the problems trivial and stated that they can be easily fixed. Yet you say that this article should be removed from FA status because of these trivial problems. Then your points lose further importance as you say that your vote is only because Nichalp voted against the People's Republic of China. Honestly, when you say that an article should be removed from FA, what happened or what is happening to the People's Republic of China has no relevance at all. Nobleeagle (Talk) 00:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The last paragraph IS my point. And it has nothing to do with the fact Nichalp voted against the PRC article, but the nature of the trivial reasonings he used. I merely mimicked his exact gameplay here. My points are still valid (as they have clearly been fixed by other users in the article), but they are temporary points (which is exactly my point). Also, what is happening to the PRC article ABSOLUTELY has a relevance here, as the point of FA country articles is to be consistent, and precedence does play a role in decisions within Wikipedia. Naus 07:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

My objections to PRC were far more than trivial. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh please Naus. Enough with trying to play with words to fit your own assumptions and conclusions. You are an embarrassement. In your own words, your vote was nothing but tit-for-tat. You can try to talk out of it till the end of the world but it wont do you any good. --Blacksun 14:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Naus, all the statements raised by you have been fixed. If you have any other issues please list them else your vote for its removal will be considered void. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

thank you for fixing them. Naus 07:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep -- 1. {{inote}} is a perfectly valid method of referencing. From WP:WIAFA, it only recommends the use of cite.php. This style is NOT mandatory. Please state which all text needs to be additionally referenced. Secondly, the use of inotes is not a valid reason to object even during the FAC process. It is perfectly reader friendly as it avoids text from being punctuated by footnotes. 2. Please specify the "weasel" words found in the document, we'll clean it up. 3.Similarly the choppy sentences. 5. It is customary to add a note on the talk page of the article before listing here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep It looks fine to me - referenced well, structure excellent. Although See also needs to be shortened. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 18:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

  Done =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Well referenced through the means of inotes. No reason to remove its FA status.--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 19:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Leaning towards keep, but yes, it does need a copy-edit. I'll try to do some in the next week. Tony 00:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Keep. Article is too long and people keeping adding pointless or unverifiable information all the time. This article needs to remain as it was when it was first nominated as a featured article and not allowed to devolve as it is starting to. Tombseye 03:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Replies

• Bob, this is not the appropriate forum to debate the drawbacks/merits of inotes vs cite.php. Since inotes is one of the inline referencing methods allowed, you'd have to move the discussion to a common forum such as talk:fac etc. I'd be happy to convert all inotes to cite.php if inotes is declared to be an inferior style and completely done away with from wikipedia. Till then I'm afraid, your opinion on inotes will not be acted upon.

At least get the references legible within the text then. The demographics section has inotes, but the enduser has no idea what they refer to, if anything at all.--Bob 00:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• ...the table National symbols of India...' -- I can't see what's wrong with the table: This is what I'm seeing: Image:India-screenshot-table-test.png in Opera 8.53 on Win, at 800x600 resolution. Probably a bug on your system?

=Nichalp «Talk»= 06:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Per above.--Dwaipayanc 06:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: please take a look at the page now. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Its a good article though I think it can be expanded a little bit. Raswa 23:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

  Note: User's fourth edit =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:36, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Per above. thunderboltz^{a.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK} 13:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep didn't raise problems on talk page prior to nom. SECProto 19:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. No major issues raised. Even the minor issues raised have been adequately addressed. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 11:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep meets FA standards. per above. Ganeshk (talk) 07:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment While the problems with the article are not big, the article does look very messy with random sections like "Government" (could've been combined with Politics), "States and Union territories"(either be redirected by a See also or combined into Political divisions), and a "Holiday" section that could've been better placed under Culture. The pictures also seem to be placed randomely, with a building of a temple under Demographics (could've belonged under a new section called Religion), a picture of a house with himalayas in the background under Geography, and a picture of Ghandi in the History section (when the polictics might've been more suitable). In the culture section, there are four large pictures that are a bit distracting and don't contribute much (except for the Taj Mahal). Some of the pictures could definitely be replaced by more suitable ones and the article could be expanded to include a lot more information than what is there now. However, I am glad to see that there are so many Indian editors who are very protective of their article.--Ryz05 01:53, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Images:

• Picture of Himalayas in Geography section:  ??? Himalayas are a pretty significant geographical trait of a nation. I fail to see why that is irrelevant.
• Gandhi picture makes lot more sense in history than politics. He is a big part of Indian history. He never held a political office in his life. Surely, having a picture of the father of nation (who is deceased) in the history section cannot be considered as "placed randomly?"
• I agree with you that 4 images in culture is overdoing it. I am going to remove atleast one of them right now.

Sections:

• Indian government specifically definies its political division as "States and Union territories." That might be the reason to use that terminology. I am neutral either way.
• I personally dont agree with combining government and politics. To me government is more about the overall structure of the..well.. government. Politics is more about the players involved and in the Indian article it is combined with Foreign policy. However, I think the long term goal is to expand the article to include more information. I believe that one of the things that can be looked at is making a supersection named Politics - with subsections for government, political parties, and foreign policy. However, this will take some time.

Finally, ignore people who feel overly protective. Your contributions are welcome. --Blacksun 03:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Per above. AmbExThErMaL 02:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep again per above. AndyZ _t 23:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep --Terence Ong 12:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: This nomination is ridiculous and without foundation. It is almost disruptive to Wikipedia. When is someone going to do something to stop complete idiots making stupid nominations and wasting all our time? Why is this page, after ten days, still here when there is an obvious overriding majority of editors seeing common sense and voting keep. Whoever imagines they are running this FARC page needs to either resign or wake their ideas up - and fast, while their are still editors here willing to risk their time writing a decent FA. Giano | talk 20:19, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I have to agree with Giano's general sentiment; there's an air of vexatiousness about this nomination. Why is there such a backlog of nominations in this room? Tony 07:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep- Sometimes, I am amazed to see the tendency to criticize without making any attempt to add value to wikipedia. This is not good in the long term interest of wikipedia. In case, we find some shortcomings, we should sincerely endeavor to remove them to make the wikipedia Better than the Best. At least, we may try to solicit support of the editors who may be able to remove the real or "perceived" shortcomings. --Bhadani 10:45, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I'd like to encourage those who engage in improving the content and constructive discussions rather than politically charged FARC nominations and ad homs. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 22:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I surely agree with you, not politically charged only, but against the spirit of wikipedia: we have to forget rule-book sometimes, if it is detrimental to wikipedia, and interestingly our "rules" provide for forgetting rules! --Bhadani 11:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep This article is well formated, structured, the sentences are (for the most part) balanced, the only thing that needs working on is the references (too few for such an article). Sfacets 05:53, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep This article does not deserve an FARC nomination in the first place. SwiftRakesh 13:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

When are they going to close this discussion and confirm the consensus (which is quite obviously Keep)? Nobleeagle (Talk) 08:22, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, its over 2 weeks and extremely clear consensus has already emerged. This should be closed soon. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:36, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. The article is well-referenced. Carioca 04:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. An excellent article, the information is accurate to the best of my knowledge, some more non-gazzetteer type references may be called for, though. Why this was a FARC is beyond me. 141.151.186.244 15:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smile (Brian Wilson album)

Article is no longer a featured article.

The article has absolutely no inline citations. While the "further reading" may have been used as a source, I'm pretty sure that these are not the only sources that can be used for a topic this huge and controversial. The see also and external links sections formatted properly are not properly formatted either. It's a shame because I think that this could be a very good article. Unfortunately, it is not a Featured article without properly identified and formatted footnotes (which appears to be mandatory for today’s feature article acceptance policy, even though this was inducted in 2004). --P.O.N.Y. 04:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - not because of the absence of inline references/footnotes (there has been considerable debate recently about that topic - see the talk page, where I think the consensus is "not yet") but because of the article has no reference. The absence of references was raised by Taxman on the article's talk page in April 2005. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove no references and a lack of inline citation Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 14:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove no references. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 19:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per aloan Zzzzz 21:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove no references --jiy (talk) 00:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - Even "Further reading" barely has any reliable sources. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove no references or sources. -- Underneath-it-All 01:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] People's Republic of China

Article is still a featured article.

This article was featured a long time ago and over time it has lost out on the quality that contemporary FAs have. I had put up a notice on the talk page of the article last month but nobody seems interested in fixing my comments.

Not only are your comments vague and generalized, they are also biased (see the India, Australia argument in the PRC talk page). You have chosen to ignore other users' comments and acted unilaterally here. You have also made zero contribution to the PRC article yourself and only care to see the article be removed from feature status. Naus 18:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If my comments are not fixed, I would certainly be gratified to have a mediocre article delisted. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I beg your pardon? You are NOT the sole arbitrator of this discussion. Is that clear? It is YOUR OPINION that the article is "mediocre." Many of your comments are invalid and purely subjective (such as "overwhelming ToC" or "prose not 'brilliant'"). Nishishei 20:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to shout to threaten me. I am not or have never claimed to be the sole arbitrator. Please note the person who decides to close this discussion is more likely to take into account constructive oppose votes by editors who are familiar with featured standards over plain jingoistic "keeps". I'm certainly not the one losing sleep here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Your comments are not all valid nor objective, and highly subject to discussion. We are not obligated to fulfill every single point of your comments as you seem to imply. If my comments sound threatening, I apologize, but the atmosphere of threats and condescension was initiated by you (as can be verified by other users like Sumple) and you have clearly demonstrated an absolute disregard for the opposing opinions of others. The Keep votes' comments have been very constructive and many of the Keep voters have been contributing and editing the article as we speak here. If anyone is "jingoistic," uncontributive and adamant, it is you. Nishishei 15:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I have matched my comments as per WP:WIAFA, so are very much valid. You fail to provide a reason otherwise. I don't ned to repeat it once again. WRT: threats and condescension was initiated by you.. I'm sorry to shatter the above statement, but the first instance of hostility on this page was: Nichalp is biased as evidenced in his or her continued argument and if I recall correctly, you attacked my background You are from India and obviously biased on the PRC talk page. Those who voted to keep the article obviously do care to maintain its status, so no surprises here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, what is hostile about "Nichalp is biased as evidenced in his or her continued argument"? You *did* persistently present the argument concerned, and that persistence *is* evidence of your bias. As to the first instance of hostility, that was you attacking other users in a condescending tone, e.g. Since you are unfamiliar to the standards [sic], That's sheer ignorance , etc. --Sumple (Talk) 02:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Reasons

(From WP:WIAFA)

• Does not meet criteria 1.: (best work): Compare with Australia, India etc.
• 2a -- Prose is not "brilliant" -- though brilliant might be a subjective: eg: The PRC is home to over 1.3 billion people, which makes it the most populous country in the world.; jumpstarting China's development and purifying its culture;
• 2c -- Few inline references present to verify claims, just 2 references listed in the ==References= section. Text sprinkled with weasel terms and POV statements: (More nuanced arguments claim that...; Many in China appear to appreciate the role )
• Does not meet 3): ie conform to the Wikipedia:WikiProject countries
• 3c) -- It has an overwhelming ToC
• 4) -- It has an excess images -- see =geography=
• 5 -- The article has simply too much detail and calls for a summary and heavy copyedit and NPOV check.
• The =external links= section is grossly abused and turned into a link farm.
  • From what I see it only has three links? Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 13:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

    That was User:Markalexander100's doing [4] =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

=Nichalp «Talk»= 15:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

• The're back hidden under the guise of =References=.

  • See the Talk page before you criticise edits or contents. --Sumple (Talk) 03:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
• UPDATE: Images have unknown sources or dubious copyright tags. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
  • There goes the subjective value judgments again. --Sumple (Talk) 03:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

    That's sheer ignorance of wikipedia policies of image copyrights: Image:56 ethnic groups.jpg (Source is absent); Image:NPCphoto.jpg (Fair use without justification); Image:Zhongnanhai.jpg -- source not known; Image:Armyspecial1lg.jpg -- PD-China. Please give substancial proof that Chinese government images are PD. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I've asked at commons: and none of the editors there have heard or read that Chinese government images are in PD. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:49, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed all of the images that didn't have proper image copyright tags. AndyZ _t 23:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. The lack of inline references worries me greatly, as do all the weasel words in the article. Since the problems with the article were raised on the talk page and no one took the initiative to fix the article, then remove the FA status.--Alabamaboy 16:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Keep. Now that the citation issue has been fixed.--Alabamaboy 13:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

This Nichalp user has ignored the comments and discussion in the PRC talk page and requested to remove featured article status of this article unilaterally. Naus 18:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

There was no discussion. The only reply was a personal attack and a defensive comment. I had given sufficient time for those who watched the page to elaborate as to what was wrong, or start making some changes to the page. Alas! =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have added inline citations, and am going through them and citing them. AndyZ _t 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Nichalp is biased as evidenced in his or her continued argument that the PRC page is somehow worse than the India page. The India page is not obviously better, and in many respects worse than the China page. Specifically, reasons number 3(c), 4, and 5 are blatantly untrue, or heavily subjective. The external links section is comprehensive, and is actually a good feature of this article. --Sumple (Talk) 06:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

  Since you are unfamiliar to the standards that merit a Featured Article tag, I request you to please go through Wikipedia:What is a featured article. Please also do check out China vis-à-vis other featured countries such as Belgium, Pakistan, Bhutan and Nepal. Please note, I have NOT compared China to just the India article above. I've stated what all points the article lacks I also request you not make personal attacks and blatently accuse people of having biases without evidence. Instead of being confrontational and defensive, I request you to take care of the article and ensure that it does not lose its featured status. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

A featured article exemplifies the best of Wikipedia. There may be shortcomings still with this article, but most of your reasons are not valid reasons. Overwhelming ToC? Whose judgement is it except yours that it is overwhelming? What do you suggest should happen to the ToC, then? Excess images? What's wrong with the geography section? It is not a fault of the article that China has a wide range of landscapes. Too much detail? Please be specific and tell us which section would you propose needs to be shortened, and how it should be shortened. Airy-fairy value judgments does not an argument make. And stop being so patronising towards others. --Sumple (Talk) 07:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I request you to see the ToCs other countries that are featured, since you refuse to check them out despite me pointing you to those links. Remove excess images as it causes the all of them to bunch up squeezing the text. The article as a whole needs to to summarised. I've given you the link above. Remove specific names, instances, dates unless it is absolutely crucial to the article. See the =History= section in the India article. Please remember, it's the community that decides to defeature the article, not me. I reiterate, the faster you start cooperating and stop making personal attacks, the easier it will be for you to save the article. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand the point(s) I am making. And stop making empty threats. I don't know why you feel justified in making these threatening and patronising statements, but: 1. What makes you think there the India article is the golden standard of feature articles, and that the India ToC is necessarily so much better than the PRC one? 2. Unlike you, I am actually making useful edits on that page. 3. Don't presume too much, it's not good for you. --Sumple (Talk) 02:59, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

You aren't making fruitful points, and by accusing me of making patronising comments is amusing. A few of the "remove" votes have come from experienced editors who know what a featured article is about. Unfortunately the constant harping of China vs India just displays a very myopic thinking. Don't presume... -- Is that a threat? I'm deeply honoured that you have my sincere concerns at heart. :-D =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Why are we dragging India into this? It is also on FARC, and shouldn't be the subject of debate here. AndyZ _t 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep User Nichalp has his own personal agenda in requesting for removal of the PRC article. All of his criticism of the PRC page has been thus far vague, general and biased. See his critique of prose being not "brilliant." User Nichalp has made zero contribution on the PRC article and has no interest to make the prose in the article more "brilliant" himself. China has incredibly diverse landscapes and the 3 small images capture the Chinese perspective of its terrain very well. The India article on the other hand has images that entirely cover the right side of the entire India article at 250px wide each. While the PRC article might have more images than the India article, they are smaller, more balanced and better targetted to the content of the article, and also the Chinese article itself is longer than the Indian article. Naus 18:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

  What personal agenda do I have? Please list it. Why is it vague and biased? Please elaborate. I don't necessarily need to contribute to the article since I'm not the expert. The images in the geography section can be transferred to the Geography of China article. If the article is long, it needs to written in summary style to prune the size down. I had put up a warning on the article talk page, but nobody bothered to respond in a fruitive manner. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I actually found it depressing to read this farago which varies wildly between the pedestrian recital of facts, and highly judgmental and patronising commentaries on China and its culture. For so long as it remains so Western-centric, it should not be held out as the "best" that Wiki can do. David91 16:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This is not a valid argument. What is perceived as Western-centric to a Chinese nationalist, might be moderate and balanced to the average Chinese citizen. Many of the other Asian featured articles are equally "Western-centric." The encyclopedia is foremost a Western concept, and Wikipedia holds to encyclopedic standards. Naus 18:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You misread the comment. David was saying that the article is written from a Western-perspective and needs to be written in the neutral point of view. The goal of Wikipedia is NOT to have western centric articles, and an encyclopedia can hardly be called a "western invention". You seem to be vey new to wikipedia. Please spend more time learning about the processes before making such sweeping statements. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The article is actually quite NPOV (see Wikipedian 172's comments below). It is already incredibly nuanced (hence the longer article length) because it strives to be NPOV. If you have specific areas that you believe is POV, please cite them right here, so we may further discuss them specifically. Otherwise you are simply making empty and non-actionable remarks, like several of your other comments. Please STOP being so condescending toward other Wikipedians, it reflects poorly of you and your argument. Naus has been around for quite awhile and has made significant contributions to many Chinese-related articles, the same cannot be said of you. Nishishei 03:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

A country article should touch on the main points of the country, and not go into detail. The details should go into subarticles such as Geography of China, Economy of China, History of China etc. The best way is write a summary of the text. I've pointed you out to Wikipedia:Summary style. Please read through it. POV is not the only issue I have, I'm waiting for the article length to be cut, references added and image copyrights resolved first. My comments are perfectly actionable, I don't see how you find it so unactionable. Before you accuse me of being condescending, please review your past history which includes a personal attack and a steady refusal to initially accept that the article is in dire need of attention. Lastly, yes, you are right. I have not made any significant contributions to Chinese-related articles. Like most other wikipedians I don't necessarily need to as the goal of wikipedia is to focus our attention to topics closest to our fields of expertise. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak RemoveKeep 60 kb, 2 references (which do not have citation information, perhaps consider {{Cite web}}), and only 1 inline citation. There certainly are not enough references to cover the entire article. There are a few occurrences of weasel words: and is still considered a communist state by many,, and is not generally considered to be a true superpower, - by whom? Please supply citations for quotes. There are many instances of WP:POV in this article- giving citations for these also would be helpful. More minor issues, please see WP:MOS for information on captalization in headings. WP:CONTEXT suggests that years and decades without full dates should not be wikilinked.

Finally, the point of FARC is to determine articles on Wikipedia:Featured articles [that] should no longer be featured. It does not matter if the nominator has not made a single edit to this article - as long as the objections are based from WP:FARC and are actionable, there is full reason to nominate the article for FA removal. Usually, there is only one editor who nominates an article for FARC, since the first sentence in the instructions on this page is If you feel an article... Though reason 3 and 4 Nichalp gives are debatable, they are actionable, as well as is reason 5. In addition, I note that many of the above arguments for keep are simply arguments against India, which is certainly not the subject of debate here. Thanks, AndyZ _t 20:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment I converted the external links in the article to inline citations, and will help to cite them later. AndyZ _t 01:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I've done some fixing to the article, and my main objection has been taken care of. AndyZ _t 20:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Nichalp. Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 23:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep The PRC article and related articles are some of the most updated articles on Wikipedia. WIth extensive information on the subject, arguable more so than many other country articles including India, this article deserves its featured status. Many issues brought up are trivial and can be easily fixed. The people who vote for its featured removal never seem to help out in its corrections or keep a tag on the article itself. The speedy induction of this great article on removal list without any effort by its lister greatly troubles me.--Ryz05 03:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

update: I recently made a few edits to address some of the issues brought up in this thread. Please review the article and change your votes accordingly.--Ryz05 05:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The article's size needs to be cut first. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not obliged to make the necessary changes to the article. I had put up a warning on the talk page which lasted for more than a week; enough time to fix the issues, which was never done. I have listed all what is wrong with the article, if you can fix it, the article can maintain its featured status. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the size issue. Each article related to each section of the PRC article has a lot to talk about, so it is no surprise that the summary of it is respectively long.--Ryz05 19:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If size was directly related to comprehensiveness, then the article on World War II would touch in excess of 3 MB. Newspapers and magazines summarise all the time, I don't see why moving excess content to dedicated articles is such a problem. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ryz05, the size is absolutely appropriate. Compare with the Hong Kong article, which is also a featured article. Nichalp has no argument here. His entire premise is that the PRC article is not in the same style as the India article (to which he contributed greatly in, and thus the PRC article is not akin to his personal tastes). Nishishei 20:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If size was directly related to comprehensiveness, then the article on World War II would touch in excess of 3 MB. Newspapers and magazines summarise all the time, I don't see why moving excess content to dedicated articles is such a problem. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I can see your concern about the PRC article, but I don't understand your argument by comparing it to the WW II article, which is considerably longer. A better comparison in terms of size is Hong Kong, as stated by Nishishei. I don't want to accuse you of trolling, but please consider in editing the article yourself and refrain from ceaseless arguments.--Ryz05 05:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Hong Kong is a city-state, China is a nation-state, both quite differently authored. I had opposed the HK FAC nom on its length. However an article written in summary style need not necessarily be below 30kb. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep Any suggestions for continued improvements of the PRC article can be made in the PRC talk page, not here. This is not the forum to make these suggestions. The PRC article is frequently updated and as consequence may sometimes require work here and there to balance things out. But it does not need to be considered for removal of featured article status any more so than the India or Australia article. Like other posters have said, Nichalp has made no contributions to the PRC article himself, his motivation and intentions here are dubious at best. If he finds problems with the "brilliancy" (sic) of the prose, he should fix them himself. Nishishei 20:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have never used the world "Brilliancy" (sic) =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the sentence that Nichalp pointed out as "prose not brilliant": The PRC is home to over 1.3 billion people, which makes it the most populous country in the world. is grammatically correct and just fine, his criticism is purely subjective. But it has now been changed to: With a population of over 1.3 billion people, the PRC is currently the most populous country in the world. Again, this is not the forum to make improvement suggestions. Valid, clear and concrete suggestions should be made in the PRC Talk page. Nishishei 21:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree this is not the correct forum. Once the comments are fixed, please post it here and keep us informed. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

However, this is certainly an appropriate forum in which to exemplify bad prose. If anyone would like examples from the article, I'll happily provide them here. In addition, there should be no expectation that reviewers here are obliged to pitch in and help to repair an article themselves. Tony 15:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I would like the specifics. The article is too long to simply use subjective blanket phrases like "prose is not 'brilliant'" Nishishei 03:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep My impression, after just having finished reading the article for the first time since it was on FAC, is that it has improved considerably since then, especially the intro. I'm seeing comments by a couple of users suggesting that portions of the article are too subjective, feature "weasel words," or "highly judgmental and patronizing commentaries on China." I noticed those problems when the article was originally featured, and I was thus reluctant to vote in favor of featuring. I'm not seeing those problems prominently appear in the article now. I'm particularly pleased that the article is sensitive to the difficulties of categorizing China's governing and economic structures, given their sheer complexity, in a neutral and straightforward manner. 172 | Talk 12:48, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove as per Nichalp, who has set out specific objections that, IMV, are reasonable. I'm sorry to see that if the main contributors have taken action to improve the article since its nomination here, that action has been inadequate. In its current state, the article certainly does not show WP at its best.

The prose throughout is a significant problem. It would be best to find someone else to go through it in detail to meet Criterion 2a. I can offer some help, but my time is limited at the moment. Tony 12:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove (confirming original view) I have made more detailed comments on the Talk page to indicate the nature of the problems. David91 01:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

You have already voted above. Please don't try to manipulate the count by voting twice. Either remove the first "Remove" vote in your above comments, or remove your second "Remove" vote here. 69.213.138.57 03:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

We don't have votes on Wikipedia. Johnleemk | Talk 07:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you ought to read the main part of this article (Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates, under Voting) before making nonsensical comments. 69.213.138.57 16:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you ought to read WP:NOT before making nonsensical comments. The guy who designed FARC probably should do that too. Johnleemk | Talk 17:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments --- A few users claim that my statements are too subjective. From WP:WIAFA, "A featured article exemplifies our best work". Now, if I can find so many chinks in the article, it certainly is not our best work! The word "best" is a superlative and thus the article should strive to achieve the goals of WIAFA. Secondly, as far as the ToC goes, see the comments posted here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/India by mav and Jiang. Jiang is a long-time contributer to Chinese-related articles, so I guess I'm not the only one who thinks on the same lines. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove Virtually no references --Bob 01:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Keep Now that the reference problem has been mostly solved. It could do with more though... --Bob 15:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, there are plenty of references- perhaps you meant inline citations? AndyZ _t 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
  • There are now 58 footnotes, and I plan on adding more. Thanks, AndyZ _t 19:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Article is okay from my perspective, but really fails the referencing criteria. The references section reads like a list of external links. What is being cited? The main page of the BBC's Chinese section? Cite specific webpages, don't cite a whole website. It defeats the purpose of fact-checking and obfuscates the precise source of information. Johnleemk | Talk 07:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Specific webpages are cited. There are quite a lot of inline references in the article. Naus 16:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Those are not inline references; they are inline external links. They are inadmissible as references because important citation-related information is not included with them; see WP:CITE and WP:CITE/ES. Johnleemk | Talk 17:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Doing right now. AndyZ _t 02:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Good job. However, large portions of the article remain without footnotes. For instance, the history section has almost none, and its main articles either don't have footnotes or don't have any references at all. At the very least, the quotes from Mao and Deng should have a citation. Some weasel statements without citations remain, e.g. "The PRC is regarded as a communist state by many political scientists, but attempts to characterize the nature of China's political structure into a single, simple category are typically seen as lacking sufficient depth to be satisfactory." More than half the politics section (inclusive of its subsections) have no footnotes, and the main article does not have any references; if it did, the need for footnotes might be obviated, but otherwise... There are also no citations concerning the Chinese space programme, and the rankings for universities need a citation. Much of the rest of the article has no citations either, but these are the most worrying problems at the moment. Johnleemk | Talk 15:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC) P.S. Just noticed that the demographics section with very detailed statistics has no citations either.
          • Demographics sections of country articles are usually lifted from the CIA factbook. Henry^Flower 17:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
            • Then the CIA factbook should be specifically cited. Johnleemk | Talk 17:54, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
              • Of course, I was just trying to help you do that. Henry^Flower 17:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
                • I believe I have fixed all of the issues that were brought up. AndyZ _t 01:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep -- still some way to go, but a lot better than before. The Dkospedia cite is questionable, by the way -- could we have a better source for such an important assertion? Surely we have something better to cite than a wiki. :p Johnleemk | Talk 12:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I had some difficulty in citing that sentence. I think this (there is a quote in there by political scientist Jean Oi) would be a much better citation now (my original Google Search didn't turn up any links that discussed whether or not the PRC is communist). AndyZ _t 19:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove those references are not really references and are just links to websites - you'll need specific pages that you used - generally general references are only allowed on books and such. Shame on those for ranking on Nichalp for not fixing the article for them - we don't have infinite time to work on these thing, y'know :). Anyway, this could easily be fixed before the FARC is over - and I mean at Asperger's syndrome at that FARC there were far worse problems at the time - but time is running out. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 17:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment It'll be sad to see the PRC article removed from featured status, as it is so comprehensive and so many people spent so much time on it. Anyways, the referencing might be an issue, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to remove it as the good qualities outweigh the bad ones, such as the subject being so extensively covered.--Ryz05 20:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

like to add If this article does get removed, I am sure it'll get reenlisted as a featured article some short time in the future as it is a popular subject with a lot of editors. Any problems with it are presently minor.--Ryz05 20:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Please look again, there are now plenty of inline cites which are no longer just general references. Thanks, AndyZ _t 13:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks better and I'll withdraw my opposition, but the references section still needs to be either purged or cleaned up.... Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 23:21, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I don't see anything that demands a serious change. Image use is ok IMO. The list of largest cities should probably go. More citations should also be added, but this article is an overview containing many summaries: citations are not as neccesary. FA removal would probably be quickly followed by another FA nomination after these few things were dealt with. Why bother with such a process?--Bkwillwm 08:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Images with dubious copyright statements could land wikipedia in a legal mess as it runs contrary to the ideals of a "free" encyclopedia. Hence their removal. Free images can be searched at commons: and www.flickr.com. It's definately a major criteria to consider as repeated uploads of dubious images can get a user blocked. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Conditional Keep: Their are some glaring lack of references that needs to be addressed. Examples: i) Lot of Mao related comments that begin or has something akin to "According to many experts." They all need a reference ii) Aksai Chin related lines state that India has effectively given up claim on it - This is false as far as I know and clearly requires a citation or rephrasing. iii) Claims made towards increasing personal freedom needs a reference. On a more personal note, it is very sad that so many of you chose to attack Nichalp because he is an Indian user. He raised the issue in the talk page and gave it a lot of time before doing FARC. Instead of having a civil discussion about the issues raised by him many of you attacked him and dismissed his concerns as biased. I see the same notion in here. I hope in the future people can look beyond nationalities. --Blacksun 02:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Refuting comment-- There was no personal attack against Nichalp. The criticism of him was his haste in adding the PRC article to FARC without adequate time and consultation on the PRC Talk page. Nichalp gave "a lot of time"? What are you talking about? He wrote one sentence and then ignored the subsequent comments and a week later, added the PRC article on FARC, even though updates to the article were made to improve it in between this period. No attempt of civility was made by him. The India issue came to play because he himself used it as a superior example of Wikipedia's finest, which naturally produced responses criticizing him for being subjective and biased, as many of the very critical examples he gave of the PRC article were also found in the India article. The India article is now on FARC also, isn't it? Naus 08:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not going to bother to argue with you. All the evidence is in the talk page including date of his first post and the very first response to his post being an attack based on his citizenship. Goodbye. --Blacksun 14:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The evidence is here also, and I don't see the "so many of you" making "personal attacks" as you accuse of so matter of factly. I just checked, the date of his post was indeed as Naus said one week before he listed the article on FARC, in that time countless edits were made to improve the article. Your lack of coherent argument against Naus is damning enough. And "Goodbye"? How utterly immature. JakeLM 23:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Where I come from, Goodbye is considered polite. But ANYWAYS. I really dont care what you see or dont see. I have made my point and you are entitled to your opinion. We will have to just agree to disagree. And once again, goodbye. -Blacksun 14:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC).

"I disagree. You are from India and obviously biased." (comment from Nishishei 05:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)) Johnleemk | Talk 12:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Where I come from, one person is not "so many of you." From what I see, one person made a single remark based on nationality, and a bunch of people including Nichalp and Blacksun became overly sensitive, labelling everyone else of the same "nationalism." You guys are just as bad in making assumptions and generating hyperbole IMO. JakeLM 16:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The point was to refute the claim that there was no personal attack against Nichalp; to me, it is a personal attack to assert a non-Chinese citizen cannot have a neutral opinion on the article People's Republic of China. Naus supported Nishishei's stand that Nichalp is biased because of this. ("No one has made personal attacks toward you, please review what constitutes a personal attack. It is your opinion that the India article is better than the PRC article. You have provided no concrete points, but arguable generalizations, and hence you were told by Nishishei that your comments are biased and without basis.") I don't know what Blacksun might mean by claiming "so many of you", but it's clear that this wasn't an isolated incident. Johnleemk | Talk 17:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• keep Most of the issues raised have been addressed now. There is no need for removal. Any additional suggestions should be made in the talk page. JakeLM 20:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
• Reluctant keep. The images are out of control (it looks like something from Myspace), but it's not a big enough problem to delist over. Henry^Flower 13:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

How specifically are the images "out of control"? Too much? Not at all, see Australia, also FA. Which images are problematic? Please be specific. It looks nothing like Myspace, IMO. JakeLM 23:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Too many, poorly chosen, poorly laid-out. Too many cooks each wanting their own pretty picture in, regardless of the overall shape of the article. Henry^Flower 11:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you give me some detail on which pictures look poorly chosen? Also, how are there too many as each picture ties with the respective section it's in and plays an important role on shedding light on the perspective subjects? Finally, we don't want pictures to be in it just because it's our own pretty pictures; each picture is carefully chosen to be as discriptive as possible, like the famous ancient Chinese saying "A picture is worth more than a thousand words."--Ryz05 20:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak remove This article is an important topic, but there are too many sections that read as if they have been editted by a committe. Let me address a few:

• The very first paragraph is confusing. Wouldn't a definition closer to the aims of NPOV be to state that the PRC is the current government of most of China ("most" depending on how you want to define the situation with the rump Nationalist government on Taiwan & related territories).

• Saying that the PRC in control of the mainland means it's in control of "most" of China. There's no need to say that "it controls most of China". The current saying sounds more professional.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• In the introduction, there is immediate mention of the Communist Party of China, but without an explanation of their relationship to the PRC government; it is assumed that the reader knows this is the ruling class of China.

• The introduction says that the CPC leads China "under a one-party system," so it is the ruling class of China. Read the paragraph more carefully.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• The article claims that more recent governments (from the context, apparently since Chairman Mao died) have lifted millions of Chinese "out of poverty" twice. IMHO, one mention of this claim is enough; if you state a claim like this even twice, some readers will suspect there is no truth to the claim.

• That is once said in the intro, which provides a good background for what happened in the country. The second time it's said is in the economics section, which is very important to include it. There's no reason why such a thing is hard to believe even though it is repeated twice in the article, albeit different sections.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• The section about the geography of the PRC does not address the question how the current borders of this nation fit with the borders of previous governments of China.

• There's no need to address how it fit under previous governments, as the article is solely on the PRC.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• I feel that the sections "Demographics" & "Language" could be removed without harm to the article, & the links to the appropriate "X of China" put under "See also". -- llywrch 01:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• There's no reason why they should be removed. Language in China with its many dialects is an important piece of the article. And every country article has a section on Demographics.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

So frankly, I think your objections are baseless, without a full understanding of the subject itself.--Ryz05 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I think what you have written could be also called baseless, & lacked an assumption of good faith . I can't help but read contempt for my objections in your response -- especially when I qualified my objection as a weak one. If your intent was truly to cast scorn upon my comments -- which I had offered in good faith -- I would happy to be more resolute in my objections to this article as it stands; there was nothing in what I proposed above that could not be fixed by some minor rewriting.

However, I offered this feedback in hope of improving this article; despite what you may think, I have no intent of submitting it to WP:AfD. So I will respond to a few of your points:

1. It took me a couple of minutes to puzzle through that first paragraph in the article; introductory paragraphs should be simple to read, & provide the most important information. By your calling this paragraph "professionally" written, I must confess I suspect your judgement in other regards, & I hope I misunderstand you about this. My comment about "Taiwan" was minor, although you appear disturbed by my mention of it. Fine; let's focus on the rest of my suggestion: instead of the belabored identification of the PRC with China, why not say it is the current government of China, pure & simple? If the reader is unclear where China is, then the link China will help him find it.
2. You wrote: "There's no reason why such a thing is hard to believe even though it is repeated twice in the article, albeit different sections." -- Obviously, you missed my point here, & are unaware of the saying "the lady protesteth too much". If you are not familiar with that saying, it means that whenever someone repeats a claim too many times, the act creates the suspicion that the speaker is lying. Now I am not saying that the statement is a lie -- personally, despite the lack of any cites or other comfirmation for this point, I believe it is true -- but that this assertion comes across as a possible untruth. I don't think that is your intent -- so if you care how this material comes across & care to prevent edit wars with parties far less friendly than I am, you should rework this part of the article.
3. You wrote: "There's no need to address how it fit under previous governments, as the article is solely on the PRC" -- I assume that there must be a difference between its territories & that of the previous governments of China. If there is no difference, then all of this material properly belongs in China. The same is true about your response concerning "Demographics" & "Language". The PRC is only one historical period of the nation known as "China"; general information should be kept in general articles.

I am sorry if my words are coming across as being combative; to repeat myself, I felt insulted by what you wrote. You need to accept constructive criticism over this article; if you don't, then the next review of this article will likely be performed in an undeniably hostile environment. -- llywrch 05:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I sincerely apologize for sounding scornful. However, I am still unsure what things you want to change concerning the article, but I will readdress some of my responses and make light on a few things that you brought to my attention.

1. I never said anything is "professionally" written. What I did say is that the PRC in control of the mainland (which is most of China) sounds better (more concise) than saying that "it controls most of China", which is true. And I'm not offended by you mentioning Taiwan, though I was a little perplexed over why you said the phrase "in control of most of China" better than simply "in control of the mainland", since mainland consists of most of china. Finally, the PRC is not a government but the name of the country. After the Chinese Civil War, China was divided into two, with the Nationalist Party in Republic of china (Taiwan) and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) on the mainland. Later, Mao declared the founding of the "PRC" to establish a country. However, this area is confusing as many people frequently refer to the controlling party (CPC) as PRC (a country), since the two are entertwined and the CPC governs all aspects of the country (commonly refered to as China, since it covers most of the mainland). So for your suggestion of mergin PRC article with China is not exactly necessary as the Republic of China (Taiwan) is also a "part" of China. The article on China is actually about the Chinese civilization. If the country is not divided today, then there would be only one article China, which is not the case as there are two- People's Republic of China and Republic of China.
2. Since the Chinese civilization is presently divided into two (PRC and ROC), the demographics of the mainland(PRC) is different from that of Taiwan(ROC). The same hold true for language, as there are ethnic groups (with their own languages) and dialects on the mainland that are not found on Taiwan.

I never meant to offend you when I made those responses. At the time, I thought you are against the PRC article just because of some previous bias towards the country (which does not hold for a sincere "remove" vote). However, I now hope my points are clearer than before. If you have any more questions or suggestions, please feel free to ask. Thank you.--Ryz05 06:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Let me say that I am glad that I misunderstood you (which has to be the first time that phrase has appeared on Wikipedia), & that you weren't being hostile. Thanks for considering my objections.

And it does appear that there is a difference of view here between you & me, whether PRC is identical to "China", or is simply one episode in the history of that nation. Although I still believe I am right on this issue, this is a point that shouldn't be used to keep this article from being considered for FA status, so I'm withdrawing it. (Consider those sections struck out.) -- llywrch 21:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

So does that mean you are withdrawing your weak removal vote?--Ryz05 01:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

update: I just removed the repeated mentioning of bring the people "out of poverty." Thanks for pointing that out. Feel free to edit and fix any other minor issues that you come across.--Ryz05 06:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest removing the mention in the lead instead and keep the sentence in the economics section; WP:LEAD states that the lead of an article should be a summary of the article. Generally, facts mentioned in the lead should be mentioned somewhere later in the article, so if the fact is important, it should actually be kept twice. Thanks, AndyZ _t 20:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your suggestion. Please change it as necessary. Thank you.--Ryz05 20:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

update:I've alreayd edited it accordingly. Thanks again.--Ryz05 21:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

update 2: I fixed the intro a bit by saying "The Communist Party of China (CPC) has led the PRC under a one-party system since the country's establishment in 1949." It's good to keep in mind that the names PRC and China are sometimes used interchangeably, and that China can be considered just another name for the PRC, even to the exclusion of the Republic of China or Taiwan. Hope that's more clear. Thanks for point that out.--Ryz05 06:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Crime fiction

Article is no longer a featured article.

this article is from "brilliant prose" days, and, despite having clear consensus to remove it from the featured list in a previous vote (see Wikipedia:Archive/Refreshing_brilliant_prose_-_People_and_culture#Culture) it hs somehow managed to stick around. it contains a "further reading" section but nothing in the way of references. request was made for references in april 2005 with no response. the lead fails to suitably summarize the body of the article. it is full of poor writing, even in the lead: "boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred". much of the writing is over-casual, not suitable for an encylopeida. it is full of original research phrases (with bonus weasel words): "Seen from a practical point of view, one could argue that a crime novel is simply a novel that can be found in a bookshop on the shelf or shelves labelled "Crime".". thanks for that insightful statement guys. fairuse images without fair use rationale, and pd images with obsolete tags, abound. finally, stylistically its a mess with inline external links all over the place instead of wikilinks.

• Remove per nom Zzzzz 00:25, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
• Ok, you get a pass on this one since there has been a longstanding request to ad or clarify the references and that hasn't been done. But per the FARC guidelines, please detail the article's deficiencies on the talk page and give some time for them to be addressed. Unfortunately I must say remove, because there are no references. There's no evidence the Further reading were properly used as references. - Taxman ^Talk 13:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
• This can't be easily fixed soon. Remove for now. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Good essay, but borders on original research. Definitely not an example of the best of WP. Davodd 10:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zuiderzee Works

Article is no longer a featured article.

The article fails to meet: 2(c) "factually accurate" includes the supporting of facts with specific evidence and external citations (see Wikipedia:Verifiability); these include a "References" section where the references are set out, enhanced by the appropriate use of inline citations (see Wikipedia:Cite sources). No Reference section and no inline citations. The only candidate for a general reference source available in the article, from External links, is not in English. The article is detailed and the writing is OK, but there are numerous interpretations and conclusions beyond simple facts that should have some source, e.g. Though agriculture was initially again the main purpose of the polder, it had not yet been decided, the post-war period saw a shift in the design goals.--Tsavage 09:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC) (NOTE: I created this FARC at least a couple of months ago, then withdrew it and posted a request for references on the article's Talk instead. I agree with this being restored at this point under my sig (although I...hadn't gotten around to restoring it myself), as the article hasn't been improved... --Tsavage 00:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC))

• Remove per delisted former nom above. refs were requested in april 2005. now, still not a single ref to be seen. not one. zero. Zzzzz 00:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. No references at all, and I don't have the ability to fix it myself. - Taxman ^Talk 13:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, zero references. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. And slap and original research tag on it. I hope the editors of newly-rejected featured candidates don't get a gander at this one. Davodd 10:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fermi Paradox

Article is no longer a featured article.

I posted the comment that I might take this page to FARC three days ago, without reply. I'll simply re-post here what I mentioned on the talk page:

1. Most obviously, this page lacks in-line citations. There are only three references. I assume some of the External links were also used for writing but this doesn't help some one who wants to source things later, as what link matches what point isn't obvious.
2. (It should have) "a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents." The TOC is absolutely overwhelming here.
3. "It is of appropriate length, staying tightly focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail." That's debatable here.
4. Finally, some of the logic is a bit tortured and hard to follow, and a touch liberal with undefined "they"s and "critics": "Even if intelligent life occurs once for every few billion of these "ordinary" planets and takes billions of years, they argue, there are potentially trillions of planets (or more) and the universe is billions of years old as well." Marskell 14:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

1 I agree with. However, although I wasn't involved with the article when it was a featured article, it seems unlikely that any citations that were present then have since been removed.

2 I feel that the table of contents to this article is perfectly appropriate. It's in the nature of the article that it has to cover a long "tree" of topics, branches of those topics, arguments that are branches of those topics, and counter arguments to those arguments. The TOC does an excellent job of organizing all of this. The article would be vastly less readable if one were to interfere with its TOC structure. Furthermore, "overwhelming" is a subjective word with no quantitative meaning.

4 It's not the fault of the article that there are lots of "billions" involved when discussing something that concerns the size and content and age of the universe. That said, it goes almost without saying that some of the writing in the article could be improved.

In conclusion, this is the first time I've heard of FARC, so I'm not at all familiar with the policy or its history. My impression is that it would be a mean-spirited action to take except in cases where the quality of the article has become so bad that it reflects poorly on Wikipedia. I find it hard to believe that anyone would feel that way about this article. KarlBunker 14:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Agree: I've been heavily involved in the re-write. Even so, I have to agree that the article is not currently up to FAC quality - nor do I believe the article was up to FAC quality before the re-write due to the "inline citations" issue. I believe that this article is another of those "this was a FAC in 2002, but our standards have tightened since then" articles. A total of 3 inline citations were removed as far as I know, because the points they were supporting have been removed. Still, I would address the issues.

1. Agreed - this article needs to be cited. External websites should be listed in a cite.php manner.
2. I echo the comment about the TOC made by KarlBunker: the topic is large, and branching, and to remove parts of the TOC would either mean the removal of large sections of the article, "mashing" related but distinctly seperate points together, or using some other means of dividing the article (like breaking sub-points into bullet lists - clumsy and against the style guide). While the TOC is very large, for this article, it cannot be anything but.
3. The article states the Paradox, then goes on to discuss the emprical means by which we have tried to resolve the paradox, and then dicusses the theoretical means by which we have tried to do that same. While some sections - probably the SETI section - could be split off into a seperate article and linked in as a summary, there's not a lot by way of totally un-needed sections.
4. Some of the language can be tightened. However, rather than decrying it, "be bold" and tighten it. Un-named critics and theys should be thinned out, and specific people named who have such views, I agree. This would, however, come about automatically as a by-product of fixing point #1.

Vedexent 15:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Ok, I'm sorry, but the table of contents is absolutely unnacceptable. Yes of course overwhelming is subjective, but so are all the criteria. This TOC is exactly why that is in the FA criteria. Make some of the lower level headings just bold instead of sections. That will solve the TOC problem at no real loss. And yikes, I hate to vote remove, but this still needs a lot of work that I'm not qualified to help with. - Taxman ^Talk 16:41, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Counter-Comment: Why not, instead of gutting the article's organization, use the __NOTOC__ tag, and create a manual TOC, perhaps limited to the first two levels. This would still make the article navigable, would not require violation of style or organizational guidelines (bullets or bolds for section headings), and would make the TOC smaller. - Vedexent 16:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Additional Counter-Comment: Given a choice, I'd much rather see the article be snubbed by the Cool Kids Clique of FA status than see it made stupider in order to conform to an arbitrary standard that makes perfect sense for other articles but not this one. Vedexent's manual TOC idea sounds good, though I don't know how that would be done, since [[Article#subheading]] tags don't work within an article. KarlBunker 17:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Lovely response. Changing overdone subsections into bold headings doesn't make an article "stupider" (sic). It would simply make the table of contents less overwhelming. - Taxman ^Talk 13:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
      • It's also a non-issue now if you check the article - the TOC has been redone. - Vedexent 13:26, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Discussion Actually the manual TOC isn't that hard. Include the __NOTOC__ tag in the article. I didn't know that [[Article#subheading]] tags dont work, but [[#subheading|subheading_alias]] do. As for the "dumbing down" - I don't think anyone is suggesting that. In some cases it is possible to summarize a section and migrate the information to other articles where the info is more appropriate, and the SETI article is a good candidate for this. Still - even in such cases you still leave a summary of the migrate material, along with a {{main|article_name]] tag at the head of the section. This gives an "overview" and allows the reader to easily dig deeper if they want. It is also possible that other sections could be thus treated, and may end up creating new articles. - Vedexent 17:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Point #2 resolved: I've added a manual TOC as per the discussion, limited to two levels. - Vedexent 19:21, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I think that if the article can be cited, the SETI section merged into the SETI article, summarized and linked, and a manual "level-limited" TOC can be implemented, (been done) then a lot of the article problems will be vastly improved. Not all, and it may still not be FAC material - but it makes inroads into some of the article's major problems. - Vedexent 17:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - if you check out the Talk Page, it looks like right now there's a considerable effort to improve upon some of the points discussed above. I would propose keeping this article as an FA for now to give the editors some time to deal with these objections. Furthermore, three days is not enough time to add inline citations to an article of this length and detail. I don't think this nomination was made in good faith, and I think it should be withdrawn to give this article's editors time to act on these criticisms. The Disco King 17:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Defense: I think the nom was made in good faith - at the time the nominating user was getting no feedback on the talk page. Also, since that time, the nominating user has been one of the ones involved in fixing the problems. I agree with everything else said though :) - Vedexent 19:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Further defense: Why do you think this nomination was not made in good faith? That's a poor thing to say without an explanation. Given that you seem to have looked at talk and the history since the nom, you'll notice that the nominator (myself) has been actively attempting to address the points at issue. If this is FA worthy after two weeks, great. Two points:
      1. TOC/Length/Focus issues are being rapidly addressed (by Vedexent, me, and others). On this basis I think the FARC nom can be answered soon (certainly within two weeks).
      2. Citation issues have been partly addressed, but are still of enormous concern. I honestly don't think this will be properly cited before the FARC nom runs its course. But...
    • Let it be de-listed. If this is removed and there is still good momentum to improve it, we can live with no star for a week or two, and get the satisfaction of a good going over on the main FAC page. It needs the full attention of an FAC.
    • In sum, this is absolutely not bad faith and I have no intention of withdrawing it. It should be improved, regardless of whether that means it's not featured for a time. Marskell 21:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Reply - I feel that it's in bad faith because the comments you made on the talk page about items which were in need of improvement were made three days before you nominated this for FARC. Not giving the editors sufficient time to address your criticisms is unfair, and as you mentioned, it's not likely that these issues can be addressed in the brief time-window that the FARC nom process allows for. I feel that this article earned the right to become an FA by merit of meeting the criteria at the time it was passed. The criteria have changed; do we blame the editors of this page? They need time to bring it up to the current standards, and they shouldn't be punished by demotion while they are actively trying to do so. The Disco King 05:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Well, I've explained myself. If you'd like to continue to assume bad faith, go for it. Marskell 06:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
          • To step away from the harsh words here, but still comment, I must say 3 days is not enough time. Some authors don't check Wikipedia every day, and they may simply have missed the edit. Try asking again, or better yet, making some edits to the article. That tends to get people to notice it as it pops up on their watchlist. An edit summary referring to the deficiencies listed on the talk page would help. In any case there seems to be good work being done on the article so I commend you for that, Marskell. Less arguing and more editing is always good. - Taxman ^Talk 14:00, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
            • The first response to the suggested nom on the talk page occured 22 minutes after the nom actually occured. "Talk:Fermi paradox" plus "Featured Article removal" is a clear enough heading, and three days is clear enough time. You nom, you get a response. So it goes. Marskell 21:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Update. Well, this nom is sort of at the end of the line. I and other users have made substantial changes, but about half of this (the last half) remains uncited and un-gone-over in general. Great improvements but still great defeciencies. The last plea for comment on its Talk Page has been unanswered after a week. I would like to see this a FA in general and hope to work toward that, but I think it should be delisted until we're sure our 60K on the topic is a tight, sourced 60K. I posted a note to Jeff to this affect, but he hasn't turned up yet. Marskell 22:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] European Union

Article is no longer a featured article.

This article passed through FAC many almost two years ago. It has no references, is mostly tables, and does not cover such a large subject with any adequate treatment. Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 05:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove for lack of references and poor structure (the article is dominated by short bullet points). The information is probably all there, though, or could be easily fetched from the subarticles, so the article is not unsalvagable. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:34, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Remove for lack of references (i.e. basically none for the article text) but the structure alone isn't THAT bad IMHO Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 06:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Super-weak keep Although there is a lack of refrences, (And the ones there are are merged with external links), this is a well written, informative article,; it's one of the best on wikipedia. If refrences are added, I will renominate this on FAC.
• Remove. Unacceptable. Neutrality^talk 06:09, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove, regrettably: first, please sign your name here (super-weak keep); Neutrality, please don't just say 'unacceptable'—that means little here. At least one reason is necessary.

IMV, this article is inadequate, but within reach of FA if the main contributors can bring themselves to fix it now. The writing is OK, but it's not comprehensive (Criterion 2b). In particular, there's little information on the relationship between the Commisssion, the European Parliament, the Council, the judiciary, and the governments of the member states. There are links at the bottom that probably say more about this, but it should be provided here in summary form. There's nothing about the budget, how revenue is raised and what it is allocated to. There's nothing about language in the institutions themselves. Norway, Switzerland and Iceland are non-members: tell us why. In the lead, there are a few misleading statements: should the clause in brackets appear after "the euro"?: "a single currency (the euro) managed by the European Central Bank (adopted by 12 of the 25 member states)". Noumea is missing from the parts of France that are not on the main map. Tony 06:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Weak remove, but only for lack of references. The structure is, in principle, okay. Should references be added, consider my vote to be strong keep. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 13:28, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

  References are being added, so consider my vote a keep. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 19:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per nom Zzzzz 23:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per nom --Off! 11:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
• Conditional Keep I don't really see how anyone can say that the article is mostly tables? Maybe I am looking at revised version? Yes, it needs more references but I think editors seem to be getting to it. So count me as conditional keep if appropriate references are added.--Blacksun 23:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, and add the required references. Page Up 00:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
• Remove since the article is basically an intro to a big list; a not particularly outstandingly well-written list at that. Davodd 09:30, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove lack of refrences. Computerjoe's talk 07:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glass

Article is no longer a featured article.

When I nominated this article an old conversation came up on the template. I'm not sure why.

That'd be the old Farc. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

This article is very messy. It is not visualy appealing, has a bad paragrpah layout, and only has three refrcnes. On top of that, It was never voted a FA Look at the nomination page, and you will see that it never won the vote. Someone put it as an FA even thouhg it lost. This is a poorly formatted, poorly refrenced article which should not be here. Tobyk777 00:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:FAC IS NOT A VOTE. For the record, Glass is a legitimate featured article, promoted by Raul July 2004. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

One just despairs of the electorate's knowledge Giano | talk 16:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. The referencing for this article is poor and the intro section is awkward with the focus of the article not being entirely clear. -- Lewis 22:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove lead fails to properly summarize article, too many 1/2 sentence short paragraphs, too few references, stacked images, "glass in buildings" is far too listy, overlong "see also" and "external links" sections, and despite FAC not being a vote all those valid objections are still unaddressed. Zzzzz 23:42, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per above Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 14:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Zzzzz --Happynoodleboy 19:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - featured articles of lesser quality should not be granted grandfather clause status just because of an appeal to tradition. If it were freshly nominated today, it would fail for various reasons. Davodd 09:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Davodd, Zzzzz. — mark ✎ 08:56, 17 April 2006 (UTC)