Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/November 2006

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Contents 1 Kept status 1.1 Dalek 1.1.1 Review commentary 1.1.2 FARC commentary 1.1.2.1 Section break 1.2 Tamil people 1.2.1 Review commentary 1.2.2 FARC commentary 1.3 V for Vendetta (film) 1.3.1 Review commentary 1.3.1.1 The letter V and the number 5 1.3.1.2 Comments 1.3.1.3 Step-by-step approach 1.3.1.4 Status? 1.3.2 FARC commentary 1.3.2.1 Closure 1.3.2.2 Section break 1.3.2.3 Absolutely no Philip Coppens 1.3.2.4 Proposal for Closure 1.4 USS Wisconsin (BB-64) 1.4.1 Review commentary 1.4.2 FARC commentary 1.5 Chess 1.5.1 Review commentary 1.5.2 FARC commentary 1.6 Order of St. Patrick 1.7 Operation Downfall 1.7.1 Review commentary 1.7.2 FARC commentary 1.8 Toilets in Japan 1.8.1 Review commentary 1.8.2 FARC commentary 1.9 James Joyce 1.9.1 Citations list 1.9.2 New look? 1.9.3 Another new look 1.10 Order of the Garter 1.10.1 Review commentary 1.10.2 FARC commentary 1.11 Greek mythology 1.12 Titanium 1.12.1 Review commentary 1.12.2 FARC commentary 1.13 Real Love (The Beatles song) 1.13.1 Review commentary 1.13.2 FARC commentary 2 Removed status 2.1 Sydney Riot of 1879 2.1.1 Review commentary 2.1.2 FARC commentary 2.2 London Underground 2.2.1 Review commentary 2.2.2 FARC commentary 2.3 Eureka Stockade 2.3.1 Review commentary 2.3.2 FARC commentary 2.3.2.1 Birthplace of Australian democracy 2.4 Spyware 2.4.1 Review commentary 2.4.2 FARC commentary 2.5 Space opera in Scientology doctrine 2.5.1 Review commentary 2.5.2 FARC commentary 2.6 United States House of Representatives 2.6.1 Review commentary 2.6.2 FARC commentary 2.7 Julia Stiles 2.7.1 Review commentary 2.7.2 FARC commentary 2.8 Floppy disk 2.8.1 Review commentary 2.8.2 FARC commentary 2.9 James II of England 2.9.1 Review commentary 2.9.2 FARC commentary 2.10 Autism 2.10.1 Review commentary 2.10.2 FARC commentary 2.11 Kitsch 2.11.1 Review commentary 2.11.2 FARC commentary 2.12 Lawrence v. Texas 2.12.1 Review commentary 2.12.2 FARC commentary 2.13 World War I 2.13.1 Review commentary 2.13.2 FARC commentary 2.14 Bath 2.14.1 Review commentary 2.14.2 FARC commentary 2.15 Revised Standard Version 2.15.1 Review commentary 2.15.2 FARC commentary 2.16 Mark Antony 2.16.1 Review commentary 2.16.2 FARC commentary 2.17 Mixed-breed dog 2.17.1 Review commentary 2.17.2 FARC commentary 2.18 Celtic Tiger 2.18.1 Review commentary 2.18.2 FARC commentary

[edit] Kept status

Place more recent additions at top

[edit] Dalek

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Joewithajay and Doctor Who. Sandy (Talk) 15:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this article for FAR as it fails criterion 1. c. Lacks sufficient cites. LuciferMorgan 00:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Could you give a few examples of uncited statements that you think are problematic? Dalek#References gives many sources, and I believe that all of the references to specific Doctor Who stories are cited parenthetically in-line. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Some of the footnotes are not formatted properly, consider using {{cite web}}. Jay32183 00:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Done. Although one of them is not displaying properly; I've asked for assistance at Template talk:Cite web. Fixed. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Lots of External jumps that need to be addressed. Sandy (Talk) 02:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I understand you here. What are external jumps? --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 16:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Look (for example) in the Computer games section at the end: there are external jumps to off-Wiki websites. The content should be wikified, or the external jumps should be converted to references, or the links should be included in External links. The main Wiki article should be Wiki content, with external content given in References or External links. A lot of it may also be commercial or spam or advertisement. Sandy (Talk) 16:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed these, but having looked at the games I share Sandy's concern about whether they really merit mention in the article. We can talk that out on the article's talk page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The article has a mere 7 cites so I shouldn't need to give examples, but I will if necessary. Be warned though, I'm quite vigilant lol. LuciferMorgan 17:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The book sources need to be checked and cleaned up, as the article is marked as having invalid ISBNs. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 18:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Fixed. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment As far as I can see, it passes that criterion quite nicely. Yes, there are 7 cites in nots, but then you have to consider the more generalised references in the following section. Plus a good read of the Doctor Who Wikiproject might shed some more light on the subject at hand. --JB Adder | Talk 13:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment No FAC would achieve the star with 7 cites, and this article is no different. It doesn't meet criterion 1. c. at all. LuciferMorgan 23:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

This is inaccurate. The article has much more than 7 cites, all taken from direct on-screen information and all cited parenthetically instead of by footnotes. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 00:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

This is wholly accurate - it has 7 inline cites. Inline citations are needed, and this "parenthetically" business is pure nonsense in the vein of the Operation Downfall FAR. I would suggest converting them to inline cites. LuciferMorgan 00:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Prehaps the {{cite episode}} template can help. Jay32183 00:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

No, Lucifer didn't say there are only 7 inline cites; he said 7 cites, which is definitely not true. Cites are still cites - it would be more accurate to say that the cites are not in a proper format. To say the references/cites are not there at all is completely blinkered and that is nonsensical. That being said, converting those cites to inline is a relatively inconsequential and technical exercise. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 03:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You mentioned parenthetical inline citations in the article, but almost all of the parentheticals are just years. Only listing the year is not sufficient in terms of varifiability. Also cite.php is being used and the inline citation method needs to be consistant, especially in a Featured Article. Please understand that this is a review, you don't need to argue to keep or remove now. Some one has brought up an issue. Acknowleging that there could be an improvement but refusing to act on it because it is "inconsequential" doesn't really make sense in this case. Jay32183 03:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The citations are to the specific stories/episodes, and the years they were broadcast. In addition, where did I refuse to act on it? I said it was a technical issue rather than a substantive one, not that I didn't want to, or wouldn't fix it. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 03:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify: is it being said that a sentence like this:

Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids, as seen in The Daleks, The Space Museum (1965) and Planet of the Daleks (1973).

should be changed to this:

Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids, as seen in The Daleks^[1], The Space Museum^[2] and Planet of the Daleks^[3].

==References==

1. ^ "The Escape". Writer Terry Nation, Director Christopher Barry, Producer Verity Lambert. Doctor Who. BBC, London. 1964-01-04.
2. ^ "The Dimensions of Time". Writer Glyn Jones, Director Mervyn Pinfield, Producer Verity Lambert. Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One, London. 1965-05-01.
3. ^ "Planet of the Daleks, Episode Five". Writer Terry Nation, Director David Maloney, Producer Barry Letts. Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One, London. 1973-05-05.

Because if that's really considered a significant improvement, I can do that. (Incidentally, it will significantly increase the article's size.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Refs go after the punctuation, see WP:FN. Sandy (Talk) 13:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

That's what I was suggesting with the cite episode template, and it should help satisfy the nominator's request for inline citations. I wouldn't worry about the article length too much. I believe the standard for featured articles is to only consider readable prose when determining the article's size. I did not mean to imply anyone here was unwilling to work, I was just hoping to avoid an argument that happens from time to time. Jay32183 04:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

OK. Personally, I think that having that many footnotes is less aesthetically pleasing than simply linking to the Wikipedia page for the individual serial, which contains all the information, but if there's a consensus that this form of citation is preferred I'll go with the consensus. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Inline citations are required as part of verifiability. LuciferMorgan 10:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they are required - where appropriate. And inline citation is not syonymous with dinky footnotes. Having said that, the suggested footnotes above are excellent, and if the authors are prepared to add them for people who like to count them, then I'm sure we will all be content. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - article is perfectly fine to me.....endnotes are somewhat archaic, so I respect the progressive thinking of the authors of this article. — Deckiller 08:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Now you tell me, after I did this! ;-) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
    • XD it's all good, I was just paraphrasing what my English professor said about endnotes :). Great article BTW, as per the norm from WPWHO. — Deckiller 09:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment Whole paragraphs still remain uncited. So no it isn't excellent or perfectly fine. Still needs a lot more work - just splashing a few inline cites here and there doesn't make an article meet 1. c. Also, if the authors are that progressive, why didn't they keep this article up to FA standards? Why is this at FAR? Exactly, because it doesn't meet FA standards. LuciferMorgan 20:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Comment I fully intend to finish the citations: the diff I posted above was only the beginning of the work. As for the article being at FA standard, clearly it was considered up to FA standard at one point. Now, perhaps standards have been raised since then, which is fine — but that doesn't mean that the authors don't care about maintaining FA standard. I'm going away this weekend, but will continue the citation work when I return. This stuff takes time. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
          • You should have plenty of time. The FAR process is two weeks, and the FARC process is two weeks but it won't close if good faith efforts to improve the article are being made at a reasonable pace, which you seem to be willing to do. Jay32183 05:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment The lead section is meant to be a summary of the article. All info there should also be in the body of the article and inline cited there, not in the lead section. LuciferMorgan 21:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Just a query regarding the section on the major appearances by daleks in novels. Is the 'Novels' section intended to only list original stories? The novels which are listed appear to be relatively recent original novels, rather than, for example, the 1970s novels which were based upon the television episodes like The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Day of the Daleks etc. If so, it may help to clarify this in the heading or with a line of explanatory text. Also, for consistency, it would help to include the year of publication for the novels and the audioplays, to give the reader an idea of how they fit into the Dr Who chronology. Jazriel 10:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Done. I think that "original novels" should adequately distinguish these books from the Target novelizations, which are or should be mentioned under the episode they were adapted from. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The "Culture" section reads very much like original research, and is wholly uncited. LuciferMorgan 02:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. This article is greatly improved, but I still see some referencing needs - one example:
  • When the new series was announced, many fans hoped the Daleks would return once more to the programme. After much negotiation between the BBC and the Nation estate (which at one point appeared to completely break down), an agreement was reached. According to media reports, the initial disagreement was due to the Nation estate demanding levels of creative control over the Daleks' appearances and scripts that were unacceptable to the BBC. However, talks between Tim Hancock and the BBC progressed more productively than had been expected, and in August 2004 an agreement was reached for the Daleks' appearance in the 2005 series.
• Sandy (Talk) 18:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I have now added two BBC News Online cites to the paragraph quoted above. I hope that's better? Angmering 07:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Better, but that was only an example. The History section has a lot of historical information that isn't cited. Sandy (Talk) 13:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Status: How about this one? I see citations now in areas people were concerned about. Marskell 15:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment Not all areas though. LuciferMorgan 16:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

History (which contains a lot of referencable fact) is still largely uncited - move to FARC to give editors more time to finish work. Sandy (Talk) 16:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be helpful if {{citation needed}} were added to the statements that are of particular concern. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Last time I did that, I was reprimanded. LuciferMorgan 01:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll add tags, since they've been requested. Sandy (Talk) 01:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I added cite tags to the History section only, which was undercited. I found several instances of WP:WTA while there, and suggest that the article is going to need an independent copy edit once more thorough referencing is done. Here's a prose sample from the section I just tagged:

However, despite this adoration, the Daleks were forever associated with Doctor Who. Nation, who jointly owned the intellectual property rights to them with the BBC, therefore had the problem of owning a money-making concept that proved nearly impossible to sell to anyone else and was dependent on the BBC wanting to produce stories featuring the creatures.^{[citation needed]}

I think every section is undercited, only the History section is the most undercited. It's nice people are working on the article though. LuciferMorgan 02:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

During this FAR process, the article has gone from 7 footnotes to 67 (as of this edit), and you still think it's undercited? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes I do, as I just stated. There isn't many cites considering the article's size, though there have been improvements to editor's credits. LuciferMorgan 08:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria is insufficient citations (1c). Marskell 06:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Lots of work done. Moving it down because there was not consensus not to. Marskell 06:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - A lot of work done, the 1c criteria has been fulfilled successfully. Wiki-newbie 16:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - Whole paragraphs still uncited. LuciferMorgan 18:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep — the article currently has 69 citations, and is more thoroughly cited than many other featured articles (e.g. Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, Calvin and Hobbes, Søren Kierkegaard, etc.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I still see a ^{[citation needed]}. A FA should be nowhere tagged like that.--Yannismarou 21:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. If that's all that's bothering you, the offending sentence could easily be removed pending a citation. (as of the above comment, there were two {{cn}} tags. I added one citation and commented out the other. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 23:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - The article looks good. The editors working on it have done a fantastic job. - Lex 05:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - as per Josiah. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 05:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I notice all the editors from the Doctor Who Wikiproject are here to use their keeps - how convenient. LuciferMorgan 14:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Whatever happened to WP:AGF? Should you recuse yourself as well since you nominated this for FAR? --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 15:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not part of the Doctor Who Wikiproject. My "keep" came from looking at the article, checking the history to examine the changes since this FAR started, and coming to the opinion that this article is up to FA standards. You disagree with me and that's perfectly fine. But your disagreement doesn't give you the right to assume these keeps are in bad faith. - Lex 15:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I have every right to come to my own conclusions - you, nor anyone else will stop that. And my conclusion is most of these keeps are in bad faith. With the exception of yourself, the others are part of the Doctor Who Wikiproject. Having said that, I still think all the keeps including yours are in bad faith - I have every right to come to that conclusion. There's still many uncited, weasly statements in the article, and all the Doctor Who fanatic editors blindly assume that teaming up here will save their article - improving it will, just saying keep won't. Article definitely needs further work. LuciferMorgan 17:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I find this blatant assumption of bad faith quite offensive, actually. A substantial amount of work has been done on this article since the FAR began, and your characterization of editors is rather uncivil — as if being a Doctor Who fan automatically made one's judgment as a Wikipedian suspect. Your opinions about the content and quality of the article are welcome; your opinions about the motives of your fellow Wikipedians are not. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Tell you what - I'll remove my "keep" vote if you remove your "remove" vote. After all, if you're saying that the Wikiproject editors have a conflict of interest, since you nominated this for review, so do you. How about that? --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 17:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Tell you what - how about instead of making BS "keeps" without adequate reasons for them, whereas my remove is based on inline citations, how about you give us good reasons for your keep as opposed to "fantastic"? Better still - how about you cite the sections that remain totally uncited? Have your vote, I don't deny anyone a vote. LuciferMorgan 17:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

My keep is based on the same reasons as Josiah's, which is based on the number of inline citations, and far more cited than many other FAs out there, including some which have recently been passed. Nowhere do I use the adjective "fantastic" - you can take that up with Superlex. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 18:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - I took a look at the version of the article from when it was initially named an FA, and it seems to be in even better shape, reference-wise, than it was then. --Brian Olsen 20:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The "movement" and "construction" sections are still under cited. Jay32183 21:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • How about now? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I feel those sections are good now. The only sections low on citations now are the "parodies" and "pop culture" and I'm not sure how necessary they'd be since those are mostly mentioning that certain things exist. Jay32183 01:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• List - Remove unless fixed:
  • External link farm, including commercial links. Pls cleanup per WP:EL and WP:NOT
  • ISBN please on Terry Nation book in References
  • (Fancrufty - inadequate reference - ref is to a Wiki article - *who* says they have a poetic quality, and where - exact ref please - in fact, many of the footnotes are to other Wiki articles - Wiki is not a reliable source) Some of the more elaborate Dalek battlecries have an almost poetic quality about them (for example, "Advance and Attack! Attack and Destroy! Destroy and Rejoice!" from the televised story The Chase).[65]
  • Book references for specific statements need page numbers - for example - ^ Bentham, Jeremy (May 1986). Doctor Who — The Early Years. England: W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-03612-4.
  • There are massive uncited sections from Parodies onward, including a statement about someone posing nude that certainly should be cited.
  • Prose problems and redundancies throughout - article needs a thorough copy edit - one random sample: The reason for the multiple titles is that in the show's early years each individual episode had a different name and overall story titles were used only by the production office. Subsequently, several different overall story titles were circulated by fandom without access to the correct records.[46] See: Doctor Who story title controversy.
• There's still time to bring this to standard if someone gets out a big red pen. Sandy (Talk) 01:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment Sandy, many of the references that appear to be to Wikipedia articles are referring to specific television episodes, and use {{cite episode}} because that was recommended above. The citations are not using the Wikipedia article as reference, but the television episodes about which those articles are written. It's the same as using {{cite book}} for a book which also has a Wikipedia page: you're referencing the book, not the Wikipedia article about it.

I've removed several extraneous links (thanks for pointing the commercial ones out, as I hadn't noticed that those had been added), and I'll remove the "Dalek humour" ones if people think it's necessary (I think it's a rather nice addition, but I understand if people feel that it's inappropriate). I've provided the ISBN for Terry Nation's Dalek Special and a citation for Katy Manning posing nude with a Dalek. I've also tweaked the specific sentence you mention, and will try to get around to a full copyedit in the next few days. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 11:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand cite episode, so I'm striking that and the other items you've completed (still needs to know who considers that dialogue as "poetic"). Sandy (Talk) 00:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the "almost poetic quality" sentence (although I'm sure I've seen that referenced in print, after several days of searching I can't find it). I've also added a few more references in the last few days. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of cite episode, there's still a lot of original research in the article. LuciferMorgan 18:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Could you please give a few examples? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah ok will do - thanks for kindly requesting, which goes a long way.

1. "The non-humanoid shape of the Dalek, unlike anything that had been seen on television before, did much to enhance the creatures' sense of menace. With no familiar points of reference, it was a far cry from the traditional "bug-eyed monster" of science fiction that Doctor Who series creator Sydney Newman wanted the show to avoid. The unsettling form of the Daleks, coupled with their alien voices, also made many believe for a while that the props were wholly mechanical and operated by remote control."

"Sense of menace"? Says whom? Are we interpreting the reaction of the TV audience? It's wholly possible many found their shape rather ludicrous. "Unsettling form"? This could be original research also - maybe perhaps there are TV critics that can lend weight and authority to the above points of view? LuciferMorgan 22:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the example. That paragraph has a citation from Doctor Who: The Television Companion by David J. Howe. (Howe is a professional historian of television in general and Doctor Who in particular; citing him on the subject of Doctor Who is roughly akin to citing David McCullough on the subject of Harry S. Truman or John Adams.)

Here are some relevant excerpts from that work: I'll let you decide if they're sufficient to justify the paragraph or not. If they're not, I'll either reword the paragraph or find more sources.

The Daleks are undoubtedly the highlight of the story. Nothing even remotely like them had ever been seen before, either on television or in the cinema, and they dominate every scene in which they appear. Their sedate, gliding movements and harsh, electronic voices make for an unforgettable combination. The fact that they are constantly in motion, their three stick-like 'limbs' twitching with alien life even when they are otherwise stationary, creates a very creepy effect. ...

The arrival of the Daleks has often been cited, with some justification, as the development that sealed Doctor Who's popular success. Certainly the creatures' appeal was immediately noted by journalists, as is apparent from the following review by Peter Quince that appeared in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner dated 11 January 1964: 'As for spine chillery... well, I take back what I said a few weeks ago about Doctor Who having gotten off to such a bad start it could never recover. It has recovered, and, though it still has its daft moments, it also produces some first class sensations — as, for example, last Saturday, when the Dalek "intelligence" had been lifted unseen from its robot and placed in a blanket on the floor, the episode closed with something very horrible indeed just beginning to crawl from underneath the blanket. So horrible was it, that I very much doubt whether I shall have the courage this evening to switch on to see what it was. Lovely stuff!"....

The Daleks are one of those science-fiction ideas that, in retrospect, seem so ridiculously simple that it is hard to understand why no-one had done anything similar before. There had been many different robotic monsters previously created for films and television shows, but these had always turned out looking like a man in a suit. Terry Nation must have realised this and, in his scripted description of the Daleks, specified that the creatures should have no visible legs and should glide along on a base .... [a description of the Daleks' design follows, which I won't bother to transcribe].... The resultant prop was both unsettling and unique. The simple 'pepperpot' shape with its three emerging appendages — eye-stalk, sucker-stick and gun-arm — was memorable, as was the strange gliding motion. The illusion of an alien creature was completed by the harsh electronic voice that grated instructions and barked out orders.

To viewers, the Daleks seemed truly alien beings — indeed, fooled by their relatively small stature, many initially believed that they were operated by remote control rather than by actors inside them. This was the intended effect, and the Daleks were a huge success. ....

Personally, I think that justifies the paragraph in question, but perhaps my judgment is skewed by my closeness to the subject matter. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weak remove. "Merchandising" is undercited (only two citations in its subsections), and IMO "Popular culture" needs another look: I see some stubby paragraphs, and, in general, the prose in this particular sections does not look "brilliant" to me (after the first paragraph the particular section gets almost like a "trivia" section).--Yannismarou 18:44, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove. Not written to the required "professional" standard. Here are examples.
  • Second sentence: "The mutated descendants of the Kaled people (referred to in the first Dalek serial as "Dals")[1] of the planet Skaro, they are integrated with tank-like mechanical casings; a ruthless race bent on universal conquest and domination." It's a snake that needs chopping up; the semicolon is grammatically wrong.
  • Third sentence: "They are pitiless, without compassion or remorse. They are also, collectively, the greatest alien adversaries of the Time Lord known as the Doctor." Flabby. Why not "Without compassion or remorse, they are the greatest adversaries of the Time Lord known as "the Doctor"."? Minus six words.
• "and were first introduced"—Spot the redundant word.
• "in the second Doctor Who serial"—Do you mean "series", or perhaps "episode"?
• "with the viewing audience"—"with viewers"?
• "They have become synonymous with Doctor Who and their behaviour and catchphrases are part of British popular culture"—With two "ands", what's wrong with a comma after the first?
• "The Daleks have appeared with every incarnation of the Doctor, with the possible exception of the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 television movie (where only their voices were briefly heard)." The last bit: what, you saw them being silent for a lengthy period? No, you need: "(where only their voices were heard, briefly).", or something like that.

That's the lead alone—well, there are other things there I haven't listed. This needs to be confined to the dustbins of Skaro. Tony 01:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: While this is the least of your expressed concerns, "serial" is the correct word: classic Doctor Who was broadcast as serials of (usually) 4 to 7 episodes. In the programme's first few years, the serials did not have on-screen names, which has led to some confusion about what to call each story. For the serial which introduced the Daleks, there are several alternative titles, which is why the article uses that circumlocution.

That said, your other concerns about the writing are legitimate ones, and I'll see what I can do (time permitting). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: I have amended the offending sentences. I'm sure there are other prose problems which can be addressed if anyone has the time to point them out. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, comma before, not after "and", as you probably realised. Now, fixing just these examples is beside the point. I was demonstrating that the whole text his this density of problems. At this stage, I'd be going cap in hand to the Wikipedia:WikiProject_League_of_Copyeditors, asking for an urgent job. Tony 03:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the LoCE can be most effective on an article that meets all the other criteria - best used when only the prose needs attention. This article has over 40KB of prose (needs trimming), and still has a lot of uncited text - not sure it's ready for a copy edit, as that could be misused effort if the text is later pruned or found to be uncited, original research. The lead is also rambling and choppy, not yet a well-organized summary of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

True; sorry, I should have accounted for that. Tony 07:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Back for another look: still not able to strike my remove.

• A random check of the references looks good, but there are still a few questions:
  • I'm unable to find information on their website about this source - it looks like a personal webpage (not sure), and doesn't seem to be a reliable source. ^ THE DALEK CHRONICLES (2004-04-28). Retrieved on 2006-11-28.
    • I've replaced this with a citation from the book Doctor Who: The Sixties. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Based on one letter to the editor, I wonder how the word "many" is justified in the text this letter is citing? ^ Michael Anthony Basil (2003-10-06). Science Fiction Weekly - Letters to the Editor. Retrieved on 2006-12-18. If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like one letter from one fan is the basis for the statement about many fans. When the new series was announced, many fans hoped the Daleks would return once more to the programme.
    • I've added another citation for this sentence. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Jessesword.com seems to give more info about the reliability of this source, which could be included in the ref: Science Fiction Citations for OED - Dalek (2005-06-21). Retrieved on 2006-12-01.
    • Either someone else has added the citation you're mentioning, or I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Could you please clarify? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
• There are still cite tags throughout the text - I counted at least eight.
  • • Down to one now, and I'm still investigating a likely source for it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
• I didn't look at the prose, as Tony has done that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Until Sandy's and Tony's concerns have been met fully, this one should be removed. LuciferMorgan 12:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

They've been met in part; cite requests down to two, for instance, since Sandy's last comment. I've contacted Josiah again. Marskell 12:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi — sorry for my tardy reply. Since Marskell's note, Jeffpw has posted to Talk:Dalek saying that the article has passed FAR [1]. Is this accurate? There are still a couple of citations that I haven't been able to supply (yet), and Tony's prose concerns haven't really been addressed. On the other hand, the original issue of concern (insufficient cites) is certainly no longer an issue, with 85 distinct footnotes. Obviously, I've put a lot of work into the article during the FAR period, and I'm happy if it has passed muster, but I'm a bit confused. Can someone clarify the situation? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

To clarify. I only completed the administrative tasks that another user Diez2, initiated but did not follow through on. I have contacted several people about this, as he has now delisted 4 articles from FARC this evening, none of which were carried out appropriately. I do not feel procedure and protocols have been followed in this matter, and am very concerned about it. Please see my talk page and his for more details. Thanks, Jeffpw 20:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Marskell, I said Tony's and Sandy's concerns should be met in full. I welcome any efforts in addressing this, but if they've only been partly filled this one should be removed. LuciferMorgan 23:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, this has been reopened for the time-being; hope this doesn't throw too much of monkey wrench into things. As Josiah is posting within the last 24, we can wait to give him time. If Sandy can be moved to strike her remove re the references, maybe I'll just try to ce it myself and then we can (properly) close the thing. Marskell 19:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sandy can only strike her remove when her concerns are addressed, and as concerns copyedit it would have to meet Tony's concerns. Good luck though. LuciferMorgan 20:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

We're down to one {{cn}}, which I'm actively working on. Sandy seemed to think that it wasn't appropriate to ask for copyediting help until the citation requests were finished — do we have time to do this? I know that the two weeks are up, but much of the review period was over Christmas/New Year's, when many editors were away. I'm happy to continue to work to improve specific sentences and elements, but I'm at a bit of a loss when the concerns are so vague ("prose not brilliant" and the like). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Well once Sandy's ref concerns have been met, message Tony about the prose. LuciferMorgan 02:25, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I've commented out the last {{cn}}, which I couldn't find a source for after several days of hunting. Sandy's talk page says she's travelling till the 23rd, so I went ahead and asked for help at the League of Copyeditors. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for the delay: I'm struggling to catch up, but will read now and strike my objections as appropriate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Further comment—Still not well-enough written. My eyes went straight down to the opening of "Physical characteristics" for a random sample.
  • "Man-sized"—can we find a gender-neutral term? "Kill a man"—Why not "person"? Are you sure that no woman has ever been killed? And there are other examples of guys being everything, too. This is unacceptable in the 21st century.
    • "Kill a man" is a reference to one specific incident in which a Dalek used its "plunger" to crush a man's skull — it's only happened once, and yes, it was a man. That said, "man-sized" is fair comment, and I'll try to weed out any other sexist language I can find. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Metric equivalents, please (no, give us the metric, and if you must, bracket the US equivalent).
    • Metric equivalents have been given, but most of the original sources were in Imperial measurements (not US — these are British sources). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • "but various episodes have shown Daleks whose arms end in a tray"—"Various"? I'd have thought that the notion that each episode offers something different would be too obvious to need pointing out.
    • Fixed. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Redundant "alsos". Tony 23:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I've asked the League of Copyeditors for assistance, but will continue to do what I can until they show up. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Great. By the way, they don't "show up"; they decide on the merits of your article whether it's worthy of their excellent input. Tony 02:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Thanks — good to know. It's my first encounter with the League. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Comment It's been suggested this article has come under undue criticism from FAR/C commentators as its a sci-fi FA on several talk pages. I would like it to be noted that every article at FARC comes under fair, objective and thorough scrutiny, regardless of whether it's a sci-fi FA. Furthermore, I personally happen to like the Daleks. Also, my fave band of all time is Marilyn Manson, and if you scroll above, you'll see I've nominated that article for FAR. My apologies if you and other Wikiproject Doctor Who members have obtained a flawed opinion of us people at the FAR/C process. LuciferMorgan 22:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section break

Back for another look. External jumps and the external link farm appear corrected; referencing is much improved. I still have the following list:

• Their most infamous catchphrase is "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice ... Why is it ex-ter-min-ate rather than the correct ex-ter-mi-nate? Is that the way it's syllabicized according to the reliable sources, or is that a Wiki-mistake?
  • Yeah, that was just a wiki-goof. Fixed now. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• Regarding the question above about one source - this is an example only, all should be checked: Science Fiction Citations for OED - Dalek (2005-06-21). Retrieved on 2006-12-01. This reference gives no publisher. Clicking on it reveals jessesword.com - warranting further investigation (is it a personal website, is it a reliable source?) http://www.jessesword.com/ gives an author and information which seem to rise to the level of WP:RS. This kind of information (author, website publisher) should be included in the references. Pls doublecheck that all websources identify the publisher and author (when available). (UPdate: corrected that one myself - am now going through the rest.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I've corrected this one, but this is making me realize that I'm a bit confused about who the "publisher" of a website is when it's not an organization: do we list the same individual as both author and publisher? (In this case, Jesse Sheidlower appears to be both.) I'll try to look over the rest of the references. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
    • In that case (as an example), I would list the ref as author name first, article, publisher, date, retrieve date.
      • Sheidlower, Jesse. Science Fiction Citations for OED - Dalek. Jessesword.com (2005-06-21). Retrieved on 2006-12-01.
• There is some inconsistency in book footnotes - some have p. or pp., while most have just a number, and some are still missing page numbers. Pls have a second look, with an eye towards consistency.
  • This should be resolved now. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• I still see weasle words - examples: This belief is thought to be the reason why Daleks ... and This is probably not an innate ability, ...
• The culture section has a lot of unreferenced assertions which, without citation, appear as original research or opinion - we need to know according to whom.
  • Working on this. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• There are still significant copyedit needs. I started reading at the Culture section, and encountered this: Due to their frequent defeats by the Doctor, he has become a sort of bogeyman in Dalek culture, and the mention of his name often gives them pause.

A copyedit is needed: Tony already gave examples. I do think the article has come far enough that it would be productive to get LoCE involved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for giving this another look, Sandy, and for contacting the League again. I fear that the copyediting needs may exceed my meagre skills. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Anything a matter of opinion always needs citations. Congratulations on your efforts thus far though.LuciferMorgan 00:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Still working on this. LuciferMorgan added a few citation requests a day or two ago, which I've taken care of, but that's slowed down the more difficult tasks of finding citations for the "Culture" section and copyediting. (Still no word from the LoCE.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

In CE'ing a bit of the first part, I found the writing was good. It does fall down in Culture, however. To many unneeded emphasizers and not enough cites.

All in all I think this is close. Marskell 09:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• I've decided it would be quicker and easier to fix the references myself: can someone pls tell us what this is and what makes it a reliable source? I can't find anything to indicate it's anything other than someone's personal AOL members website.
  • Balcombe, Chris. Daleks and the Kit Kat advert. personal website of the Dalek operator. Retrieved on 2007-01-19. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Hmm... yes, it is someone's AOL website, but it's the AOL website of someone who was involved in the production of that particular advertisement. I had thought that might qualify as "a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field", but I can see that it's a bit borderline. I'll try to find a better source. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, I've found a YouTube clip of the advertisement in question here, but we probably can't use that because it's a copyright violation. I can't find any reference to the ad in print, either. Should we delete the sentence, or is there some way to use the references, which are problematic in themselves but indicate clearly that the ad in question did exist? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
        • If the original website is a reliable source, it works - I just couldn't find anywhere on the website that indicated who the author was or what makes him reliable - can you locate it on the site? Youtube is rarely a reliable source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
          • The author (Chris Balcombe) is indicated here, on the front page of his website (scroll down). I suppose that technically identifying him as one of the operators is slightly OR-ish — I deduced it from the photograph showing him in the Dalek on the Kit Kat page [2] and the one showing him (named as Chris Balcombe in the caption) with Sylvester McCoy on the main page. (I think it's safe to say that this and this are the same person.) As I said, it's borderline whether this qualifies as a reliable source or not. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
            • An alternate source would be better - there's nothing there to indicate he's anyone who can speak authoritatively. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• The article lists this under the same ISBN as both 1998 and 2003, but the ISBN finder lists it as 2004 - which is correct and which edition is used? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• The ISBN for the first edition (which I have) was incorrect. A different editor added the citations from the second edition (which I don't have a copy of). Should I find the reference in the first edition and change it, for consistency's sake? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• That would help; then we can list the book once, and know that the page nos are correct. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• What is there now works - no need to find the other page number, now that the confusion is cleared up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Usenet is not a reliable source - since you have two sources on the statement, this ref should go:
  • Dippold, Ron (1992-02-06). Federal Department of Transportation Bulletin #92-132 (USENET post). alt.fan.warlord. Google Groups. Retrieved on 2007-01-15. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
    • That was meant to indicate that the joke was of long standing. The USENET citation isn't to verify any particular assertion, just to indicate "this joke existed at least as far back as 1992". I understand that USENET wouldn't be reliable for an assertion of fact, but why isn't it reliable for "this was being said at this point"?
      • I'm OK letting that go since you do have another source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• What is this reference? It only points to a Wiki article. Is it supposed to be a cite episode?
  • ^ Seaborne, Gilliane (director) (2005). "Dalek", Doctor Who Confidential BBC Wales. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, it should be a cite episode, but for an episode of the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential, not an episode of Doctor Who. I've corrected it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• "Destiny of the Daleks" is listed once as Episode Two, once as Episode 4, and once with no episode: does the one with no Episode need a number ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• That reference is to a facet that's visible in all episodes of the story, so no episode listing is necessary. I suppose the citation could say "episodes 1–4", but that seems redundant to me. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• OK, just checking. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ditto for "Remembrance of the Daleks" - there's a part one, a part three, but one with nothing listed - does it need a listing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Same for this one: the reference is to a theme explicitly stated in each episode of the serial. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• OK. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Please explain the extensive use of piped links on the cite episodes: as examples only, why is The Dimensions of Time piped to The Space Museum, and why is Day or Reckoning piped to The Dalek Invasion of Earth ?

• Early Doctor Who serials had titles for each episode. For example, the six episodes of The Dalek Invasion of Earth were individually titled "World's End", "The Daleks", "Day Of Reckoning", "The End Of Tomorrow", "The Waking Ally" and "Flashpoint". (See The Dalek Invasion of Earth#Production.) "Day of Reckoning" is episode 3 of The Dalek Invasion of Earth; "The Dimensions of Time" is episode 2 of The Space Museum. The individual naming of episodes was dropped around 1966. (Incidentally, this is why Doctor Who stories appear to go against the standard MoS style for television episodes: individual episodes are placed in quotation marks, but serials are in italics.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• ugh - OK, I get it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• If these items can be addressed, references will be complete; a ce still needs to be done. In case anyone is wondering, the reason I've spent hours in this article is that Doctor Who missing episodes still needs to come up for review for citations lacking, so it seems worth the time for Project members to understand how to cite. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Sandy, thank you for your help on this. I hope that if we can get Dalek up to snuff, the reviews of other Doctor Who FAs will go more smoothly. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I'm hoping other Doctor Who FAs can be collectively worked upon without review, and in a more relaxed atmosphere. LuciferMorgan 20:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• That would be good; once this is completed, I do plan to work on the other FAs, whether an actual FAR is filed or not. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Update: I've provided some primary source citations for the "Culture" section, but I still have some concerns about it (see Talk:Dalek#"Culture" section). I'd like to have some secondary sources as well, to avoid the appearance of original research. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Size check By the way, the article is at 41KB prose, which is approaching a limit on too long - you'll all have to watch that the article doesn't grow (see WP:LENGTH). Note that by changing the way the books are cited, I shaved 4KB off the overall size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

So, two months today. I'm plodding through a ce, but I'd suggest that this is already within 1a. Everything I'm noticing is very minor—perhaps greater minds can find other problems. There is a bit of purpleness in the prose: three adjectives or nouns ("conquest, domination, and complete conformity") where two will do.

I read that "The naming of early Doctor Who stories is complex and sometimes controversial." Is this the reason for Sandy's link concern? Will it be solved with an initial note explaining how you have settled upon titles? Marskell 08:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorta, kinda, ish. We actually have a Wikipedia article on the matter, Doctor Who story title controversy. Basically, in the original series of Doctor Who, a given story was a multi-episode serial; however, for the first few years of the programme, the only titles that were used publicly were names of individual episodes. (So, for the first Doctor Who serial, the episode titles were "An Unearthly Child", "The Cave of Skulls", "The Forest of Fear" and "The Firemaker".) The production team used titles for the serials in-house, but these sometimes changed during production and weren't widely known until years later. This led to some confusion: for two early examples, see here and here.

The Doctor Who WikiProject has decided that for the purpose of article titling, we will use the titles used by the BBC in marketing DVDs and on their Doctor Who website (e.g. here). However, even this decision took some negotiation: see here for a sample of the debate.

Sandy's link concern was a slightly different matter, albeit one with the same origin. The first link in the article uses the title "The Survivors" instead of "The Daleks episode 2", because that was the title under which that episode was broadcast; however, the Wikipedia article on that episode is at The Daleks, so I piped the link. If a reader clicks on "The Survivors" and arrives at The Daleks, he can read down to The Daleks#Production and discover that

The seven episodes of the serial had individual titles: "The Dead Planet", "The Survivors", "The Escape", "The Ambush", "The Expedition", "The Ordeal" and "The Rescue".

(Perhaps we should consider moving episode titles up to an earlier point in the serial articles, but that's another matter.)

Now, I don't think we should have to explain all that to readers of Dalek. I had hoped that the link to Doctor Who story title controversy and the footnote to the Andrew Pixley essay would suffice, but if you think we need to give further explanation I can try to wordsmith something. It'll be tough to avoid self-reference though. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

What else remains? Marskell 08:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm striking my remove, since my concerns have been addressed - if you're fine with the prose, so am I. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, what I'll do is finish going through it, so that all the prose has been checked. The link concern sounds like one of those complicated pup cult "canon" things; I don't think it a remove basis and I trust Josiah's suggestion that readers will find the target they're looking for. Marskell 19:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Inches away. A little work remaining for "Other appearances". I have left a note on the talk. Marskell 18:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Taken care of, and thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Note on closing: Sandy has struck the referencing remove and the prose has been gone over. I'm not entirely happy with "Other appearances" and "Merchandise", as I think some of it remains trivial (I removed what I thought was the obvious stuff), but "taking a flamethrower to the place" can often cause more problems than it solves, and I don't think what remains rises to remove. In sum, this has been extensively looked over, the referencing is robust, and the prose is much better. So a keep (finally!). Marskell 19:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] V for Vendetta (film)

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Mailer diablo and Films. Sandy (Talk) 22:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

As there's been a rather heated war over the "Letter V and the Number 5" section, this needs a review since it appears consensus is to keep the section in. The problem? The section is entire original research, and does not cite any reliable sources to back up the claims. No featured article should have original research in it, period. If the section doesn't stay out, it shouldn't be featured. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: This was originally removed from FAR because it was on the main page the same day. As continued talk page discussion has not resulted in a fix, I'm putting the listing back up. Featured articles should not have original research. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• I don't see any OR in that paragraph. Can you point to a particular statement that is original research? — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 18:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The letter V and the number 5

Heck, I'll go through some of them and see.

• There is repeated reference to the letter “V”, as both letter and number, throughout the film.

  General introduction summary statement, doesn't need sources, is justified by further statements that should be or are soured.

  This would be fine if the rest of it was sourced. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• For example, V’s introductory monologue to Evey (above) begins and ends with “V”, has five sentences, and contains 49 words that begin with “V”.

  Trivial statement, can be deduced from counting the monologue's letters and sentences.

  Perhaps.

• Similar references are made through V's background, choice of words and action.

  General introduction summary statement, doesn't need sources, is justified by further statements that should be or are soured.

  Agreed, but a lack of sourcing...

  The whole point of the section is about this statement and items are shown below listing these instances. Do you want the script?

  If the script is a source for it, then yes, sourcing the material is a good start. But it may cause problems...

  Fixed enough.

• V is held in Larkhill cell number “V”.

  Sourced.

  Not sourced. Also, there's no indication that this is in fact relevant to the section - it may look obvious, but is it?

  Its sourced directly for the movie no OR about this statement! It is relevant because he was known as prisoner 5 his identity was lost even to himself (all facts from the movie) He took the latin 5 that was on the door (ie V) as his name, again all from the movie.

  I see no source in the article for it. Am I missing something?

  Fact from the comic book, script & movie. Is this disputed somehow? How many references to the script are needed? The reference to the script below should be fine :-)

  Fixed enough.

• It is revealed that his favorite phrase is “By the power of truth, I, a living man, have conquered the universe”, which is a translation of the 5 "V"ed Latin phrase: “Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.”

  Needs a source, but is not original research. Should be written as "it is revealed in the film" or whatever to imply that it was indeed revealed in the movie.

  It is original research, as it's a translation, and I don't know Latin so cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translation, nor can I be sure of its relevance to the section.

  Not quite

  • Vi veri universum vivus vici found in wikipedia
  • Latin proverbs in wikiquote
  • The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. by Christopher Marlowe

  Asside from all of this it is directly quoted from the movie, both the latin and its english translation.

  EVEY: (She turns back to the carving) I was reading the inscription. What is it?

  V: A Latin quotation. A motto. "Vi veri veniversum vivus vici." "By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe."

  EVEY: (She nods) Yes, I suppose you have. This place is the only universe I have right now. Undated Early draft

  Because it is a direct quote from the movie I see no reason why this is questioned as OR!

  First, Wikipedia cannot be a source for itself. Second, the article does not state that it's the film's translation, merely that the words translate and we're supposed to take the article's word for it. Third, this could be fixed by saying that the character translates it as such, or that the translation is indeed this, but it needs a source.

  Script as source added

  Thanks. Please change the statement in the article, however, that the translation comes from the script.

• In a dance with Evey, the song V chooses is number five on his jukebox.

  Trivial information that can be sourced from the movie itself.

  Fair enough, maybe.

• When V confronts Creedy in his home, he plays Beethoven's "Fifth" Symphony, whose opening notes have a rhythmic pattern that resembles the letter “V” in Morse code (···–).

  The first part is a trivial fact, and the second part is well-known information that should be very easy to source.

  Second part, if the second part is well-known (and I was a music minor in college and never noted the morse code similarity), it should be easy to source.

  The last point is the best but here is everything I have found from just inside wikipedia

  • Go to Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven) and hear the 1st 4 notes or you can listen to this (listen (help·info)). in the article it even has this section It is commonly asserted that the opening four-note rhythmic motif (short-short-short-long; see above) is repeated throughout the symphony, unifying it. Here are examples taken from the Web: "it is a rhythmic pattern (dit-dit-dit-dot*)... Then you follow the internal link provided and you will see that it has a rhythmic pattern resembling the letter “V” in Morse code (···–)

  • That's fine. Where's the source for this article that says it resmebles it? Hell, where's the source there? Furthermore, where's the evidence that this was intentional? Source for that?

  • If one goes to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in popular culture#1940s you will find During World War II the BBC adopted the first four notes as the call sign of the European Service principally because they represent the letter V for Victory in Morse code. The irony that they were composed by a German was not lost on many of the audience or for the more musically educated that it was "Fate knocking on the door" of the Third Reich.

  • That's fine as well. There's still no source for that. I know it, you know it, does random user who isn't educated in music history or British history going to?

  • or Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in popular culture#1980s In Chapter 8, Book 1 of the graphic novel V For Vendetta, the Symphony is identified as the piece played while title character V commits an assassination. The song is significant because, as is noted by one of the detectives, the initial "da da da dum!" is morse code for the letter "V".

  • And we still assert this without a source. If we want to attach that to the graphic novel, we have to be clear about it.

  • The best reference is the human ear please (listen (help·info)) to the 1st 4 notes. You will also see above in my previous notes that they are rythmically (dit-dit-dit-dot). If you check morse code you will see that ***- is the letter "v".

  • The human ear is most certainly not a reliable source.

  But things which are common knowledge or self evident do not require sources - to me, that Beethovens fifth is the letter V in morse is well known (and a mnemomic for students of morse) here's a source should you insist. [3] --Mcginnly | Natter 14:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  • BBC News "Next came the realization that the three short notes and one long at the start of Beethoven's Fifth echoed the Morse code for "victory". The V sound on drums immediately became the call sign of all the BBC's European services."

  • Okay, and whenever you want to add that to the article...

  • Added

  • At the moment, the source is still a random website. The following line w/the BBC is fine, but before that is not.

  • now its both.

• The Symphony’s opening was used as a call-sign in the European broadcasts of the BBC during World War II in reference to Winston Churchill’s “V for Victory”.

  Should be very easy to cite.

  And yet, months later, it still isn't.

  Look above

  Yeah, it's still not there.

  now it is

• The film’s title itself, is also a reference to “V for Victory”.

  Might be OR. This sentence is on shaky ground.

  Yup.

  Philip Coppens an investigative journalist, author and founder of Frontier Magazine; He was nice enough to do a review.

  On a self-published website, from the looks of it. Probably not a reliable source unless we attributed the information to him.

  now cited

  Okay, but needs attribution in the text.

  done

• In the battle with Creedy and his men at Victoria station, V forms a “V” with his daggers just before he throws them (shown in picture above).

  Trivial fact, sourced using a picture.

  Relevance?

• After the battle, when V is mortally wounded, he leaves a “V” signature in his own blood.

  Trivial fact as above.

  Fair, although it's an assumption that doesn't belong here.

• The destruction of Parliament results in a display of fireworks which form the letter “V”, which is also an inverted red-on-black “A” symbol for anarchy.

  Cited.

  No it isn't.

  Sure it is. It has an internal wikipedia reference. It also used to have an external reference to A for Anarchy, E for Execution for some reason it was removed. Not only that, the v is seen in the trailer on youtube or as an image of the v dominoes here.

  Okay, but still, not cited.

  was internally now also externally... again

  Thanks.

• Like the Old Bailey and Larkhill, Parliament was destroyed on the fifth of November.

  Trivial, by definition.

  Not to an American.

  In real life Old Bailey and Parliament never have been blown up so I don't know why this would only be known to a Brit! It is a part of the movie and their destructions have been mentioned many times in the article.

  So think about how someone unfamiliar with the film or with British history is going to interpret this. That was my point here. At best, it's an in-universe statement without context, at worst it's an amazingly inaccurate statement in a featured article.

  I don't think that in the 1996 movie independence day they would have to reference to the script saying that only a model was blown up and not the actual White House ¯\(°_°)/¯

  Does it present it as such?

  does now

• Finally, when Evey first tells V her name, he remarks that it is ironic, since her name (pronounced "eevee") is "vee" said backwards and forwards put together.

  Trivial fact from the script itself.

  Complete original research, and the relevance is questionable because there's nothing to indicate it's intentional.

  This sentence is silly but it is sourced from the script so again it is not OR.

  It's still OR.

  Only OR if it is made up from the author not if taken from the script, movie or comic.

  So which is it?

  In all three actually, but its not in the section any more. if someone want to add it just ref it to the script.

---

I can see only one sentence here that should be removed. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 18:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I see a number of unsourced, poorly sourced, or entirely useless and trivial information that doesn't belong. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Hope I helped :-) -- UKPhoenix79 11:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, not really. A start would be to add sources, really. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

maybe this time? -- UKPhoenix79 09:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I've struck the parts that are all set, there are still issues that need to be addressed. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks all finished :-) -- UKPhoenix79 11:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

• Why mention all of this, though? It just seems like trivia. Has anyone but Wikipedia cared enough to write about the importance of all of these references? --W.marsh 18:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• I second Shikari completely. Of course it's all trivia when taken individually. (how many times did he say "trivial", after all?) But taken together, it becomes a notable theme in the movie. A good list of some of the very subtle (and not-so-subtle) examples, then, just serves to illustrate how carefully the film was put together. (And I have no doubt that someone somewhere has certainly compiled a similar if not much-more-extensive list.) At the same time, if it's all obvious trivia which can be found simply by paying attention, it can hardly be OR. --Arvedui 09:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • So where's the evidence, then? If it's this obvious and notable, where's the reliable sourcing? --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It is not mentioned in any reliable sources because it's so obvious. I think they only need one reference that talks about that mentions the subtle V references, and the rest of the entries they can just leave as they are. Since they've already done that, the section is fine.--Dark Kubrick 00:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• Are we allowed to just accept so-called "obvious" things? Some may be somewhat obvious (the "V" with the daggers, I'd even accept cell V), but the morse code/Beethoven thing? Keep in mind, The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but the sentence you're mentioning appears to be cited.--Dark Kubrick 02:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
    • We both are, I think. I missed the cites that have been added, but I will note that no one would ever consider "shadowgalaxy.net" reliable for this context. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with some of your comment Jeff and appreciate the time you are taking to troubleshoot this article. However, I don't think you're taking the time to properly evaluate the situation or the evidence that is being provided. If you read the Shadowgalaxy article you will notice that it mentions that the Beethoven reference is actually from the original graphic novel itself. So instead of simply saying that the refernce is no good, a more constructive criticism would have been to tell us to reference the graphic novel instead of Shadowgalaxy. (With that said, I'm hoping this review will at least, last a few weeks, as it may be hard for me to respond to you promptly.) But in any case, I encourage you to examine more carefully the arguments being presented and make sure you go into more detail when describing your concerns. (Keep up what you are doing though.) --P-Chan 04:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

So why not source the novel? I can't stress this enough - little is sourced in the section, and the few sources there are are not currently reliable. If there were reliable sources and proper attribution, I wouldn't be beating this drum. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Reference the novel directly? That's a great suggestion. What I'm getting at here is that I don't think you are thinking critically about the evidence or situation, because throughout the entire discussion you've repeatedly forgotten about the progress we've made. This won't happen anymore, because from now on you and I will keep a very accurate record of what's been accomplished. For example, we've come to an agreement that the Beethoven statmenet is fine, as long as it references the novel. (I will now start a new section below.)--P-Chan 04:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

If there has been process made, I'm not seeing it. Being told to use my ear or told that it's obvious when it's not isn't really progress. And no, we haven't come to agreement with the Beethoven statement, really, unless it's worded very differently. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Think about what I wrote. It's not your hearing I'm commenting on!--P-Chan 07:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC) --P-Chan 07:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Again how can this be OR when the BBC itself says that is the reason it was used? BBC News "Next came the realization that the three short notes and one long at the start of Beethoven's Fifth echoed the Morse code for "victory". The V sound on drums immediately became the call sign of all the BBC's European services." This is a proven fact now, pure and simple, end of story! -- UKPhoenix79 09:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the nominator that the section violates WP:NOR, and note that there are stability concerns with the article. Jkelly 21:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• Mind telling us in more detail how there may be concerns with the stability of the article, to see if it is actionable? - Mailer Diablo 12:11, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I was misled by the flurry of main-page-day editing, so please disregard. Jkelly 00:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• I note that at time of promotion this section was included in its entireity and not raised as an issue [4]. I was not aware of this until notification of FARC, so I'll have a look through the whole thing in just a while. - Mailer Diablo 22:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
  • If I had noticed it then, I would have objected on those grounds. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Step-by-step approach

This is going to be an interesting process. If I'm not mistaken, we have already determined that there is a "V theme" in V for Vendetta. What we have to do now is decide what is in the V/5 theme and what is not. Is this not correct?--P-Chan 04:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Well since the section is cited now I suggest that we close this review. -- UKPhoenix79 05:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been busy with other things, I still have questions. Check back in a couple hours. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

well this is now referenced so lets close this -- UKPhoenix79 11:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status?

Have concerns of all reviewers been addressed ? Sandy (Talk) 14:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I feel there are more important concerns now, at closer look. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

So I've relooked at this again per request, and the biggest problem areas are dealt with in terms of my original complaint about sourcing. A few new notes as I give it a second closer look over.

• I still don't think we should be referencing shadowgalaxy.net as a source on anything per current standards at WP:V/WP:RS.
• I'd prefer if the things sources to the novel were actually cited as such, but I'm confident it will be dealt with.
• Are all of these relevant to the theme? Are we confident that we've indeed touched on them all? I'm reviewing some of the cites now, and I'm noticing something disturbing: Boudreaux's annotations do not, in fact, source the statement that "Similar to the graphic novel, there is repeated reference to the letter “V” and the number five throughout the film." The source, in fact, does not even mention the film, which was - at best - in development at the time of the most recent cited update. Perhaps some of these notes would be good in the graphic novel section, but I'm a) not at all convinced that these are relevant to here, and, more importantly, b) the notes don't back the entire assertion of the section up! It definitely puts the relevance of the section in question, and makes me question the rest of the sources.

More later. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I think the reference to Boudreaux sources the part of the statement that there is repeated reference to the letter V in the graphic novel - it doesn't necessarily have to provide a source for the exact phrasing here, otherwise we'd be left with "The graphic novel repeatedly references the letter 'V'.[ref] So does the film." The case for the film also containing references to "V" needs to be made by the cited examples that follow, so I don't see that as a particular problem. I do notice that some of those examples still aren't cited - some of which might be regarded as obvious, but some which are distinctly dodgy: "fifth of November, the only month containing the letter V" - hardly likely to have choosen 10th June, when 5th November is Guy Fawke's night (or if he had would there be a case for saying "in Roman times June was spelt JVNE, the U later replaced the symbolic V and 10 is twice five"?). There are more than enough examples without this uncited stuff, you don't need to list every occurence to make the point. Yomangani^talk 15:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I'd review the article, only this review is too hard to follow with the load of page breakups. LuciferMorgan 01:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I removed the last sub-heading, which wasn't really needed. Sandy (Talk) 16:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I'm going to reply to badlydrawnjeffs comments.
  • That is a minor gripe that in no way should affect its Featured Article status
  • Sounds good
  • The whole section is cited and sourced giving support and credence to the sections topic and theme. So like you said earlier "This would be fine if the rest of it was sourced." I am also surprised that you now bring up this extremely helpful website now! This page has everything that I have now managed to find sources for and in fact supports the "V & 5" theme by referencing even more v themes then shown in this section.
• I again move for this nomination to be removed! The nominating factors have now been dealt with. -- UKPhoenix79 08:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I only really noticed the complete irrelevance of the lead-in source then, that's why I broguth it up. The entire section is built up upon a source that doesn't even mention the film, thus causing problems with the relevance and the basis of the section. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are OR and referencing (1c). Marskell 14:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I see there is work going on right now, but there is no consensus to close. Moving to keep it on track. Marskell 14:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: The rest of the article looks good, but having a major section that's based on a source that doesn't once reference the subject combined with other sourcing and relevance issues worries me. My concerns evaporate with either a) a worthwhile, reliable source for the basis of the section, or b) the removal of the section entirely. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Again, I don't see a problem with that source, as it establishes that "V" is used symbolically throughout the novel. The sources that follow need to establish that it is also used in the same way in the film. Where the film follows the book and the symbolism is indicated in the book, then I think it is fair to say that the film is duplicating the symbolism (even unintentionally). I really have a problem with the strained "fifth of November" link though as any thematic use of "V" there is clearly secondary to the symbolism of the destruction of the Houses of Parliament on Guy Fawkes Night. Yomangani^talk 14:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The source is for the novel, not the film. Given the complete difference in tone (the novel was inspired in part by Thatcher, the film having more of a connection to current events), it's entirely reasonable to request a bit more in regards to the theme in this case as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, but the source establishes the repetitive use of V in the novel as stated in that sentence, the later sources establish more specific uses in the film. Also, while the tone may differ, I think there is enough of a connection that if a use of V is established as symbolic in the book and it is used identically in the film then we can take it as a symbolic use in the film without demanding a separate film specific citation. What requires citing are uses in the film that don't appear in the book, or uses where nobody has credibly established the intentional symbolic use in the book. Yomangani^talk 16:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
      • But at the same time, a closer look at the initial source may in fact map out a pattern in the book, but it's not a pattern that is directly replicated in the film that I know of, nor does our article assert as much. Much of the source has to do with the types of books V has on the shelf, things like that, something the film article doesn't touch. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
        • The symbolism goes deeper in the book, but unless you suppose that all uses of V in the film which duplicate the use in the book are coincidental I can't see your point. We don't claim the film isn't adapted from the book because Alan Moore had his name taken off - whether he admits it or not the book is clearly the source material - so it's not a leap to use a source based on the book for themes that are obviously drawn from it. For example, we wouldn't demand different citations for an analysis of Hamlet's psyche if we were writing about a film production rather than the play (unless the film introduced an new aspect that was not in the play and then only for that particular aspect). We shouldn't demand that level of precision here either. Yomangani^talk 17:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment "Music" section needs citations. LuciferMorgan 04:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Still FA-level. Wiki-newbie 16:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The references need to be cleaned up, exanded, and to follow a consistent style. Cite web (rather than cite news) was used for news sources, so the news information is obscured (information like author, title, publication date). This occurs on a large number of magazine and news footnotes. Readers need to be able to locate the news articles should the weblinks go dead. There are some footnotes which are just URLs - the information should be completed in a bibliographic style. Last access date should be given on all web sources. Please use a consistent footnote style: some entries have last name, first name on author, while others have first name last name. Sandy (Talk) 04:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

That's good actionable advice there. We'll get to that in the future for sure.--P-Chan 04:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Tentative keep, given original concerns are addressed, and article is in good hands that would address/are addressing any subsequent concerns that are being raised slowly. - Mailer Diablo 18:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Closure

This has dragged on far far too long, almost to the point of silliness. Let’s end this soon. There are far more critical areas in this article (AND ELSEWHERE IN LIFE) that deserve our time and attention.  :) In fact, I find it quite strange that the two other sections in Themes have not undergone the same level of scrutiny that this one has, even though they contain information that is more controversial. If you want to help me troubleshoot those areas, please do, but let's close this FARC so we can all go home.

As Yomangani has quite insightfully pointed out, the graphic novel reference establishes that there is a V theme in the novel, and since several of the V references in the film have been directly pulled from the novel, I think we can comfortably include those references in the film's V theme. Even if the novel were disregarded, you must admit that there are all sorts of personal signatures from V that are clearly intended to be based on a V theme. Fireworks, signatures, monologues and messages on mirrors... these are no brainers, and to say that all of these happen to be coincidences, certainly would be a stretch credibility.

You're not going to get a 100% level of assurance Jeff, but what you will get is a very robust argument for the V symbolism in the film.--P-Chan 07:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Your points as usual are right on the mark. Close -- UKPhoenix79 08:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I still think that's ORish in nature, and I think we should be more careful about that. I also recognize that i'm in the minority here, but whatever the closing party decides, I won't complain about much more. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Well if there is anything specific you want to suggest or want clarified feel free to mention them (and I'm going to emphasize the word specific here). Notice how Sandy just wrote a list of specific, actionable comments for us to address. We're working at a very micro-level right now, so clear and actionable communication is key.--P-Chan 16:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, I think I've been very clear and actionable regarding my specific complaint - the section is OR and the source that justifies it does not back up the claims made in the section. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

(reply after edit conflict) Thanks for the inquiry on my talk page about closing this FARC: Marskell and Joelr31 sometimes close FARCs early if there is clear keep consensus. There's only a weak/tentative keep consensus here, and an outstanding referencing issue of the music section, raised by Lucifer. For example,

• (Is this referenced, or is it opinion/editorializing?) Many of the tracks from the original score evince notes with a discordant, metallic, or fleeting theme, contributing to the generally dystopic atmosphere of the story.

That's a good point. This statement must have been just dropped in by someone after frontpage day. This will be removed, as it is inappropriate.--P-Chan 17:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I also mentioned that the references need to be cleaned up, which hasn't been done yet. I just fixed the last URL, but still see examples of problems. For example

• (This is not a Warner Bros. reference - it's IMDB, which I believe some consider to be a less than reliable source. Your references should accurately indicate the sources.) Warner Bros. (2006) V for Vendetta Unmasked [TV-Special]. United States: Warner Bros.
• (This reference is missing the author - Utichi, Joe. ) Exclusive Interview with Stephen Fry - V for Vendetta. filmfocus.com. Retrieved on 19 April 2006.
• (This reference has an incorrect title). Exclusive Interview with Stephen Fry - V for Vendetta. filmfocus.com. Retrieved on 19 April 2006.
• (This reference is missing the author and the publication date - if you use cite news on all the news sources you're less likely to miss information.) V for Vendetta. Christianitytoday.com. Retrieved on 29 April 2006.

Please check that all your references are complete and accurate, since almost every one I happened to click on wasn't correct: FAs represent our best work, and readers need to be able to locate the sources if the links go dead in the future. If you have the wrong titles on web references, it will be hard to find the info on a search. IF you don't include author and pub date on news sources, it will be harder to find those sources in hard print.)

(Is this referenced, or is it Original research, editorializing, or opinion?) The story retains some anarchist themes from the original story, using them as a means of examining terrorism and state control in a modern context. V for Vendetta sets the Gunpowder Plot as V’s historical inspiration, contributing to his choice of timing, language and appearance. (For example, V adopts the identity of a dead man called Rookwood, named for Ambrose Rokewood; colleagues of this "Rookwood" mentioned in the film are called Percy and Keyes, also the names of Gunpowder Plotters). Revenge is a central motivation for V, the film stressing explicit thematic connections to The Count of Monte Cristo. The film also incorporates the idea of V as the embodiment of an idea rather than an individual, minimizing V's past, and giving the viewer no glimpse of a humanizing face.

I also saw a cite needed tag.

I've never understood badlydrawnjeff's commentary on the article, but then, I haven't seen the movie. The only way I can verify that the article isn't extensive original research/opinion/editorializing is by checking sources in a thoroughly and correctly referenced article. I'll be glad to have another look when the referencing work is completed. If the OR concerns aren't addressed by thorough referencing, I'll be a Remove. Sandy (Talk) 14:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

More: where does the statement about the first four notes of Beethoven's fifth signifying the letter V come from?

Please check section again for given refs and striked conversations above for this. -- UKPhoenix79 11:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This has been addressed numerous times in the review.--P-Chan 18:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Ref needed on "seems to allude to contemporary 9/11 conspiracy theories" - according to whom?

That statement keeps popping up in the article every few months. I agree. That statement has got to go.--P-Chan 19:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

How do we know the V on Big Ben's clock face was intentional? Is there a source for that, or is that Wiki original research/opinion?

Week statement that I have given up on removing since it keeps on being re-inserted. -- UKPhoenix79 11:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It has been removed.--P-Chan 23:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Ref needed on Prothero evoking image of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, etc. According to whom?

Each time I peek into this article, I find more of what looks like original research, essay, and opinion - please comb through it and thoroughly reference everything; I'll be a Remove next time I check in if everything that looks like someone's opinion isn't referenced and attributed. Sandy (Talk) 00:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Sandy. You're one of the few who are looking at this article critically and pointing out specific issues that we can address. If all you're doing is peeking, then I totally encourage you to do it more, as it provides us with an independent set of eyes. Your feedback is very much appreciated, because it leads to better things. Thanks.--P-Chan 00:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Why, thanks, P-Chan - I'm starting to wonder if *everyone else* took all of December off, as I seem to be the only person responding on quite a few FARs :-) On the other hand, considering the volume at the top of this article's FAR, I'm not surprised others aren't looking - I sure didn't when I saw all that verbiage. If I have to read that much back and forth to found out why the Beethoven bit isn't referenced, that's a good reason for referencing Beethoven - it's either OR, or it's not, and a long discussion shouldn't be needed. Sandy (Talk) 06:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Well that's a misrepresentation. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't reference Beethoven. I'm saying that Beethoven is already referenced. In fact, there are two references on that sentence and both of those references are very robust. Therefore, we should not have to address that topic again, because we've addressed it so many times and have resolved it. In any case, Merry Christmas Sandy. --P-Chan 16:49, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Ooops! Actually, it just occurred to me that you may have been referring to the Beethoven line in the Music Section. If that were the case, then yes, you're right. It wasn't referenced and should have been and is now. Sorry about that... and Merry Christmas still.--P-Chan 21:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Another look - the WP:WIAFA deficiencies in this article continue to astound me, and I don't understand how it got by FAC (it had 3 Supports and one Oppose - thin).

Comment: Many of the problems you’ve mentioned have been addressed through new changes and through reverting parts of the article back to its original FA state. I stand firmly behind the FA quality of the article at the time of its promotion. That said, the comments mentioned here have improved the article beyond its original state. (Standards seem to constantly be on the increase at Wikipedia, and as those standards increase, so will this article.)

Again, starting from the bottom (and hoping the top is better):

• Look at the section on DVD release - how is an ad for retail outlets considered of encyclopedic notability ????
  • • Best Buy, Circuit City and Target each offered exclusive collectibles with their two-disc special edition copies of V For Vendetta. Best Buy offered an all-out collector's set, which contained four limited-edition art prints, a half scale (1:2) replica of V's mask, and a display box. Circuit City and Target both offered a limited-edition slip sleeve with a lenticular cover and a 64-page excerpt of the graphic novel.
  • The entire section has limited encyclopedic content, borders on advertisement, and could be deleted.

Addressed: The materials concerning the retail outlets has been removed. This section should stay but should be modified to include a description of the actual contents of the DVDs. --P-Chan 05:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (Repetitious, redundant prose:) Even though the film is based on the graphic novel, there are several key differences between the two that make them fundamentally different from one another.

Addressed: --P-Chan 05:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (Redundant prose:) made it the target of both criticism and praise from different sociopolitical groups.

Addressed: --P-Chan 05:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (POV, many? and missing punctuation) Many libertarians, especially at the Mises Institute's LewRockwell.com see the film as a positive depiction

Addressed:--P-Chan 05:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (Direct quotes need citation:) Justin Raimondo, the libertarian editor of Antiwar.com, praised the film for its sociopolitical self-awareness and saw the film’s success as "helping to fight the cultural rot that the War Party feeds on".

Addressed: For some unknown reason, several of the references to Justin Raimondo and his article were removed after the original FA. --P-Chan 05:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (Redundant prose:) taking in an estimated total of $25,642,340.

Addressed:--P-Chan 05:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (Awkward prose:) Despite the film taking place in the UK, the film did not reach number one at the UK box office on opening weekend; ("it" did not reach?)

Addressed: --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (WP:WTA and snake - sentence too long - and, and, and, and:) However, the BBC's Jonathan Ross, a keen fan of the graphic novel, blasted the film, calling it a "woeful, depressing failure" and stating that the "cast of notable and familiar talents such as John Hurt and Stephen Rea stand little chance amid the wreckage of the Wachowski siblings' dismal script and its particularly poor dialogue", and David Denby of the New Yorker described it as "a dunderheaded pop fantasia".

Addressed: Reverted section back to original FA. --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (What is the "moreover" connection?) Moreover, one of the most negative reviews came from Michael Medved, who called the film "V for vile, vicious, vacuous, venal, verminous and vomitaceous." Medved also said that the audience will lose interest about halfway through the film and that it has a confusing ending.

Addressed: Reverted section back to original FA. --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Confused - trying to check on some changes. I questioned the word "Moreover", but a significant criticism by a well-known movie reviewer is now gone? I didn't object to the sentence, which was well sourced - just wondered why it was preceded by "moreover" (which seemed like a WP:WTA) - deleting criticism from a well-known critic doesn't make sense to me.  ??? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

That's an excellent question Sandy. It's always good to ask questions.

The removal of the Michael Medved comment was no accident. Why he was removed, has been discussed a few times in the V for Vendetta (talk), and has been brought up by multiple users. You're probably new to a lot of it, so I'll give you the lowdown.

1) The person: Michael Medved is not a pure film critic. The other critics in the reception section are known primarily for their role as film critics, whereas Michael Medved is seem as a conservative pundit as well. This is the same reason why Ted Baehr is not listed in the reception section, but the political commentary section instead: because there can be a perceived conflict of interest.

2) The review: Michael Medved’s film review is simply not a detailed as the reviews of other critics (or conservative commentators). Plus, there is a very strong political flavor to what he has written.

3) The Balance: Ted Baehr and Don Feder are already listed as social conservative pundits in the political section. Placing Mr. Medved in that section, I think overlaps too much.

However, that last point of course, is just my opinion. I’m open to your opinions on this Sandy. We should have some open dialogue on this. I would like to hear what you have to say.--P-Chan 04:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to get too much into the politics of Wikipedia (that's usually A Bad Place To Go and Not Good For Blood Pressure), but I was surprised that a blogger of something as biased as a site called antiwar.com was there, and Medved (well known commentator) wasn't - seems unbalanced, and whether these people are known mostly for being film critics doesn't seem relevant, considering the article makes unattributed political commentary (one blogger or writer compares a character to O'Reilly and that makes it into the article - really should be attributed as one writer's opinion, rather than stated as fact). I do consider Medved a film/TV critic - he has branched out from his early days, but I believe he began as a TV critic, concerned about the effects television was having on the pop culture. I was more concerned that I'd have to now re-read the entire article, since there were big changes. I'll do that after Indon is satisfied, but I do see a lot of "political" statements that need better attribution as someone's opinion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• (Awkward sentence, single-sentence paragraph) As of December 2006, V for Vendetta was listed in the top 250 films as voted on by IMDb users, occupying the 116th position.

Addressed: --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (Prose redundancy) With the intention of making the story relevant to today’s audience, the filmmakers included many modern day references as well. ("audiences"? Is modern-day hyphenated? Not sure - ask Tony. Today - that word will become outdated.)

Addressed: --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (uncited, choppy paragraphs)
  • The film's fictional fascist government deliberately used a biological agent against its own people to attain power, paralleling the burning of the Reichstag.

Addressed: Removed through a revert to the original FA. --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• • Several times during the film, such as Valerie's note, characters make referrences to "America's war" expanding beyond control, presumably an outsized War on Terror. Terrorism and protesting over the course of action to take grew to high levels, resulting in Norsefire developing their ploy to seize power by deploying a biological weapon against Britain itself.

Addressed: Removed through a revert to the original FA. --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• "Modern fears of totalitarianism" has too many unattributed statements - even though they are cited, they are someone's opinion, and need to say who is the holder of the opinion, unless it's a statement of the filmmaker. Too much POV here. For example, the last paragraph of that section does refer to the filmmaker's statements - the others don't say.

Will address: This will be addressed in the future and will take some time.--P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Themes starts with an entire paragraph that looks like someone's opinion, but only one sentence is cited.

Will address: This will be addressed in the future and will take some time.--P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Addressed: It has been addressed.--P-Chan 23:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• (uncited) Major theatres decorated the exterior of their buildings with Norsefire flags.

Addressed: This has been removed. --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

That's as far up as I read - doesn't meet WP:WIAFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I encourage you to keep reading and adding your comments. This is probably one of the most effective ways of maintaining the quality of this article (through a very critical evaluation).--P-Chan 06:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

P-Chan, I'm glad you're still so hard at work on improvements. I seem to be the only one reviewing: maybe you can urge others to have another look now? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

My primary concern right now is satisfying your concerns with this article. I'm sure you can understand from my perspective that when you get to two months into a FARC your main focus becomes compliance with policy. That said, I think I'm keeping an objective eye as to what comments are helpful and appropriate and what comments are not.

I really respect your comments and think you have a good eye as to what constitutes an FAC. Keep up the good work.--P-Chan 17:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, P-Chan; I'll look in on it again soon. In our defense (with respect to the two months), the first nom was removed (too close to main page date), and later restarted - but it has been a long one :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Look forward to it.--P-Chan 23:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

---

[edit] Section break

• Fresh review: as of [5] (Note: please don't response my comments in the middle, because it looks awful, hard to follow and breaks-up my full comments. Please add your responses after my signature.)

1. The license for Image:V for Vendetta Portman.jpg is not correct from the source. I updated the license which in turns CSD-ed. Please remove it. (ah it has been deleted before I finish this review :-)
2. The Image:VforVendettaNorsefire.jpg was taken not from the official source, but rather from 3rd party website. Information from that website gives the following terms: All information and images are (unless otherwise noted) © Warner Bros. No other uses are permitted without the prior written consent of owner. Use of the material in violation of the foregoing may result in civil and/or criminal penalties. Credits are not final and dates are subject to change. For more information, please visit their official site. I believe that this has violated its copyright and particularly it fails criterion #8 of the WP:FAIR that the image serves only as a decorative purpose. I have asked the image for a review. Please remove the image from this article.
3. Image:Vforvendettamov.jpg has a tag for reducing its size, per WP:FAIR. Please reduce the size.
4. For this source: (Moore, Alan: "V for Vendetta", Chapter 8: The Valley, pg 4, 1998). What is this? A book? paper? Who is the publisher? What's its ISBN id?
5. In this fact: "The film’s title itself is a reference to "V for Victory".". Why did you take from the following source: (Brice, Jason. "Drugs, Blow Jobs, And Howard", Silverbulletcomicbooks. Retrieved on 4 January 2007.)? Isn't it strange (look the title of the citation)? Shouldn't it be taken from the official website? BTW, I've tride to look the source, but it keeps loading.
6. The source (A for Anarchy deleted scenes. aforanarchy.com. Retrieved on 8 April 2006.) is a personal website (unauthorized). Therefore, unless the source is replaced by reliable sources, then the following fact:

An anarchist group in New York City has used the film's release to gain publicity for anarchism as a political philosophy. However, the group felt that the film waters down the anarchist message from the original story in order to satisfy mass Hollywood audiences, and instead focuses on destruction without proposing any alternatives.

is an element of original research.

1. b In this text "..., placing the book firmly in the top sales at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.", you must give information about the time. The novel is not always at the top right? When and how long?
2. b A quibble formatting issue. Why is there an italic and unitalic version of the "V for Vendetta" term in the article? What's the difference between them?

There are also some of my concerns regarding the citations. Some citations do not mention their publisher. There is also a strange used of a source only to put a citation for some terms of "V for ..." in the text. For example, the "V for victory" used this source: Newswatch 1940s. news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved on 21 Nov 2006., but the source is talking about BBC's history during the WWII. There is no any relation with the subject (the movie). For the moment, I vote for remove. — Indon (reply) — 17:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

---

Let's roll.

1) You're going to have to go into detail over this point. What is CSD-ed? And what was wrong with the copyright on the picture? Also, why was the picture deleted without any warning?

2) That is one of the most robust pictures in the article. It's certainly not a decoration and why it is not a decoration, is clearly stated in the fair-use description.

3) I can't find the specific passage relating to size. Could you elaborate? What size do you feel comfortable with?

4) Addressed

5) You're going to have to elaborate here as to what level of assurance you're expecting on such a statement. I'm questioning whether this reference needs to be referenced at all.

6) Yes, it's the website of the Anarchist group that said the statement. If Anne Coulter or Cindy Sheehan said a political statement, then I would link to their personal sites as well. What is your opinion?

Addressed: This has now been addressed through the addition of new sources.--P-Chan 05:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

1b) Addressed: I've a robust reference to address that point, which contains the Best Sellers date. However, I believe it may be very difficult to find information regarding when the Best Sellers status finished. (If you have any ideas as to how to obtain this info, I'd like to hear them). In any case, I'm going to assume that people know that best seller status is not permanent thing. (Not being sarcastic or anything, but just pointing out the robustness of it's current state)!

2b) Addressed: Those were typos. Feel free to copy-edit any spelling mistakes or typos you see in the article.

3b) In regards to the missing publishers, you can a) flag them so I or someone else can fix them b) be bold and fix them yourself. All the information should be available to you and it would save us both time in the long run. I've went through all of the references recently, but could have certainly missed some info.

4b) In regards to the BBC reference, take a look at the reference again and think about what it's referencing. Despite it not mentioning the film, it's key to the points that it is referencing. (Mind you, I consider that reference a high-level assurance one, as I believe that it may not even be necessary).

--P-Chan 20:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your nice response. I understand that this has gone through a long FAR time, but I believe everybody here wants the best work for FAs. I am going to address responses to your comments/questions first, before going to specific issues related to the current article, as of [6] (Note: now I'm going to use numbers, so you don't have to edit my comments.)

1. Regarding your comments about "feel-free to edit", "be bold", "flag them so someone else can fix them", etc., I believe, you have mistaken the meaning of FAR here. I have flagged them here by raising questions, so that you (or someone else) can fix them. Got it? And the burden of giving full citations, including publishers, is not on the readers' shoulder for FA-level articles, but on the editors.
2. Re 1), the deleted image falls into category of speedy deletion, because according to the source, the image is licensed with unfree Creative Commons license. Any images/articles that falls into CSD are subjected to be deleted without prior notice.
3. Re 2), I have asked fair use image review, so please discuss about the image in the image's talk page.
4. Re 3), please go to the image page and you will read the template.
5. Re 5), you said "I'm questioning whether this reference needs to be referenced at all." (???) Honestly, I don't understand this recursive statement. Anyway, I read the source for this statement: The film’s title itself is a reference to "V for Victory".[34]. If you read it clearly, then it is not the original source, but rather a citing from Dez Skinn's reply on the Comics International eGroup. Throughout his reply, he did not tell the story that the film refers to "V for Victory", but rather the first story of the original comic creation, when he thought of naming the comic as "V for Victory", but then was decided to be "V for Vendetta". The "V for Victory" was only inside Dez Skinn's head and has never been implemented in the comic. So, there we have a factual error in the article.
6. Re 6), you have replaced the source, so I'm not going to response your question.
7. Re 1b), you said, "In any case, I'm going to assume that people know that best seller status is not permanent thing." That's why I asked when and how long? Okay, I've seen the time there, although the prose becomes awkwardly long now with "#" signs.
8. Regarding BBC's history that they used "V for Victory". Yes you refers for that statement, but there is no relationship between BBC's action of "V for Victory" with the "V for Vendetta" film.

As a conclusion, there are improvements, but there is still WP:OR element. I'm still on remove. — Indon (reply) — 15:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I am well aware of the role of the reviewer in the FARC/FAR/FA process, as I have evaluated several FA and GA articles myself. At its heart, the role is to objectively review, measure and apply FA criteria and Wikipedia principles to the article to evaluate if it still meets FA standards. It is not to simply order, nor is the role of the editor to simply comply. (To me, the “got it?” statement and tone was mildly offensive). It is to my opinion, that both parties (the evaluators and subject matter experts) are equal partners in addressing these issues, are bound by the same principles, and work toward the same goals.

In retrospect, I believe my 3b) was worded poorly, as I should have simply requested a clarification. That said, if you and I are truly running under the same principles in the FARC, then I would expect you to specifically identify a mistake if you see it and not force a treasure hunt, and if possible, provide actionable recommendations and solutions.

This isn't cold compliance process, nor is it some “gotcha” audit. It’s collaborative, it’s iterative, it’s Wikipedia, so we’re working towards the same goals here.

That’s my 3 cents.--P-Chan 05:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

---

Re 5) Actually that was vandalism and a rather rude one at that. It has been reverted back now.

The BBC reference was a direct response to another users concerns saying that there was no proof that Beethoven's "Fifth" Symphony's 1st 4 notes resemble the letter “V” in Morse code(···–). Even though it is a logical conclusion known by listing to those notes, the user wanted us to include a citation. This conversation is striked out higher in the page. It is not OR when citations prove each statement logically and clearly :-) -- UKPhoenix79 10:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and that's good that it's sourced, but we don't do "logical conclusions" here, that's why the section is still an OR mess. You've done a great job sourcing the individual statements, but your entire reason for including the paragraph (the opening line and source) do not mention the film at all. It's still OR. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

How can it be Original Research if the research is not done by Wikipedia users but is actually cited and sourced material? Isn't that opposite to what original research means? I managed to cite your objections and show that it was not OR... I think were having a communication problem using the same words but using a different definition for them... -- UKPhoenix79 03:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, no, you didn't. Check the source that allegedly references the first sentence of the "Letter V and Number 5" section, and you'll see that it's talking about the graphic novel. Not the movie. Is the section itself better sourced than when I started protesting this two months ago? Yes. Is it still original research based on people's assumptions as to what references what in the movie? Yes. I'm working off of the Wikipedian terminology of original research, I'd hope we're working off of the same definition. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I am okay now with the sources' reliability. Actually the source V for Vendetta review. philipcoppens.com. Retrieved on 21 Nov 2006. is a good one (I've read it), and should be used more in the section, instead of the other two (BBC's history and Allan's comics). So, I'm in the weak oppose now. The section in question ("Letter V and Number 5") needs to have a small citing re-adjustment:

1. One direct quote below the headline needs a citation.
2. Similar to the graphic novel, there is repeated reference to the letter “V” and the number five throughout the film.^[33] → please replace the source, because the source does not says something about the movie. You can use the philipcoppens or lewrockwell source. Then the following facts, for instance, V was held in cell number "V", V's Zorro-like signature, etc., as long as they are written in the same source, you don't have to put a citation.

— Indon (reply) — 11:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Inchon. I think we've fixed and addressed all of your comments in the FARC. Is there anything outstanding or anything further to add? If there is, please feel free to express it, so it can be addressed. Thanks.--P-Chan 21:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Absolutely no Philip Coppens

In response to UKPhoenix's comments regarding rude vandalism, I'd just like to say that I was the one who added that reference. [7]. And despite the "rude" title and the mention of rumours, it is still light-years better than the Philip Coppens article it replaced, which quite frankly is one of the worst cases of plagiarism that I’ve ever seen. If you’ve actually read the article, you should have noticed that it copies straight out of the Wikipedia article, in some cases verbatim. For example:

• "In the original story, Fate was a Big-Brother-like computer which served as Norsefire's eyes and ears and also helped explain how V could see and hear the things he did."
• “As November 5 nears, V's various schemes cause chaos and the population grows more and more intolerant and subversive towards the regime.”
• “Playing Chancellor Sutler was also a complete role reversal for John Hurt, as he played the part of Winston Smith, a victim of the state in the film adaptation of 1984.”
• “On a nearby rooftop, Evey and chief inspector Finch watch the scene together and hope for a better tomorrow.”
• “Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, called V for Vendetta "a vile, pro-terrorist piece of neo-Marxist, left-wing propaganda filled with radical sexual politics and nasty attacks on religion and Christianity". Don Feder, a conservative columnist from Frontpage Magazine has called V for Vendetta "the most explicitly anti-Christian movie to date."

There’s much more, see for yourself: [8] And just so you know, this is no coincidence, as I remember writing many of those statements myself. In fact, there is so much material lifted from current or past V for Vendetta (film) articles that people are going to start thinking we’re copying from Philip Coppens. (Which is just wrong)! Again, this is the absolute worst reference that you could possibly have and I think its addition will harm the credibility and integrity of the article far more than a “rude” word in the references. If this is kept, I don’t see how I can support the article anymore, and I’ll have to vote “remove”. (I’m not kidding about this, there is also my own personal integrity at stake here)!

P.S: Indon, Ukphoneix79 and BadlydrawnJeff, I’m absolutely shocked that none of you caught this, as each of you said that you read that article. Let’s have some dialog on this.--P-Chan 06:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow where did this hostility come from? For one thing I never said I read that I reverted the link since I was the one who added Philip Coppens to begin with. So when BadlydrawnJeff gave the citation for that statement and said that it was referenced from "Drugs, Blow Jobs, And Howard" I knew that was not what I had added and reverted it believing that someone changed the citation to something nonsensical. Look I have always been on your side and backed you up, so why are you attacking me? If I thought you had added this I would have followed the link instead of ignoring it. -- UKPhoenix79 06:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yikes!! Sorry about that dude. I didn't mean to attack you nor did I mean it to sound personally threatening. :( If it's any consolation, it was a global comment and not directed against you.

Again, I'm honestly very sorry about that UK. --P-Chan 07:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

No prob man I now your character and that was not typical of it. Your a very cool cat. I was more concerned since I knew that was not like you. -- UKPhoenix79 07:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

If you really wrote that statements yourself without source and then Philip Coppens took it from here (though his biography is really something), then I vote absolutely for strong remove, because the article is clearly WP:OR. I'm not questioning your integrity here, but it's a nature of Wikipedia that all editors cannot be trusted; we are all anonimous editors. — Indon (reply) — 08:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

(Statement or statements?) Which one are you referring to here? In any case, I don't understand your point. Just because someone writes a statement(s) without source, doesn't mean that it is original research. It just means that it needs to be sourced, (either that or it was part of the plot, lead, etc). Not sure what you're referring to, but I'm going to assume that you are not questioning my trust as an anonimous editor. If you are, then I'd like to hear why. I'm very very open to what you have to say.--P-Chan 08:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe we are talking about "The letter V and the number 5" section, right? Now based on P.Chan's argument that Philips Coppens took your statements from this article, then the whole section does not have reliable sources to support repeated reference to the letter “V” and the number five throughout the film. — Indon (reply) — 09:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow you want to delete an article about a movie because someone plagiarized information on this cite? Do you think that the "Wizard of Oz" or "Gone with the Wind" should be removed if someone plagiarizes their wikipedia article? I don't think thats a logical move... (Sorry if that sounded sarcastic just making a point) There are many statements one can make about a movie and not need a source. If one was to try to source the plot the article would become too unwieldy to read. I do think that sources serve a great purpose and keep information honest. But there has to be limits to that... just for practicality sakes. Ok I just realized you meant strong remove of the FA and not a delete... sorry about the confusion. Even so P-Chan has given us a link to another article sourcing those statements. -- UKPhoenix79 09:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That’s correct UKphoenix! These are the two references here, both of them from primary to almost primary sources.

-Moore, Alan; David Lloyd (November 2005). V for Vendetta. DC Comics. ISBN 1401207928, (inside cover).-

In this graphic novel, Alan Moore explicitly links both of the statements in his introduction by stating:

“Good Night Home and V for Victory”

“Hello the Voice of Fate and V for Vendetta”

(So obviously, he’s playing with the quote and the title).

The second reference is from the original editor of the Warrior comics - Dez Skinn. Mr. Skinn did have some input in the creation of the comic, so if he says on his site that V for Vendetta was a twist on V for Vendetta, then it should at least have some weight.

I quote Dezz Skin: “Given the cost of Warrior, after years of small option fees it will be nice to get the part royalty for coming up with the name (as a twist on Churchill's V for Victory thus providing the author with a root for the whole V structure) plus commissioning Lloyd and Moore to produce it and editing/publishing the story in the first place!”

[9]

There may be a third reference in existence that directly quotes Alan Moore explicitly saying that Dez Skinn was the originator of the statement. (I will investigate this).

In any case, each of these statements are much more robust than most other sources you’ll see because they are (or are very close to) primary sources. Hope this helps.--P-Chan 09:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Now, this is what is wrong of citing sources. The Moore, Alan; David Lloyd (November 2005). V for Vendetta. DC Comics. ISBN 1401207928 talks about the comics, not the movie. And also for Dezz Skin's comments, it is about a story when the comics was created, not the movie. Correct me if I'm wrong. — Indon (reply) — 09:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

You're absolutely right Inchon. They are both referring to the graphic novel. However, the graphic novel is the source material for the film. Both of the mediums share many of the same references: (The titles, the zoro-signs, the room numbers, etc). So unless you assume, each of the repetitions are just coincidences, you should be able to flat out accept that both of the mediums have the same V theme. Yomangani said it best with the analogy that we basically wouldn't expect Wikipedia to demand a new analysis of film on Hamlet, that is seperate from the original play. Again, hope that helps.--P-Chan 09:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I do think you are wrong. The film is based on the book, so if a reference to a theme is true for the book it can be assumed will be true for the film unless it is specifically excluded. For example, the Des Skin reference establishes that the title of the book was derived in part from "V for Victory", so unless we assume that although the movie is based on the book, the title itself is original, and just happens to be identical to the title of the book (doesn't sound too likely does it?), then we can quite safely use that reference for the title of the film. The same goes for the use of themes established in the novel - where they are used identically in the movie, demanding separate references that specify "in the film" is not necessary. This isn't original research, it is applying references with some intelligence rather than requiring a verbatim quote for every statement. Yomangani^talk 10:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Huh? So according to that logic the Book titles of the Lord of the Rings "The Fellowship of the Ring" "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King" have nothing to do with the movies with the same name? If a movie is based off a book and the title of both are the same wouldn't logic dictate that the reasons for the novel having its name would be the same for the movie? Conversely if they were different there would be a different reason. -- UKPhoenix79 10:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wohoo, calm down, I have three simultaneous replies here. All right, if you can assume that, then it's fine (this is a review from the person who has never read the book nor seen the movie). I was pointing how the sources are used in the context and during writing the article. When I read the section and then looked into the references, only one source goes to a movie review (excluding Philips Coppens). Even one source talks about BBC's history during WWII. That's the only thing that raises my question. — Indon (reply) — 10:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The film version of V is different in tone and intent than the comic version of V, I think we all agree with that. That point alone makes using an analogy to the comic as a source for the film to be less than useful. I have no problem with the BBC thing sourcing V = 5 or whatever, but it's the entire section that still asserts something that isn't verifiably true about the film. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

That point alone makes an analogy to the comic for the film less than useful where they differ, not where ideas are taken wholesale from the book. To take a reference that establishes a motif in the novel on which the film is based, and to disallow the application of that reference when the motif appears in an identical manner in the film is, frankly, silly. This leads us to a point were we can not combine information from more than one source, because, although the connection is clear and logical, we are conducting "original research". Yomangani^talk 12:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Tone and intent? To build on Yomangani's point, that would only be relevent to much more sujective topics or ones altered between the two mediums. This is not in reference to that, and is referring to instead, V saying 49 V-words in a row and then carving a giant V on the wall. (No subtlty there.)

And with that said... BadlydrawnJeff, if you take a look at our FARC history/Article Talk so far, you'll notice that we've gone through this several times already. In fact, this exact discussion happend a month ago. (Please refer to the following timestamps on this page):

badlydrawnjeff talk 16:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yomanganitalk 17:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

In that instance there was no resolution because you simply didn't respond back (either that or we didn't request a response). In any case, this time, I think we owe it to ourselves to come to a consensus or else we're going to be doing this all over again. Therefore, I'm going to ask you directly: have your V/5 concerns been addressed? And what is your response? And if we have not addressed your concerns, please explain in a clear and exacting way, why they have not been addressed.

Cheers.

PS: Not trying to trap you here, I'm just trying to end this line of agrument so we can address other things in the article.--P-Chan 07:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this is what you were referring to? No, my concerns haven't been addressed - a massive OR section continues to exist on a featured article, with its main source being something that does not even mention the film. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• NOTE on closing: work is ongoing, please don't close without checking with reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Wouldn't think of it :). Marskell 22:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Just so you know, I'll be back on Monday.--P-Chan 17:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
• Having finally looked through it I'm a weak remove - I gave it a light copyedit but there are still problems with it:

• The character listing makes a number of comments that are opinion or original research - connection between Stephen Fry's homosexuality and that of his character, Stephen Rea's marriage to an IRA terrorist, John Hurt's role reversal, the use of stuntmen in the role of V (it's hardly unusual to have stuntmen on a film).
• The the section on differences between the film and novel is almost entirely unreferenced.
• The section on themes (not the section on V and the number 5!) is light on references too - for the Count of Monte Cristo and Nazism

If those can be fixed up, I'll be a keep (although it might be good to drag it out a little longer to make sure this is the longest FARC of all time). Yomangani^talk 13:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

It's competing with Superman for longest running; depending on the ultimate outcomes, we may learn from something from this about the usefulness of extending these reviews indefinitely. <frustrated> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for Closure

Based on past experience and from the notice on Badlydrawnjeff’s userpage, there is good chance that Badlyrawnjeff won’t be returning to the FARC process. As I’m looking forward to closure on his issue, I think this unfortunate. However, I also think that this will allow for the process to end more quickly. I would like to propose a solution for closing the FARC process in a timely manner, (for the sake of the FARC process and ourselves.) It’s in three parts.

1. When badlydrawnjeff does come back and if he still has concerns, he can go through some other wiki-arbitration process, if he so chooses. I don’t see how we can move the ball any further than it already has here.

2. Minor issues that have been brought up by Yomangani, Sandy and Indon will be addressed within the remaining timespan of the FARC. (Hopefully, these can be addressed quickly).

3. Issues such as how to reference the “differences between the graphic novel and film”, can be partially dealt with here. However, I imagine that issue will take a while as it sounds much more involving than the other issues. So instead of coming to a complete closure in that area during the FARC, perhaps we could set a clause where I would guarantee to resolve that issue in a satisfactory way… say in the next 2 months or so.

That's my 2 cents. How does that sound?--P-Chan 07:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Close This has gone on far enough and I don't think that the 3rd step is even needed since you have been very good at resolving everything that has come up. I hope you don't mind that I put this at the bottom of the page since I couldn't find what you wrote originally. -- UKPhoenix79 08:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm still here, don't worry. My main issue still hasn't been addressed, regardless, over two months after first raising it. I don't know what you mean by "past experience," either. If "close" means "we leave it as is," that's unacceptable - the section is still problematic. If close means "we take what's above and remove based on the criteria," perhaps that's best to do, given that no one seems to actually want to repair the issue. Perhaps some clarity on this would be helpful. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Jeff, I agree that that section is largely trivial, but I wouldn't defeature on that basis; I'm not sure I agree if it's OR at this point (which would of course be a serious concern). I don't want to rehash what's been said, but what specifically do you feel is insufficiently sourced? Simply observing, for instance, that 49 words begin with V in a scene, is basically an extension of the plot summary and with plot summaries some leeway must be allowed to describe them as primary sources, while avoiding OR "synthesis". I don't see synthesis here. Marskell 17:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with it being "trivial," and everything to do with the entire basis for the section lacking a source. The section claims a link without anything to back it up. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

We have (I think - the thing is so long, it's hard to count) four reviewers voting Remove based on OR, and now I'm concerned about POV as well, since the Medved review was not reinstated (per my earlier question). I think we've beaten this to death and given it our best shot in probably the longest review ever. The article structure and referencing is in good shape; it should be delisted, and if the editors/authors feel OR/POV has been addressed, the article should have no problem passing the broader scrutiny of a new FA candidacy. We've done all we can here - delist it and expose it to broader review at FAC. I didn't read the book, didn't see the movie, and think a fresh review from a broader base would sort these issues out. And I pledge not to vote on a new FA candidacy, since structural items that I usually check have been addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sandy. I have addressed your Medved concerns already. Yes, the Medved statement was not reinstated, and I explained to you in 3 points as to why (timestamp P-Chan 04:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)). 1)He has a clear political orientation and thus his comments should be in the Political Comments section. 2)However, there are quite a few comments of his orientation already in that section. (If you don't think there is enough representation in that area, please don't hesitate to flag it, as there are plenty of comments from conservative pundits that can be added.) 3)Also Medved's review is actually much less detailed than the reviews by other film reviewers.

In regards, to your comments of why Antiwar.com is used in the article, when Medved wasn't... For each statement on O'Reily referenced by Anti-war.com, there is also a reference from Debbie Schlussel, a person from the a very different political orientation. This was done intentionally to show that the right-wing pundit connection was made, not simply by individuals on one end of the political spectrum, but by very different pundits with very different views. If one were to remove the Antiwar.com references and just leave the Debbie Schlussel references, it would look unbalanced.

Have I addressed your concerns regarding the Medved reference and Anti-war.com?

It should be noted that there were no POV concerns in the last FA nomination (in May 2006) and you are the only reviewer that has mentioned POV as a concern in this FARC. I think I've addressed them very well here. To delist an article simply because (quoting Sandy) "the editors/authors feel that the OR/POV has been addressed", is a very bad reason. (That's like arresting someone without changes, and saying that "if you feel you're innocent, you should have no problem going to court.") There should be actionable objections, backed by evidence that can be addressed by the editors, and if they aren't addressed, the the delisting should go forward. However, if there aren't any actionable objections, there aren't any actionable objections. That's my 2 cents.--P-Chan 22:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

My worries about this article is that editors, which I assume are very familiar of reading the comic and watching the movie, wrote their experiences into textual forms and then tried to fill in the inline citation requirement by searching in the internet of terms they'd wrote; rather than did a research, collecting sources and then combined them into a well-referenced article. I feel that how sources are used is a bit odd. The article still has many OR elements, that is why I'm keeping my remove voice (though it is not strong anymore), and my fresh review above also revelead image problems that should be seen first during FAC. I did some quick reading again, here I state one OR element because it was written not based on a source (this is just a sample):

Norsefire in the film is largely based on present-day fears of an ultra-conservative police state, whereas Norsefire in the original story is based on a fascist regime closer to that of the Nazis. In both stories Norsefire actively participates in the systematic elimination of racial minorities, homosexuals, and political dissidents from society. But whereas the ultra-conservative regime of tomorrow also targets Muslims, the fascist regime of yesterday is explicitly focused on the protection of racial purity. Despite playing down racial elements of the regime, the film retains the Aryan superhero Storm Saxon.

The above paragraph is completely unsourced and has POV statements. I put a statement in boldface that I don't understand how that statement can be an encyclopaedic one. It looks like reading someone's opinion in a blog. — Indon (reply) — 23:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

In regards to your first method… of course editors do that! That’s what happens in tons of articles. (It’s absolutely impossible not to have some bias.) In reviewing the FA and GA’s that I have, I can safely say that references usually pop-up last. (Hit random article, and tell me how many well-sourced articles come up). It would be totally dishonest to deny this.

That said, it would be equally dishonest to say that editors don’t research from the bottom-up, don’t seek out other people’s opinions and don’t challenge their own opinions. That’s what I do and if anyone wants to make a decent article, that’s what they have to do as well. FA 1c/1d are all about that.

Now, with that said, the whole collaborative process is designed to filter out any editor specific bias. This article has gone through 2 peer reviews, a GA and a FA… and now we’re going through a FARC. Anyways, in regards to your Differences quote, I think you’re correct. The section has been heavily modified. You may recall that I mentioned the need learn more about the "#3/Differences section", before moving on. That’s because I think it’s impossible to simply rely on secondary resources for a section like that, and wanted to get some clarification on what the principles for primary source use would be.--P-Chan 05:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm not saying that the first method is not allowed, but the latter method is better, because by writing first then trying to find matching references, some assertions are left unsourced. Anyway, I've been watching the article transformation lately and I'm pleased with your work. You used reliable sources and POV statements have been removed. I like the difference between novel and film section now. However, I found an inline image linking in the main article, so I'd removed this assertion. Please use the usual Image and caption format. Only then these statements: "There is even a brief scene (during the Valerie flashback) that contains real-life footage of an anti-Iraq war demonstration, with mention of President George W. Bush. Finally, the film contains reference's to "America's war" and "the war America started" as well as real footage from the Iraq War." are still unsourced, but I am striking my remove vote and happy now the article can be KEPT as FA. You can find a source for that statement above. — Indon (reply) — 16:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand do you want references to the book for the 1st part and the holocaust for the second part? Nazis exterminated people based on their race & religion, Norsefire did the same... Is this OR especially when there are so many references in the entire article stating this? Does every sentence need a reference? Also SandyGeorgia why would this page loose its FA status? Baring the last statement the objections have been resolved every objection had had a source brought up & Parts that have been called OR have been resolved one way or another... Unless specific actionable objections are listed this page should not be desisted but have the FAR removed and be allowed to continue as the FA it is! -- UKPhoenix79 03:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not true. Every objection has not been resolved. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Jeff, let me rephrase my question. RS states "Wikipedia articles may use primary sources, so long as they have been published by a reliable source, but only to make descriptive points about the topic." Taking the movie itself as a primary source (on this basis, plot summaries are passable in general IMO) editors are allowed to describe scenes. So, again: what in the section is synthetic or interpretive? Surely that the letter "V" is repeatedly use is not "challenged or likely to be challenged." Is the number 5 the kicker? Can we remove it? Marskell 06:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well your leaving me in suspense. What has been missed... Please be specific since, and I am sincere that no sarcasm is meant by this, I cannot read your mind... Please think of this as a court of law and show us specific reasons that you think this article is not Featured Article Worthy. One cannot defend oneself when one does not know the crime one is accused of! -- UKPhoenix79 06:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

What's been missed is that we have an enitre section that asserts something that has nothing to back it up for the subject of the film. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming that was a further exhortation to Jeff and not me, correct? One thing I would say is that the Beethoven bit strikes me as synthetic analysis and should probably go. Marskell 07:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well yes it was sorry for the confusion. Actually the Beethoven bit is a well known fact and is cited as such to the BBC's own website, no conjecture on that part. Hope that helped. -- UKPhoenix79 09:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The idea that it was chosen to reinforce a theme is a supposition. Marskell 10:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me add/rephrase: the "V" bit is arguably not a theme at all so much as an asthetic that saturates the film. A "theme", classically, unifies and provides (or thoughtfully obscures) meaning. Is there some implicit larger meaning to 49 uses of "V" in the first appearance? No, beyond showing that the writer has a (rather tedious) talent for alliteration. You might call the "V"/5 a motif, but even motifs ought to "speak to something" and this doesn't speak to anything. So what is the point with Beethoven? Are we supposed to be reminded of Churchill or WWII? I don't think so, and even if you do think so it would be OR to assert as much.

This being the case, might we radically shorten this section and insert it as a smaller reference somewhere else? Again, I see this section more as trivial than truly OR and wouldn't remove on the basis of it, but Jeff is concerned and I'd badly like a compromise so I can close this. Marskell 10:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if we can "shorten" it without it continuing to be OR. The assertion lacking any sort of sourcing to back it up is still a problem, albeit not as big as it is now. My only issue with this right now is that we have a section of a featured article that is OR. The OR goes away, and so do my issues, and I no longer care to see this delisted. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

To beat the other side of the drum again: Jeff, are you suggesting that the idea that the letter "V" is repeatedly used in the film is OR? "The assertion lacking..." What assertion? Please...just so we know what we're debating. Marskell 15:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm saying that it being a thematic element is. Read the section. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

My head is a little swimmy after two days of looking at the review, so I understand if you are frustrated repeating yourself. But there is no need to be patronizing. I have read the section—three or four times at this point. You have not properly explained your OR concern in terms of what is actually said in the section. "Thematic element"—I have agreed that "theme" is the wrong descriptor. Let's move it out of theme, drop the Winston Churchill allusion (which is implicit OR) and finish. There is nothing OR about observing that the letter "V" occurs regularly in the film. As noted, this in within bounds in treating it as a primary source. Marskell 19:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Think about how I feel after 2 months. I'm not at all comfortable with the switch that happened recently to say that "oh, the number 5 comes up a lot," but I guess that problem is gone now. I see where the triviality comes into play now, but I suppose that's not a reason to oppose it anymore. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I removed the Churchill bit myself and moved the section to its own level two. Reading again, it is just a random string of examples where one or two would do. But no, I don't think it an oppose basis at this point. Marskell 19:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I am going to be traveling soon, and can no longer keep up with this lengthy FARC. If/when Indon and Yomangani are satisfied, I can be considered a Keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - there are still two points that I'm unhappy about, but I don't think either of these is enough to strip it of its status:
  • Actor Stephen Rea is also Irish and was once married to Dolours Price, a former member of the IRA, imprisoned for bombing the Old Bailey - unless you can provide a reference from somebody stating that this informed his performance it is irrelevant. It might be OK to feature in an article on Stephen Rea, but not here.
  • Revenge is a central motivation for V and the film makes explicit connections to similar themes in the Count of Monte Cristo. - needs a reference. Yomangani^talk 09:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The talk page says that this is closed..... Can someone officially close this now? -- UKPhoenix79 12:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] USS Wisconsin (BB-64)

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at MilHist and Ships. Sandy (Talk) 14:21, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This article falls within the scope of the Military history Wikiproject, but was sidelined from the start for having "citation problems": there were a total of 14 inline citations for roughly 40 kilobytes of info. Today I had a chance to dig into the article to add sources for the information, the article now has 90 kilobytes of information and over 300 inline ciations (before I reduced the number by using the <ref name=""> tabs to bring the number down). I feel the ciation issue has been adressed, now I am looking for any other complaints that other may have with the article’s FA status. Note that I am in school at the moment, so if I appear slow to respond be patient; its likely school work has me tied up. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I hope the MilHist group will weigh in on the quality of the citations. Although four books are listed in references, the article is almost entirely cited to one website, which is unofficial. Further problems with the current references;
  • Cite 1 - Wiki is not a source
  • Cite 2 is the same as 5 and 7
  • Cite 3 is the same as 8 (it looks like named refs weren't used correctly throughout)
  • Cites 4 and 14 aren't refs, rather notes that seem to require refs themself.
  • Many of the citations need to be expanded to bibliographic style: 16, 17 and 18 at least.
• The bibliographic style on the footnotes needs attention. Has the article been run by MilHist for a peer review on the referencing? Sandy (Talk) 14:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - http://www.navysite.de/bb/bb64history.htm ref 2 is a direct copy of DANFS, an official USN dictionary of fighting ships. I've fixed the ref to point to the original PD DANFS source. --Dual Freq 16:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks - that helps ! Sandy (Talk) 19:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Those appear to be split so there won't be so many refs on one line. Do we want to fix this? I can make them all point to one DANFS link? That would put about several dozen refs all on 1 line. --Dual Freq 16:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • FYI, combining all the DANFS refs results in Cite error 7; Ran out of custom backlink labels, define more in the "cite_references_link_many_format_backlink_labels" message So they have to be split or it will create an error. The limit appears to be 129 ref and there are about 150 DANFS links and about 130 USS Wisconsin.org links. --Dual Freq 18:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Interesting - can we ask somewhere if some tech folks can fix that limit? Sandy (Talk) 19:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Good question. I found out the hard way that the custom ciations were capped, otherwise I would have continued to cite the same source with the same reference tag. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Looks like the limit is set by MediaWiki:Cite references link many format backlink labels, I put a request in with the last editor to change that page to add more so the article can exceed 130. Maybe the solution is not to add more but to trim somewhere so that there are less. I don't know, but I'm not an admin and can't add to the Mediawiki backlink page. --Dual Freq 20:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
        • There's a much simpler solution: many of the paragraphs are overcited - see my comments below. Also, the correct form for named refs isn't employed (using backslash for repeat refs). Sandy (Talk) 20:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I thought an FA Review required that "a nominator must specify these criteria" that the article fails. This nomination seems to be looking for someone else to find failing criteria. Is this a proper nomination? What is the criteria this article fails? I've never edited the article before today, but I'm trying to understand the FAR process. Since no issues were brought up on the talk page about delisting, I'm not sure I understand why this article was nominated. --Dual Freq 18:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I had the same problem with this review, which is why I asked if it had a MilHist peer review (which seems to me to be a more efficient means of accomplishing the goal), but the FAR instructions do say, "FARs are intended to facilitate a range of improvements to FAs, from updating and relatively light editing—including the checking of references and their formatting ..." Not sure. Those notes are the ugliest I've ever seen, with such a reliance on one source, and they do need to be expanded to a biblio style still. Sandy (Talk) 19:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Kirill Lokshin, our lead cooridinator, has several FA class articles that he wants put through the FAR process because they have "citation problems", and this article happened to be in that category. While citations were the primary reason behind the FAR request I would be open to additional criticism, although from my stand point all other criteria remain sufficently satisified that there should be no large scale problems. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Oh my gosh. Has Kirill taken a close look at the citations here? I took a closer look at what was going on with the references, and strongly suggest that this article should be removed from FAR and run through a MilHist peer review. The referencing isn't done correctly. The problems are:
  • Named refs aren't used correctly: every single named reference is completely repeated, chunking up the size of the article. Please use the slash at the end of the ref for repeat refs - see the examples I did at the top of the article.
  • Within one paragraph, multiple sentences are each cited to the same source, when the source could be listed once at the end of the paragraph. This would remove about 2/3 of the overdone footnotes.
  • A massive number of statements have two references - the same ones - wouldn't one source suffice for some of those?
• This referencing situation is elementary stuff, that could be cleaned up via a MilHist peer review - FAR might not be the best place for addressing basic referencing. Sandy (Talk) 19:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Per feedback from Kirill, striking my comment that FAR not the best place for review. Sandy (Talk) 20:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• The reason everything is so heavily (exhaustively?) cited is that our citation guidelines recommend such thoroughly citing sources, and "when in doubt, cite" has always been a rule I try and follow. I am sorry if this has created a headache for you or anyone else involved in this FAR, as that was never my intention. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Completely agree and thoroughly endorse that rule, but 1) does every sentence need two cites, and 2) if all the sentences in one paragraph are from one source, you can cite once, not every sentence. There is still the problem that the article overly relies on one source, and doesn't use any of the book references. Sandy (Talk) 20:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
    • 1) Every sentence was cited was cited because I really got into it. In reality the only sentences that absolutely need to be cited are the ones that have information on combat action — shots fired, hits taken, missiles launched, etc. I cited each sentence because a specific date (day, month, and year) was given for the action, which I felt nessicitated an inline citation. Something I want to add about the two primary sources: DANFS and the wisconsin.org cite do not always agree with each other on dates and battle engagements; DANFS omits some material and has virtually nothing on Wisconsin in the Gulf War, which was the driving force behind the two-sources-per-sentence citations: if two sources were cited it meant that both sources agreed on an action, if only one is source is cited it usually means the other source ommitted or glossed over the material. 2) I tried citing one source for an entire paragraph before (not in this article though) and people came along and added 'citation needed' tags to parts in the paragraph they thought were not cited. I wanted to avoid that this time around, so I cited everything. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Status? Tom, were you planning to finish the ref cleanup work here, or did you need help? Sandy (Talk) 20:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• I intend to, I just need another day; I got roped into an emergency typing session. Aparently I incorrectly tyrped my professors email adress when I sent two essays to her;she never got them and I do not have copies of the essay because of space issues on my hard drive. Grades are do at the end of the week, so its type or die for the passing grade. Trust me, I am getting back to the article, but I do not want fail the class; I been there before, its not fun :( TomStar81 (Talk) 00:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok Sandy, I think I got all the inline citations that needed fixed. I also rearranged the citations so they appear at the bottom of the paragraph unless their is a really good reason for them to be in the main body itself. I fixed a few links and made a few gramatical corrections as well. Sorry that took longer than expected, I caught a cold and the light from my computer moniter is bugging my eyes. (What is it with my luck anyway? Sheesh...) TomStar81 (Talk) 03:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Please delink all of the dates that aren't full Month-day-year dates, and review all of your wikilinking for consistency (link only important terms, link the first occurrence of each term, etc.). You moved *all* of the references to the ends of paragraphs, and combined them all at the end of the paragraph? You might want to doublecheck that some of those references weren't intended to cite a very specific fact from one source, that would be better placed at the end of the sentence, rather than the end of the paragraph. What I was referring to earlier is that (for example) a paragraph of five sentences - all from the same source - didn't need to have that source repeated on each sentence. If the entire paragraph comes from one source, you can cite the paragraph once. On the other hand, if you have a paragraph cited to 3 different sources, it's better to specify which sentence comes from which source, rather than grouping them all at the end. Hope you're feeling better ! Sandy (Talk) 19:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Status: does this need to go down or are people pleased? Marskell 20:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I wish other reviewers would take a look: we haven't really examined the article, because it was stalled with faulty citing, and I seem to have been the only editor commenting. Sandy (Talk) 20:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Month-Day dates are subject to user date prefences (e.g. 1 March versus March 1), and still need to be linked appropriately; removing the formatting from the article was a bad idea. Kirill Lokshin 02:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

My mistake - I'll go put them back :-) Sandy (Talk) 17:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Commment Ref 1 is a note with web links that should be refs themselves. Ref 7's "found here" is a link to an IMAGE, not a reference, and the web refs are not in conistent format (ex, they don't all have retrieval dates. Would like to see more different refs that 15 (some of which are notes). Rlevse 13:07, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Finding more refernces is somewhat difficult because the article is almost entirely the story of Wisconsins history. I will look into the prospect of finding other refernces that have new information, but I do not hold out much hope for that possibility. Ref 7, the image as you put it, was created to help people find the new missile magazines and phalanx mounts after a question was raised on Wisconsins talk page as to why there were none showing. I can remove that if you want, but I thought it would be easier to find added weapons systems if visitors had a visual aid. I will look into adressing the other complaints forthwith. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

As for ref 7, you can't use wiki as ref for a wiki article anyway. On top of that, the writing is so small on that image (even blown up), that you can't read it. The ref in the article says "a complete guide"; a pic with some caption isn't a complete guide.Rlevse 21:21, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I will post my detailed comments on this article on its talk page. I have to do a little research in a few areas, though (namely call the handiest US Marine I can find to pump for information). Overall it's still a pretty good article, nothing too substantive that needs changed, other than a discussion of the armaments at the beginning of the article, and not just in the box. KP Botany 02:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment It's a bit hard to believe there aren't more sources on this ship, though, her mention in all the battles, memoirs of the officers of the TFs, etc., etc. I haven't been following the sourcing controversy, I like to do the edits. KP Botany 23:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citation sufficiency and format (1c). Marskell 00:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Moving down as it was not definite to close. Marskell 00:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Big improvements have been made to the article over the last three weeks, I feel the citation issue has been adequately addressed. Note that I am the one who originally brought the article up ta FA standards low these many monthes ago, so my opinion is somewhat bias :) TomStar81 (Talk) 02:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• I hate the sexist "she" for a ship. It's all about male control/ownership, isn't it. Tony 04:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If it makes you feel batter, I here that russian ships are refered to as "he". I know for a fact that the Imperial German Battleship Bismarck was refered to as "he". TomStar81 (Talk) 08:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Are there any other comments on this one? Marskell 08:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• • • It's what is used, we're not here to set precedent in gender relations. KP Botany 23:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove. I find the referencing inadequate. For example, it's most unsatisfactory to have [3] occurring paragraph after paragraph, as though a tongue in cheek response to reviewers' requests for a professional approach to verification. Although the reference appears to be affiliated with the US Navy, it is totally unreferenced itself and has no explicit authorship. I wouldn't be so concerned if there wasn't such a heavy reliance on a single website. I've removed the female pronouns standing for the ship at the top, which I, and no doubt many other readers, find offensive. Tony 12:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Further, those cites to that one source are what's left after I helped Tom remove about three times as many that were initially there - I would like to see a better method of referencing this article, and wish MilHist reviewers would jump in here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. It hugely depends on one source. Whole sections have no other source! I agree with Tony. If this is not fixed, I'm afraid I'll be a remove voter.--Yannismarou 19:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
  • How else then do you propose I/we/Wikipedia cite the article? This is a historical text about one ship, not about the class, not about battleships in general, just Wisconsin. The primary source for US ship articles here has always been the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) so far as I know, other sources on the web cite DANFS when discussing this battleships history. There will likely be no other Military History members commenting here, for some reason project members either do not care about what happens to the page or believe that since the page has been reinstated on our own FA showcase section it will likely clear FARC without there two cents. Short of leaving messages on every members talkpage, it will likely just be me commenting and improving. As for the use of "she": if you check out the talk page for the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) you would see a large section devoted to the use of "she" versus the use of "it". Raul654 and others who commented there agreed that either one was ok, so long as the article used the same elected word (she or it) for the entire length. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, I am also a member of the military project as you can easily find out. Now ... I definitely disagree with Kirill's position that in order to criticize a certain article's referencing, I must be able to propose alternative sources. As a reviewer I notice a problem and I refer it; this is my role! And for me the heavy reliance of 3-4 sections of the article on a single source is a huge problem for me as far as FA status is concerned. I believe that FA quality demands a better research and variety of sources, even though the location of these sources may be difficult. Therefore, the current level of referencing impedes me from being a keep voter and still brings me closer to a remove vote. Thanks!--Yannismarou 18:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
      • But the point being made is that it's not (necessarily) a problem! There are any number of good reasons for having a limited number of sources; the chief ones are (1) that there simply aren't any other (useful) sources or (2) that the sources already used are the canonical works on the topic, and that any others are merely derivatitive or redundant. It's perfectly fine to criticize the sourcing if you actually have some concrete reason to believe that some significant source has not been adequately consulted; but it's silly to insist that an article must have some arbitrary number X of sources without actually knowing whether there are X useful sources for this topic. Kirill Lokshin 19:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
        • If, Kirill, more sources are not available, then I understand the difficulty, but do not ask me to accept such an article as a FA! Silly or not, this is my opinion, and I strongly insist on it! I believe that a strong reliance of 3-4 sections on a single source, parts of which have been copy-pasted, impedes an article from being FA. The editor cannot find a solution to this inherent problem of the article? Then, I'm sorry, but this is not my problem! Not all articles can become FA. As it is now the article, the huge reliance on a single copy-pasted source is a huge flaw.--Yannismarou 08:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. The level of citation—that is, the direct connections made from the text to the sources—is now quite adequate. As far as the sources themselves are concerned, I'd argue that if you wish to take issue with an article's referencing, it's expected that you be able, at the very least, to name other significant sources which the editors have failed to consult. As far as I know, the reliability of the DANFS is not a controversial matter; the work happens to be the canonical source for the histories of individual USN ships, so it is entirely unsurprising to see it cited as often as it is. Kirill Lokshin 21:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, per Kirill. If there are important sources that have not been consulted, please point them out. Otherwise, the level of citation seems adequate. Carom 21:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Question, I'm concerned that three books are listed in Further reading,References so there are other sources, but they aren't used. I'd like to hear from MilHist on this. Would those books add anything new, give alternate viewpoints, etc? In general, I would object to overreliance on one source when others are available, so pls educate me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Maybe I'm just completely daft, but I don't see a "Further reading" section here. What might you be referring to? Kirill Lokshin 19:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Sorry, References <darn memory>. So, question becomes even stronger - they're listed as Refs, should they be used, or switched to Further reading? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, if they're listed as references, they presumably were consulted. The fact that there are no citations from them isn't really indicative of anything, in my opinion; given how densely cited the article is already, they would likely be redundant, at best (particularly as they appear to be quite general works, and so are likely sources more for the general sense of the narrative than for highly specific details). Kirill Lokshin 20:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Consulted?! And what proves that they were actually consulted? How were they used in the article? Per Sandy. And let me ask you another thing: We have a hot debate about whether the reliance on a single source is a problem or not. Then, excuse me, but if the editor has indeed consulted these sources, why hasn't he used them as inline citations to face the above problem. If this section is really "References", then these books should be used as such; otherwise, it is "further reading". I think it is time to vote: weak remove as it is now the article per all my above comments. If the single-sourcing problem is not resolved, I'm afraid I can go as far as neutral.--Yannismarou 09:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Status. There obviously isn't consensus to close, and I'd like to make a couple of points on the above debates.

• There are sixteen sources, not one; for a subject this specific, I'm actually surprised to see so many. I also worry that reviewers maybe focused on a nose count re sources, ahead of taking the article as an individual piece. Per WP:V, is there any material "challenged or likely to be challenged"? Yes, there are an enormous number of notes for the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, but it's a .mil site and I will certainly trust Kirill in suggesting it's canonical.
• I'd guess those general books listed under References were placed there when the article was still young and other sources hadn't yet been provided. We can't assume they were consulted for specific info, so I'd suggest changing it to Further Reading. I don't see this as decisive. Marskell 10:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Sixteen sources covering specific parts of the article. I still believe the research is not adequate, but I respect the majority here. The "references" or "further reading" thing is not decisive, but it must be clarified. Since most people here believe that the citing of the article is adequate, and, if the "References" or "further reading" thing is clarified, regard my vote as neutral.--Yannismarou 14:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• I only asked about the other books because I want to know if they may present anything new or alternate viewpoints to the .mil sources. I guess what I really mean is I need to know if military sources have a pov that might be addressed by anything in those books. If the answer is no, then I'm happy with the article, but I'm not sure I've gotten answer yet. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• I can not testify as to what information is present in "The Floating Drydock", as that was not one of mine. The other two are; the information drawn from "The Battleships" and "The Navy" is small since both books deal with the their topics in an "forest" view, looking at the big picture in stead of the trees. "The Battleships" presents a little information on the Iowa’s during there WWII service, and notes that they have all become muesem pieces, while "The Navy" presents a limited amount of information on the role of the four Iowa’s in the "600-ship Navy" plan outlined in the 1980s. Nothing specific was taken out of those two books for Wisconsin since the information they presented could be better cited to other sources. For example, in "The Navy" it notes that all four Iowas were modernized, recieving new gun and missile mounts, while the Federation of American Scientists website provides an armorment chart showing that the battleships recieved tomahawk missiles, harpoon missiles, and Phalanx CIWS mounts. Given a choice between the two, the latter source provides more information of value. Under the circumstances, I would assume that "The Floating Drydock" would also be a "forest" type book and would endorse the recommendation to rename the secion with the books "Further Reading". TomStar81 (Talk) 20:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Tom, why don't you cite twice where you can, incorporating those two books as much as possible. Marskell 22:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Poor Tom - I had him remove double cites :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Gotcha. In lew of the newly posted suggestions on Wisconsin’s talk page I think I will take a copy of the current version and place it in my sandbox to do some rebuilding to adress the excelent points raised here and there. I will try to rush the new additions so as not to keep everyone waiting in suspense, but this may take a while since finding printed material in a book is harder than finding it online, not to mention all that double citing I now have to do :) TomStar81 (Talk) 04:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Now that you know how to used named refs, it shouldn't be as hard - remember to cite page nos on books. Also, if you can strongly cite something from a book, maybe you can remove some of that long list cited to DANFS, to shorten the list? Let me know if you need any help on citation formatting or anything. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:22, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, I took a stab at adding what I could from the books to the article. I mamaged to eek out 3 citations from "The Battleships" and one from "The Navy"; I would have done better but the books are just to broad to cite specifics. I also played with the introduction and construction some based on suggestions left on Wisconsin's talk page. Note that "The Battleships" has to seperate inline citation points because the page numbers are different for the cited info. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep with some work if the references check out. I've noticed that with few exceptions (although I stopped looking) articles on Wikipedia get all of their main information from 1-3 primary sources, then only get subsidiary information from the other 3 dozen sources listed (in this article, find the name of the hurricane, subsidiary source). The article is fine in general, needs a lot of attention to detail, the primary editor appears to be willing to do this. I will also discuss it with the various experts in my family as I get the chance. KP Botany 23:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chess

[edit] Review commentary

Brilliant prose promotion, no original author. Messages left at Board and table games and Chess. Sandy (Talk) 14:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Poor referencing. --Ideogram 09:13, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. No inline citations (see History section in particular), external link farm, section headings don't conform to WP:MOS, weasle words (e.g.; "has been described as", "is sometimes seen as", "another theory exists"), and some of the images are tagged and need attention. Sandy (Talk) 15:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• External links already cleaned--Ioannes Pragensis 15:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Sandy said it all, I'll just add that some small paras need expantion or merging to improve style.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• Status? This article has been significantly improved by Bubba73, Ioannes Pragensis, and Andreas Kaufmann ( diff since nom), but I suggest moving to FARC only to keep it on track, as there is a bit more work to be done. History could use better citation, there are still some instances of weasle words, some of the References need to be expanded to full bibliographic style, there are still image tags which need to be addressed, and I'm not sure the word "Chess" should be re-used so often in the TOC (per WP:MOS). Some of the references appear to be to personal websites, rather than reliable sources, and one of the references is a Wiki. Leaving talk message for Ideogram. Sandy (Talk) 14:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• The rules say "The nomination should last two weeks, or longer where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process. " - The article is under work currently (40+ items in the changelog during the last 24 hours), so I suggest to let it still in the FAR phase.--Ioannes Pragensis 16:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Sounds good as long as work is progressing. Sandy (Talk) 17:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comments Prose is terrible. "Variants of gameplay" is a grab bag of topics, the subsection "Ways to play" talks about time controls and variants, which don't belong together, and the "Computers" section could use expansion. "Strategy and tactics" section could use improvement. Consider adding a "Competitive play" section like that in Go (board game). Personally I don't give a fig for references, but since Go was de-featured for this (among other) reasons, I felt it would be fair to hold this article to the same standards. --Ideogram 19:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Terrible prose - agree, we need a good stylist. Variants of gameplay - I improved it already, thanks for the hint. Expansion of Computers - we do not have place for it, the article has already more than 35 kB. Competitive play - it is already described in the History section. References - agree, they are important; does somebody have good English books about Chess history? Cheers, --Ioannes Pragensis 20:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

35KB is not large, especially for a topic as important as Chess. I wouldn't worry about the size for now. --Ideogram 20:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:SIZE says that we should keep the length of the main body about 30 kB. Otherwise it is too long to read for average readers. We have a special article about Computer chess, so we need only brief intro here, I think.--Ioannes Pragensis 20:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

That's just a guideline. Many featured articles, especially on important topics, are longer. The recently promoted Angelina Jolie is 71KB for instance. Which is more important?

The computer chess section doesn't have to be a lot longer, just more balanced. Right now it says too much about the history of creating chess playing machines, and nothing about how computers play chess differently than humans, and only one sentence each about computers as chess seconds and for internet play.

A "competitive play" section could talk about rating systems, how tournaments work, and generally inform new players who might want to participate.

"Strategy and tactics" is the heart of chess and this section really needs to shine. If you are worried about size you don't have to add a lot in the other areas I mentioned, but this should be much longer, and the majority of the article. --Ideogram 20:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course Angelina is more important. And she does not have sub-articles like we do, therefore all the stuff must be in the main article about her. :-) - But seriously, I agree with your ideas about Competitive play and Strategy and tactics. Moreover I think that we should better elaborate the post-war history of chess; I wrote a short outline only, but it should be enhanced.--Ioannes Pragensis 21:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

If you can afford to wait, you might consider placing your outline in the article with sections labelled as stubs to invite other editors to contribute. I used this tactic with some success on operating system. --Ideogram 22:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the idea, I did it.--Ioannes Pragensis 22:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Size check Overall 36KB, prose size is under 30KB and doesn't show as size check - one of the shortest FAs I've seen in a long time, plenty of room to expand. Sandy (Talk) 22:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Active improvements ongoing, extend FAR. Concerned about the number of stub tags added, and hope those will be addressed during FAR? Sandy (Talk) 16:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• I added the stub tags, following Ideogram's advice, to mark the weaknesses of the article and places where it should be extended. In my opinion, these issues must be addressed soon, or the article will lose the FA status. I will work on it in hope that others will help, too.--Ioannes Pragensis 19:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Wow, lots of work going on here, but where did the WP:LEAD go? Hope it will work its way back up to 3 or 4 summary paragraphs. Sandy (Talk) 16:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• It has been just destroyed by a vandal. I'll try to repair it.--Ioannes Pragensis 16:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I believe that the phase of raw cleaning is behind us (a horrible work). Now we need another input for the fine-tuning. Cheers, --Ioannes Pragensis 21:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I've done a small amount of work on the article, but a couple of editors have done a tremendous amount of work on it. I think it has impoved greatly. If you haven't looked at it lately, please take another look. Bubba73 (talk), 15:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), images (4), and MoS concerns (2). Marskell 14:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I wonder why you move it to FARC when the changes are still ongoing and moreover in my opinion many of the original concerns were already addressed?--Ioannes Pragensis 15:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Just to keep things on track timewise - FARC can also be extended beyond the two-week period as long as work is progressing, so don't be concerned. Sandy (Talk) 17:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Original concerns have been largely addressed, and the article has been massively rewritten. (I'm going to ping Tony to look at the prose.) Has anyone reviewed the issue with the images? If not, can someone ping Jkelly to have a look? The footnotes need to employ a standard bibliographic style - they're kind of all over the place, and need to be more consistent. Sandy (Talk) 17:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Size. I know I said earlier that size was fine, but now the article has grown a bit large. The overall size is 73KB, with 53KB prose, which is quite high. Can you make more use of Summary style in some sections, to get the prose size down around 40KB? Sandy (Talk) 17:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• I deleted about 7 kB of prose, i.e. we are slightly over 45 kB - is it OK?--Ioannes Pragensis 18:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Exactly 45 kB after I removed also the chess diagrams.--Ioannes Pragensis 19:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment -- Lots of images. Image:Garry kasparov.jpg is almost certainly a copyright infringement, and Image:Botvinnik.jpg fails our sourcing requirements. Otherwise the images seem to be fine. Jkelly 17:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Images deleted from the article.--Ioannes Pragensis 18:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. History and Culture sections could still use more inline citations - there are a lot of facts that aren't referenced. Sandy (Talk) 22:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Most of it are basic facts which are probably in every better book about history of chess - but my problem is that I do not have access to English books about chess and I do not think that it would be good to cite e.g. German ones if there is a lot of English books. Does somebody have access to such books and could cite them there, please?--Ioannes Pragensis 23:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Btw Amazon.com says: History of Chess by Harold J. Murray; Chess: The History of a Game (Hardinge Simpole Chess Classics) by Richard Eales; History of Chess by Jerzy Gizycki. So if you have one of these...--Ioannes Pragensis 23:22, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I already added two citation to History section. Please add {{cn}} to the places where you think citation is needed and I will try to verify them using Murray's or Edward Lasker's book, which I have, and add a citation accordingly. Andreas Kaufmann 11:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to add tags, since I don't play chess, but I'll add a few for now, and more depending on your feedback. Sandy (Talk) 03:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The entire section, Post-war era, is uncited - is it possible to put one cite per paragraph, or to give an indication inline of the source of that history? Sandy (Talk) 04:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way you can search inside in some books on Amazon, e.g. The genealogy of chess, so somtimes you can add references even if you don't have the book. Andreas Kaufmann 11:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Andreas. I discovered Google books (http://books.google.com/) for the same purpose. But they do not show all pages. Greetings,--Ioannes Pragensis 13:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I have seen both Italy and Spain cited as places of birth of the modern chess. It should be better cited and perhaps a bit more elaborated in the article. It is possible, that there are different opinions in the circles of historians. I've added a cn tag there. Can someone look in the books, please?--Ioannes Pragensis 08:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't want to be boring, but the number of inline citations is still too small; many paragraphs are as yet unsourced.--Aldux 14:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am not against much more inline citations. But on the other side, WP:CITE says "Attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" and not "Attribution is required for every paragraph." The article is of very high-level nature, written for non-expert readers and much of the information here is in many chess books - so I do not expect that somebody would seriously challenge e.g. the paragraph about basics of endgames today... all the wisdom there is known already for 150 years or more. I could cite e.g. Euwe's major work about endings, but it would look like if somebody cites Einstein to source that "1+1=2". Non-experts cannot understand Euwe. What do you think about it?--Ioannes Pragensis 14:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with Aldux, but since I don't play chess, I could be wrong. It seeme to me that most of the uncited paragraphs are clearly rules and descriptions of how Chess is played, and that all of that info can be found in the FIDE rules or any of the books. I was asking for cites on specific information about the history, or stats on players, but I'm comfortable with not citing the basics of how to play the game. I'm not aware, though, if any of that could be challenged. Sandy (Talk) 19:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I hope that I solved it by adding some citations, mostly from books for beginners and slightly advanced players into the strategy/tactics section. It will not harm, I think, and those who seek citations will be content. :-) --Ioannes Pragensis 20:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I've just replaced the last remaining cn tag with a citation and every significant section has at least one reference. What next?--Ioannes Pragensis 21:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It's looking good, but I still don't see cites in the Post-War era. We need to get Tony and other copyeditors to look at the prose. Sandy (Talk) 21:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I've overlooked it. This is a task mainly for Bubba :-).--Ioannes Pragensis 22:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Per Sandy, and the average subsection only has one inline citation. Good work on the part of those involved, but I vote Remove unless this is addressed. LuciferMorgan 03:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I count 54 footnotes and 22 subsections, about 2.45 footnotes per subsection. Bubba73 (talk), 04:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Once again: WP:CITE says "Attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged," which is already almost fulfilled. We need only citations for the modern history (Bubba73, please add them) and this will be OK. There are sections which should stay with one citation, that is Rules section or the short section about notation, because there is only one authoritative source for it, the official FIDE rules - I do not see a reason to add more citations there if the FIDE Handbook is already cited.Ioannes Pragensis 06:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment so thanks Bubba73 the Post-War era is referenced and our average number of references / paragraphs is about 3.5 (I do not count the intro, See alsos etc.). If you think that something can be challenged and therefore should be cited, use the cn tag please. - If I understand it right, the most important remaining problem is that the article should be copyedited; could you Sandy please contact somebody able and willing to do the work for us? Ioannes Pragensis 19:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'll see what I can do. Sandy (Talk) 00:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Gzkn (talk • contribs) is a chess enthusiast, and agreed to copyedit, so you're in good hands ! Sandy (Talk) 01:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Thank you very much, Gzkn and Sandy!--Ioannes Pragensis 07:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Just for comparison, this is how it looked before FAR (November 20, about 750 edits back in the history log, therefore not easy to find). It is also hard to find one single sentence unchanged since then...--Ioannes Pragensis 22:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment A number of us have made a lot of edits in the last few days and weeks to this article. It's been massively overhauled. What outstanding FARC issues are there? --Dweller 13:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. I can't recall another article in FAR which has received as much effort as Chess. The article has been referenced, reorganized, and rewritten, with little prodding needed from FAR reviewers, and little input. I'd still like to see a few changes (I'm not thrilled with players - played in the lead, and liked some of the old lead wording better), but I believe this article has improved so dramatically that it shouldn't be delisted. Sandy (Talk) 00:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Has this FARC been closed? --Dweller 22:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Order of St. Patrick

Messages left at Lord Emsworth, Ireland and Nurismatics. Sandy (Talk) 15:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Now that a bunch of my FAR nominations have been reviewed, here is another one in need of in-line citations. Also, it has at least one deprecated image tag. Judgesurreal777 22:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Needs inline cites. LuciferMorgan 23:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment might be salvageable. The main problem seems to be that some of the references aren't what we now regard as reliable. I'll have a look at it if nobody picks it up (which judging from past FARs in this area is fairly likely). Yomangani^talk 18:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • This would be the third "Order of ..." article to come through here, I believe. It's great if at least some of Emsworth's articles get saved. Jay32183 22:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment As with the Orders of the Garter and the Bath, I'll try to help cite this, but I'm very busy at the moment. --Dr pda 16:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Managed to find some time :) I've cited most of the article, and put {{fact}} tags in where I didn't have a reference. I've added some images (and removed the one with the deprecated tag, which was low resolution anyway). I haven't removed the references I didn't use (which were basically all of the existing ones) in case they're useful for the missing citations. The history section needs expanding though; I don't have time to compress 200-odd pages of Galloway's book into a few paragraphs. (I note in passing that both the other Order of... articles have now been kept, hopefully we can make it three from three) Dr pda 02:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll try and work on the few missing citations this week (do I sense the Thistle heading this way?). Yomangani^talk 10:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yomangani has made some decent work on these Order related FARs, so can we please not wear him out? If they come thick and fast, he might not be able to give them the attention they deserve. LuciferMorgan 22:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the sentiment, but Dr Pda has done most of the work on the Order articles so far and the nomination rate has already slowed down, so it isn't a problem for me at least. I'm having trouble finding supporting references for some of the claims in this particular article which is why work is somewhat slow. Yomangani^talk 22:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to get back to the library this weekend and have another look at Galloway's book to see if I can get the last couple of citations. It also has a colour version of the painting of the foundation installation banquet (I tried to take a photo last time, but it didn't work because of the glossy page). Re the issue of supporters, the reason I put a fact tag on it was because I didn't see this privilege mentioned in the original statutes. The reference which has been added for this doesn't explicitly mention the Order of St Patrick. Also as I understand it the stall plates of the Orders are usually brass with an enamelled coat of arms (see Image:Stall plates of Knights of the Thistle.jpg), so they would be colourful. I note in passing that Wikipedia:WikiProject Orders, Decorations, and Medals now exists. Dr pda 12:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Status? This is almost at two weeks: should we move it down to keep on track, or is it close to a keep? Sandy (Talk) 18:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• We are trying to track down one last citation, after which it needs a copyedit at least. Yomangani^talk 18:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you get that last cite? A look tells me we might not need FARC. What does the nominator think? Marskell 15:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I found the last cite today. I'll add it, plus some more information and another picture when I have time tomorrow. Dr pda 16:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The article is now fully cited, some inaccuracies have been corrected, and all images have appropriate licences. Dr pda 17:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Should Chancery by capitalized at section heading, Chapel and Chancery ? Sandy (Talk) 18:34, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
    • This one looks OK to close without FARC - another save! Sandy (Talk) 17:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hurray! I'm glad to see another one keep its star :) Judgesurreal777 22:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Downfall

[edit] Review commentary

Original author, Raul654, aware. Messages left at MilHist and Japan. Sandy (Talk) 21:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Has no in-line citations at all (1c) and contains weasel words ("Everybody has" in one of the paragraphs). It appeared on the Main Page in 2004, which leads me to believe that it's a very old-school article before in-line cites were required. Hbdragon88 20:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Both of the claims in this listing are wrong. There are 10-20 parenthatical citations. And the phrase "everybody has" does not occur anywhere in the article (which has not changed in over 2 weeks) Raul654 21:19, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say 1. c. isn't met here, regardless of whether the 10-20 parenthetical citations count or not. Also, the lead is rather short. LuciferMorgan 21:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the overall level of citation isn't really adequate, regardless of the exact number involved; for example, there are direct quotes (which is what I'm guessing the contents of the "Assumptions" section are) which aren't cited. Kirill Lokshin 02:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

"Everyone" is in the section of casualties. "Everybody based their estimates on the experience of the preceding campaigns, but they could draw different lessons:" I thought this was a rather obvious fact, to introduce the various estimates done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by Adm. Nimitz's staff, by Gen. MacArthur's staff, etc., etc.

—wwoods 23:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

If that is the case, the the person who made this FAR nom does not understand the concept of weasel words. Weasel words are a way to drop an unreferenced commentary or opinion into an article ("Some people say..." is the the canonical example). Saying "everybody did this" and then enumerating who did what is, as this article does, by definition, not weasel words. In fact, give how wrong both of the nominator's claims are, I'm starting to doubt he even read the article, and I'm tempted to remove this FAR listing. Raul654 03:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to disagree with a removal, as the complete lack of inline citations in the beginning sections of this article would merit its listing here, regardless of what you may think of the nominator. Gzkn 06:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Raul654 has no right to remove this FAR listing - I don't care if he is the Featured article director. I'd like to say I read the article, and perhaps rather than criticising the reviewers here he should get to work. His attitude is rather unwelcome as far as I'm concerned. LuciferMorgan 16:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Lucifer, and it's absolutely nothing personal. Rather, it's a systemic issue: WP needs to be seen to be democratic, and part of that is that office bearers are, as far as possible, on the same functional level as the rest of us. Tony 07:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• I would suggest that this article remain under FAR. Here are my comments:

• For some suggestions on the citations, I just added some {{fact}} tags in the article.
• A description of the Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps would be needed. Or a wikilink if there is an article about this group. If this is an organisation of adult civilians, then it is unclear to me why the text about a high school girl follows it. If there was an organised mobilisation of children, then that should be described as well.
• Can something be done about the hyperlinks to the images on the CIA web site? Either obtain an licensed image or expand the text.
• The sentence, "This gave the United States a justification for their use..." sounds like speculation. Did someone say this? Or is this the opinion of the author?

--RelHistBuff 12:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. There are things to admire in this article, but there are problems with the prose. For this to be "among our very best", as required, the writing will need to be thoroughly copy-edited. Let's look at the lead.
  • "Later, in the spring of 1946, Coronet was the invasion of the Kanto plain near Toyko on the island of Honshu." Remove "later", since it's obvious that the spring of 1946 is later than "November 1945". More importantly, Operation Coronet "was" an invasion? Having correctly used the conditional "would" elsewhere, the same should apply here. Better: "would involve", because it surely consisted of not just invading. Or did this bit happen and the others didn't? I'm confused, and I shouldn't be.
• "Japan's geography made this invasion plan obvious to the Japanese as well,...". Just why this is the case isn't clear to me (perhaps I'm missing something obvious). And why "as well"? Unclear.
• "The Japanese planned an all-out defense of Kyushu, with little left in reserve for any subsequent defense operations. Casualty predictions, though varying widely, were extremely high for both sides.
• The stubby third para is more awkward for starting with "However,...".

This article is definitely worth retaining, so I hope that the writing can be improved. Tony 13:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that some copyediting would be good - I will if/when I have time. The last section in particular seems a bit choppy. It would also be nice to see the first few sections having the same level of citations as the last ones. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Can this sentence (containing external jumps) be converted to a cited statement to avoid the external jumps? Readers shouldn't have to access external websites when reading the article.
  • (Also, compare the estimate made in early July with the estimate made in early August.)
• Sandy (Talk) 14:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Waited a few days, no one else addressed it, converted the external jumps to prose myself. Sandy (Talk) 23:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

So, how are the footnotes looking? I agree that the links to the CIA website are awkward. I'd like to just copy the two maps, but the article (still) says,"Copyright pending. Not for distribution or reproduction without permission of the author, the Center for the Study of Intelligence, and Harvard University." (Although that hasn't stopped someone from adding them to de:Operation Downfall and fr:Opération Downfall.) The maps just illustrate the fact that the defending forces had tripled in strength, which is already stated in the paragraph.
—wwoods 06:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I am a little worried about the clause, "the fact that Japanese civilians were being encouraged to become suicide attackers". I had put a cite tag on that one, but it was removed with the edit summary that this was common knowledge. But I still wonder about this. I am aware that kamikaze attacks were planned among the military. As for civilians, the Japanese did commit suicide in Okinawa and other islands to avoid capture. But I was wondering if there was a campaign for Japanese civilians to become suicide attackers in the event of an invasion of the home islands. Hence, the cite tag. --RelHistBuff 10:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

There's some description earlier, at the end of Operation Downfall#Ground forces. I suppose it could be expanded.

—wwoods 18:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, I believe that last quote concerning the high school girl should be removed. It is picking on one small shocking point of what is purportedly a national campaign. Even if the statement is sourced, having this isolated statement without the complete context is more worthy of tabloid journalism rather than an encyclopaedia. The description of organised civilian suicide attackers should cover its campaign and organisation on a high-level but properly detailled because this is clearly a controversial assertion. In any case, such a description should cite the source, because I do not believe this is common knowledge. --RelHistBuff 13:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Your reasons are, frankly, unconvincing. That particular incident is not out of the ordinary at all; removing it would reduce the quality of the article, so it will be staying in. Raul654 19:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Raul, I don't disagree with your reasoning, but I do object to your dictatorial "so it will be staying in". It's a wiki, so a more cooperative angle would be more productive. The risk is that some reviewers might ignore your point because of the last six words. Tony 14:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I do believe that a cite should be added to the clause, "the fact that Japanese civilians were being encouraged to become suicide attackers" and more information is needed for the “Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps”. If one googles “Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps”, there are only 236 results. Most of these are links to this article on mirror sites of Wikipedia. The rest are blogs and forums that discuss the corps using similar language to the article which may imply that the bloggers got the info from Wikipedia. Hence, it looks like WP:OR unless this is corrected by the cites and additional info. --RelHistBuff 08:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Status?? Diff since nom. Sandy (Talk) 14:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I would ask for an extension of the FAR deadline to address the concerns above. They are fixable, hence FARC is not necessary yet. --RelHistBuff 14:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added a bit to the paragraph about the militia forces. As for the name, I don't speak the language, but from googling around, my best guess is that “Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps”, "Peoples' Volunteer Fighting Corps", and "National Volunteer Combat Force" are variant translations of "Kokumin Giyu Sento-Tai".

—wwoods 21:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Looking up using the other terms produced a few more sites. Again mostly bloggers and private websites with similiar descriptions. I assume the differences in descriptions are that different books were used as a source. Anyway it is clearer now. With that info, I toned down the "suicide attackers" clause. As the corps description is now cited, there is no need for the clause to be cited. --RelHistBuff 08:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Concerning the sentence on Yukiko Kasai, as it is properly sourced and the source is well-known and accepted, it does satisfy WP:V and WP:RS. However, the reason I do not believe it is appropriate in an encyclopaedia is that it is an anecdote. In all military situations, one can find examples of extreme behaviour. A historian is able to study and make general conclusions (for example, on kamikaze). We should write on those conclusions. But to pull out some anecdotes that mainly illustrate a particular point-of-view on a battle, mobilisation, prisoner treatment, etc., would be a subtle violation of WP:NPOV. --RelHistBuff 09:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, it's a useful anecdote, illustrating the extreme fanaticism/desperation of the Japanese. When you have to stretch your definition of combatant down to 'schoolgirl' and of weapon down to 'pointed piece of metal'... Also, "the Japanese predilection for fanatical resistance" is an objective fact. Iwo Jima and Okinawa were the first battles in which more than 5% of the Japanese were taken prisoner.

—wwoods 19:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Wwoods. Yes, it's anecodatal; on the other hand, as Wwoods says, it's an objective historical fact that the Japanese resistance was fanatical by any definition ( fa·nat·i·cal (f…-n²t“¹-k…l) adj. Possessed with or motivated by excessive, irrational zeal.), and that the Japanese attempt to mobilize the population matched this zeal, and the anecdote serves to illustrate this finely. Raul654 02:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Status? Still a lot of uncited figures used in the article (I feel exact numbers usually need cites), and still paragraphs without citations. Move to FARC to keep momentum. LuciferMorgan 20:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The number of citations has now been doubled, and there isn't a significant uncited paragraph in the article. I think this one is good to go. Raul654 21:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I fixed some of the refs (updating URLs and adding access dates), and concur that the level of referencing is now adequate. I changed the awkward sentence mentioned above ("Everybody based their estimates on the experience of the preceding campaigns, but they could draw different lessons:" to "Casualty estimates were based on the experience of the preceding campaigns, drawing different lessons:") It looks like the phrases about suicide attackers, giving the U.S. a justification, and Patriotic Civilians Fighting Corp have been addressed - is that correct? I concur that the anecdote about Yukiko Kasai, the high school girl, is awkward and context is not provided; I think it should be better addressed, but I'm not sure how. I'd like an update from Tony on the prose before closing. Sandy (Talk) 20:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

In addition to the anecdote, making equivalences of "Japanese population = fanatical" is a generalisation. The military leadership, I agree, the civilians, no. Just to be specific, I am concerned about the violation of criteria 1d. --RelHistBuff 09:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Anytime you talk about the overall feelings of a population, it is (by definition) a generalization; that doesn't make it any less of a fact in this case. It is commonly acknowledged that both the Japanase military and civilians were fanatical. Consider the example on Saipan, where hundreds (thousands?) of civilians literally threw themselves off cliffs rather than be captured. Raul654 15:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The Battle of Saipan article does not describe the Japanese as fanatical. In that battle, the civilians were told that they would suffer cruelties if captured, hence many committed suicide (not suicide attacks). One could say they were deluded, but not fanatical. The millions of civilians in Japan were not "fanatically" preparing for an invasion force. Most stayed in bomb shelters or turned off all lighting covering their windows and prayed for the war to end. This is not to deny that the Yukiko Kasai incident occurred nor that the military attempted to mobilise civilians. Yes, that did happen. However, I am concerned that including the anecdote and using phrasing such as the word "fanatic" will skew the opinion toward the effect that one might think the Japanese civilian population was "fanatical" in general. Hence my concern with critierion 1d. --RelHistBuff 17:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hrm, on second though, you might have a point there - that it might be worth making the distinction in the text between civilian and military. Raul654 21:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Per your request, Wwoods now has added a description of the patriotic fighting core, which now immediately preceedes the description of Yukiko Kasai. Raul654 23:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The characterization "fanatically" is now in a quote attributed to Americans. The quote about Yukiko-san doesn't actually give her opinion; quite possibly she — and the middle-aged men being issued satchel charges and bamboo spears to fight tanks — had mixed feelings, but decided to exercise "the better part of valour".

—wwoods 02:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I oppose closing this one. There's tons of exact numbers quoted of personnel etc., and they aren't cited. Where have these numbers come from? Thin air? No, they've come from sources, and should be inline cited. Move to FARC. LuciferMorgan 00:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Additionally I'd like to have it on the record that the number of inline citations an article has isn't indicative of an article being "well referenced", something the FA director should also remember when passing so many FAs. If everyone wishes to close this one then the FAR process as concerns cites is rather lax in my opinion - look at all the different numbers, ie. 35, 000 this, 1, 000 that etc., all stuff that can be easily mistaken. LuciferMorgan 00:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

From a quick scan, it seems to me that almost all of the numbers are in sourced paragraphs. Which ones concern you?

—wwoods 07:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

One cite means a whole paragraph is sourced? Since when? All of the numbers concern me - just because there's an inline cite at the end of a paragraph, it doesn't mean a specific number is cited. LuciferMorgan 16:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This is getting plain ridiculous. First, you complain about lack of citations. So Wwood and I more than double the number of citations. Then you complain that many specific numbers given in the article are not cited, when in fact we are hard pressed to find *any* that are not cited. And then when asked, rather than coming up with any specific examples, you simply complain about the ones that are clearly cited, because you can't be bothered to look any of them up. I think you've made YOUR opinion on the matter quite clear, in that you simply intend to complain ad nasueum about things that are perfectly good and proper. Raul654 16:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

When a whole paragraph is drawn from one source, I don't see much point of putting in multiple references to, e.g., "Frank, Downfall, p. 209–10."

—wwoods 02:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Utter rubbish. You were the one complaining like a baby about FAR in the first place, and thought as the FA director you could simply stop the FAR - simply you're the one who can't be bothered to cite the specific numbers, and also this is coming from the same person who passes FAs like Smarties. Your opinion sways nothing with me, because I don't think your term as FA director is something to be proud of. If you want fact tags, you'll have them - feel free to whine afterwards like you did in the first place. And by the way, this is my opinion on this specific FAR and your obnoxious attitude in general. LuciferMorgan 20:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way I'd also like to add that there's a lot of one sentence statements occurring which creates disjointed prose, meaning the article is in breach of 1. a. also. Raul is free to complain about this too - he's invited. LuciferMorgan 20:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

A lot of repetitive style prose occurs also, specifically the endless of the words "would" and "was", which get's tiring. Many sentences either read "would have" or "was to" - another 1. a. violation. I'll be sure to vigilantly look for more flaws in "good faith". LuciferMorgan 20:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It does make it easier to respond to criticism if it is precise, so adding {{fact}} templates to uncited facts does help. But not if you carpet-bomb the article with them, like this Are you really asking for every single clause in the article to have a footnote? It is pretty damn clear to me where the information in this article comes from already.

"A lot of one sentence statements" and "repetitive style"? Most sentences are single statements - sentences that make more than one statement are apt to be criticised as "snakes". Are you complaining that there are one-sentence paragraphs? Similarly, forms of the verb "to be " are rather common in English prose. Perhaps you would like to contribute by copyediting the article to correct its perceived structural and grammatical faults, rather than throwing stones from the sidelines? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Adding cite tags to every sentence which does not have a reference (and some which do, if you had paid more attention to the citations) is simple disruption to prove a point, and I have reverted.

Second, as to "would have" and "was to", there are only so many ways in the english language to conjugate verbs about events which never took place but were supposed to. Raul654 20:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

And third - there is no requirement that every sentence in an article be cited. In fact, other than a few one sentence stubs, there are no articles at all that are completely cited. Raul654 20:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I added cite tags and they've been reverted - I didn't do it to prove a point, but to answer wwoods question above as to which ones concern me. This is disruptive and belligerent, and frankly an utter joke. Since it seems the FA director throwing his weight around like a clown is condoned here, I have no intentions of further contributing at FAR at all - Raul's attitude is frankly disgusting, and I hope his term as FA director comes to a swift halt. Indeed all he thinks is in terms of numbers - ie. more FAs the better, merely adding more cites to just about everything, etc. 1. a. and 1. c. is clearly at fault here, not that anyone cares. Goodbye and good riddance. LuciferMorgan 20:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

PS - As to ALoan's statement, I have no intentions of copyediting the article in this environment, and if he feels that compelled maybe he should copyedit it himself. LuciferMorgan 20:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If you insist - I have done some fiddling, but the article was pretty good already, IMHO. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; that was helpful.

—wwoods 02:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comments—My feeling is that this should not go to FARC, but should stay here just a little longer while it receives its final polish. Here are the changes since Sandy's status comment on 30 Nov, and here are the changes since nomination. But I'd be happy for a little sprucing up. For example:
  • Why "three (3)" etc.? I've never understood why any text includes both, and there's certainly no reason to here. (The usual practice is to spell out single-digit numbers only, unless there's a good reason not to.)
  • "Olympic was to be mounted with resources already in the Pacific, including the British Pacific Fleet, which was actually a Commonwealth formation which included at least a dozen aircraft carriers and several battleships." Remove "which was actually"; either it was or it wasn't, and there are two "whiches". Possibly insert "stationed" after "already"? Replace "which included" with "of", but only if what is specified was the basis of the formation.

See what I mean? That last one is just a single sentence, and while many sentences are well written, there's a case for asking someone different to run over it. This is such a good article that it's worth polishing. Tony 02:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The number is spelled out because it's a direct quote from a cited source. That's what the source does, so that's what the article quotes. Raul654 03:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That last sentence was my fault, I think. I knew it wasn't ideal, but was at a loss for an elegant rephrasing. I have had another go - "Olympic was to be mounted with resources already present in the Pacific, including the British Pacific Fleet, a Commonwealth formation that included at least a dozen aircraft carriers and several battleships." -- ALoan (Talk) 12:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't see the quote marks; you're right. Tony 11:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As to why it's "three (3)", I figure it's a style adopted to ensure that the information doesn't get lost. Essentially the same reason we have to write out the amount of a check in words as well as numerals. —wwoods 17:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Status: Well, this looks like it's been around the block a few times. Can we close it? Is the nominator still watching with an opinion by any chance? Marskell 18:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Close it - nobody cares what I think anyway. LuciferMorgan 23:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate that —wwoods and Raul654 have addressed some of the issues I brought up. I still have strong concerns about NPOV in its current state. However, as noonly one other editor has spoken up, then please take the consensus decision without me included. My comments remain neither support or object, but simply neutral. --RelHistBuff 07:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), and POV (1d). Marskell 22:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: This is a tough one given all the comments, but it didn't seem right to close it as the comments on status were "yes, but" or "no, but". As always, moving it down is not a comment on the article condition, but just a desire to keep things moving. If Rel can list specifics on POV we can still move to a keep quickly and clear it out. Marskell 22:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - consistent with my comments above. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, per above. Raul654 23:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: I have just two concerns.

The first one is about the use of the Yukiko Kasai anecdote. I do appreciate that wwoods has added the context surrounding the anecdote (description of the mobilisation of the militia). In my opinion, this description is sufficient in describing the rather desperate measures undertaken by the Japanese leadership. The anecdote, however, does not give any additional facts but rather adds an emotional element (due to her age) and perhaps some shock value. Military history articles are very careful in the inclusion of such anecdotes because they can be used to subtly push a POV. I suggest the anecdote be dropped for the sake of criterion 1d.

The second concern is about the use of term “fanatical” for describing the Japanese civilian population. I toned down a phrase so as to match the description of the militia and my result is as follows:

• Given the large number of Japanese troops to be faced and the organized resistance among Japanese civilians ... (italics added)

This has been changed by wwoods to

• Given the large number of Japanese troops to be faced and the organized resistance among Japan's "fanatically hostile population" ... (italics added)

Although the latter is sourced, I believe my formulation is sufficient and avoids an unintended push of a POV that all civilians were fanatical. As the quoted description of the civilian population is already in the “Assumptions” section, repeating it here does not add to the article.

If these two concerns are addressed, then I would vote keep. --RelHistBuff 12:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• • RelHistBuff's suggestion that the anecdote be removed has been discussed extensively, and rejected as being detrimental to the article. Also, about the "fanatically hostile population", it comes from a cited primary source, and it is an objective fact. He might not agree with it, but that's the way it is. Raul654 18:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Rel, I checked the PDF and "fanatically hostile" is indeed the phrase; your point is good faith, but it would actually be an error to change that and "leave it in quotes". Given that the quote comes from the U.S. military, I don't think the reader will be led to POV assumptions—what kind of wording would you expect, really? I'm neither here nor there on the anecdote. Marskell 20:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm still troubled by the high school girl anecdote (because of my work on medical articles, I'm usually troubled by any kind of anecdote :-). It seems that the "fanatically hostile population" can be dealt with in the same way many POV concerns are dealt with in articles - by specifically stating whose opinion it is, so it doesn't appear to be asserted as fact. The article says "planners" (clearly implying military planners), but perhaps it could be made more clear that this is an assumption made by the US military - a properly attributed phrase would feel less like "fact" about the entire Japanese population, and more like US opinion. Sandy (Talk) 20:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
        • The fanatically hostile population part is already properly attributed. If you click on the [6] link, it goes to the ref which says: Sutherland, Richard K. et al, "DOWNFALL": Strategic Plan for Operations in the Japanese Archipelago Raul654 20:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
          • I made a slight change "planners" --> "U.S. military planners". Really, I think this one is fine; I can't imagine how anyone will be led astray, especially with the PDF sitting there to look at.
          • On the anecdote, I suppose the only question would be whether you're sure it's not apocryphal. Marskell 20:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
            • The historian whose book it comes from, Richard Frank, is probably the greatest living authority on Japan at the time of the surrender. I have no doubt of either its authenticity, or that thousands of similiar incidents occured. Raul654 21:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

(indent off) I believe Sandy’s idea of noting that this was the military planners’ assumption would remove the appearance of POV. Rather than paraphrasing and focusing only on the “fanatic” part, it would be better to include the complete sentence as stated in the source. I made a change reflecting this. --RelHistBuff 10:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I totally missed that second use. Your change seems appropriate. Marskell 17:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

As for the anecdote, I was not noting whether it truly occurred or not. In fact, I would assume it was true, although I would also note that Richard B. Frank’s book is known for pushing its own POV. My objection is that it is precisely what it is: an anecdote. I would object to any anecdote especially in war articles. Usually they cause problems in lower-quality articles and are a source of POV-wars. Featured articles, if they are written well, do not need them. The paragraph describing the Patriotic Citizens Fighting Corps is excellent and is sufficient. It describes persons including girls of high school age (17 years old) were equipped with primitive weapons (such as an awl). The anecdote does not add additional information. --RelHistBuff 10:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per above. --Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 00:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I am going to close this as keep. Moving it elicited comments as hoped but the discussion of the anecdote isn't producing anything new; I think due diligence was done here and it's within criteria. Marskell 04:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Toilets in Japan

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Chris 73, Yelyos, and Japan. Sandy (Talk) 16:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Lacks citations, lead needs expansion, and images need better captions. Gzkn 06:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. While I am quite fond of this article, it was promoted during a time when we had lesser standards for verifiability. I am not sure this is well-referenced enough that it would pass GA today. —ptk✰fgs 06:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It has plenty of citations, just not inline citations. I'm working to change that right now. I've just saved the beginning of the conversion. It's a big article, so will take some time to do so. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Insufficient inline citations (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 23:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Lead needs expansion, and a lot more inline citations are required. When I read this article through (before looking at the talk page), I thought of entering this into featured article review. CloudNine 15:51, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Changes: Since I am the primary author, I am very interested in keeping the article's FA status. I greatly expanded the citations (following User:Nihonjoe's work), and expanded the lead section. I also expanded the intro section. I also did some small changes in the captions, although I thought the captions were not bad to begin with. What further improvements if any do you feel necessary? Detailed feedback would be appreciated. Many thanks -- Chris 73 | Talk 13:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Whole paragraphs still remain uncited, so I want this FAR to remain Open. LuciferMorgan 23:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I will keep on working on it. Should be possible to find a citation for every paragraph -- Chris 73 | Talk 00:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - citations start off OK, but then tail off. "Environmental aspects" is stubby and the two "A website...achieved some internet fame" paragraphs are horrible. It was heavily overlinked (an obsession with urinal, vulva and the TOTO company) - I've fixed a lot of this, but it could probably still do with another pass. Yomangani^talk 16:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved the Tokyo Toilet Map to the External links -- Chris 73 | Talk 07:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Still adding more refs, even finding good sources that I have missed when I first wrote the article. I will keep on working during the next few days as I have time -- Chris 73 | Talk

• Request for Comment: Could I get a feedback about the current status of the article? Many more refs were added recently, citing a total of 42 sources. -- Chris 73 | Talk 22:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - a lot better. Some sections are still light on references though. Inline citations should follow punctuation per the manual of style and be in numerical order. At times it reads like a how-to-guide for foreigners: "You can also try an upscale department store..."; "Alternatively, users can seek a handicapped bathroom (if one is available)", etc. Yomangani^talk 02:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Footnote placements have been fixed. Joelito (talk) 18:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Added refs for the fact templates. For one claim I could not find refs, so i moved it to the talk page. Another claim (squat-washlet) was added by me based on discussions with the TOTO show room manager in Shinjuku L Building. he even showed me the catalog for it, but unfortunately my japanese is not good enough to find it on their webpage. I will work on some wordings next. Also, thanks to Joelito for fixing the foot note placements -- Chris 73 | Talk 20:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I found this page, which shows an adapter for converting a squat to a standard sit-down. I can't find any others, though. Do you remember the catalog number? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should add this link to the article, too. The missing citation however is a regular squat toilet, which includes a washlet like nozzle that comes out from one end (not the "dome" side but the other one). The manager said that the sales of these devices are near zero. He gave me a copy of the catalog page, but I don't have it anymore. -- Chris 73 | Talk 08:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Added information and link -- Chris 73 | Talk 10:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I would be okay if someone showed me another toilet in x country article. I think that this is pretty ridiculous & funny @ same time. (Wikimachine 02:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC))

Haha, I think it's hilarious as well, but also an indication of how distinctive Wikipedia really is. You'd be hard pressed to find a better or more comprehensive article on Japanese toilets. Also, where else would I have turned to for such high quality information on those exploding whales? By the way, Chris and Nihonjoe, you guys are making great progress on those citations! Keep it up. Gzkn 03:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are insufficient citations (1c), LEAD (2a), and images (3). Marskell 06:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Question: Why is this already moved to FARC? The changes are still in process, would it be possible to keep this in FAR for now? The citation request seems to be fixed (plusminus a citation here and there). I am planning to update the wording on some sections a bit soon (am busy with work and have time only on a few evenings). What I don't like about the FARC is that it feels like the focus is on removing the article, not on trying to keep it a FA. Thanks. -- Chris 73 | Talk 08:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Articles are moved to FARC only to keep on schedule, and it doesn't mean there is any more emphasis on removing the article: if you need more time in the FARC section, and work is progressing on the article, it is granted. You're doing a great job. Sandy (Talk) 16:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Status? This article is vastly improved: I'm adding it to the Urgent FAR template so we can get other views as to any additional work needed. Sandy (Talk) 15:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comments & Votes? The article should by now have enough citations for a FA. The last //fact// open point is based on an interview with a showroom manager, of which I have unfortunately no written reference. If there is anything else that needs improvement, please let me know and I will see what I can do. BTW: Thanks for the positive feedback, Sandy. -- Chris 73 | Talk 14:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - it still has the "user guide" style writing I pointed out earlier, but if that can be corrected it's not far away from a keep as far as I'm concerned. Yomangani^talk 18:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Changed some wordings and removed some redundant or POV information, especially in the Public toilets section. I think it is more descriptive now and less of an user guide. Any thoughts? -- Chris 73 | Talk 10:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Vastly improved since it was nominated. Well done. I'd still like to see the one remaining uncited statement removed until it can be sourced though. Yomangani^talk 01:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: I made a minor correction, but I see no other issues. --RelHistBuff 12:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I added a few "citation needed" tags, but those aren't enough to merit a remove vote. Well done. Gzkn 13:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: I removed the uncited voyeurism statement to the talk page, and hope the other two uncited statements will be addressed very soon, or removed. Sandy (Talk) 16:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Wikipedia:Reliable sources says that "Personal websites, blogs, and other self-published or vanity publications should not be used as secondary sources". It seems that several of the sources used in this article are personal websites and blogs. It additionally uses a retailer's website and a newsletter as sources. I also find it strange that it uses an article from "Kids Web Japan", a website intended for children, to back up 9 claims. I realize that this is an esoteric topic but perhaps the reliable sources available should dictate the content that should be included in the article, rather than stretching to find sources for what is already written. On a side note, there seem to be some errors/redundancies and inconsistent style within the references section.
• I also have problems specifically with the Terminology section. It arbitrarily provides footnotes for some terms but not others. But, more broadly, I'm not sure why the section exists at all. Wikipedia is not a "usage guide or slang and idiom guide", and this section seems to be just that: a usage guide for Japanese bathroom terminology. I find it difficult to imagine that a general, English-speaking audience would have any use for this information. Punctured Bicycle 18:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The terminology section in this article provides relevant information about toilets in Japanese culture. Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but this is an exception. A mere usage guide wouldn't illustrate the parallels between toilet terminology and the "tagged out" place in children's games, for example. Perel 05:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] James Joyce

Messages left at Filiocht, Bio, Authors, Ireland, Books, Irish literature, and Novels. Sandy (Talk) 21:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawn. A very old nomination. No inline references, short lead, some short paragraphs, no fair use rationale on copyrighted images, and badly needs Wikifying (linking technical terms). Michaelas10 (Talk) 20:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: It certainly doesn't need Wikifying (avoid linking common terms). The lead is not short. The paragraphs are not particularly problematic. As for the citations, the article is built from information gathered from the books listed at the end. Richard Ellmann is the source for almost all biographical information on Joyce that you will see by anyone, as it is widely considered the best biography of the 20th century, certainly of a literary figure. Burgess's book has information on critical themes, and particularly the language games of Finnegans Wake. Citing to this page here, that page there, the other page another place is far more than any print encyclopedia does. From Britanica to the DNB to any other source you'd consult, you will see a list of works that provided the information, but citations only if the information is controversial. There are no claims in the article that are controversial. Geogre 03:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: By Wikifying I meant it contains many nearly linkless paragraphs and technical terms are left unlinked. Yes, I do believe a two small paragraph lead is very short for a biography article. The references at the bottom might cover the article entirely but per criteria 1c it has to have inline citations. Michaelas10 (Talk) 10:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment It doesn't appear that the original author/nominator has edited in a year and a half (last version edited by Filiocht,) the talk page indicates some doubt about some of the content, and the article history shows no editor appears to be actively following the article. Inline citations are required for FAs on Wikipedia, which can't be compared to other encyclopedias, since anyone can edit: this article does not include them, and there are numerous statements that should be cited. The end of the article contains an external jump, and uses mixed reference styles (some of the references inserted towards the end may not be to reliable sources). The References section appears to contain what may be a link farm rather than actual sources for the article, and the External links section may need attention. Per WP:LEAD, "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article." Sandy (Talk) 06:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Link farm? I see the names of the major works on Joyce. Please be sure that you are reading "References" and not "External links" and that you read the lead itself. Additionally, the fact that the people on the talk page were not turned back does not make them correct in their "concerns." People will say the darnedest things. Geogre 13:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: This is a very well written and sourced featured article, and I can see no reason why it should not remain one. There are no false or controversial facts at all in the page. The only thing that need fixing is the bio-box which is redundant as it contains information easily assimilated from the lead. It is ugly and falls into the section below spoiling the layout. Other than that it seems a perfect page, and I can see no legitimate or worthwhile reason for it being listed here. Giano 14:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: It has no inline cites, this is the primary reason for the FAR. Per Sandy, these are very important to the encyclopedia and without them it is nearly impossible to identify which statements are not covered by the references. Michaelas10 (Talk) 15:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The infobox is well aligned on my browser, and doesn't fall into the text below; perhaps this is a browser issue ? Sandy (Talk) 19:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Don't worry Sandy, perhaps you just have a small screen. I've sorted the problem now, vast improvement. Great FA. Giano 21:53, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• It has nine authorative books on the subject listed as references. None of the facts are contraversial. Giano 16:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I'm no expert on the subject, but this appears to me to be a well-written, well-structured and comprehensive article on Joyce. I'm actually quite impressed with the way the bottom-of-the-page stuff is laid out; I think it's clear, logical and helpful. I tend to agree that the lead could perhaps be a bit longer, but it's not problematically short and all the important stuff is set out in it in a well-thought out way. And well done Giano II for deleting the ugly and useless infobox. Palmiro | Talk 02:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Note I would advise all editors and people who have commented here to switch from defending/praising the article to addressing the concerns of this review. Past experience assures me that the article will be demoted if in-line citations are not added. There are many reasons for the necessity of in-line citations, some of which have been mentioned above. In-line citations are an actionable objection and a fair reason for removal of FA status. Joelito (talk) 23:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment: The FA criteria, say that an FA should have in-line citations "where appropriate". The burden is on those who think this needs in-line citations, to demonstrate that. This article is one of our very best, and continues to deserves its FA status. Paul August ☎ 01:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought inline citations are basically a requirement for all FA's. If this article was to go through the FAC process in its current state, I'm pretty sure it would not pass due to the lack of inline citations. Gzkn 06:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well not according to the Wikipedia:What is a featured article?. The relevant passage is:

Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations.

Paul August ☎ 08:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Then perhaps WP:WIAFA needs some clarification, as I thought consensus had been reached numerous times in the past (see the talk page of FAR, for instance) that FAs need inline citations. And FACs that lack them are routinely rejected. I did always think that the "where appropriate" led to vastly different interpretations. Perhaps its time we cleared up the confusion and state with clarity in WIAFA whether FAs need inline citations or not. (I happen to think they do, but all the arguments in this particular FAR lead me to wonder if my view is indeed consensus.) Gzkn 12:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think (IMO) that if a fact is controversial, or newly discovered then it does need a firm clear reference preferably with a page number to a certain edition. However when the subject is a long dead much researched noncontroversial figure then the footnote is not necessary. " For instance Henry VIII had six wives" does not need citing - "Nicholas II had s secret wife" would need citing. However. listing references used is always essential. I see nothing on James Joyce that makes me want to say "hang on a moment here". Admittedly I have taken to citing almost every verb, my current work is only half finished and already has 117 - but the subject is almost unknown. Joyce is a much researched and reported figure, and that is why this page is fine as it is. It is all there in the references. Now if an anon comes along and inserts a controversial fact, then he must be asked to verify with a detailed ref, but at the moment there is nothing to warrant demoting this page. Giano 12:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

  I agree with this summary. Case closed. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

That's understandable. I'm not going to get into whether or not the lack of citations warrants demoting James Joyce, but I do think the article needs inline citations. Perhaps those who are familiar with him are comfortable with this article, but what about readers who don't know much about James Joyce? How are they able to figure out whether to trust this article or not? For example, I don't know his early life, so how do I go about verifying the stuff in Dublin, 1882-1904? Which facts belong to which sources? How do I know they are all true? Let's take a random statement: Joyce refused to pray at her bedside but this seems to have had more to do with Joyce's agnosticism than antagonism for his mother. Doesn't this call for a citation? Gzkn 13:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

As you wish. You have been warned and have decided not to take my advice. Joelito (talk) 14:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm all in favour of requiring in-line references for current featured article candidates, but in the current state of Wikipedia it seems premature to say the least to question the status of a long-standing featured article for lack of something that has only relatively lately come to be seen as a requirement. This is a featured article review, so I think people are entitled to bring up whatever issues they feel are relevant in support of that article's status; furthermore, the request for review cites several other issues which are addressed in the replies here, not just the question of references. Palmiro | Talk 23:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

All FAs are held to the same standards. If by relatively lately you mean since January 2005 then you are correct. Long-standing FA status has little to do with current standards. Again, it's your choice if you wish to conform to the current FA guidelines or not. As I have said before, past experience shows that the article will get demoted if editors choose not to add the in-line citations.

Also see this thread where the majority of FAR reviewers express their thoughts on the issue. Joelito (talk) 14:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• several pages have passed FAC successfully since Jan 2005 with no inline cites at all Giano 16:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Have any passed recently? I really wish to stop this argument. Experience in FAR says no in-line = no longer FA. Joelito (talk) 16:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I bet you do. You were the one who brought up the subject of the date. Giano 16:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

If there's really a problem with uncited information, you could also use the citation requested template (or even <gasp> the talk page) to indicate where the dubious statements are that need references. Palmiro | Talk 01:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Certainly it needs inline citations, and it could use some copyedit: last para begins with 'Not everyone is eager to expand upon academic study of Joyce' but in effect it mentions only one of his relatives, that's hardly justifies suggestion that there is some widespread movement - seems like journalism style.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Can someone advocating for FAC status removal please reassure me that they have recently read a book (that's one of those rectangular things made from processed tree that taste so much like cardboard and are encountered in a library) and are converstant with the academic practice of footnoting! I just checked a couple: in all cases there is an extensive bibliography at the end, and those things that might raise eyebrows or are generally in need of explanation are annotated at the bottom of the page with a footnote. Folks, we are writing an encyclopedia, not a review article or a term paper! Dr Zak 20:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

How many people wrote that book? Can anyone edit it? Don't compare oranges with bottles. In-line citations are an FA criteria. If you wish to argue them go to the talk page of WP:WIAFA.

Furthermore, books have in-line citations. For example my The Tainos:Rise and Decline of the people who greeted Columbus. Yale Univeristy Press. ISBN 0300056966 uses in-line citations (parenthetical citations). Joelito (talk) 21:05, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

How many in-line citations does the FA criteria say an FA needs exactly? Paul August ☎ 21:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Paul, please see the relevant policy at WP:V, Sandy (Talk) 22:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• The page is perfectly well referenced, can we now close this futile debate which should never have been opened. Giano 21:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• No we will not close the review. An editor has expressed the concern that the article lacks in-line citations (A criteria of What is a featured article?) and we will, therefore, review the article. Joelito (talk) 01:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

  Joelr3143, please stop whining about lack of inline citations. It would be much more helpful if you provided inline citations for the entire article instead. For my own part, I don't know any encyclopaedias with inline citations. Look at the Britannica, for instance. We cannot apply recently-adopted guidelines retroactively. This is not an improvement but a mess. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I move that we re-factor this page, to remove the discussion of FA criteria to its talk page: inline citations are a current requirement for FAs, and arguing WIAFA on the FAR isn't useful. Sandy (Talk) 22:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur that we should move the discussion of FA criteria to the talk page. Joelito (talk) 01:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

No. We will not shunt the discussion off to the sidelines. You have nominated because of lack of citations, therefore well discuss lack if citations. The long and the short of it is than some editors have commented they do not agree. Those same editors who have chosen to comment feel the page should retain its FA status. Regardless of any ambiguous rules and regulations dreamt up wherever. You are quite rightly going to struggle to achieve consensus to demote here. In fact their seems to be no consensus concerning any of the reasons given in the nomination. Taking away FA status because of inline cites is not automatic otherwise we would not be having this conversation. So the subject stays here. Giano 08:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: This is a review (FAR) and not FARC. No one wants to see the removal of FA status for this article. However, many would like to see this article attain our current standards. In order to demonstrate that this article may need additional inline citations, I have placed a {{fact}} tag based on a comment from someone in the talk page. --RelHistBuff 10:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

  If you had written a featured article, you should know that it's impossible to provide inline citations after the article is completed (let alone written by another editor). If you want to dispute some fact and think it needs to be sourced, you are welcome to add citations like I did with your tag, rather than litter the page with reckless tags. Such facile approach to editing is simply not acceptable. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

it's impossible to provide inline citations after the article is completed (let alone written by another editor) Please don't tell this secret to Yomangani (talk • contribs) - he seems to be doing a fine job. Sandy (Talk) 17:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the cite. The tag was not meant to be reckless; I placed it as a point of demonstration. In any case, the idea was to show that there are potential areas of dispute which is why inline cites may be needed. This is the advantage of having the article under review. --RelHistBuff 12:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

"Where appropriate" is not in the criteria accidentally. It would be counterproductive to demand that every factual statement has a citation - do we really want every article would turn into a forest of citations? The sky is blue; Paris is in France; Queen Elizabeth II of the Queen of the UK; and gravity makes apples fall off trees. End of story.

Would the persons advocating "review" of this article please indicate which specific factual statements in this article they find sufficiently surprising, unusual, controversial or confusing to require specific inline citation. (The inline external links in the last section could quickly be turned into footnotes, for those who like to count them.) -- ALoan (Talk) 13:09, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• I've only read the first page or so. The writing looks pretty good to me. (The bit about dogs is a little awkward in the first para of his life, but that's a trivial matter.) All FAs must meet the current requirements for referencing. Tony 14:05, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I've expanded the lead a bit, and tried to make it reflect a better sense of where JJ fits in to literary history. Adding inline citations would primarily be a matter of flipping through Ellman (it has an index, after all). I have no stake in the question of whether all featured articles need them, but if anyone who has Ellman at hand (Geogre, I assume you do; ALoan? Paul?) would track down a couple of the assertions in the article--I'll happily do a bunch myself, though not for a few days most likely--we'll have this thing properly referenced in no time. As for the notion that there's nothing controversial, I haven't read the article carefully enough to say, but given Stephen Joyce's recent insanity I'd say we can't be too careful. That blighter will sue anyone in a heartbeat. Chick Bowen 05:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I am happy to cite appropriate pages from Ellman, if someone will say which statements they think need a citation. Paul August ☎ 17:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the offer to help, Chick Bowen. Paul, I am (in fact many of the reviewers here are) usually reluctant to pepper a well-written article with cite tags, but if folks are now offering to do the sourcing, would you like for us to add cite tags to the article (which is the easiest way of doing this), or would you prefer we put a list on the article talk page? (I'm also wondering if anyone is looking into the tags on the images?) Sandy (Talk) 19:39, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I'll bow to others' preferences about cite tags vs. talk page. I've gone through the images, though. Detailed fair use rationales would be good, and I can add those later. The only one that is of real concern is the lead image, Image:JamesJoyce1904.jpg. It includes the date it was taken, but of course we need the date it was first published to verify that it's PD. The photographer (Constantine Curran) published a book in 1968 and was evidently still alive then, so that suggests it's not PD by creator's death. It might not be PD. In the meantime I'll look around for a good portrait we can absolutely certify is PD. Chick Bowen 05:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
      • There are a number of great images here that are definitely PD by virtue of publication. Also the portrait by unknown photographer I believe would be PD but I'm not sure--I'll ask someone who would know. Chick Bowen 06:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
        • I'm still working on images, and making progress. See my talk page for details. Chick Bowen 17:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
          • Very nice improvement on the image ! Sandy (Talk) 23:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. This appears to be a well written, instructive article worthy of its status. The debate here seems to relate largely to whether or not the article should receive inline citations in order to maintain its FA. Inline citations are not an FA criteria because of the where appropriate aspect of WP:WIAFA. It seems that there are those here who seek to make in-line citations a defacto criteria for FA status, despite it not being policy. We should wait until it becomes a hard and fast consensual policy before arbitrarily demoting articles because the referencing style doesn't comform to some peoples preferences. --Mcginnly | Natter 13:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations list

• Comment Ok. I am sick and tired of people defending the article and stating that they do not find any places that need in-line citations. Here are a few examples:
  • "Reaction to the early sections that appeared in transition was mixed, including negative comment from early supporters of Joyce's work, such as Pound and the author's brother Stanislaus Joyce." Cite this negative reaction.
    • Done. Paul August ☎ 20:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "This has led many readers and critics to apply Joyce's oft-quoted description in the Wake of Ulysses as his usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles to the Wake itself. " Weasel words, should be cited.
    • Done. Paul August ☎ 20:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "Indeed, Joyce said that the ideal reader of the Wake would suffer from ideal insomnia and, on completing the book, would turn to page one and start again, and so on in an endless cycle of reading." Is this a direct quote?
    • Done Paul August ☎ 20:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "For some years, Joyce nursed the eccentric plan of turning over the book to his friend James Stephens to complete, on the grounds that Stephens was born in the same hospital as Joyce exactly one week later, and shared the first name of both Joyce and of Joyce's fictional alter-ego (this is one example of Joyce's numerous superstitions)." This sound like it needs a citation since I cannot verify it easily.
    • Done. Paul August ☎ 20:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "He has also been an important influence on writers and scholars as diverse as Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Flann O'Brien, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Pynchon, William Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson, and Joseph Campbell." Citations that he is/was an influence for some of these writers is needed.
    • Done. Paul August ☎ 06:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "Countless critics over the past century have argued that Joyce's work has had a harmful effect on modern and post-modern fiction, creating generations of writers who have eschewed storytelling, proper grammar, and coherence in favour of self-indulgent rambling." Which critics? Cite.
    • I took this out. I'm not sure it's true, actually ("countless"?). Someone can revert me, but I'll try to replace it with something I can cite. Chick Bowen 01:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "Some scholars, most notably Vladimir Nabokov, have mixed feelings on his work, often championing some of his fiction while condemning others (in Nabokov's case, Ulysses was brilliant, Finnegans Wake horrible)." Cite this scholar.
    • Done (by Chick Bowen). Paul August ☎ 01:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "The phrase "Three Quarks for Muster Mark" in Joyce's Finnegans Wake is often called the source of the physicists' word "quark", the name of one of the main kinds of elementary particles, proposed by the physicist Murray Gell-Mann. (James Gleick's book Genius suggests that Gell-Mann found the Joycean antecedent after the fact, as physicists have pronounced quark to rhyme with cork and not with Mark.)" If this sentence is true cite the book and page number.
    • Done. This sentence has been removed, since according to the cite provided, Gell-Mann based the name on the line from Finnegans Wake. Paul August ☎ 00:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • "However, Nabokov was less than thrilled with Finnegans Wake (see Strong Opinions, The Annotated Lolita or Pale Fire), an attitude Jorge Luis Borges shared." Cite since we are stating the opinion of someone.
    • Done. Paul August ☎ 01:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The in-line external jumps at the end of Legacy should be converted to appropiate ref format.
    • Done (by Sandy and me). Paul August ☎ 18:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I could go into more detail but I think this is enough to prove my point. The article is well written but to someone that knows very little of Joyce and his works the referencing is inadequate. Joelito (talk) 14:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Thank you, Joelr31. We'll work on those. To others--giving us concrete ways of improving the article is much more helpful than sniping about the validity of this review. Chick Bowen 17:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I have to agree that the lack of citiations in this article and in general should be a disqualification for featured article status. Without extensive citations, it makes it much easier for someone to coverly slip in either false or misleading information and/or assert a specific point of view which is not clearly supported by quality sources. Also, it raises the question just how accurate an article is if it cannot be verified by specificly cited sources. Without such verification being available, it really is hard to tell whether it is fair, accurate, and NPOV or not. On this basis, I have to agree with those above that this article right now needs a number of citations to keep it at featured article status. Otherwise, if the data were supported, the article itself looks good. Has anyone contacted the Unreferenced Good Articles WikiProject for help? I think they might make a priority of this one. Badbilltucker 15:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Legacy section I began to convert the inline refs, but one of the sources for the lawsuits is a blog (reliable?), and the rest are dead links. Another knowledgeable editor might know where to source these edits, or whether they should be deleted. Sandy (Talk) 16:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Sandy. I think these all have proper citations now. Paul August ☎ 18:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New look?

Chick Bowen and Paul August have done a lot of work on the article (diff). Can we get a review from other editors of what, if anything, remains to be done? I'll leave a note for the original nominator. Sandy (Talk) 13:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Whoa, what an improvement. All my concerns have been fixed. I'll withdraw this for now. Michaelas10 (Talk) 15:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Michaelas10, but I don't think the review can be considered withdrawn until all reviewers are satisfied. Sandy (Talk) 16:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Statements about medical conditions, diagnoses, phobias, and details of one's personal life without citations concern me, whether in BLPs or wrt the deceased. I'd like to see inline cites on the canine phobia, fear of thunderstorms - God's wrath, John's drinking and financial mismanagement, rejection of Catholicism, squandered money his family could ill afford, mother's cancer - drinking at home - conditions grew appalling, and Stanislaus and Joyce strained relations - frivolity - drinking habits. With those, I'll be satisfied that we can avoid FARC. Sandy (Talk) 16:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • That's easy enough to do, but it just means a dozen more citations of Ellman. Would a broader footnote with some explanation at the beginning of each sentence do? As a scholar, if I were writing something like this, once I established that all my biographical info was coming from the same source I would more or less leave it at that. Chick Bowen 16:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm not fond of the idea of broad covering footnotes, because future editors might insert something that isn't covered. I just don't like opening the door to anything about diagnoses, conditions, alcoholism, cause of death - issues of that nature - not being cited, guess it's my work on medical articles. Whatever you think best: I know that would work in a hard copy or other academic environment, but we have to confront the dynamic nature of an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and any statement that isn't ref'd might be challenged by a future editor. Sandy (Talk) 21:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I've done what I could. Some things just are too general to cite, I think. The drinking particularly; it's hard to find a page of any biographical text on Joyce that doesn't mention it, so we cite particularly notable incidents of it, like the Phoenix Park fight. Chick Bowen 22:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm satisfied with the work done - thanks to all who rolled up their sleeves and dug in, Sandy (Talk) 23:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Can we clean up the references and external links? Maybe add a further reading section. Joelito (talk) 16:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I can do the work of cleaning up the Footnotes, but I don't know what to do about the listy stuff after the print references, some of which is repeated in External links, and a lot of which may not be needed. Perhaps one of the Joyce-knowledgeable editors can clean out some of that (I mentioned early on that it appeared to be a link farm, it looks like too many web sources are listed, not sure if they are really used in refs) - I'll expand the footnotes. Sandy (Talk) 16:28, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Not properly cited-Not FA right now: The article has still serious referencing problems. But first of all let me stress something, answering to those who don't regard inline citations as a prerequisite for FA status: Wikipedia is not Britannica, where almost all important articles have the signature of a prominent scholar, who guarantees for their accuracy. Here the articles are written by anonymous editors. If we do not provide (verifiable) citations, we offer no guarantee to the reader that what we write is accurate. If we want to compete encyclopedias like Britannica or Larousse, we have to adopt higher standards because of the nature of Wikipedia. That is why I strongly believe that every assessment, quote or historical fact should be cited. Bibliography is not enough, because if you don't mention a specific page your biblography is not verifiable (see a similar discussion during the FAC of Finnish Civil War). Yes, other scientific books do not have detailed citations, but they do have an eponymous editor! Fortunately or unfortunately, Wikipedia has anonymous editors, whose signature is not enough in order to guarantee and verify what they assess.

Let's go to the article now. These are the problems I found out:

• The biography section is under-cited. I chose not to tag it with citationneeded, because I did not want to overdo it. But for me, each paragraph should have at least one inline citation. I strongly believe that we should verify all historical facts mentioned there.
• In the next sections I added some tags in uncited assessments and quotes. It is wrong for me to cite Joyce's own words or to use terms such as "one of tthe most influential works" etc., without verifying them. Who guarantees me that these assessments are accurate or that the quotes are true?
• Obviously, the online references and external links need cleaning.
• I don't like some stubby or one-sentence paragraphs within the text, but this is not a major issue.

The article is good, but, in order to become FA, it definitely needs some more work. I see many dedicated editors here, and I feel confident that everything will be fixed.--Yannismarou 07:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

There are forty three inline citations in the article. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to assume good faith of those who continue to clamor for the article's demotion on the basis of its lack of inline citations. This is simply not true. I also object to such phrases as "in order to become FA, this article needs..." Please remember that this is not WP:FAC. The community has already identified this article as featured. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 09:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ghirla, I'm not referring to the official status. Officially, of course, it is FA. But for me it does not fulfil the current FA criteria. So, for me it needs more work in order to attain FA status. And I must confess that I'm really sad you do not assume good faith. I did not expect such a poignant remark (a remark obviously offending for me) from such an experienced and respected editor of Wikipedia. Please, try to understand that my only interest is the quality of the article. There is no reason to take it personally. And I honestly hope that you will reconsider your opinion of my not assuming good faith.--Yannismarou 10:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yannis, I've got an impression that your nebulous requirements to FAs are not shared by our community. So far, you opinion that each FA should have at least sixty inline citations remains... your personal opinion. I respect your opinion but I don't fathom how you expect to defeature the article alone. Since the nomination has been withdrawn, I don't see any point in contributing to this page. There is nothing left to discuss. Best, Ghirla ^-трёп- 10:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• I do not try to defeature the article. After all this is not FARC but FAR. Here we review; we defeature in FARC. And, as Sandy noticed, the fact that the nomination is withdrawn does not influence the course of the review. Until all the concerns are addressed the review is open. And it is not just the references as you can see. After all, it is another reviewer (Sandy) not me who spoke about the "listy stuff after the print references". Thus, as you can see, the review is still open and there is much more to discuss. If the concerns are addressed, the article keeps its stat; if not it goes to FARC. But this is something to be decided later. Not now.--Yannismarou 10:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oh! And I did not say that each FA should have 60 citations. You interpreted in a different way what I say. I said that an article of such length should have 60+. These are two different things.--Yannismarou 11:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

To the point, I'm happy the referencing is imroved and my tags are replaced with citations, but my belief remains that the biography section still needs more referencing. And of course references (the online sources) and external links (are they all necessary? And, if yes, shouldn't they be categorized or alphabetized?) still need cleaning.--Yannismarou 10:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

<Sigh.> Thanks to Ghirla for providing additional referencing. I am happy to trim down the external links section. However, I must join with some of the grumpier people on this page and say that the statement, "The article still has serious referencing problems" is completely innaccurate. It might have been true when this review began; it is certainly not true now. I would characterize Yannismarou's objections as quite minor indeed. Chick Bowen 02:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You can choose any characterization you want, but my "objections" are actionable. A question about the References: I still see a long list of external links even after Chick Bowen's cleaning. Are all of them used in footnotes? Because, if they are not, these links are not references but external links, where they should be placed. The distinction must be clear here.--Yannismarou 07:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Links fixed, thanks (all external links mentioned in footnotes are linked separately there). I never said they weren't actionable, and I never said I wasn't grateful for any advice, but you do understand after several of us have put so much work in that we'd be a bit put off by (in my mind) unduly sharp criticism. All constructive comments are very welcome of course, and we'll do the best we can to continue to improve the article. Chick Bowen 07:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

OK! It looks much better. I still have some (let's say "minor") reservations about the level of referencing, but the article has been indeed improved.--Yannismarou 08:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another new look

Move to close FAR. Thank you, Chick Bowen - this is so much better. This addresses the concern I raised earlier, Yannis seems generally satisfied, the original nominator is satisfied, and if the final changes address Joel's concern, I move that we close this FAR. Sandy (Talk) 09:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If other reviewers do not have the same opinion with me and do not think that the Biography section should be a bit more referenced, I won't insist and I won't ask for moving it to FARC.--Yannismarou 07:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Order of the Garter

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Emsworth, UK notice board, Middle Ages, and Nurismatics. Sandy (Talk) 20:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The article has no inline citations (1c) and the image in the lead has an inappropriate copyright tag (3). Jay32183 20:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I'd like to know how Lord Emsworth feels when he returns to Wikipedia and sees so many of his FAs defeatured or at FAR/C. LuciferMorgan 23:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I hope he doesn't shoot the messenger <eeek> Sandy (Talk) 00:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as far as the image, I don't know. But I'm sure an article doesn't have to have inline citations(altough it would be nice). Suffencient references are given in the appropiate section. Joe I 09:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
  • This is a review, not a removal candidate, so we aren't voting yet. Inline citations are required to verify specific facts. Right now a non-expert can't verify anything. You are right that if the image were the only problem that the article wouldn't be listed here, but it still needs to be fixed. Jay32183 13:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Please see above.  :) Joe I 10:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Needs inline citations (1. c.) and I feel it may possibly be too listy which makes the article disjointed (1. a.). LuciferMorgan 09:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. This is a great article! The lack of inline is because he didn't write it when inline was required, or even available (it was a problematic template system). He lists the references used in writing it, and this is how legitimate academic scholarly works are done. The level of inline citation that seems to be the "norm" now at Wikipedia is at the far end of the extreme in scholarly works - and inline citations don't mean an article is of good quality. -- Stbalbach 15:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comments Uncited, extremely listy, some version of something that looks like it wants to be See also or Notables but is just a long list, does not conform to WP:LAYOUT. Sandy (Talk) 16:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment the lists of the members could be split off into its own article unless anybody objects, but I don't think the bullet points in the body are a particular problem. Should be easy to cite - I'll come back to it in FARC if nobody does anything on it. Yomangani^talk 01:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
  • A list of all the members ever already exists at List of Knights and Ladies of the Garter. Given that it's such an exclusive Order (26 members + royal extras) I don't think it's inappropriate to list all the current members in the article; it's certainly the sort of thing someone looking up the subject would probably want to know. Maybe a two-column format would make it look better. A lot of the other bulleted sections in the text (e.g. vestments) could easily have the bullets removed. What layout problems specifically did you have in mind, Sandy? I may be able to help cite this, but I'm quite busy at the moment. Dr pda 03:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
    • The *order* of the sections doesn't conform to WP:LAYOUT - easy to change as long as no one objects. Sandy (Talk) 03:43, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: Discussion on citations moved to talk page. Sandy (Talk) 19:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• I've mostly finished on this. I've split off the current member list just because it was easier to handle that way. There are two paragraphs that I haven't been able to reference which I think must come from the Begent and Chesshyre book - I'll try and get hold of this, but feel free to move it to FARC in the meantime. Yomangani^talk 16:44, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm impressed. Good work. Jay32183 19:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are insufficient citations (1c) and images (3). Marskell 06:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Much work already done. Moving it down to keep it on track. Marskell 06:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments: I've added references from Begent and Chesshyre to the remaining paragraphs so just about everything is cited now (although a unsourced statement about a possible link to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was recently added). I removed the assertion that some of the vestments were designed for the coronation of George IV because this wasn't mentioned in B&C, and is indeed inconsistent with the details given in the article about each item (the hat may well have been, though). I've also replaced the picture of the Queen Mother, which was a copyvio (painted in 1938 by an artist who died in 1972, so not "no rights due of age" as stated on the image page). The image of the garter needs to be properly tagged or replaced. I notice the section about the chapel of the Order got split off to its own article some time ago. For consistency with the articles on the other orders I think there should at least be a paragraph with a {{Main}} tag. Dr pda 14:13, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment I removed the header picture, as I don't see how we can claim fair use just because it is a better picture than the ones we already have. I've also removed the Sir Gawain statement, as "a presumed link" sounds like OR to me (and I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere so it isn't generally presumed). I've also cancelled my order for the C&B book! Yomangani^talk 15:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep A lot of work has been done, and I think at this point I can say this is a keeper. The image I originally had a problem with is gone, and there are now lots of inline citations. Good job! Jay32183 19:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per references added by Yomangani, and other improvements. Sandy (Talk) 14:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. It's mostly very well written, but the prose needs cleaning up in places (sorry to sound like a broken gramaphone record). Take the opening:

The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an English order of chivalry with a history stretching back to mediæval times; today it is the world's oldest national order of knighthood in continuous existence and the pinnacle of the British honours system. Its membership is extremely limited, consisting of the Sovereign and not more than twenty-five full members, or Companions. Male members are known as Knights Companion, whilst female members are known as Ladies Companion (not Dames, as in most other British chivalric orders).

• • Remove "with a history of".
  • The use of semicolons throughout is problematic. Needs an audit to ensure that the closeness of statements is logically expressed by semicolons vs stops. The first one here, I think, should be a stop.
  • "oldest national order of knighthood in continuous existence"—try "oldest continuous order ...".
  • Remove "extremely" (what does it mean here?)
  • "Whilst" is a personal hate of mine: why not simply "and" as a link?

And further on:

• • Again, the relationship between statements is a problem: "The Order was founded in 1348 by King Edward III as "a society, fellowship and college of knights."[1] Various dates ranging from 1344 to 1351 have also been proposed." It's a contrastive, isn't it? "The Order was (or "appears to have been") founded ..., although other dates have been proposed, from ...".

A 30-minute run-through by fresh eyes should be enough. Tony 01:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Dr pda and I have both run through it (eyes at least, if not exactly fresh). I've asked a few people to have a go, but it will be a while before they can get to it, so if anybody wants to volunteer... I've left "oldest national order of knighthood in continuous existence" as I think that it makes it clear that the order's existence is continuous rather than the order being a honour that can continue by being passed down through the generations - I couldn't see how to rephrase it and maintain that distinction (fresh eyes will deal with that appropriately, I guess). Yomangani^talk 14:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I know the review has passed now, but since you mention this early sentence: I reduced it to simply "It is the world's oldest national order of knighthood, and the pinnacle of the British honours system", but perhaps that oversimplifies it. I figured that "is" adequately says that it currently exists. I may have misunderstood the meaning of "continuous" here. I saw it as the excess verbosity one often sees. ("My grandma is the oldest member of my family in continuous existence.") I'll try something else, and make Tony's suggested changes also. –Outriggr § 08:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Changed my mind. "Continuous" is staying out unless someone wishes to put it back, and most of the other comments above look to have been addressed. –Outriggr § 08:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greek mythology

"Brilliant prose" promotion; messages left at Mythology and Middle-earth. Sandy (Talk) 17:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC) Additional message at History of Greece. Sandy (Talk) 12:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I came across this article while searching for something and was quite surprised this is a FA. It is apparently a hold-over from the days of Brilliant prose. In trying to determine when this was featured, I was able to locate the date that the featured article info box on the talk page (15 Mar 2004), but I cannot locate a nomination, nor could I determine the nominator. This article lacks cites, but also is lacking in comprehensiveness and decent writing. It has changed a great deal since it became a featured article and has also suffered from a great deal of vandalism. I believe this would require a great effort to bring it up to current Featured standard.

Problems

• 1a - Not well written.
• 1b - Not comprehesive.
• 1c - No cites.
• 2a - Lead leaves much to be desired.
• 3 - It has 3 images, which is acceptable, though an article on such a topic can and should have many more.

*Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 17:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment WikiProject Middle-earth?!? Jkelly 17:57, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 19:02, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

That only means I found a link to that Project either in "What links here" or on the article talk page when I ran through all 400+ articles: if a Project links to an article, I notify, in the hopes that casting a wider net will help find someone who will work on the articles. The "What links here" don't always make sense, but the idea is that the more potential editors we can pull in, the better. (And, if anyone knows of Projects that might help, please do put out additional notifications.) Sandy (Talk) 00:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The link was at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Middle-earth/Standards#Tenses... Carcharoth 08:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. As a Greek I feel very sorry I see this article here. But I must agree it is an awfull article, as it looks like now! Bad lead! Bad structure! I don't even like the writing! Uncitated! I could do some things for this mess, but I don't think I can soon bring this article very close to FA criteria. I must study my material, find additional sources, think about the right structure, start rewriting, improve the prose (the most difficult task for me, since I'm not a native English speaker). Maybe it is better to defeature it and then start form scratch. I really don't know.

I don't think it is exactly within its scope, but I'll leave a message in History of Greece wikiproject, in case one or more editors have the eagerness, the appetite and the background to co-operate with me, in order to achive something within the pressing time limits of FARC. But I must admit I'm not so optimist about such a prospect!--Yannismarou 11:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I will lend as much help as I can. Unfortunatley, my knowledge of the subject is limited thanks to a high school teacher who thought learning how to diagram sentences was much more important than learning about Greek mythology as everyone else did. Let me know if you'd like me to help copyedit and I'm always up for a little research. I'm glad to see that someone has taken an interest in this article. Cheers! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 14:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

OK! Thanks! I did some work with the lead, but nothing more. I hope I'll find some time tomorrow to work more on this. And I'll definitely need your copy-editing skills, when (and if!) I complete my improvements in this article.--Yannismarou 14:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Just let me know. I just made a very minor correction to some sources you added. I changed the spelling of Aischylus to the more common (at least in English) Aeschylus. I have the article in my watchlist and I'll check in and see what changes are being made. Nice work so far! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 18:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your collaboration!--Yannismarou 19:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

As you may see, I've already worked on some of the sections and I'll continue improving the article. I estimate that I'll need about 10-15 days to bring it to close-FA status. I don't know what are exactly the time limits of FARC, but I had to inform you about my time table (approximately). This article still needs much more work, but if I stay on schedule and if I have a nice copy-editing at the end, I think that we can save it.

Oh! And something else. You might get the impression that my edits are scattered and mal-organized! You may even wonder: "What, on earth, is he doing?". Just don't rush to judge me! This is my way of working. You'll see that in the end the final result won't be that bad!--Yannismarou 15:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I've watched this board for a while and if something is being done to an article, they will usually let it sit here for awhile. You're improvements have certainly sruced the article a great deal! Would you mind if I added a few more images? *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 02:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Be my guest!--Yannismarou 09:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if I'll continue contributing to this article, after some incomprehensible interventions I saw from other users. You can check the talk page of the article to see what I mean.--Yannismarou 09:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC) Misunderstanding.--Yannismarou 15:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

This article still seems to be based on a picture derived from Bulfinch, Age of Fable and Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way. It has never been close to being a proper Featured Article, though once it appeared on the front page. --Wetman 09:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I just inform that by tomorrow I'll hopefully have finished my rewriting and then I'll ask for a copy-editing.--Yannismarou 12:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

So, we should move to FARC just to keep things moving; please let us know when we should have another look. Sandy (Talk) 04:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

No objection. I have still to work on two subsections concerning the gods and I've asked from Ganymead to help me with the copy-editing. But this urge for copy-editing help is addressed to everyone here who can help. I do my best, but I remain a non-native English speaker! I think that the "touch" of somebody having English as a maternal language is needed!--Yannismarou 12:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll be working on the copy edit over the next few days. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 15:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I just had a look, to see if I could help with copyediting - some questions first. Are all of those References really used in the article? Is all of that Further reading seminal, important, and necessary? Can someone look at the section headings (use of "the") relative to WP:MOS? I've never encountered the referencing mechanism used in Notes - can someone point me to something which explains it? The article is quite long, with 89KB overall, and a whopping 58KB of prose: is there a section or two that could be spun off into Summary style? Some candidates might be Modern interpretations or the Motifs section, or some of the text might be abbreviated in some of the sections which already employ summary style and have daughter articles. Can the Table of Contents be streamlined at all? It just seems that a look at the overall article organization might help. Sandy (Talk) 15:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, the references are all used in the text.
• About the further reading, I also have my reservations, but I do not want yet to trim it, If I don't check each source, one by one, and be sure about its utility or redundancy. I've already removed some of these books (the list was even longer!).
• I also want to trim the "See also" section. The remaining links look to me unimportant.
• The motifs section is alerady short taking into consideration its importance. I'll try to summarize the "Interpretations" sections or maybe merge them with the "Theories of origin". But I think the first thing needing improvement is prose. If we have an article with a good prose, I believe that we can more easily "cut-needle". Yes, 89 kb is big, but Greek mythology is huge as a subject itself. As you can see most of the sections or sub-sections are already summaries of other bigger articles! After all, some of the current FAs are over 100 kb. As I had commented on Tourettes Syndrome FAC for me comprehensiveness is above length. Let's first achieve good prose and comprehensiveness and then we'll see what we can do with the size. In any case, I'll definitely check the overall organization of the article and we'll see what changes might be needed (I've already given you some hints).
• I already saw your first tweaks in the article. Thanks! Waiting for more!--Yannismarou 15:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Although I still believe that size is not the major issue here, I point out that the article is now 85 kbs long (minus 4 kbs). I created a new article (Modern understanding of Greek mythology), trimmed the interpretation and origin sections and got rid of the "See also" section. Further size changes will be clear, when I finish rewriting the remaining two sections about the gods.--Yannismarou 17:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

New sub-article created: Greek mythology in western art and literature. I trimmed the the "Motifs". Now, we are at 83 kb.--Yannismarou 17:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Status Have the concerns from this review been addressed? I would like to hear from the nominator and the editors. Joelito (talk) 21:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to know what the nominator and the other reviewers feel that is left to be done.--Yannismarou 22:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

As the nominator, I'm thrilled to see the changes that have taken place on this article. I think that it has reached featured status and should be allowed to retain its star. Many lauds to Yannismarou for his hard work and to the other editors who have worked to bring this article up to standard. I have done some copy-editing and hope to finish in the next few days. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 16:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I have also done some additional (slight) copy-editing to my own rewriting. I think the article is comprehensive and fullfils FA criteria now. But I'm still open to suggestions.--Yannismarou 10:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Wholehearted support This brand new overhauled and polished article deserves our merit. Congratulations to the contributors. NikoSilver 11:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Move to close FAR per Yannis, Ganymead, and Niko. Sandy (Talk) 14:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Titanium

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Mav, Chemistry and Elements. Sandy (Talk) 14:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Has some general formatting issues, especially the long bulleted list in the middle. Almost no inline sources, there are many references listed at the bottom but only one of them is attached to a point in the article. On a side note, this became featured several years ago with only 2 votes. Vicarious 04:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• I would recommend the translation from the French for the label of the World Producers table. Also the table's source should give publisher's data. There are also several statements with {{fact}} tags that ought to be rectified. Not as serious, but still notable in a FA, is that there is a mix of all three citation styles. It would be best that it settles on one. --RelHistBuff 10:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Fixed table label and cite. --RelHistBuff 14:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Well, I got rid of the silly list, and amalgamated it into the rest of the section. Anything else I can help with? riana_dzasta 18:37, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Yep - FA standards have drifted past the quality of this article since it was promoted in November 2003. I noticed this some time ago and expanded the article early in 2005. Looks like more work is needed. I'll get to that after I upload some more photos to the Commons and fix the remaining issues with the Mount St. Helens article. -- mav 04:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Let us know when to have another look - hopefully this one can avoid FARC. Sandy (Talk) 19:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
    • History shows little movement - pls keep us updated if work is progressing. Sandy (Talk) 18:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are citations. Joelito (talk) 23:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove – insufficients inline citations, there are still many {{fact}} tags, mixed citation styles, non-standard references items and there are 2 embedded external links to commercial sites selling titanium rings and other titanium products (see the 5th paragraph of the Application section). This is based at the time of my review: [10]. — Indon (reply) — 15:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Per Indon.--Yannismarou 19:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Indon. LuciferMorgan 04:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove --RelHistBuff 07:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delay -- I'm starting to address the above concerns. --mav 22:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Many cites added. More later. --mav 01:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Krebs needs page numbers. Does Nature have an article title? Sandy (Talk) 20:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I no longer have the Krebs book and page numbers are not really needed; all info is from the chapter on titanium and that chapter is only a few pages long. Some of the external cite links to webpages have more combined text than that entire chapter. Anyway, I have two better references (Nature's Building Blocks and The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements) that I will be using to replace many of those cites. --mav 05:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
        • OK, struck. Please let us know when the reviewers who voted to Remove can have another look. Sandy (Talk) 20:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment "Medical applications" subsection needs citations, while the "Isotopes" section needs citations. LuciferMorgan 05:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comments: I moved one link to a Wikipedia article into the See Also section. Based on [11]:

1. Ref. #14 is a link to an image (it's not a source).
2. Ref. #13 is not reliable because it links to a commercial titanium ring website.
3. Ref. #12 is also link to a commercial jewelry website and it is unnecessary inline citation at the image caption. The source of the Image:Ti-color-strip.jpg is given at the image description. Furthermore, the image is inappropriate, though it is claimed uploaded by the owner of the commerical website. It looks to me of an external spam link to promote the site: ext. link in the article and also in the image description. (smell a bit fishy)

For the moment, I still stick on remove vote. — Indon (reply) — 09:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The are still a couple external jumps in the body of the text. Jay32183 21:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • That's because a whole chunk of new, commercial, and mostly uncited text was just added to the article. (I deleted the most commercial parts.) I'll be a Remove if this article isn't finished up by the end of the FARC period, as it doesn't appear anyone is tending the article, and there is still much too much uncited text. Sandy (Talk) 00:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

From my talk page, from Pzzp (talk • contribs). Sandy (Talk) 18:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

TITANIUM ARTICLE - removing "commercial" references.

Good Day SandyGeorgia,

I am not convinced that the mention of names of companies engaged in the production of titanium sponge and melting of ingot is not useful in the article. IMHO the inclusion of the list does not constitute advertising or commercial activity, not least due to the interesting fact that the list is EXHAUSTIVE (source was cited); moreover, the club of players in this market has barely changed since the beginnings of titanium manufacture. In fact the economics of titanium metal (and several other exotics like tantalum and zirconium) are influenced by the fact that so few firms are involved in its processing and manufacture. I think that in order to have a well rounded understanding of these metals, their sources and applications, the reader is well served by being made aware of the economics of the thing. For anyone working in the metals industries (as I do), knowing who processes the materials, where they are located and how they're doing is as important as who uses them. If you're going to be religious about policy, then mention should also be deleted of Airbus, Titanium Metals Corporation, Boeing and Tiomin, all companies mentioned in other areas of the article. Note also that we're not talking consumer goods here; these kinds of companies don't advertise since they sell business-to-business only, and don't need to.

I'd like to solicit other opinions on this issue.

Manufacture and fabrication: I will add citations when I have time.

pzzp DEC 18, 2006

• Remove. Mav indicated he'd be working on the refs, but seven days have passed, the work isn't proceeding, new unreferenced text was added, and the article is still largely uncited. Sandy (Talk) 13:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Not so fast. :) Notice that we are having a fundraiser right now? I helped to set it up. But now I have some free time and will restart work on the article. --mav 02:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Fine, but would you please keep us posted? Checking the article and the FARC every day for progress is tedious; FARCs are extended when editors keep us posted and progress is apparent - that wasn't the case here, and the process isn't indefinite. Striking my Remove for now. (And can you make that fundraising bar at the top of my page disappear - I hate telemarketing, mass marketing, mail marketing and all forms of marketing solicitation - I sit down to write my year-end charity checks based on those orgs that *didn't* market to me :-)) Sandy (Talk) 16:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I've added citations in the manufactur and fabrication section, I trust they're satisfactory. The Applications section is still all over the map. Although I've added to it I think it needs a re-work to classify applications into, firstly, metal and non-metal subcategories, then further into subcategories of metal: aerospace, industrial, recreation (incl jewelry and body jewelry), emerging, etc., and further non-metal into say, pigments, coatings, etc.Pzzp 16:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I've just removed a commercial link to a jpg which was given as a reference. This text now has external jumps (imbedded links) that need to be corrected and the text referenced:

Fewer than 10 grades are readily available commercially; most are melted upon demand. The grades covered by ASTM and other alloys are also produced to meet Aerospace and Military specifications (SAE-AMS, MIL-T), ISO standards, country-specific specifications (e.g.:JIS: Japan, DIN: Germany, BS: England), as well as per proprietary end-user specifications for aerospace, military, medical and industrial applications. Some of these alloys are patented and not available on the open market.

I'm adding cite tags to the article. We need to get this done, or de-feature the article per the vote above. Sandy (Talk) 10:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I spent some more time on this article tonight; more this weekend. A general reorg will likely be in order after I've exhausted my sources. --mav 03:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Spent some more time. Pretty much just needs a bit of clean-up now. None of things mentioned in the original nomination are still issues, IMO. -- mav 05:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the external jumps to websites about standards - we don't need external links to websites discussing military standards, we need a citation supporting the statements (see passage quoted above). Refs need cleanup - maybe someone will get to it before I do. Sandy (Talk) 14:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Considering new work, I left notes for previous voters to pls have another look. Sandy (Talk) 01:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment When the objections of all other voters have been addressed, my vote will change to neutral. LuciferMorgan 02:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Well, I actually like it now! Keep.--Yannismarou 06:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I think it's improved a lot. Great save. Jay32183 06:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• I did some copyediting, reformatting & added metric comparisons. The article is greatly improved to a FA level again. No ext. jumps to some fishy ads websites. Nice work! I changed my vote to Keep, but some cleanup is still needed (I didn't finish the cleaning). I'll be back to clean the references.— Indon (reply) — 10:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be more correct to say, that the article has been brought to current FA standards. Even before this FAR, this article had significantly improved over the original FA version of 2004. So it never degraded below FA standards (those standards simply became much more stringent since the time of promotion). My vote is weak keep until I have time to do a final pass with my last ref (lead needs to be expanded a bit as well). --mav 14:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Mav, please keep it on your watchlist and keep a close eye on it - it really seems to get hit with the commercial links. Sandy (Talk) 15:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Frustrated. I'll admit to being thoroughly disgusted by the sloppiness in this article. I went to the trouble to ask reviewers who had voted Oppose to double check their votes, and having just spent a ridiculous amount of time in the article, I now found that the references were so screwed up that their re-votes are now invalidated. In fact, the commercial links were not removed - an entire patch of the text was obscured by a referencing error which took me *forever* to find. I *think* I've now fixed the referencing errors, and that caused missing text to re-appear - invalidating the Keep votes above. If the editors of this article want those Keep votes, they can get in touch with all the editors again - this article is too high-maintenance for me, and has tried my patience. If someone isn't paying closer attention to FAs, they shouldn't keep their stars - they need to be tended, and references need to be correct. Sandy (Talk) 16:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I also found the final reference completely hanging in the air (obscured, since the final part of the article didn't show due to an earlier ref error), so I stuck it onto the preceding paragraph - someone pls check if this is correct. <grrrr> Sorry for the vent, but every single FAC I checked yesterday had faulty, deceptive, misleading, and incorrect referencing, and WP:V is policy - people should take it seriously. Sandy (Talk) 16:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• REMOVE until referencing is fixed. For those who had re-voted to Keep because the commercial links were gone, they were simply obscured by an incorrect ref tag, which caused a chunk of the article to go missing, along with missing references. They're still there:
• Exotica Jewelry (2006). Titanium Wedding Ring Catalog. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.
• "Information on Titanium used for Body Piercing, body-piercing-jewellery.com (accessed 26 December 2006)
• Cascadia Design Studio (2006). Anodized Titanium Ring Colors. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.

Sandy (Talk) 16:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, once you decide what to do with the commercial references, this image caption needs copyediting:

selected colors achievable through anodization of titanium.[28]

Sandy (Talk) 16:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

COMMENT - Er, almost everything you are fixing was screwed up earlier today. Why not just revert? --mav

Because (as someone who does a lot of it) I appreciate the hard work that goes into correct referencing, and I'd rather find the error than revert someone else's referencing work. Besides, what has me so frustrated is that other reviewers checked an incomplete article, with obscured text, and the commercial links still need to be addressed. Besides, the references are now fixed - the commercial links still have to be dealt with, and then reviewers asked to check yet again. Sandy (Talk) 18:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Commercial refs replaced and image removed. --mav

Striking my remove again, refs look better now. Since I still had to catch a minor ce problem, I'm not going to be a Keep on this article - I suspect it will be back at FAR soon, and I'm concerned about its stability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Here's a nice prose error in the previously hidden text - we need to get a copyeditor on this: It does, however, has a tendency to bio-accumulate in tissues that contain silica. Sandy (Talk) 18:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'll perform a copyedit on New Years Day. --mav 18:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Done. --mav 05:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• I didn't check until the end and found out that some unreliable sources are still used, per my first comment on top. Again, I stroke my vote and now with remove until the following ref. problems are resolved:
  1. Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems (1983). Titanium: Past, Present, and Future. Retrieved on 10 December 2006. → the link is dead
  2. France, Colin (2006). Extraction of Metals. Retrieved on 19 December 2006. → unauthorized website
  3. Exotica Jewelry (2006). Titanium Wedding Ring Catalog. Retrieved on 10 December 2006. → why do we promote a catalog here?
  4. Information on Titanium used for Body Piercing. Retrieved on 26 December 2006. → body piercing??
  5. Cascadia Design Studio (2006). Anodized Titanium Ring Colors. Retrieved on 10 December 2006. → commercial site

  — Indon (reply) — 17:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

1. Link was live just a few weeks ago and the website looked well-maintained. Likely down for the holidays and should be back up in early to mid January.
2. Unauthroized website? What does that mean and why is that bad?
3. Deleted ref, image and statement.
4. Yes, titanium is used in body piercing. Commercial ref replaced with an edu one.
5. Commercial ref replaced with an edu one.

-- mav 18:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

1. The link is still broken, but I believe you.
2. Please read the external link of the source here: [12] and go to the main index. Please tell me if this site is reliable as a source. The author does not attached to an academic institution, only gives paid home private tutorials. Per WP:V and WP:RS, I consider the webpage is dubious unreliable source. Isn't there any reliable academic source for the corresponding citation?

— Indon (reply) — 18:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Better cite added. --mav 00:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep: I changed my vote as a lot of work has been done compared to the original FAR version. It seems it went through a hiccup with the links to commercial sites, but with mav's corrections, it seems fine now. --RelHistBuff 05:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Looking good!Pzzp 22:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Real Love (The Beatles song)

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Johnleemk, Beatles and Songs. Sandy (Talk) 18:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this article for FAR as it fails criterion 1. c. This is because;

1. All direct quotations need inline citations.
2. All the information needs verification from reliable sources.
3. All opinions attributed to other people and critical comments made upon situations / lyrics / music etc. need inline citations. LuciferMorgan 20:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are citations and sources. Joelito (talk) 21:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove if my FAR concerns aren't addressed. LuciferMorgan 23:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment—The writing is OK, but the first paragraph needs fixing:

"Real Love" is a song originally written and performed as a demo by John Lennon, later re-worked by the three remaining members of The Beatles (Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr) in late 1995. The song was released as a Beatles' single in 1996 in the United Kingdom, United States and many other countries; and it was also the opening track on The Beatles' Anthology 2 album. It is the last "new" credited Beatles song to date to originate and be included on an album.

• Insert "and" before "later". Remove hyphen from "re-worked". Remove apostrophe from Beatles'. Remove "and" after the semicolon. Remove "also". Remove "to date".

I don't see quite so many problems in subsequent text, but a check of the way ideas are integrated into sentences, and of redundant wording, would not go astray. Tony 02:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The article appears to have had a number of citations added, and the writing seems mostly OK. Lucifer, can you identify areas that still need citation or other work? Sandy (Talk) 20:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The original FA nominator removed three places where I asked for citations, where original research is clearly an issue. This is in the "Lyrics and melody" section, where comments are made upon lyrics. Unless such comments come from notable critics, then lyrical comments shouldn't be there. I'd put the tags back, but then again I might be accused of trolling - check the edit history to see where my citation requests were removed. LuciferMorgan 21:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

May I add this as another reason I'm not returning - FA nominators are a law unto themselves. Johnleemk is clearly annoyed most of his Beatles FAs were defeatured due to my nominations, so removed the cite tags. So my vote stands at Remove due to the blatant original research which comments upon the lyrics. LuciferMorgan 02:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I see (I saw). The tags seemed well placed to me, and on the first, the text is not in the cite. Don't go. Sandy (Talk) 02:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahem. I made a comment on the article's talk about my removal of {{fact}}. To date, I can't find any response there. And please cut the bullshit about "FA nominators (being) a law unto themselves". If you wanted the tags put back, you could've told me, or gone ahead and done it. It doesn't make a difference to me; I generally ignore Beatles song articles nowadays for a reason. In my view, there is a major difference between critical commentary ("this song is good" or "this song is bad" or "this aspect of the song is noteworthy", etc.) and an objective description of the song. The three sentences in dispute are merely paraphrasing the song's lyrics, so it's really ludicrous for them to require a citation. All the real critical commentary has been sourced. Johnleemk | Talk 20:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Cut the bullshit? There's no bullshit about it - why don't you cut the bullshit about inline cites? I had this pointless discussion with you months ago regarding inline cites, and you didn't get the message - you just banging on about the References section. As for putting the tags back, I didn't as I've been accused by Raul of trolling - check Operation Downfall's FAR. The lyrics need citation as they're saying what they're about - a music critic now are you? No, I thought not, so it's original research. All the Beatles articles defeatured so far had the same problem and this is no different. Your FAR commentary is the only ludicrous thing going on here, or "bullshit" to be more frank. LuciferMorgan 21:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)]

If you honestly can't see the difference between now and then, we might as well stop talking. I never disputed that the content we talked about then ought to be cited. This, on the other hand, is paraphrasing the song lyrics. It is not analysis or commentary - it's summarising the song's lyrics. It's not even drawing any inferences from the lyrics. Johnleemk | Talk 12:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: All chart ratings and sales statistics ought to be cited. In "Lyrics and melody" the first paragraph appears like WP:OR. It is better to take someone else's subjective commentary as a quote and then cite the source as is done in the second paragraph (which is only one-line, not good practise and should be merged with the first paragraph). If these are fixed, I would vote Keep, otherwise I would vote Remove. --RelHistBuff 10:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The charts and sales stats are cited; the only problem is that my source (an online website run by a Beatles biographer) has since apparently gone down. (That's the reason WP:CITE asks us to include the date we originally retrieved the webpages - so it can be determined what revision of the site we got the info from, and it can be looked up in the Wayback Machine.) I've been hunting around for decent reviews which paraphrase the song's lyrics so we can stop beating around the bush here, but most of them seem to assume (for understandable reasons) that if you wanted to know the song's theme, you could just listen to the song or read its lyrics instead of reading a review. Johnleemk | Talk 12:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, after going through a dozen pages of Google results and a few more on Google Books, I dug up a review which briefly touches on the song's message (most others focused on either the song's structure or history). It's not entirely satisfactory IMHO, but it'll do, I think. Johnleemk | Talk 12:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, great. What about the second paragraph in "The release" section? The first sentence states that it entered at #4 of the British charts and eventually reached #1 in both US and UK charts. This is not cited. Actually, there must be something I don't understand as the parenthetical element contradicts the image caption where it says it reached #4 and not just entered at #4. Or does the #1 position refer to the album? If so, this sentence should be rewritten and if the #1 position does refer to the album, a cite is needed. --RelHistBuff 13:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

That was poor writing on my part - Anthology 2 topped the charts, but the single itself did not. I've made some organisational changes which hopefully clarify matters, and added citations. Johnleemk | Talk 16:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding citations. The only concern I have is regarding John Lennon putting the song on the backburner; was he working on it prior to his murder for the next album, or had he shelved it? If a citation could be found for this, then that'd be cool. Thanks once again. LuciferMorgan 13:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

As I said on Talk:Real Love (The Beatles song), putting on the backburner = shelved. As the preceding paragraphs in the section state, he worked on the song informally in the late 70s, and then abandoned it. We don't know of what plans he had for the song, if he had any plans at all. Johnleemk | Talk 14:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe LuciferMorgan is wondering where you got the assertion that he shelved it. If no one knew his plans or if he had plans, then it is best not to make that assertion. How about just saying, "The song reappeared in 1988, when ..."? Anyway this is good enough for a Keep for me. Good job. --RelHistBuff 16:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll note a keep here as well; good work despite some gnashing of teeth. Regarding the last concern, it seems an observation of an absence. Perhaps "Lennon does not appear to have worked..." rather than "Lennon shelved..." Marskell 20:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I've reworded the sentence. Johnleemk | Talk 10:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Contitional keep, if that one sentence that concerns Lucifer can be re-worded. Sandy (Talk) 20:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I noticed you tried to fix some problem with the refs, but I'm not sure what the problem is...the later errors you tried to fix appear to have been introduced by your initial mistaken edit. "British charts" is a named ref that already appeared earlier in the article, so there was no need to redefine it. Johnleemk | Talk 10:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Mine isn't a keep, as these days most song article's have a section properly dealing with critical reaction from music critics. I hope I don't come across as being annoying, but if anyone agrees with my stance then hopefully time can be extended on this one? If not, then consensus is consensus I suppose. LuciferMorgan 21:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, reluctantly. It's not the best FA. Tony 03:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed status

Place more recent additions at top

[edit] Sydney Riot of 1879

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Jguk, Moondyne and Cricket. --RelHistBuff 15:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC) Additional message at Australia. Sandy (Talk) 22:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Nominating due to non-conformance of criterion 1c (only four inline refs). The inclusion of the letters was an issue in the vote for FA. Although they were accepted to be included, at least the sources of the letters should be cited. --RelHistBuff 13:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the comment about the sources of the letters not being included as the text makes it clear that they are from April 1879 editions of the UK Daily Telegraph and the following Wisden Cricketers Almanack. Isn't the text considered "inline", or am I missing something? jguk 07:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I was going by WP:CITE under the subsection "Say where you got it". The original source is the Daily Telegraph, but I assumed that the text was really from an intermediate source (such as one of the references in the list under "References"). So to improve credibility, the reference should be cited. As it is a long quote, the quotation template could be used. The citing of intermediates sources can be applied to the footnote to the 1879 Sydney Morning Herald as well as other quotes throughout the text. --RelHistBuff 09:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I got the text from an anthology that included extracts from different years Wisden Cricketers Almanack, including the 1880 version. As Wisden Cricketers Almanack is cited in full in the text, is still available to read, and is probably, given online resources, easier to find then the Benny Green Wisden anthology I copied it from, I think the requirement to provide the source is adequately met. jguk 09:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Our citation standards are under WP:CITE#How_to_cite_sources. FA candidates these days are being failed for not reaching these standards. Could you use one of those three styles? --RelHistBuff 09:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

So basically you want a footnote? --bainer (talk) 10:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Either footnote (cite.php) or Harvard referencing. I assume many of the published sources are not available online so that excludes embedded HTML. This should be applied for the quotes as well other cases where cites are needed. --RelHistBuff 10:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm just wondering why you started a featured article review when all you want is a certain style of referencing to be used. You couldn't have just asked on the talk page? --bainer (talk) 11:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to cite sources is rather more prescriptive about one of the three mentioned citation systems having to be used than I understand the consensus to be. As far as I am aware, there are various suggested styles for citation, but it is not a mandatory requirement to use one of them.

In this article, there is a very full description of the source of the first extensive quotation in the text - fuller, indeed, than a footnote or Harvard would require:

On 11 February 1879, one day after the conclusion of the match and three days after the riot, [Lord] Harris wrote a letter to one of his friends about the disturbance. It was clear that he intended that the letter would be printed in the press, and, indeed, the letter appeared in full in The Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper on 1 April, and in other London newspapers, where it caused a furore. Wisden's Cricketers Almanack considered the incident of such significance that it found space for the whole correspondence too. The letter, which gives a detailed contemporary account of what Lord Harris thought about the riot, read as follows:

I can't see what a footnote would add to that, although it would be helpful to add the date of the original Almanack for the first (1880, presumably?) and that it is included in the Anthology.

(insert response) Not really pushing for *extra* information, just wanted to know where the letter came from. As jguk said, he copied it from Benny Green's anthology. So it is simply a matter of putting <ref>s on Wisden Anthology - 1864-1900 with page number. The quote should state the source. --RelHistBuff 16:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The introductions to the second and third are much shorter:

The New South Wales Cricket Association were outraged by Lord Harris's letter and got their honorary secretary, a Mr JM Gibson, to write to the Daily Telegraph in reply:

and

Fred Spofforth, Australia's Demon bowler, did comment on it years later in an 1891 cricket magazine interview, but with a different slant on the cause. His view was that the English team were unfortunate victims of intercolonial rivalry:

Perhaps it would be helpful for these to give a bit more detail (what was the date of the Telegraph in which the letter was published? which magazine was Spofforth quoted in?).

I'm sure some other citations could be added, though. The other quotations in the rest of the text (such as the one from the Sydney Morning Herald and from Lord Harris's autobiography) ought really to have specific inline citations. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:50, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added some more inline citations, as indeed have others. Is the review complete now? jguk 13:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I fixed the footnotes to conform with WP:FN; there is still quite a bit of unreferenced text. Sandy (Talk) 14:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This "unreferenced text" is largely a distillation of the various accounts that are all listed below as references, which all take slightly different perspectives. I'm not really sure how useful it would be to link in every single fact to such a wide range of references. I'd be interested in your recommendations. jguk 18:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the cites to the letters. As ALoan mentioned, the other quotes ought to have inline citations as well. I list only some of them below with the primary source as mentioned in the text. The secondary source should be cited and page numbers should be included if the secondary source is a book. The latter point has been raised as an important issue for current FACs for better verifiability.

• had written "The decision... " – issue of the Sydney Morning Herald
• his diary that "It was a most disgraceful affair…" – Vernon Royle’s diary
• The Australasian asked, "What will they say... " – issue of The Australasian
• the two men "expressed regret" – issue of the Sydney Morning Herald
• Lord Harris wrote, "They asked... " – Lord Harris’s autobiography

--RelHistBuff 11:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Status? Is work progressing? I noticed that bluelinks in notes and references need to be expanded (including last access dates), there is still unreferenced text (per RelHistBuff), and some of the TOC headings could be more compact. Sandy (Talk) 16:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, work is progressing. I dug out my copy of A History of Australian Cricket over the weekend, which is probably enough to deal with the rest.

It would be more helpful, if you are concerned about "last access dates" that you checked the links worked and then added the day's date. Especially as I do not recognise that as a concern anyone has raised before.

I would also note that RelHistBuff has not pointed out that there is unreferenced text. All five points are referenced - namely to the SMH, Vernon Royle's diary (for which the ISBN has been provided), The Australasian and Lord Harris's autobiography (which in a larger library, you should be able to find). I will, however, add references to pages in A History of Australian Cricket, where they refer to SMH and The Australasian extracts included, in the next week or so.

I have no idea what you mean by "bluelinks in notes and references need to be expanded" (other than in relation to access dates) so am unable to address the point. jguk 13:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I completed one ref as an example of the work still needed.

Publisher, pub date, location? Wisden Anthology - 1864-1900 edited by Benny Green ISBN 0-356-10732-9

Publisher, pub date, location? The Cricket Captains of England by Alan Gibson ISBN 1-85145-395-4

Expand ref, as example. Cricinfo page on George Coulthard

Expand. Australian Journal of Public Administration

etc.

Similar work is needed in footnotes:

Publisher, date, other biblio info so reader can locate source. Also, this uses last name first, while refs don't - consistency. ^ Cashman, Richard. The "Demon" Spofforth. ISBN 0-86840-004-1.

This isn't a reference - it's a link to the Wiki article on the Herald: The Sydney Morning Herald - 10 February 1879

A consistent biblio style would be helpful, for example, last name, first name ... page number last, etcetera. p35 Lord Harris's Team in Australia 1878-79, The Diary of Vernon Royle by Vernon Royle, edited by JW McKenzie ISBN 0-947821-10-4

etc. Sandy (Talk) 17:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I still don't follow.

The example reference you changed [13] was to change the accurate heading "Cricinfo tour index" to "England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST).] ind.cricinfo.com Accessed 7 December 2006".

However, that's less accurate. First "Cricinfo England 1878-79 tour index" would be much more accurate than the confusing "England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST)". As you can see, the tour index contains scorecards of five different matches played between January and March 1879, including the game in question here, not just one Test . Second "ind.cricinfo.com" is just an Indian server of cricinfo.com. The "ind" bit can readily be replaced with "aus" or "usa" or anywhere else where they have a server. So it's not useful.

That's the website given, and when you access that webpage, that's the page title. The idea is to make it easy for future readers to find the page if the links go dead. I'll try to tackle some of these this weekend, and see if there are stable versions in the Internet archive. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

In terms of a standard way of presenting book references, all books, except the Cashman book on Spofforth are cited as Title, Author, ISBN. That really should be sufficient for anyone who wants to locate the book to find it. Is it just a case of tweaking the Cashman reference, or more?

Publisher and pub date are needed. If you have the books, you can provide them - otherwise, someone else has to go digging around (maybe in amazon or B&N) for that info. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I can follow the "Accessed 7 December 2006" bit.

With respect to the reference to the Sydney Morning Herald of 10 February 1879, is it just a case of removing the bluelinks? Or are you looking for something else. jguk 18:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

We need a ref to the actual article - info like title, date, author, etc. I'll try to look at these in more detail this weekend, but my time is tight, so anything you all can do will help. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to try to work on this today: does anyone have publisher and publication date on the books? I can't find them. Sandy (Talk) 15:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, ALoan. Sandy (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I know where the Australasian quote came from but will need 24 hours to get the details. Bear with me. —Moondyne 16:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - I think this article is close, and we should avoid FARC. Additional questions:

Can anyone fill out the missing info on the Sydney Morning Herald article?

Can anyone give us page numbers on the two Green, Benny letter references, and the Cashman ref?

Can anyone straighten out Jguk's concern (above) about the reference,

England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST). cricinfo.com Retrieved 7 December 2006.

I just listed what was given, so I'm not sure how he wants that changed.

I'll go through next and see if any more cites are needed. Sandy (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what to do - there are still a lot of quotes from various press sources, that are probably the same sources already cited, but I'm not sure. Can someone verify if they are the same, and if so, we can use named refs to point at them. Sandy (Talk) 17:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

My bit:

• Added a page# for the Cashman quote
• Removed the Australasian quote as I cannot 100% confirm the source or give details. I'm almost certain that it came from another Cashman book: "Violence in Sports" but cannot get my hands on it. The article can live without it.

I can't find any more. —Moondyne 06:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The references to newspaper articles, other than the Australasian come from A History of Australian Cricket. jguk 12:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations (1c). Marskell 18:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't understand this. (1c) says that FAs must be:

"Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations. See citing sources for information on when and how extensively references are provided and for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.

The article cites all its sources, and cites them in a way that allows anyone wishing to check what is said in the article to find them. I know SandyGeorgia wishes to present some of the citations in a slightly different way, and that is happening - indeed, much of that is already happening. But that's a far cry from saying that 1c is not met.

Marskell has neither commented on the talk page, edited the article, nor commented above on the discussion on references. I'm not even convinced he has even read the article.

I remain very disappointed that minor, technical issues that could (and in my view should) have been addressed on the talk page, instead appear to lead to the automatic defeaturing of an excellent article. jguk 12:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no move towards automatic defeaturing: Joel was allowing extra time in FAR, Marskell allows extra time in FARC, both work towards the same goal - saving articles when work is progressing. It would be unusual for anyone to vote to Remove the article while work is progressing. (In the Bodyline case, there was no response for several weeks from editors working on the article.) Sandy (Talk) 18:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

There are still quotes that require citations. I still have no idea what is the secondary source where the quote from Lord Harris's autobiography came from. Also, as Sandy mentioned, there are still the missing secondary source citations for the Sydney Herald quotes. Finally, there is the need for the page numbers for the Royle, Green, and Cashman cites. If these are addressed, then I would vote Keep. --RelHistBuff 12:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've now just added the Sydney Morning Herald citation detail. —Moondyne 13:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

RelHistBuff, there is no need to give a secondary source for everything. I believe you are misunderstanding the requirements there. Anyone who has the Green book would be able to find the right passage within 30 seconds, so there is already sufficient information there to meet the requirements. I will, however, add in the page references anon. jguk 13:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added details of Lord Harris's autobiography, A Few Short Runs. jguk 17:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

If someone will please just tell us the source of the Herald article, I think we'll be just about there:

^ Author name ???. Article title ???. The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 1879.

Sandy (Talk) 18:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove- lengthy primary source quotations are indicative of a lot of the problems of this article which are detailed in the above. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 09:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment Why is there no explanatory text for what this process is and when it will end? --Dweller 10:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The instructions are at the top of the main page here, WP:FAR. Sandy (Talk) 11:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

They should be here too. And there's no date there for this particular process. --Dweller 12:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The article was moved to FARC on 9 December: add 14 days for the minimum period it will be at FARC - that period is extended if FAR is notified and work is clearly progressing. Sandy (Talk) 20:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - quoting the letters was discussed in FAC, and it was passed anyway. There are now enough referneces and inline citations for me. Adding more will be fine too, of course. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - this type of "cutting off the nose to spite the face" nitpickery is damaging to WP. I'm all for improving the article through the FAR, a highly positive process, but this FARC is unnecessary. --Dweller 12:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - but I'm none the wiser how this process actually works. —Moondyne 13:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment The FA standards are very high now. One can see this by scanning through current FACs. I have personally seen one FAC that had over 50 inline citations, but it almost did not make FA simply because page numbers were not provided in the citations. The argument made for this requirement was the verifiability policy. I, myself, would not have been so picky and I do not "count" citations, but I do point out where they may be needed. A quote such as the one below would need a cite (the ref is only an example).

• In his autobiography Lord Harris wrote, "They ...".<ref>Lord Harris (1921). A Few Short Runs as quoted in Green, Benny (1992) pp. 1-2</ref> This plus the Sydney Morning Herald cite would be enough for me to vote keep. --RelHistBuff 15:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Ditto - there are only a few cites holding up my keep vote, but because the article relies heavily on this quoted material, the cites are needed. Sandy (Talk) 20:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Needs more cites - there's a lot of info that could be speculation in the article. LuciferMorgan 05:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, I disagree with the above assertion, given the highly unique nature of this article. Daniel.Bryant ^{[ T · C ]} 11:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think I can't go better than neutral on this one as the full inclusion of the letters totally throws off proportion. I won't go remove, however, if a few more cites are provided.

• All direct quotes.
• "That Coulthard was a Victorian no doubt added to the emotions, and there were unfounded rumours that Coulthard had placed a large bet on an English victory." The first clause strikes me as a POV aside and should probably be dropped. The second is especially problematic without a cite: not only does it repeat the rumours, it declares them unfounded. According to whom?
• "Independent witnesses said Coulthard's decision was close but fair." This absolutely requires a cite, as I think should be obvious.

Earlier jguk noted "I'm not even convinced he has even read the article" re my moving it to FARC. Nope, I hadn't. I moved it down just like everything else on FAR that doesn't have a definite consensus after the first period. But there's no "automatic defeaturing" here; just the opposite. Marskell 17:19, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove but conditionally: I am voting now only because I have been told if one does not clearly make a statement, then my comments would be construed tacitly as being neutral. If my citation requests as well as Marskell's concerns above are addressed, then I will change my vote. --RelHistBuff 12:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove have tried in vain to get sources for letters, upon which text relies heavily, as well as direct quotes. Reluctantly must vote to remove, as source for important parts of article aren't given. Sandy (Talk) 01:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per ALoan. The referencing of the article is satisfactory to demonstrate factual accuracy. A handful of fact tags were added in the past couple weeks and it would perhaps be worthwhile to provide specific sources for them. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove unless serious citations are addressed; the requests have been up for ten days. Jguk does not appear to be editing—hopefully that's just a holiday thing and he can get back to it. I must say I'm absolutely astonished people find the referencing satisfactory here. Marskell 19:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Among other things, 10 days is nowhere near the usual amount of time given for citation tags on uncontroversial information to be filled in. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Citations were requested over a month ago - that was the reason for the FAR - *tags* were up for ten days (according to Marskell). We try not to tag articles. Sandy (Talk) 14:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
      • As far as I can tell, the main sources that were requested in the original FAR have been provided. The only remaining place where a citation clearly would be helpful is a specific issue date for the quotes from the Sydney Morning Herald. However, this is not a sufficiently urgent issue to warrant removing featured status. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
        • "Independent witnesses said Coulthard's decision was close but fair" is not "uncontroversial"—it's a critical piece of info on which the whole story turns.
        • I'm not suggesting closing this incidentally; at the very least we should wait for further comment from jguk. Marskell 22:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, until ^{[citation needed]}s are fixed and the article gets properly cited. Comment: Are these looong letters necessary?--Yannismarou 19:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] London Underground

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Stewartadcock, UK notice board, London, Trains, Rapid transit, and Underground. Sandy (Talk) 02:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

This article has several major problems. There are many stubby subsections, the "History" section has no text in the main section, the citation style is inconstant, the books cited aren't using footnotes, and there's a {{fact}} after one of the statements. -- Selmo ^(talk) 01:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comments. Numerous short, stubby sections and one or two-sentence paragraphs, See also need attention (some could be linked in to article), undercited and References are blue links that need to be converted to a bibliographic style, external jumps, possible External link farm, and several different means of referring to See also/Further within text that should use templates. The article appears to have grown piecemeal, without organization; rewrite needed. Sandy (Talk) 02:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Looking more closely at it, sections such as "Terrorism" are far from comprehensive. It doesn't mention 7/7, or other specific attacks that have occored on the system. I would love to fix it myself, but my LUL knowledge is quite weak. -- Selmo ^(talk) 02:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Prose is faulty throughout. Here are random examples.
  • "an all electric railway system that covers much of the conurbation of Greater London and some neighbouring areas." "All eclectric" must be hyphenated. Remove "the conurbation of". Instead of "some", can it be more explicit?
  • "The Underground currently serves 274 stations and runs over 408 km (253 miles) of lines.[1] There are also a number of former stations and tunnels that are now closed." I think the second sentence is clumsy. Can it be reduced and merged with the first?
  • "In 2004–2005, total passenger journeys reached a record level of 976 million, an average of 2.67 million per day." Why not remove the redundant wording and simplify? "In 2004–05, passenger journeys reached a record of 976 million, an average of 2.67 million a day."
  • "... by 1880 the expanded 'Met' was carrying 40 million passengers a year. Other lines swiftly followed,..." Trains are swift, but the construction of railway lines is less appropriate for that epithet.
  • The title "Into the 20th century" doesn't go well before "The 1930s and 40s".

I haven't read the rest, but can tell that this needs an overhaul, like a train engine. Would be great to keep as a FA.

Tony 13:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a good thing you wrote that essay. -- Selmo ^(talk) 00:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I have issues with the references section. They should all be converted to something other than a bunch of hyperlinks - author name, title of the page, etc. Hbdragon88 05:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I cleaned up the Main and See also templates, and started cleaning up the footnotes and references so that editors working on the article would understand work needed on refs. I also removed external jumps. Sandy (Talk) 22:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, very little progress on numerous issues raised. Sandy (Talk) 18:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are stub sections (2a), consistency of citations (1c). Marskell 15:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove The article is still a mess. -- Selmo ^(talk) 22:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, unfortunately. Citation problems and stubby areas here and there. Terence Ong 08:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, stubby sections, undercited, cite tags, External link farm, and footnotes/references not done correctly (blue link URLs). Sandy (Talk) 00:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Sandy. LuciferMorgan 02:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eureka Stockade

[edit] Review commentary

Left messages at Denni, Prester John, Manning Bartlett Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Australia and MilHist. Sandy (Talk) 21:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality disputed, carries several {{cite needed}}, and has no inline references. Also, colour of flag is different from colour of same flag here - which is correct? Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Citations needed, Wikilinking seems to need attention, References seems to contain External links and need to be written in consistent bibliographic style, short lead, NPOV tag not well explained, and image tags need attention. I converted mixed referencing styles and corrected section headings to WP:MOS. Sandy (Talk) 21:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Content is a problem in several places. For example, "The Australian colony of Victoria, a sparsely populated region of farmers and graziers, was declared separate from New South Wales on 1 July 1851. This tranquility was irrevocably disrupted that same year with the discovery of substantial gold fields all across the colony." To describe the colony of Victoria as "a sparsely populated region of farmers and graziers" is at best simplistic; how did all of those oppressed working class "criminals" from England become farmers and graziers just a decade, was it, after the abolition of transportation? Why should the readers assume that farmers and graziers and/or sparse population was tranquil? Australia didn't exist then, so let's not trot it out again—it's already in the opening sentence of the article.
• The writing is clumsy in places, for example: "and was payable whether or not any gold had actually been found."
• Seriously under-referenced.

Major rewrite needed, or it's heading for the dungeon. Tony 13:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it, most people in Victoria in 1851 were not and had never been convicts. Most were free settlers. The first settlements in what is now Victoria seem to have been made in 1834 and 1836, but I'm not sure if there were any other people in north-eastern vic at that time. Both those settlements were on the south coast. Perhaps the article could have more about population numbers or when certain towns were established and how quickly they were growing just before and just after the gold rush started.SpookyMulder 11:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove until neutrality tag issue fixed and references added. Buckshot06 00:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The article is under review now: if issues aren't addressed, Keep or Remove are entered after the review period, and during FARC. Sandy (Talk) 02:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Flag issue may have been addressed, possibly by accident: [14]. Can we somehow confirm that there is no prescribed colour for this flag, or determine that the colour used in the current image is correct? Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. Neutrality dispute, mostly uncited, and it doesn't appear anyone is working on Tony's concerns. Sandy (Talk) 18:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: The article achieved featured status on 31 January 2006. Changes since are highlighted here - there have been 337 edits since. I note no citations seem to have been removed, there had been a references section. Has the standard changed over the year? I don't think the claim of seriously under referenced is deserved. I appreciate that not much use has been made of in-line citations, but the references at the end are quite adequate. Eureka, John Molony, ISBN 0-522-84962-8 [15] is by a noted Australian historian for example (even if doesn't yet have wikipedia article - see NLA manuscript collection info for potted biog ). The neutrality dispute has been resolved.--Golden Wattle ^talk 09:13, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and neutrality (1d). Marskell 00:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove for my reasons above. Tony 03:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Tony. LuciferMorgan 20:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I think the article has been referenced, albeit not be in-line references, but adequately in my view otherwise and the NPOV was the view of a single anonymous editor (see rant below) and has been addressed.--Golden Wattle ^talk 09:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Seriously undercited (and Background is not an encylopedic section heading). Sandy (Talk) 14:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Birthplace of Australian democracy

I am one of those people who subscribe to the point of view that the Eureka Stockade was not the birthplace of Australian democracy.

It makes me so angry when I hear someone say it was and all I can think about doing is hurting that person.

That's how DEEP and BITTER my opposition is!!!!!!! And yes I typed all those out one by one!

It's really disturbing to find someone filled with so much hate aint it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.187.150.76 (talk • contribs).

• Concerns of above anon have been addressed with several references - see footnotes 1-4. NPOV tag has been removed, in my view not merited.--Golden Wattle ^talk 00:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove, writing is not up to FA standard in addition some sections don't fit - like Peter Lalor and the film section which increase the feelings of disorganisation; MOS issues including quotes in italics, sloppy use of bullet points, over linking of date elements and no useful wikilinks in other long blocks of text; insufficient referencing. --Peta 02:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spyware

[edit] Review commentary

Message left at Fubar Obfusco. Daniel Case 05:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Malware and Computing. Sandy (Talk) 21:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, after putting this here too soon after an embarassing turn on the Main Page, I followed the advice I was given and actually, I think, made some improvements to the article. I took advantage of the holiday to do a full copyedit which streamlined the prose and (at the time, at least), made the article 5K shorter. I found citations for most everything that was missing (the fact that I did this with simple Google searches makes me wonder why the original editors couldn't have tried harder). I think I cleaned up the POV issues with the Sony section.

However... there are still three things needing sourcing, and I think the article could use more illustrations. I am less sure it is no longer FA-quality now, but I'm only one pair of eyes. I think this deserves review as a matter of course. Daniel Case 16:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Some additional comments of my own. Due to its subject, the article is obviously prone to spam, which does create problems re stability. That can be contained, but just today an anon added two unsourced grafs which might be worth including. I don't have the time and I don't have the knowledge. If this is to stay featured, someone knowledgeable needs to stay on top of it.

I added a long comment at the head of the article just as a further warning to any spammers. Daniel Case 01:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I have also proposed that the programs mentioned in the "fake anti-spyware" programs be spun off into a separate list (with all entries citing sources) to cut the length down a bit. Daniel Case 21:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comments Mixed reference styles (please consistently use cite.php, which is the main method on the article), Section heading 4.1 Advertisements does not show in the TOC on my browser (I've encountered this issue on one article before, it was caused by some non-printable character), external jumps, potential external link farm, and lots of cite tags. Sandy (Talk) 21:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The list of notable programs needs to be prosified or removed. I suggest placing them in a history section of sorts, like "Adaware was first, then such and such followed." Lead paragraph screams for a citation. Hbdragon88 05:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, still has mixed reference styles, many tags, and imbedded links (external jumps). Sandy (Talk) 18:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations (1c). Marskell 00:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Remove. Just too many concerns still remaining. Unless someone (not me) makes this article their personal responsibility and keeps it at a reasonable level, it cannot remain a featured article. Daniel Case 04:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment—Looks good to me, so why can't one of the contributors fix the referencing? Tony 03:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Still needs more cites, so remove. LuciferMorgan 02:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Daniel. CG 21:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Space opera in Scientology doctrine

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at David Gerard, ChrisO, and Scientology. Sandy (Talk) 16:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

This article is long with lots of list-like sections. The prose is not compelling, hence failing criterion 1a. There are lots of quotes from Scientology literature, hence it appears more like a Scientology pamphlet rather than a Wikipedia article. My suggestion is to cull some of the text and rewrite it into a more summary style. --RelHistBuff 15:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Other problems:
  • The article uses mixed reference styles (at least 3 different styles): needs to consistently employ one reference style.
  • External jumps should be removed.
  • Rambling, out-of-control Table of Contents, reflecting lack of organization and possible failure to tightly focus on subject.
  • Not clear if all of the References were used to source the article, or if some should be eliminated, Further Reading, or External links.
  • Possible POV because of lack of critical sources.
  • The article is listy and stubby, appears to have grown via piecemeal edits, and needs a rewrite/reorganization.
  • Text relies largely on quotes. Sandy (Talk) 16:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - The article is NOT neutral. It gives inordinate emphasis to casual remarks by Hubbard as being part of Scientology doctrine. Arslycus is a good example; that was a casual remark in the PDC lecture made to illustrate a point (I actually listened to that very lecture not long ago while on a long drive). It is not a part of Scientology. Hubbard was always careful, IMO, to distinquish between his opinion or his self-admitted tendency to act the raconteur and what he considered to be the technology of Scientology. Additionally; he specifically excluded space opera (as a general topic) from Scientology; lumping it in, along with lots of other "unprovables", to what he termed "para-Scientology"; meaning that most Scientologists have VERY little intersection with space opera and it is by no means a core belief (the core belief being that you are an immortal spiritual being inhabiting a body and using a mind and that you can improve your state of being, by-and-large, using very concrete techniques that have nothing to do with space opera). The only actual alleged example of space opera that I know of that has any relevance to Scientology is the claim by ex-Scientologists that OT 3 includes the Xenu incident. But if that were the entirety of the article, I guess it would not be as "interesting" (although it might be a lot more accurate). Interestingly, I just looked again at the article and see that critics like to pooh-pooh Scientologist's protestations that LRH's far-out stories, anecdotes, and jokes are not a part of mainstream Scientology. So I guess we are "damned if we do and damned if we don't". Anyway, the article needs a lot of work to bring it to a neutral state. --Justanother 16:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Needs inline cites and needs to observe NPOV. LuciferMorgan 23:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The main problem with this article, aside from its blatant POV problems, is that most of the wacky stuff this article gleefully delineates in slobbering detail is NOT "Scientology doctrine", not by the dictionary definition of doctrine, not by Wikipedia's own Doctrine article, and most importantly, not by The Scientology Handbook. Subjects like the "Obscene Dog Incident" are taken from Hubbard's lectures, which were not always about Scientology, and were/are NOT Scientology doctrine except in the most ridiculously all-inclusive sense. By that same all-inclusive standard, we would also have to consider "Scientology doctrine" to include Hubbard's many tangents gone off on during lectures which had nothing at all to with Scientology, old war stories, stories told to illustrate a point but clearly not necessarily real, anecdotes from his personal life, and moments such as when, in one lecture, he commented at length about the hors d'oeuvres being served at the lecture and how tasty they were. Who's ready to start Hors d'oeuvres in Scientology doctrine? At the very least, the word "doctrine" needs to be stricken from the article's title and introduction. Highfructosecornsyrup 20:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The article needs massive cleanup, and a lot of time is being chewed up on a POV dispute instead. If the editors intend to retain their featured status, they should get crackin' on resolving the problems, and start writing in accordance with WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:CITE, WP:LAYOUT, and WP:MOS. Sandy (Talk) 23:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment (I am copying this over here from an unregistered user that put it on the talk page for this review)

I am a Freezone Scientologist. In the past I worked for the Church of Scientology, but I do not currently work there or participate in any of their activities. I do, however, continue to participate in Scientology (but not Church of Scientology) activities. I continue to be in agreement with the aims of the subject, even if not entirely with the official organisation. I have at least a passing familiarity with pretty well of the material which is referred to in the article and have done the level known as "OT3".

My overall impression of the article is that it has been written for the purpose of poking fun and/or titilation. Much of the material does not form part of what you could really call doctrine and was mentioned only in passing. The parts that refer to something you genuinely could call doctrine are quoted way out of context and thus do not give the reader a fair/neutral impression.

Further, many things which are actually part of Scientology doctrine seem to barely merit even a mention in Wikipedia. Thus the overall impression a reader obtains from this and other pages on the subject is heavily skewed.

Many from the official Church would be utterly shocked and offended that this material is mentioned in public at all. I do not feel that way personally. But I do object to the overall bias.

Nick Warren—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.139.185.125 (talk) 02:43, 12 December 2006

• Comment I disagree that the article needs "massive cleanup". It has citations for the Scientology teachings and Hubbard quotes. It believe it is written in an NPOV manner, but I'd be willing to improve the article if someone could provide a specific suggestion for what needs to be changed in this regard. And while I sympathize with those that are Scientologists or Freezoners that they don't consider these particular Scientology teachings to be "doctrine", it is clear that the Church of Scientology does in fact believe that Space Opera is not just a funny story that Hubbard came up with in a lecture. The Church of Scientology specifically says Space Opera is NOT FICTION. When a Church and its guru make proclamations like this, you can't just dismiss them out of hand. It is true that most Scientologists are not exposed to Space Opera until upper levels of Scientology, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a part of CoS teachings -- because it is 100% certain that CoS teaches that Space Opera is real, that CoS upper level courses specifically discuss aliens, and that Hubbard himself spoke about alien civilizations and alien beings on a number of occasions. Vivaldi (talk) 08:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I already provided a list (above), and none of the structural items (aside from possible POV) have been addressed. Sandy (Talk) 20:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I have no stake in this on either side, and it does seem to me that, like "Zionism" or "Creationism" or even "Baptism", it will be nearly impossible to do much more than provide "equal space" and let the POV proxies duke it out.

However, I would like to point to what seems to be a significant error in categorization: It is indeed possible for a philosophy or religion to teach that something is "real" and for adherents to talk about it without it being doctrine.

Doctrine can not reasonably include everything a group believes. This would be a most unhelpful definition which would dramatically increase the amount (and pettiness) of Doctrine for all of the World's faiths. Doctrine, as technically defined, could be construed to include just about anything. It could arguably be part of the Jesuit doctrine that the Sun rises in the East; of the Zoroastrians that it sets in the West.

For the sake of utility (see our own somewhat flawed article on "doctrine" for inspiration) I would suggest that we accept as doctrine "whatever a religious, political or social group claims as doctrine." This makes sense precisely because the utility of doctrine lies in its ability to discriminate, and it must be the purpose of any group charged with teaching doctrine to isolate those things that make "us" stand apart from all the others.

It is doctrine that enables our scholars to prove that your scholars are wrong. Doctrine tells not only what may be believed, but what must be believed. Doctrine tells us who is and who is not one of us. This is the strength, and the weakness of doctrine.

Applying this to Scientology, I would suggest that we accept what the church says is doctrine, as the doctrine of the church. This does not mean that many or even most of the church members don't believe something in addition to the doctrine, but that someone will not be thrown out of the group for refusing to believe these other things. This might help clarify our statements.

Roy 05:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are structure, sectioning, and TOC (2), prose (1a), and consistent referencing (1c). Marskell 20:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove: My initial comment on simply culling and rewriting was being generous as I had the hope that some Scientology experts would rework this article. However, now that it appears that there are different viewpoints, a lot more work on agreeing on the subject matter needs to be done. --RelHistBuff 11:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove: massive problems, unaddressed during FAR, the article is an embarrassment to FA standards. Sandy (Talk) 01:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove: as per Sandy --Justanother 01:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as per Sandy. LuciferMorgan 13:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United States House of Representatives

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Omaryak, MisfitToys, Daysleeper47, Stealthound and Lord Emsworth. Thesmothete 07:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at United States, Congress, and Politics. Sandy (Talk) 14:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Here is a point-by-point rationale following the FA critera. For such a prominent article, it does not reflect current standards for FA status.

1 It is well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable. ??

• (a) "Well written" -- the prose is neither "compelling", nor "brilliant". Organization of the article is haphazard. Factual statements often occur without context.
• (b) "Comprehensive" -- while major facts and details have good coverage, some significant aspects of the House are not covered at all, such as the system of bells, the significance and use of the Mace, and the visitors’ gallery, a more complete listing of Speakers and their significance, controversies about delegates voting in the Committee of the Whole House, the full significance of the Committee of the Whole in organizing the House, etc.
• (c) "Factually accurate" – the vast majority of statements in the article are accurate. However, many claims are not verifiable against reliable sources, such as statements that the House is “more partisan” than the Senate, or that “fewer than 10% of all House seats are seriously contested in each election cycle” (more than 43 seats were seriously contested in 2006). The article does not accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims throughout the article are rarely supported with specific evidence and external citations. Inline citations are almost non-existent.
• (d) "Neutral" – for the most part, the article the article presents views fairly and without bias; however, the opening of the article is somewhat pejorative (the “lower” “more partisan” body of Congress), and there are additional statements throughout that could be phrased with greater neutrality.
• (e) "Stable" – the article is stable.

2 It complies with the standards set out in the manual of style and relevant WikiProjects, including: ??

• (a) The lead section is not concise, does not summarize the entire topic, and does not prepare the reader for the higher level of detail in the subsequent sections, except insofar as it contains substantial minor facts without organization as with the rest of the article.
• (b) The article has a proper, if limited, system of hierarchical headings; and
• (c) A limited table of contents (see section help).

3 It has very few images for such an important subject, particularly given the likely volume of material available without copyright from the US government.

4 It is of appropriate length, for the subject, but it does not stay focused on the main topic – it goes into extensive unnecessary detail about the history of the Constitution, Pombo’s legislation about the Northern Marianas, the Gilded Age, etc.

Thesmothete 06:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)]]

I disagree with your characterizing the introduction as non-neutral. Neither "lower" or "more partisan" are pejorative - the former is a neutral fact (see Lower house) and the latter, if sourced properly, would be an important and relevant piece of information. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 14:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move this one down, I say.
  • "Because its members are elected from smaller (approximately 690,000 residents as of 2006) and more commonly homogenous districts than those from the Senate, the House is generally considered a more partisan chamber." The logic escapes me. And just why the founding fathers would characterise the Senate as being more "deliberative" escapes me too.
    • (Interjecting) In answer to the last point: mainly because of its smaller size, as well as the fact that its members served smaller terms and were not elected, shielding them from pressures to which the House members were exposed. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
  • There's a stubby paragraph in the middle History, surrounded by big fat ones.
  • Why is there talk of a presidential veto before the relationship between Congress and President has been explained? Where is the 2/3 override of veto mentioned? Why does the lead not announce that Congress has the sole power to legislate? Isn't that basic?
  • Why is there no discussion of the relationship with the British model? Is it the case that the relationship between the British Parliament and the king at the time is reflected in the Congressional–Presidential power balance? (Whereas the Canadian and Australian Governors-General vs Parliaments reflect the British state of play in a later century ....?)

Very superficial. Tony 12:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are prose, LEAD, and citations, among others. Joelito (talk) 00:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 03:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove—Zilch done since my comments above. This is an obvious demotion. Tony 03:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, no inline citations, poor quality for an FA. Terence Ong 08:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Julia Stiles

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at PedanticallySpeaking, Bio, Films and Theatre. Sandy (Talk) 21:14, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, this old FA is no longer up to featured status. The lead is insufficient, lacks inline citations (only 6), the quotes are not cited, none of the images have a fair use rationale, and it has several stubby/one sentence paragraphs. Nat91 21:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC - no improvement, and a recent (unsourced) edit changed her from a Mets to a Red Sox fan, so accuracy is in question. Sandy (Talk) 20:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are LEAD, citations, images, and prose. Joelito (talk) 23:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 02:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Lucifer.--Aldux 14:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove I'd give it a B-class. Wiki-newbie 16:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Lucifer.--Yannismarou 20:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Floppy disk

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Litefantastic, Computer science, and Computing. Sandy (Talk) 22:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

An old FA that lacks inline citations in many sections and has a variety of {{fact}} tags. Lead is insufficient (two sentences). Bloated trivia section ("In Marvel's Transformers comics continuity, Optimus Prime's personality was downloaded onto a floppy disk after his death"). Some "weasely" sentences ("It is probably true that floppy disks can surely hold an extra 10–20% formatted capacity versus their "nominal" values, but at the expense of reliability or hardware complexity."). Gzkn 06:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. Inadequate lead, listy and trivia-loaded, weasly, no improvement during FAR. Sandy (Talk) 16:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c), weasel words (1d), and trivia (4). Marskell 18:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove until Sandy's FAR review comments are addressed. LuciferMorgan 03:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - unfortunately, nothing doing towards fixing deficiencies. Sandy (Talk) 00:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] James II of England

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Emsworth, Bio, Royalty, UK notice board, Ireland, and Scotland. Sandy (Talk) 21:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

This is an older featured article, nominated with no discussion, a relic of the brilliant prose days. While it is not a bad article, it fails to meet two FA criteria.

• 1. (b). This article is not comprehensive. While the life of James II is indeed well-covered, the "Legacy" section is woefully inadaquate. There is no discussion whatsoever of different ways different groups of academic historians have seen James II. Which brings us to the second problem: sources
• 1 (c) The sources used here are severely lacking. Furthermore, the good sources cited are not properly used. We have two dated secondary sources, one general "bio" website and the EB1911. James II by John Miller, a good source, is not properly used. For instance, though this book discusses James' views on religious toleration and the way his subjects reacted to it (they saw it as insincere), this is not treated at all. Moreover, this article is almost entirely lacking in inline citations. In order to bring this article up to current FA standards, it's going to need to properly use books like James II by Miller and a lot more of them (see Miller's bibliography)

I'm not trying to be mean to the participants here; it's just that FA standards have (fortunately) risen quite a bit since this article was written. --Zantastik talk 21:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

and the style of good writing mentioned above is characteristic of all the old EB-based articles , and probably all of thems that are FA should be reviewed and , unless much rewritten, removed. Reason: 1(c) DGG 05:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Needs inline citations, obviously, but also major copyedit: what is the strange table and the cryptic 'Issue' section? 'Miscellaneous' = trivia = not encyclopedic, remove. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, diff since nom. Sandy (Talk) 14:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are comprehensiveness and sources. Joelito (talk) 01:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 02:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove See my comments in the Review commentary section for my reasoning. --Zantastik talk 09:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - absolutely not enough inline citations.--Aldux 13:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Per Lucifer and Aldux.--Yannismarou 20:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove needs major rework: not comprehensive, weakly referenced, virtually no inline citations. Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autism

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Medicine FAR and Psychology. Sandy (Talk) 03:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion this article is no longer up to featured status. It has 12(!) {{fact}} tags on it, and a couple of sentences are either weaselly or POV. Examples of the latter include:

• Some now speculate that autism is not a single condition but a group of several distinct conditions that manifest in similar ways.(weaselly)

• Parents who looked forward to the joys of cuddling, teaching, and playing with their child may feel crushed by this lack of expected attachment behavior. (POV as well as a few other problems)

If these problems are addressed I will happily support its remaining a featured article. Until such time, I beleive it should be delisted--Acebrock 02:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The weasle words and broad patches of uncited text are problematic (indicative of POV and OR), but the article has far bigger problems than just the cite tags and weasle words.
  • It doesn't conform to WP:MEDMOS
  • It is severely undercited, and relies on some sources which are personal or support group websites rather than medical sources.
  • The lead is too long and doesn't summarize the article.
  • External links have become a link farm for support groups, see WP:EL and WP:NOT
  • See also needs pruning and/or other articles incorporated into text.
  • Infobox isn't complete.
  • Article isn't tightly focused on its topic, with entire sections discussing other conditions.
  • Problem with Fair Use image.
  • Doesn't rely on highest quality medical sources, and References appears to have grown piecemeal; it's not clear those references were actually used in the article.
  • The Table of Contents shows an unorganized approach to the topic, and could benefit by following suggested sections per WP:MEDMOS, modified as needed for a neuropsychiatric condition.
  • There's a red link in See also.
  • There are external links. jumps.
  • It relies on daughter articles which are in very bad shape, speculative, and poorly sourced.
  • It is not comprehensive
    • Treatment is inadequate
    • Causes is inadequate
    • There is no Diagnosis or History section
    • There is no Prognosis section, or Prevention/Screening section
  • Sociology section could benefit from being trimmed and making better use of Summary Style
  • It has numerous mentions of individual researchers or research institutions, which look like attempts to promote those people rather than an encyclopedic entry.
  • It duplicates the DSM criteria, which is a copyright violation.
• In order to maintain FA, a serious and organized effort at improving this article is needed. Sandy (Talk) 03:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Sandy, however I'm sure her approach from the [Asperger syndrome] article is very inappropriate. The current autism article is extremely biased and *published* research that is no longer relevant needs to go. --Rdos 08:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Rdos, I think that a reviewer's approach elsewhere is irrelevant. Here, all that matters is improving the article at issue. I, too, agree with Sandy's points. And while we're at it, the writing is sorely in need of improvement. Here are random examples from the lead for "Characteristics".
  • "Typically-developing infants"—Isn't there a better standard term? The hyphen after -ly is wrong.
  • In a contrast, the wording should be equivalent, not "individuals who have autism are physically indistinguishable from those without".
  • "Enlarged brain size appears to accompany autism, but the effects of this are still unknown." False contrast: why "but"? A semicolon would present a more logcial relationship between these assertions.
  • "Much of this is due to the somewhat vague diagnostic criteria for autism, paired with an absence of objective diagnostic tests. Nevertheless, professionals within pediatrics, child psychology, behavior analysis, and child development are always looking for early indicators of autism in order to initiate treatment as early as possible for the greatest benefit."—"Somewhat" adds nothing but uncertainty. Just get rid of it. "Paired with" is not idiomatic in this context. The contrast in "Nevertheless" is unclear. The subsequent assertions require referencing (a long-shot that all of those professionals do the same?). And there's too much crammed into the last sentence. Tony 14:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Move to FARC, little improvement in concerns raised. Sandy (Talk) 14:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are comprehensiveness, sources, prose, POV/OR, lead, and images. Sandy (Talk) 01:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient inline citations. LuciferMorgan 22:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Very long list of problems (detailed above) almost completely unaddressed during FAR/FARC. Sandy (Talk) 13:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kitsch

[edit] Review commentary

Brilliant prose promotion, no original author. Messages left at Germany and Aesthetics. Sandy (Talk) 22:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This brilliant prose promotions has no citations, has become an External link farm (some commercial promotions), has a trivia section, and is filled with weasle words and what appears to be original research, editorializing, and opinion. There are several cite needed tags, and a good deal of redundancy in the prose. Sandy (Talk) 22:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree, plus the pictures are not great Johnbod 02:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It is listy in sections, and needs inline citations (1. c. requirement). LuciferMorgan 21:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment There is an obvious need for inline citations. Some of the weasel words might be from the original sources, but without citiations no one can know that. While acknowledging the difficulty of creating an article on such a poorly-defined subject, the article is still in desperate need of improvement. Badbilltucker 17:47, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, no significant improvement. Sandy (Talk) 14:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are citations, trivia section, and prose (lists). Joelito (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove—The quality of writing does a good job in depicting the topic. Take just the lead:

"Kitsch is a German term that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style. The term is also used more loosely in referring to any art that is pretentious or in bad taste, and also commercially produced items that are considered trite or crass.

Because the word was brought into use as a response to a large amount of art in the 19th century where the aesthetic of art work was confused with a sense of exaggerated sentimentality or melodrama, kitsch is most closely associated with art that is sentimental; however, it can be used to refer to any type of art that is deficient for similar reasons—whether it tries to appear sentimental, glamorous, theatrical, or creative, kitsch is said to be a gesture imitative of the superficial appearances of art. It is often said that kitsch relies on merely repeating convention and formula, lacking the sense of creativity and originality displayed in genuine art.

Though kitsch and kitschy may be terms used to criticize, the term is sometimes used as a compliment as well, with some finding kitschy artwork to be enjoyable for its "retro" value or unintentional, ironic humor or garishness."

• It's a German term, but it's now an English term too. Need to insert "originally"?
  • "Categorize" is pretty ungainly, in concept and phonology.
  • "in referring to" --> "to refer to"
  • Replace the em dash with a semicolon or a period?
  • Many people will object to the concept of "genuine art". Why isn't kitsch genuine?
  • "kitschy"—is that a word? "May be terms used to"—clumsy.
  • "Some"—some what?
  • "Where" should be "in which".

Very messy and lacking authority. This should be binned. Tony 12:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove: lack of inline citations (unverifiable), too many non notable trivia and most of them uncited and orphaned paragraphs. — Indon (reply) — 13:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Under-cited and with listy and trivia sections.--Yannismarou 19:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Insufficient inline citations. LuciferMorgan 14:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lawrence v. Texas

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Neutrality, Law and Supreme Court cases. Sandy (Talk) 18:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Only one in-line citation and a few scattered external links in the article itself. This does not pass 1c. Hbdragon88 02:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Lacks sufficient cites (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 09:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I'd prefer if the article had a bit more about the aftermath and what happened as a result of the case. JoshuaZ 20:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice if the article had more on the affects of the case, but the law doesn't move terribly quickly so courts are still deciding what the implications of Lawrence are. For instance, the Supreme Court hasn't heard any case since Lawrence that raised the same issues. So, it is impossible for the article to have a comprehensive review of the effects of the case for several years.Dekkanar 18:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking in terms of social and political aftermath not just legal. JoshuaZ 14:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Aren't all these court reporters inline cites? What the hell else are they? I agree that more references should be added (especially for interpretive statements), but this article has more than five inline cites, even if they don't appear at the bottom. Moreover, it's not in an obviously worse state than Roe v. Wade. But yes, cites for all the bullet points under "Broader implications" would be useful. Cool Hand Luke 04:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, I can see how the opinions sections are already cited (learned this while citing my own court cases in a recent essay), but the whole section talking about history (like no-fault divorces) all needs to be cited. If you don't think Roe v. Wade is an FA either, nominate it as well, but please don't use the article status of Roe to justify the status of Lawrence. Hbdragon88 01:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, work still needed. Sandy (Talk) 14:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are inline citations and comprehensiveness. Joelito (talk) 17:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC) And prose. (Tony1)

• Remove—Poorly written: when it comes to matter legal, precision of prose is of great concern. The lead is appalling:
  • Very clumsy opening: "not finding a constitutional protection of sexual privacy"—Shouldn't that be "finding that there is no constitutional protection of sexual privacy"? "The Lawrence court held that"—better as "The Lawrence judgment"?
  • "Lawrence has the effect of invalidating similar laws throughout the United States that attempt to criminalize homosexual activity between consenting adults acting in private." Remove "attempt to"; no two ways about it. Remove "acting". Heck, there's a lot of redundant wording ....
  • "The case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs were filed in the case. The decision, which contained a declaration of the dignity of homosexual citizens, was celebrated by gay rights advocates, hoping that further legal advances might result as a consequence"—"The case ... the case." The agency for "hoping" should be crystal clear. "Hoping ... will", not two hedge words (might). Remove "as a consequence". Tony 12:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Weak and reluctant remove. I like the analysis, but the lack of inline citations is a huge problem. The article mentions previous Supreme Court decisions and achieves a high-level legal analysis. But the lack of any scholarly backing, and subsequently, of citations, do not allow me to support it. There are also some stylistic problems, such as some external links not properly linked.--Yannismarou 19:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Prose problems, mixed reference styles, inadequate referencing, and no one is working on it. Sandy (Talk) 00:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• If I was a bit more familiar with the Americal legal system, I would love to work on this article!!! It is so close to FA status after a slight copy-editing and the addition of the missing sources. Unfortunately, my library does not include books of Americal Law and I do not know to what extent I should trust Internet source.--Yannismarou 20:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Yannismarou.--Aldux 14:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 03:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World War I

[edit] Review commentary

Brilliant prose promotion, no original editor. Messages left at Germany, MilHist, United States. Sandy (Talk) 19:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this for FAR because;

• It fails criterion 1. c. of "What is a featured article?" Lacks sufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 19:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I agree with the nominator. As a matter of fact I was also thinking to submit it here!--Yannismarou 22:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm unsurprised others thought of nomination, as there's been so much literature on World War I that this article's amount of cites is rather poor. LuciferMorgan 23:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I also agree with the nominator - the citations are incredibly weak, and the article could also use some polishing (the quality of the writing has, I think, slipped a little since it reached FA). I don't think it would be problematic to delist it while work is ongoing - it can always work its way back up. Carom 16:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Note - If work is being made on an article, admins generally extend the allocated time to address the criteria concerns. LuciferMorgan 17:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment You're right, of course - slipped my mind for some reason. Carom 18:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment 109 kilobytes of info and thirteen measly citations? This article is the encyclopedic definition of unsourced, and if any one is curious, it has been nominated for removal at least three separate times. It's high time we put our credibility where our guidelines are and axe this article’s FA status. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:32, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Concur with nominator and above also, for reasons above and my nomination (the 2nd one). It seems that after my nomination, the article was improved (ex. article size went down to 65kb), but now it appears to be growing worse again. AZ _t 23:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: lots of paras without inline citations, the current footnotes include one named just 'web reference', and there are style issue (lots of tiny paras that should be merged or expanded).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are citations and prose. Joelito (talk) 00:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient inline cites (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 13:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, and fast; an article like this one should be loaded with inline citations, and it's not what I call "brilliant prose".--Aldux 18:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove for some of the reasons listed here and for the weak inline citations. The prose isn't that great either. Looking at the lead (guidelines suggest 4 paragraphs, btw), the first sentence is missing a comma, and the second paragraph (which is only 1 sentence) is somewhat unparallel. AZ _t 00:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per my previous comment. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove—Where are the references? Tony 12:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. No references. I'm surprised nobody is working on this article.--Yannismarou 19:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - lack of citations. Buckshot06 00:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bath

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at OldakQuill, UK notice board, Cities, Geography and UK geography. Sandy (Talk) 19:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This FA has several problems.

• As with most nominations here, it lacks inline citations. The article is 45k long and has only 7/8 footnotes.
• Fair use rationale missing (and possibly an incorrect tag) on Image:Coat of Arms - City of Bath.jpg. Other images not checked.
• Very thin lead for such a long article.
• Poorly written: see e.g. first sentence of the Politics section
• Degenerates into a list in the Bath in arts section
• Horrible layout, too many headers, stubby sections, lists
• Possibly excessive external links section.

--kingboyk 11:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Insufficient inline cites. LuciferMorgan 16:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Per LuciferMorgan, plus other issues: some section have tiny paras that need to be merged or expanded and there are stub-sections(like 'The Spa'). Lots of red links, but I don't consider that issue a criteria for objection/removal personally - but it would be nice if somebody would do some stubs.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are citations, images, LEAD, layout, and prose. Joelito (talk) 00:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient inline cites. LuciferMorgan 00:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as per Lucifer, and 1a and 2a. The lead is too short and represents a clumsy attempt to summarise the article. The prose is poorly written.

"Bath is a city in South West England most famous for its baths fed by three hot springs. It is situated 159 km (99 miles) west of central London and 21 km (13 miles) southeast of Bristol.

The city is founded around the only naturally-occurring hot springs in the United Kingdom. It was first documented as a Roman spa, although tradition suggests that it was founded earlier. The waters from its spring were believed to be a cure for many afflictions. From Elizabethan to Georgian times it was a resort city for the wealthy. As a result of its popularity during the latter period, the city contains many fine examples of Georgian architecture, most notably the Royal Crescent. The city has a population of over 80,000 and is a World Heritage Site."

• • The opening sentence is stilted. Try: "most famous for its baths, which are fed by three hot springs." Are they underground springs? Thermal rather than hot?
  • Founded earlier? No reference, which would be OK if this point were referenced in the History section; but it's not even mentioned.
  • As a result of its popularity there is great architecture in the city? Fuzzy. Buildings arise from wealth.
  • No hyphen after -ly, please.

This deserves a prompt demotion. Tony 11:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Inadequately cited, prose issues, poor image placement, external jumps, short stubby sections and paragraphs, mixed reference styles, and no one working on any of it. Sandy (Talk) 00:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove as per everything above- --RelHistBuff 11:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Sandy.--Aldux 14:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revised Standard Version

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Bible and Christianity. Marskell 11:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

With the FAR page finally settling down, I thought I'd nominate one myself. This article fails to meet the criteria on a number of counts:

• 2a. The LEAD, consisting of one sentence, is obviously insufficient.
• 2b. The headings are entire phrases, in some cases.
• 1c. Completely lacks inline citations. There are references, but unfortunately sourcing will be difficult for someone relying on the web.
• 1a. Not terrible, but many one sentence paragraphs. Some of it is stylistically limp, such as "owing to its aim" in LEAD. Later: "The RSV New Testament was well received, but reaction to the Old Testament was different. Many accepted it as well, but many also denounced it." This doesn't need to be two sentences and it feels like it was written with a six year-old in mind.
• 1b. This weighs in at 13.5k. Yes, it's comprehensiveness not length, but the size is on the low-end of what you'd expect. The description of the drafting of the version overlaps the first and second sections and needs to be better rationalized and expanded. The International Council of Religious Education is redlinked and the reader needs to know what it is. Who were some of the scholars involved? How were they chosen?

A tough nut, to be sure. Hopefully someone will pick up on it. I can work on the prose, at least, if there is interest. Marskell 11:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Article has several serious flaws, and, personally, given the significance of the textual differences of the various editions, could and should be much longer. I also agree with all of the above reservations cited by Marskell. Badbilltucker 17:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are LEAD, style (headers), citations, prose and comprehensiveness. Joelito (talk) 21:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Nothing doing. Marskell 14:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. No improvement. Sandy (Talk) 20:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove No inline cites and an insufficient lead section. LuciferMorgan 04:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Antony

[edit] Review commentary

No original editor, messages left at Bio, Classical Greece and Rome, MilHist and Ancient Egypt. Sandy (Talk) 23:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Needs inline citations, and also needs to have the first image replaced, and it is of unknown origin. In addition, the references used are almost solely from ancient texts or Britannica 1911, so could definitely use some updated scholarship. Judgesurreal777 22:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Needs inline cites. LuciferMorgan 10:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, still uncited. Sandy (Talk) 04:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are citations. Joelito (talk) 04:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - Lacks inline citations (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 15:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above.UberCryxic 18:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. Badbilltucker 14:55, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. --RelHistBuff 15:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above.--Yannismarou 14:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above.--Aldux 17:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above.--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mixed-breed dog

[edit] Review commentary

No original editor, messages left at Dogs and Tree of Life. Sandy (Talk) 23:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC) Message also left at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds. Joelito (talk) 03:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Very few references for a FA and non of them are in-line references. A lot of POV OR can be found on the article as well, with sentences such as "many people enjoy owning mixed breeds". Michaelas10 (T|C) 21:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This needs massive re-writing. Potential OR, rather than prose (which isn't too bad), is the fundamental issue. It's an interesting and, I'd guess, fairly well-searched topic—no doubt for these reasons, lots of people have added nuggets of BS. In discussing intelligence of mixed-breeds we find: "For example, Benji, the hero in a series of films named for him, was a mixed-breed terrier." A fictional example used to support a real-world point?

Other random OR concerns:

• "Some American registries and dog clubs that accept mixed-breed dogs use the breed name All American, referring to the United States' reputation as a melting pot of different nationalities." That's really how the term arose?
• "Mixed breeds also tend to have a size between that of their parents, thus tending eventually toward the norm." What is the norm?
• "If one knows the breeds of the parents, some characteristics can be ruled out; for example, a cross between two small purebreds will not result in a dog the size of a Great Dane." No shit?
• Ah wait, there is some info that suggests someone read a book. The norm is provided: "With each generation of indiscriminate mixing, the offspring move closer to the genetic norm. Dogs that are descended from many generations of mixes are typically light brown or black and weigh about 18 kg (40 lb). They typically stand between 38 and 57 cm (15 and 23 inches) tall at the withers." OK, this is good and encyclopedic, if we have a source.
• "It's important to note that..." I just love "it's important to note that...". It helps you clearly identify non-encyclopedic writing.
• "Mixed-breed dogs can be divided roughly into three types:..." Roughly divided by whom? This screams OR.
• After saying just the opposite, the article declares: "Overall, mixed breed dogs tend to be healthier. They have more genetic variations than purebred dogs." That needs sourcing.

This really is an interesting topic (as a dog lover), but I think this page is a good example of the "semi-OR" that went unnoticed a year or two ago: written with good intent and no desire to deliberately include inaccuracies, but still of the vague, unsourced, "I-sort-of-know-this" type. Hopefully it can be picked up and worked on! Marskell 21:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Needs inline cites (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 15:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Good article, but needs inline citations. Right now, I would question it's FA status on that basis. Badbilltucker 19:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. Sandy (Talk) 04:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria are citations and OR. Joelito (talk) 04:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delist. This is one of only two featured articles a project I am associated with can point to, so I have very mixed feelings about saying this. But I do believe that the objections raised above are serious enough to merit the article being delisted. Maybe doing so might jolt some editors into working on it. Maybe I might even stop trying to assess articles to do it. Maybe. Can I get back to you on that one? :) Badbilltucker 15:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as per FAR commentary. --RelHistBuff 13:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm going to check whether this can be referenced/rewritten from the sources I have available, so please leave it on for a couple of days. Yomangani^talk 02:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - now I've had a decent look through. It's uncited, original research, poorly written and US-centric. Needs rewriting from scratch in my opinion. Yomangani^talk 11:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - too much uncited OR. Sandy (Talk) 21:20, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Yomangani (nice summary of the article's flaws!).--Yannismarou 21:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Lacks inline cites (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 21:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Celtic Tiger

[edit] Review commentary

Message left at CGorman --Peter Andersen 16:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC) Additional messages left at Ireland and B&E. Sandy (Talk)

A very old FA. Needs more inline citations (1c) - a lot of the links that are actually there doesn't work. I doubt it is comprehensive (1b) and it is very listy (1a). --Peter Andersen 16:27, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. External jumps, mixed reference styles (refs need to be converted), not clear if "Online references" are really References or External links, but the sources necessary for adequate inline citations appear to be available, and this article should be salvageable. Sandy (Talk) 17:11, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Indeed - not as bad as I was expecting, given its antiquity (FAC in late October 2004). It has not changed all that much in two years (diff from 31 October 2004, the last version before it was promoted, to 20 October 2006, the latest edit before today). Inline citations are required, inevitably; the listy sections can no doubt be prosified, if necessary. -- 17:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I've worked on this article considerably and it has gone from here to current. I will probably review the text one more time. It could still do with more citations and improvement in flow but I think it's considerably improved. –Outriggr § 01:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Since there is still a lot of uncited text, we should move to FARC just to keep things moving. Sandy (Talk) 04:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations and flow. Joelito (talk) 04:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Is anyone still working on this? There are still some statements needing citation (for example, the first thing my eyes fell on was "Today, wind power supplies only 5% of Ireland's electricity."), and the blue links in Notes need to be expanded to include bibliographic info and last access date. Sandy (Talk) 15:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• No, I'm done. –Outriggr § 23:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I can expand the refs that are there, but if no one is working on finishing the citing, it might not be worth the effort ... ??? Sandy (Talk) 00:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I tend to agree with you. (Which kind of reinforces for me the 85° uphill battle that I feel this process is!) –Outriggr § 00:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Unfortunately, in spite of excellent improvements by Outriggr, no one else pitched in to finish the job. Sandy (Talk) 16:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Still patches of uncited text. At least the article has been improvised though. LuciferMorgan 21:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Would it be worth the effort to remove the uncited statements without affecting the context in order to preserve FA? If you all think it is possible, I might try giving a first pass at it. --RelHistBuff 11:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I spoke too soon. It looks unsalvageable unless someone has the sources. Too many uncited sections that really need cites. I change my vote to Remove. --RelHistBuff 13:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)