Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/October 2006

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Contents 1 Kept status 1.1 Mount St. Helens 1.2 Layla 1.2.1 Review commentary 1.2.2 FARC commentary 1.3 John Dee 1.3.1 Review commentary 1.3.2 FARC commentary 1.4 Military history of Puerto Rico 1.4.1 Review commentary 1.4.2 FARC commentary 2 Removed status 2.1 Pashtun people 2.1.1 Review commentary 2.1.2 FARC commentary 2.2 Bodyline 2.2.1 Review commentary 2.2.2 FARC commentary 2.3 Split infinitive 2.3.1 Review commentary 2.3.2 FARC commentary 2.4 Supply and demand 2.4.1 Review commentary 2.4.2 FARC commentary 2.5 Propaganda 2.5.1 Review commentary 2.5.2 FARC commentary 2.6 Super Mario 64 2.6.1 Review commentary 2.6.2 FARC commentary 2.7 End times 2.7.1 Review commentary 2.7.2 FARC commentary 2.8 Hereditary peer 2.8.1 Review commentary 2.8.2 FARC commentary 2.9 Project MKULTRA 2.9.1 Review commentary 2.9.2 FARC commentary 2.10 I Want to Hold Your Hand 2.10.1 Review commentary 2.10.2 FARC commentary 2.11 Colditz Castle 2.11.1 Review commentary 2.11.2 FARC commentary 2.12 Lottie Dod 2.12.1 Review commentary 2.12.2 FARC commentary 2.13 Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson 2.13.1 Review commentary 2.13.2 FARC commentary 2.14 Mary I of England 2.14.1 Review commentary 2.14.2 FARC commentary 2.15 Ubuntu (Linux distribution) 2.15.1 Review commentary 2.15.2 FARC commentary 2.16 Lakitu 2.16.1 Review commentary 2.16.2 FARC commentary 2.17 Black hole 2.17.1 Review commentary 2.17.2 FARC commentary 2.18 Common Unix Printing System 2.18.1 Review commentary 2.18.2 FARC commentary 2.19 Albert Einstein 2.19.1 Review commentary 2.19.2 FARC commentary 2.20 Chuck Palahniuk 2.20.1 Review commentary 2.20.2 FARC commentary 2.21 Emacs 2.21.1 Review commentary 2.21.2 FARC commentary 2.22 F-35 Lightning II 2.22.1 Review commentary 2.22.2 FARC commentary 2.23 Sid McMath 2.23.1 Review commentary 2.23.2 FARC commentary 2.24 House of Lords 2.24.1 Review commentary 2.24.2 FARC commentary 2.25 Speech synthesis 2.25.1 Review commentary 2.25.2 FARC commentary 2.26 Get Back 2.26.1 Review commentary 2.26.2 FARC commentary 2.27 Iron Maiden 2.27.1 Review commentary 2.27.2 FARC commentary 2.28 Dream Theater 2.28.1 Review commentary 2.28.2 FARC commentary 2.29 Milgram experiment 2.29.1 Review commentary 2.29.2 FARC commentary 2.30 Gramophone record 2.30.1 Review commentary 2.30.2 FARC commentary 2.31 Kashrut 2.31.1 Review commentary 2.31.2 FARC commentary 2.32 Air Force One 2.32.1 Review commentary 2.32.2 FARC commentary 2.33 Spacecraft propulsion 2.33.1 Review commentary 2.33.2 FARC commentary

[edit] Kept status

[edit] Mount St. Helens

previous FAR

[edit] Layla

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Deltabeignet, Albums, and Songs. Sandy 19:35, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this article for FAR because;

1) 1. c. isn't met - ALL direct quotations from the bandmembers etc. need inline citations. The "Recording", "Structure", "Beyond the original album" and "Acoustic recording" sections all need proper citations, especially reasons why the lyrics/music was written and critical comments upon them.

2) 1. a. isn't met - the "Beyond the original album" is very listy, and needs converting into cohesive paragraph prose which flows, tying the whole section together. The "Quotations" section is listy also, and I feel would be better served by merging them into the "Beyond the original album" section in proper paragraphs, and of course tying the whole section together. LuciferMorgan 12:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment - Inline citations aren't required, despite popular belief, when Harvard referencing or other forms of citation are used. As for the second issue, you are correct. Also, in general, the article in whole isn't sufficiently referenced. If someone were to work on it a bit, it wouldn't need to be taken off FA status.

On first glance, it appears to need more inline citation work: there are still broad patches of text with no source. Sandy 19:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Actually, I am right on both accounts. Point 1 does indeed need to be addressed (especially direct quotes), otherwise my objection wouldn't be actionable. It is actionable though, and if the criteria concerns aren't addressed within the 4 week period, this'll lose its FA star. LuciferMorgan 09:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - First, let me thank LuciferMorgan. The article has for some time been lacking in several areas, and I think this review will be just the boost it needs. I have reworked the references and cited much material, along with a few new references. I have removed or rewritten most of the problematic text. In general, it's a better article today than it was yesterday. Deltabeignet 19:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Thanks for your compliment. Having said that, I have to say more inline citation work is needed, particularly regarding the origins of the song. LuciferMorgan 19:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Under the "Acoustic Recording" section, I'd like to read about some critiques by notable music reviewers. Right now the article makes a critique of this specific version, but without inline citations. This could be considered original research. I think this section could be expanded. LuciferMorgan 22:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Status? - Citation requests haven't been fulfilled, move to FARC. LuciferMorgan 22:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns inline citations (1c), prose and list sections (1a and 2). Marskell 08:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove if issues I raised in FAR aren't addressed. LuciferMorgan 23:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I may have finished the last of the work by merging and trimming the section on the "unplugged" version. Deltabeignet 06:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• More tags that need filling have been added. LuciferMorgan 21:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Done. Deltabeignet 05:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks.. Can some other editors pitch in with a review of this article? I'm finding it difficult to see areas of improvement - the lead maybe? I'm unsure. I think the lead may need expansion, but find other reviewers opinions first. LuciferMorgan 10:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm traveling, and won't be able to review for a few more days. Sandy (Talk) 16:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
        • If anyone can find criteria this article doesn't meet, can they inform the original FA nominator and give a time extension please? LuciferMorgan 18:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral The article is quite good but I'm not ready to certify it as a kept review.
  • "Clapton, having heard Allman's work on Wilson Pickett's "Hey Jude" cover, and finding himself in the same area as Allman, was introduced at an Allman Brothers concert by Tom Dowd." Should be rewritten. There's something I don't like but I can't put my finger exactly on what it is.
  • ...saying "There are my principles, in one form or another." Quote that should be sourced.
  • The caption of Image:Layla audacity.PNG is poor. Currently it states "Note the two clearly defined movements, the first tapering off into the second." The tone is unencyclopedic. It should be rewritten as "Visual acustic portrayal (I really do not know exactly what the image, visual acustic portrayal is just a noun I came up with to portray the sentence structure I deem more encyclopedic) of Layla portraying the two clearly defined movements, the first tapering off into the second."
  • Clapton played "Layla" as part of a three song set at Live Aid in 1985. This is a one-sentence paragraph. Either expand, merge or delete it.
  • Expand lead with information from beyond the original album. Joelito (talk) 14:55, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Once Joel's concerns are addressed, I'll be forced to withdraw my vote due to the fact I can't find much else at fault, unless someone else can? LuciferMorgan 20:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I think I've hammered out all his concerns. I'd like to see your opinion on the expanded lead, though. Deltabeignet 02:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• • • Two more fact requests in there Delta, and then things are covered. Joel, are you comfortable with this now? Marskell 13:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Not yet. The lead has been expanded but now it does not flow properly. Also tyhe stubby paragraphs in the last section are still there. Joelito (talk) 16:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Lead is much better now. Joelito (talk) 14:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Dee

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Filiocht (away indefinitely), Bio, UK notice board, Astronomy, Geography, Math, and Writing systems. Sandy 20:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Please note that the primary author, User:PRiis, didn't get one. (See Filiocht's nomination). I just saw this review, and have left a note for PRiis today. Unfortunately he's away too. Bishonen | talk 21:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC).

I do these extra notifications as a courtesy (the formal notification is the FAR template on the talk page); when compiling the original authors and WikiProjects on 423 articles, I couldn't read through the entire FAC commentary on each one. Thanks for the additional notification to PRiis; if more time is needed for ongoing work, it is always granted. Sandy 03:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This article was promoted in 2004. I think it's basically well written and saveable, but it has issues. Starting with the minor points, it has no infobox and a questionable number of redlinks.

On a more serious level, it has no inline citations, and a listcrufty "Dee in fiction" section at the end. --kingboyk 20:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Several problems: besides no citations and extremely listy, in the lead, we find a very strange sentence, with improper capitalization: "Dr. Dee (Or, Mr. Dee, as he left university before achieving his doctorate) straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable." I hope that's not typical of the rest of the prose. External links is strange. Sandy 20:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• What exactly is wrong in having no infobox?
• Any objections to simply delete the Dee in fiction section?

Pjacobi 21:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The weird sentence is a good example of the way FAs will deteriorate once the main contributor leaves or stops watching. (PRiis left shortly before it got that way.) This is less a problem of vandalism, which is usually promptly reverted, and more of well-meant but ill-judged, er, well, infobyte addition. I expect many main authors (most FAs are essentially written by one person, according to Raul) can testify to an inherent tension between the impulse to remove incoherent additions, and the likelihood of getting told that they're in violation of WP:OWN. All of it an argument for stable versions. Bishonen | talk 04:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC).

• I concur: there's nothing wrong with that sentence, and infoboxes mar articles in my view. Geogre 15:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• An infobox isn't mandatory for an FA as far as I know, but they're standard issue and present the biographical data in an easy to digest manner. That's not a key issue as I said in my introduction.
• I personally wouldn't object to simply removing the fiction section; others might. --kingboyk 21:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• I don't mind them if they are well presented: Yomangani did a nice job of cleaning up the pop culture at Laika. Sandy 22:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I found the following unsatisfactory

He believed that mathematics (which he understood mystically) was central to the progress of human learning. ... It should be noted, though, that Dee's understanding of the role of mathematics is radically different from our contemporary view.

which begged the question: so what was his understanding?

I'm not sure about the wholescale deletion of in fiction that section demonstates his impact today. Quite a few well know authors have used him as a sort of iconic figure. --Salix alba (talk) 22:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the subject in depth, but I think it would be a pitty to delete a whole section. Of course, it is listy. Of course, it needs rewriting, but deleting ... I don't know ... A sub-article could be created and keep just the most important things of the current section here. This is just a proposition. But what about the inline citations? Even if the section is deleted, the problem with referencing remains.--Yannismarou 16:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• I understood his view of mathematics from the sentence alone. Had I not, there were other sentences that explained it very well. While an FA is written for a general reader, it's also supposed to be a generally educated reader. From Pythagoras through Newton, and into some contemporary mathematicians, mathematics has been understood by some people to be real and not proportional. In other words, in the real mof ideal forms, mathematics is the supreme truth (cf. Plato in Timaeus). Dee saw mathematics in this way: math was a truth beyond the existential: it was essentialist. We don't generally think of it that way, these days, as most Platonic Idealism is rejected, but Dee did. Geogre 15:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Lacks inline citations (1. c. violation), and the "Dee in fiction" section needs a vast rewrite from its poor listy format into readable, fluent prose that's cohesive throughout. LuciferMorgan 17:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. Six edits since nominated, no progress. Sandy 05:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• I have taken a flame-thrower to the fiction section (cruft-magnet that it is) and made a few minor changes. Better? Apart from failing to satisfy the current mania for inline citations, this looks fine to me. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Much better: unfortunately, still completely uncited. Sandy 17:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• Fine for me. I don't see why contemporary FA criteria (including inline citations) should be applied retroactively. I would still prefer this article to many that are promoted this days. If I had to choose between 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) and John Dee, which article should be featured on Main Page, I would always point to the latter. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 07:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • FA does not equal automatic placement on the front page. Please stop knocking my work just because you don't like pop culture articles! --kingboyk 11:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations. Marskell 09:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Lacks inline cites (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 12:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Weak Remove. Per above+two stubby sections.--Yannismarou 12:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Inline citations are only needed for points that require citation. Let them be specified; this is no case for removal without that. Septentrionalis 03:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• The whole article need citations Septentrionalis! What do you want me to do? Fill the article with dozens of ^{[citation needed]} or copy the whole article here?! Because I cannot chose a specific sentence needing citations! No sentence has citations here! When an article mentions historical events (e.g. biographical elements) don't we need citations?--Yannismarou 10:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

  Only if some particular assertion is disputed. I don't see what is disputed here. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 10:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

  See disputed (by the article itself!) assertions in my comment. See also a series of quotes weasel words and other assessments or curious wordings needing citations.--Yannismarou 11:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per my comment above. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 10:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I tagged the biography section in order to show what the article needs. "Reputation" needs also referencing. This was just an example of what the article needs. Let me give you another example:

• Arthur was also an alchemist and hermetic author. John Aubrey gives the following description of Dee: "He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit.... A very fair, clear sanguine complexion... a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man." This is a quote. Quotes should always be citated. Where is the citation?
  • Aubrey's Brief Lives on "John Dee", of course; go here and click on the relevant link to verify, unless you are willing to accept my having done so. Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• And of course it is not correct that only disputed assertions should be ciated. Every assessment, quote, reported historical event or referred printed source should be citated. And this article fails these criteria.
  • Source for this? Every assessment needs to be verifiable, which is not the same thing. Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• "Casaubon, who believed in the reality of spirits, argued in his introduction that Dee was acting as the unwitting tool of evil spirits when he believed he was communicating with angels." Where did he argue that? Citation needed. General reference inadequate for a FA.
  • See earlier in the same paragraph "[sold Dee's] manuscripts to the scholar Méric Casaubon, who published them in 1659, together with a long introduction critical of their author, as A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James their Reignes)...". Not every citation need be a footnote; insisting on "Casaubon, op. cit.: Introduction" would add nothing. . Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
    • And I see that just such a useless footnote has been added. This is a waste of Wikipedia's time, its only limited resource. Septentrionalis 03:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree that a footnote wasn't needed in this case, but since the work was already used in a another footnote I didn't see any harm in adding it there as well (if you check the history I initially removed the citation needed tag). Yomangani^talk 11:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• "There is doubt, however, that an organized Rosicrucian movement existed during Dee's lifetime, and no evidence that he ever belonged to any secret fraternity." Here we have somebody who "doubts" another assertion. But we donot know who's this person, because we have no citation. According to your own argument Ghirla, here we need a citation!
• "As a result of this re-evaluation, Dee is now viewed as a serious scholar and appreciated as one of the most learned men of his day." Viewed by whom? Citation needed. We have no verifiable source to support the specific assertion (and verifiable sources are of course a fundamental FA criterion).
• "The centrality of mathematics to Dee's vision makes him to that extent more modern than Francis Bacon, though some scholars believe Bacon purposely downplayed mathematics in the anti-occult atmosphere of the reign of James I." "Some scholar believe", while obviously others "do not believe the same thing". Therefore, we have another "disputed assertion". Don't we need a citation here? In any case, "some scholars" without a citation are weasel words and weasel words are inacceptable in FAs.
• "Dee's most long-lasting practical achievement may be his promotion of mathematics outside the universities." Curious expression in every respect. It "may be" his most important achievement?! But it "may also not be"?!! Who say it "may be" and who says it "may not be"? Rewording and referencing needed here.--Yannismarou 11:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It would be a marginally better article if all of these were more specific; but there are three modern lives of Dee cited in full in the references. Adding the three of these to each sentence is a triviality. Would details on these, which no-one has yet denied, improve the article? Would they be worth the bits? Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

No, with these improvements the article would be an article fulfilling FA criteria, something that it is not doing now. As it is now this article would never pass FAC (as it is FAC now). I insist on this point, because I think it is totally unfair for all these Wikipedians who are nowadays striving to upgrade their articles to FA status and also strive to properly citate them, including at least one inline citation for each paragraph and sometimes one inline citation for each sentence. If we kee totally uncitated article like this as FA, I'm afraid we show no respect to their efforts and we apply double standard in similirar cases (this particular article in FARC and all the others in FAC - e.g., Salvador Dali's FAC was blocked for some time, because the editor of the article could not citate one particular sentence - and during my Demosthenes' FAC a reviewer placed a ^{[citation needed]} in one particular sentence I had not citated, although I had about 150 citations in total). In this specific case, the mere and unspecified presence of references at the end of the article is not enough. The use of this sources is not specified. It will be specified when every assessment of this article will be verified with a verifiable inline citation. This is the rule FAC applies nowadays and I think this is the principle we should also apply. And instead of having this theoritical discussion, it would be much better if somebody could go through the article and add the necessary citations so as the article no to lose its FA status. This is the real solution to the present problem - not the questioning of an existing and obvious problem.--Yannismarou 07:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Bah! May work so sometimes, and sometimes it's at best silly. Before in-line citing it was a biography article based on three well accepted, large biographies of Dee. If someone had doubts about it, or want to kown, he can read one of those.

Now it looks like specific sentences come from specific sources, of rather mixed quality. Referencing an encyclopedia article by another encyclopedia article? With all due respect to the EB, this isn't good practice.

And as a highlight, referencing Around the same time the True and Faithful Relation was published, members of the Rosicrucian movement claimed Dee as one of their number. There is doubt, however, that an organized Rosicrucian movement existed during Dee's lifetime, and no evidence that he ever belonged to any secret fraternity. with a reference to the Hermetic Journal? Didn't know that there are peer-reviewed journals on alchemy nowadays. And that they count as valid references for English history? Also what exactly did the reference support? In my quick reading, it is just of the opposite opinion.

Pjacobi 04:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think if the books in "References" had been moved to "Further reading" then your claim would have some validity, but since they are still listed as references, I think they have to be looked as at general references for the whole article (which is precisely why I haven't moved them). Inline citations provide an important function in that they make us examine the statements in the article. Without them we can claim that the general references cover anything in the article, but since the article is dynamic this often turns out to be untrue (or at least unverifiable). For example, in this article it was claimed Dee married three times, a claim which all the available sources contradict. Incidently, the Ackroyd biography was added as a reference yesterday, so if that was one of the three it indicates one of the problems with general references being accepted as the sources of the article. If the article was static and peer reviewed then a list of general references would be fine, but since anybody can add any information at any time, demanding a minimum level of inline citation is the only way to maintain the standard. With regard to EB, I've argued against this in the past, but since we use a great deal of data from the 1911 EB and that is regarded as an acceptable source, I think it would be somewhat ridiculous to exclude the 2006 version on the grounds it is less acceptable. The Hermetic Journal reference is badly placed (it replaced the fact tag rather than being put at the end of the preceding sentence), but if you feel it is an unacceptable source I will remove that statement. Yomangani^talk 11:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Arguments over whether it should have inline citations aside, I was wondering if anybody has either Wooley's The Queen's Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, or French's John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus mentioned in the reference section? I think some of the remaining uncited claims are too specific to have come from anywhere else. Yomangani^talk 12:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• I don't, but, once again, I have to praise your excellent work!--Yannismarou 15:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• After Yomangani's excellent referencing work I turned my vote into weak object. There are still two paragraphs in "Achievements" needing referencing and one more ^{[citation needed]} in "Biography". I'd also welcome a slight expansion of this two stubby section at the end of "Biography", but I don't think that this is a major problem. They are quite fine even with their present form.--Yannismarou 17:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

There is some more information that can be used to fill out both of those sections, but it needs collating and checking from the different sources - I'll come back to those once I have finished filling in the references (I'm having trouble with the last one in "Biography"). Yomangani^talk 18:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The subsections 'Thought' and 'Dee in fiction' under 'Achievements' still need inline citations. LuciferMorgan 02:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I agree for "Thought". For "Dee in fiction" I'm not absolutely sure that citations are needed (they would be, of course, welcomed). Recognizing the great improvements done in the article, I turn my vote into Weak keep, waiting for the minor remaining improvements.--Yannismarou 07:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I won't change my vote until my concerns are addressed, indeed the people at FAC wouldn't change their vote if they still had minor gripes. "Thought" is a major 'original research' concern unless inline cites are added. LuciferMorgan 11:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll look at those. Yomangani^talk 11:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Yet another fine save by Yomangani. Sandy (Talk) 16:22, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Military history of Puerto Rico

[edit] Review commentary

MilHist and Marine 69-71 already notified. Message left at Puerto Rico Project. Sandy 15:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Some of the main issues with this article:

-Does not have a single citation despite the fact that it is 61 kb long. Needs more citations.

-The lead is insufficient and too short for a featured article.

-Needs significant copyediting. The prose is less than brilliant to say the least.

-Comprehensiveness could be potentially be an issue. The article does not note any military events prior to the arrival of Europeans. That could be because there were no significant ones, but the article needs to address this issue somehow (that is, Puerto Rico's military history in all the millennia prior to the coming of the Spanish).

I have a left message on the talk page and will also contact the individual who nominated the article for Featured status.UberCryxic 02:45, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment There are 26 {{inote}}s in the article. Footnotes are not the only citation method.

Furthermore, the indigenous people of Puerto Rico (Taíno at the time) had no written language, thus their military events are not part of recorded history. It is known that they were at war with the neighbouring Caribs but details are scant. The recorded military history of Puerto Rico begins with the arrival of Europeans in 1493. Joelito (talk) 03:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Can you please explain what those inotes are? I've never heard of them before and don't know how to look for them. And if I don't know how to look for them, it is likely others will find themselves in the same situation, which is a big problem, even if this article was cited to the ends of the Earth. Right now I can't identify any sort of citations in this article. Either way, even that is still not enough. There are quotes that go uncited.

Regardless of the fact that recorded military history in Puerto Rico started with the arrival of Europeans, there have probably been some historical studies done on Puerto Rico about life before the Europeans. These must have described war somehow. If so, they should be included in the article, regardless of the level of detail they contain.UberCryxic 04:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I have converted the inotes to cite.php.

I will try to dig up any info on war events before 1493 but it will be difficult. The only good Taino reference I have is Rouse which is primarily an archeological book. It goes into some small details of warfare such as the use of bow and arrow, the election of temporary warchiefs, and the use of red paint. I will have to read the book in detail again because I was not looking for military info when I read it the first time.Joelito (talk) 05:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I consider this a "bad faith" nomination. Before the Spaniards arrived there was "no written history" of Puerto Rico. I would like to quote the words of a user on that subject:

"History my friends, is not a past event as many of you out there think; history is the interpretation of that event. That is, an event happens and nobody knows about it, that then is not history; it becomes history when somebody writes about it or speaks about it. It is a big misunderstanding to think of history as an event in the past. History is an academic discipline that one gets to study with its sets of rules and methods for doing it; methodology is called. Now, there is no previous [military history] before Columbus times by the simple reason that nobody has ever written about it, or has documented it in any other mean whatsoever. Of course there had to be some fighting between clans or tribes; somebody knows about them? The answer is no, there is no history to it."

There 26 "inote references" plus 11 references and 6 "External links". The article passed its peer review and was vote a "Featured Article". It has already been identified as one of the "best articles" produced by the Wikipedia community. Military history of Puerto Rico already appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 30, 2005. On July 3, 2006 it was selected for the featured article queue of the War Portal and on August 2, 2006 was selected for the Version 0.5 release of Wikipedia.

The article is constently updated and now someone wants it unfeatured?

I consider this nomination not only an insult to myself but, to all those who spent countless hours working on it making it one of the Pedias best. This is one of the reasons why I longer strife to have another featured article in the pedia and why at times I feel like quiting. The only thing that keeps me going here is that I owe myself to my people.

Tony the Marine 06:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Tony, don't you know that in Wikipedia we should assume good faith? Does UberCryxic have any special reason to insult you personally? Does he know you personally? Do you know anything about him? Have you learnt his history in Wikipedia? Do you know, for instance, that he has nominated 4 FAs and that he is one of the best contributors in articles about the military history? You should have learnt these things before assaulting him.

UberCryxic just wants high standards for the FAs. And I want exactly the same thing. You should thank UberCryxic for his detailed review, not assault him. By the way, the challenges for a FA a year ago are not exactly the same with the challenges now. And I also believe that this article, though good, has some serious deficiencies. This is my review:

• Very short lead. Tony, the lead should summarize the whole article. Is this a good summary? Do you honestly believe that? Check WP:LEAD and rewrite the lead accordingly.
• In section "The English" one paragraph has no inline citations. The argument that "Before the Spaniards arrived there was "no written history" of Puerto Rico" is not convincing. There are always secondary sources. Weren't you based on such sources? Otherwise, who told you about these stories? You should mention your sources, even secondaries.
• The last two parphs of the same section have also no inline citation. Mention your sources.
• The two firsth parphs in "South America" have no citation. And these events are during the Spanish period. So you should also have primary sources. Primary or secondary sources, I don't care. Just mention them.
• In "Puerto Rico" 3 parphs have no inline citations. Inacceptable for a FA article. Again mention your sources.
• The whole section "Cuba" has no inline citations. Again, what are your sources, my friend?
• "Spanish-American War" begs for inline citations! As a matter of fact, the whole article begs for inline citations!
• In "Puerto Rican National Guard" I see no inline citations. And now we are in the 20th century! Again no written sources? I don't think so!
• In "World War I" we have 6 parphs and just one inline citation. Again inacceptable for a FA.
• In "World War II" I see some very short paragraphs; one of them is an one-sentence paragrpah. Merge them or expand them. Such paragraphs are not recommended for FAs.
• In "World War II" again the first paragraphs have no inline citations.
• "Revolt against the United States" has no inline citations. Why?
• "The Korean War" has no inline citations. Why?
• "Mass court-martial" is a mess. Insufficient iline citations and bad prose (tooooo many one-sentence paragraphs and incoherent writing).
• "Cuban Missile Crisis" also has no sources and seems to me a bit stubby. It could be a bit expanded.
• "Vietnam War" has no inline citations. Why? Again, what are your sources?
• "Vietnam War" is also too listy. Personally, I donot line the prose.
• "Somalian Civil War" is stubby. Expand it or merge it.
• "Afghanistan and Iraq" has no inline citations. Now I'm surprised! So recent events and you mention no sources! Why?
• "Military installations in Puerto Rico" is for me too listy and should be turned into prose.
• For many of your inline citations (they are not many!), which are printed sources, you don't mention pages. Just an example: "El Grito de Lares: Puerto Rico's Revolt for independence, 1868 by Olga J. De Wagenheim (1990) Pub. Waterfront Pr. ISBN 0943862515". Where are the pages? You should go through all your references and find the pages. Otherwise, such references are inacceptable under current FA standards. This is a huge problem.
• "External links" are not mentioned in the right way. You should also mention date of retrieve, and author (if there is one mentioned).

My conclusion is that this article is good, but at this specific moment it does not fulfil at least three of the FA criteria:

• The lead does not summarize the whole article.
• Sufficient inline citations.
• Brillian prose (because of the many one-sentences sentences and one or two stubby or listy sections).

Therefore, this article definitely needs work. As it is now, it is far away from FA status. I'm sorry!--Yannismarou 08:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

This message is directed towards Uber:Cryxic and User:Yannismarou, You know what? After having slept on the thought I feel that you're both right. I guess times have changed and somethings need improvement. I guess I was caught up with my passion for writing when I stated the above. Together with Joel, I will work to update the article to meet current standards. One question though, how about if it was called "Modern Military history of Puerto Rico"? thereby covering the era of the Spaniards onward? Tony the Marine 18:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Tony, you have my sincere apologies if this offended you in any way. I was trying to be as diplomatic, and at the same time effective, as I possibly could. I hope we can focus on what can be done to improve this article. It was not a bad faith nomination: when I first looked at it and delved a bit deeper, I did not feel that it embodied the FA criteria. Yannis did a great job at analyzing and highlighting some of the more specific problems.

About the title: perhaps you can name it that, but I just wanted to know if there are scholarly works that somehow describe warfare in Puerto Rico before the arrival of Europeans. These studies don't have to be that detailed; it's just that it would be more appropriate if the article had some word on the issue, however brief (heck, just a few sentences would do, as long as it's addressed).UberCryxic 21:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Tony and Joelito, after you have some of the basic work done, I'll help with copyedit: I'm not a great copyeditor, but the other Tony is really busy right now, and at least I can give it a start if no one else is available. Sandy 22:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I am willing to give the article a thorough copyedit after the main issues (citations, comprehensiveness, stubby subsections) have been resolved.UberCryxic 22:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

This is an article that can definitely be saved. I'm not a good copy-editor and this is the only reason I am not proposing to help with copyediting! But I'll keep a close eye to the article and I'll help as much as I can. I'm sure that thanks to Tony's determination this article will keep its FA status. By the way, I don't know if Robth has the time to help with copyeting. He is one of the best around here in copyediting.--Yannismarou 11:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I would like to, first of all, thank all those who so far have pitched in to bring this article up to current FA standards. I have adde the inline refs. and worked on some of the contents. Sandy and Cryxic do your thing, you have my blessings. Tony the Marine 04:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I have given the article a copyedit. Others are welcome to go over it again and correct something I might have missed. Let me just say that there has been massive improvement of this article. On a second reading, however, I am somewhat worried that this article follows very personalized guidelines. That is, much of the military history of Puerto Rico as this article describes it seems to be just about a few individuals who did this and that for the first time. The following is one example of what I mean:

On November 2, 2003, Specialist Frances M. Vega became the first female Puerto Rican soldier born in the United States to die in a war zone. A ground-to-air missile fired by insurgents in Fallujah hit the Chinook transport helicopter which Vega was in. She was one of 16 soldiers who lost their lives in the crash that followed. On March 1, 2005 Specialist Lizbeth Robles became the first female Puerto Rican soldier born in the island to die in Iraq when her Humvee was involved in an accident.

Yeah that's sad, but Wikipedia doesn't care. This is an encyclopedia, not an obituary. I don't see how subordinating this article to a few personal tragedies and triumphs makes it encyclopedic. Where individual actions or titles are notable, of course, they should be mentioned (as in a major commander doing this or that), but in this case above, the incident is clearly not notable to overall Puerto Rican military history. There is little discussion about trends and progression among Puerto Rican military institutions (regiments, divisions, National Guard, and so on). The article certainly alludes to some of these complex features, but not strongly enough, at least in my opinion. I think it's fine if these personal stories are kept, but I want to see some more analysis on larger historical trends and questions surrounding Puerto Rican military history.

Additionally, I feel that while it's great that we are getting so many citations, it is slightly regrettable that many are from internet sites. A few more scholarly and published works would definitely help make this article more professional.UberCryxic 18:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem mentioned by UberCryxic can be solved by spinning content about individual soldiers into a separate daughter article, summarized back to the main article using Summary style, with one or two paragraphs. I suspect that doing this will also eliminate many of the less scholarly sources from the main article. I know it's hard to part with content that might interest some readers, but it will improve the encyclopedic tone, and the content could be saved in a separate article. Sandy 02:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the daughter articles. I have been pondering this myself. Furthermore I am in the process of gathering more scholarly sources to replace the websites. Also I am continuing to trim away the fat from some sections. Joelito (talk) 02:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• It should be noted that all of the main concerns have been properly addressed. The citations even though they may not seem scholarly, are none the less from verifiable sources as required by Wikipedia policy. Puerto Rico's Military history becomes intertwined with American Military history after the Korean War, therefore there was a need to mention some individual contributions and personal achivements of some Puerto Ricans which American history books have neglected to acknowledge. Improvements will always be more than welcomed Tony the Marine 05:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree Tony but this still needs work.

• References must be properly formatted (I have begun this task).
• We must try to replace the web site refs. For example, do we need a web site ref for Sir Francis Drake's life?
• Content should be moved to daughter articles and the content summarized in this article.
• More copyediting is needed. Joelito (talk) 18:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree with Joelito: let me know if I can help. Sandy 21:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Update? Approaching the two-week review period, how is it going? Sandy 14:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

My time has been limited this week. I will try to work on it today. Joelito (talk) 18:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have finished the ref formatting. I have hidden some of the refs as broken and commented on some as unuseful. Joelito (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are insufficient citations (1c), LEAD (2), prose (1a), and comprehensiveness (1b).

Comment: Looks like some work has been done here. Moving it down to keep it on pace. Marskell 09:36, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments. First, I'm most unhappy about the use of the linked term "War against Terrorism", which appears in the first sentence. The article in question has a template posted at the top stating that the balance is disputed. I agree with that sentiment. Let me know if you need me to explain this view further. In addition, that article begins by stating that it's a term used in the United States (thus, it's centric in national/cultural terms). Second, although the article is now fairly well written, there are still a glitches, such as:

• • "46 cannons were sent to the island ... to rebuild the city". (I've stripped it to its bare bones; this is an embedded meaning here.)
  • "the latter 18th century"—were there two of them? ("late 18th century"?); "try his luck as pirate" might be OK, but seems a little informal to me—does this come from reference 7?
  • "In 1811, Miguel Enríquez participated in the expeditionary force, under the command of Juan Roselló, which fought and defeated the British in the island of Vieques."—Doesn't the first comma make it harder to read?
  • "and dispatched Captain Balduino Enrico (Boudewijn Hendricksz) with the task of capturing Puerto Rico."—Just "Hendrickz) to capture"?

Needs sifting and weeding. Tony 15:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• • Changed War against Terrorism to "in the military campaigns at Afghanistan and Iraq." Please verify the grammar. I have some problems between at, of, in. Joelito (talk) 16:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I like it now!--Yannismarou 18:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Tony the Marine 05:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Much improved.UberCryxic 03:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• There's still a "War on Terrorism" down the bottom of the text. Tony 03:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I rephrased, pointing out that the "U.S." and its "allies" refer to it as War on Terrorism. I hope that takes care of it. Tony the Marine 05:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, fine job. Sandy (Talk) 14:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed status

[edit] Pashtun people

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:Tombseye, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pashtun and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups. Marskell 11:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Is this really a featured article? It seems generally speculative and the sources don't seem to meet WP:RS. Particularly, the population figures from the "Joshua Project", an evangelical Christian missionary organization, seem suspect. Mike Dillon 03:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

There are a number of references, but still large swathes that are only partially wikified (see Women section). I don't think this meets 1a either. "Their history can literally be traced back millennia"—do people normally assume "millenia" is a non-literal denotation? List numbers should not be inserted into the text as they are in "Pushtans defined". "This is the most prevalent view among the more orthodox and conservative tribesmen who do not view Pashtuns of the Jewish faith as actual Pashtuns even if they themselves might claim to be of Hebrew ancestry depending upon which tribe is in question." Wha..? Marskell 11:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It's always nice when FAs follow WP:LAYOUT; perhaps one of the main editors will fix that. Sandy 13:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Needs a serious copy-edit to pass 1a. Here are examples of redundancies and other problems in the first three sentences.
  • Right at the start, "Pashtuns" and "ethnic Afghans" are plural, yet all of the alternative terms are singular.
  • "are an ethno-linguistic group living primarily in eastern and southern Afghanistan"—Remove "living".
  • Insert "the" before "Balochistan"—presumably, they're identifiable.
  • The listing is wrong technically: "The Pashtuns are typically characterized by their language, adherence to Pashtunwali (a pre-Islamic indigenous religious code of honor and culture),[20] and Islam." I think it should be ", and adherence to ...", without another comma.
  • "Pashtuns have managed to survive a turbulent history despite having rarely been united. Their history can literally be traced back millennia, while their modern past began with the rise of the Durrani Empire starting in 1747." Replace "managed to survive" with just "survived". Just why the "despite" is the case is not immediately clear. Remove "literally". Choose either "began" or "started", not both. Tony 11:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that even through the article has some inline citations, there are still entire paras without a single one.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are quality of sources (1c) and prose. Marskell 13:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello. Sorry for the late reply, but 'real life' has kept me away from wikipedia for months. I got the message regarding the review for the article. Firstly, since I wrote the article and it won FA status it has devolved into personal views and irrelevant additions and now we have an ever expanding view of what defines Pashtuns (that does not correspond with encyclopedias). I will try to repair it as much as I can, but people seem adamant at turning it into a sub-par article just to get their point across regardless of whether it is academic or not. I agree with the above comments as well as and will see what I can do. Any further input would be appreciated. Thanks! Tombseye 21:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Update ? By the way, what is the Literature section - are those References or Further Reading? Sandy (Talk) 15:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

As Tony notes below, there is still work to be done. I'm doing some on and off and I'm in the middle of a ton of work in real life. As for the language and lit. section it's about the Pashto language. Tombseye 23:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Quite a lot has been done on this article since my last comment. But I'm not yet happy that the prose is of "professional" standard, and I think that it's still under-referenced. I've copy-edited the lead as an example; a few of the edits are based on personal preference; most are not. Plus a few random points that suggest that there are problems lurking throughout.
  • "They share with their menfolk a free-willed, strong and fiercely independent character that values freedom and self rule." Reference required. "Due to numerous social hurdles, the literacy rate for Pashtun women remains considerably lower than that of males"—Reference required (I guess stats are unavailable, but you are making this assertion ...).
  • "for example, though women are technically allowed to vote in Afghanistan and Pakistan, many have been kept away from ballot boxes by males.[69]"—By males? Is this a systemic, cultural behaviour? How is it manifested? More details would be nice, since most readers won't bother to go to the reference.

I'd like to see this survive as a FA; at the moment, it's on the wrong side of a knife-edge. Tony 14:46, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Is anyone still working on this? Many of the references are just blue links that need to be expanded. If there is actually an effort to improve the article, I'll help expand the refs to bibliographic style, but if no one is working on it, it's not a good use of my time. Sandy (Talk) 16:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove: Citations are needed in several sections ("Women", "Genetics"), some restructuring is needed as there are overlapping information in the "Pashtuns defined", "Culture", "Putative ancestry", and "History and origins" sections, and a through copyedit should be done. --RelHistBuff 13:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bodyline

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Cricket and Australia. Sandy (Talk) 00:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Brilliant prose, but no inline citations. Yes, all articles need them, and so does this one. Tagged images are good, movie poster could use a fair use rationale. Could probably use a copyedit too. Judgesurreal777 00:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - I've given it a light copyedit - as you say, the prose was pretty good already - and added a few refs. Hopefully someone from WP:CRIC with the books will help too. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I would like a little more time (a week or two) to work on this. I should be able to get Jack Fingleton's Cricket Crisis in a few days. Tintin (talk) 13:37, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell 07:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Tintin, you have two weeks more to work away—longer, if you feel it necessary, and you inform people here. Marskell 07:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep as a featured article I can't agree with the prose comment. Even the nominator of the featured article review, Judgesurreal777, started his comments with "brilliant prose". ALoan has also commented favourably on it above. My own description would be that it is engaging prose. It's also clear that the citations are coming along and I'm sure they'll be at a sufficient standard really soon. jguk 18:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Still patches of uncited text. LuciferMorgan 20:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Give it a short while (another two weeks) and the text will all be referenced up, I'm sure. jguk 20:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. I cleaned up the TOC per WP:MOS, and cleaned up the few refs that were there, but the article is basically uncited and there doesn't appear to be a serious effort underway to correct the issues. Sandy (Talk) 15:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean. The whole of the "Genesis" section is referenced. The "English tour 1932-33" section just needs a reference to most of the books already listed at the bottom to be added at the end, and then it will be fully referenced. The "In England" section is fully referenced. The "Origin of the term" section is fully referenced. The "Changes to the Laws of Cricket" is missing just one reference - namely to the change that happened 30 odd years after the event. So up to there, we're only missing two citations, one of which is largely already covered at the end. I agree that the "cultural impact" section is unsupported.

In terms of improvement. There have been many edits relating to referencing in recent days, showing clear improvement. jguk 16:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there has been improvement, but more is still needed. Can someone please add page nos to current ref numbers 3 and 6? And, as you mentioned, there are still uncited sections. Sandy (Talk) 18:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned that there was one uncited section. And I fully agree that it should be referenced. As you note, there has been improvement, and I trust that as long as that improvement continues, adequate time will be given for this article to get back up to standard. I should add that I myself proposed the format that WP:Verifiability currently takes, so I'm quite mindful of the need to allow others to check all substantive claims that have been made. At the same time, I trust WPians are mindful of the large amount of work put into FAs such as Bodyline, so that they are eager for it to retain FA status (and to make the improvements to allow it to do so) rather than rush to delisting. jguk 22:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

If someone is working on it, please keep us posted - two weeks passed between Marskell's comment and my Remove vote. Sandy (Talk) 22:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep as featured article. I have no idea how this page works (there's no explanation text, or link to any and all the headings are jargon - "FARC Commentary" hardly suggests that people should be nominating to keep / remove, but everyone else is, so I shall too) so apologies if this comment is out of line, or only admins should be "voting". This is a superb article. An exceptional number of issues need citation within it, and proportionately by far the majority are covered. The images are apt, well titled and enlightening. The text is of a quality you'd expect to find in a hardback book on the subject. It's one thing to suggest that some extra citations would be a good thing - noone could dissent. But to say that the article should lose its FA status because there's still a few outstanding does not seem right. And btw could someone who understands how to do these things suggest that an appropriate explanatory template is devised for these FAR pages - they're currently very exclusive. --Dweller 08:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

NB Before someone points out that there's a link at the top of the page to WP:FAR that page doesn't explain process on this one, that I could see. Besides, even if it overtly did, shouldn't it be obvious here too? --Dweller 09:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I understand the confusion: will raise the question on the WP:FAR talk page, but note that the same situation exists on individual FACs. Sandy (Talk) 14:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment If articles don't meet FA criteria after an FARC period, they're defeatured. I'm not a particular fan of this "good faith" attitude where people keep FAs on the basis they're improved in future. Since the month has finished up, I think this FARC should be closed real soon as no work is going on. LuciferMorgan 01:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree strongly that no real work has been going on. I have added references myself (or rather moved them from being listed at the bottom of the page to being inline citations). I am disappointed that it has been defeatured on something so minor when the text reads so well and (apart from one section at the end) is fully referenced. It seems that the delisting process is automatic and regardless of the goodwill employed to address what (as of today's date) are minor issues that are in the process of being addressed merely serves to dishearten people. Not everyone wants to live their lives by WP, we do this for fun. Assuming the aim is WP improvement rather than denigrating others' work, can there not at least be a holding bay where such articles go to, so they can be relisted as soon as reasonable objections are properly addressed? jguk 18:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. I didn't realise this discussion was going on. I can add citations for all the missing bits if you give me a day to do it. I will do it when I get home from work tonight. -dmmaus 22:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment. The process is dreadful. If you check the article, it seems this process has been decided and closed. Not that anyone bothers to note as much here. Hugely unimpressed by my first experience of FAR. --Dweller 22:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It also seems to go against its own rules. It says those who have commented should re-appear towards the end of the process to update their comments. Only one commentator did that, and that was to edit out "Remove" from his comments. I see little point in having a review if articles are only going to get delisted anyway. jguk 13:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split infinitive

[edit] Review commentary

Message left at Dpbsmith. Sandy 16:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that this article needs to references to add. I guess this will be fixed the fastest way if I put it here. Otherwise, the article is still fine. --Tone 22:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's more than references at issue. Take this bit:

Germanic languages (including Old English) do not permit an adverb to fall between an infinitive and its preposition. Compare German:

Ich beschließe, etwas nicht zu tun.

I decide not to do something.

"Zu" here is not analogous to "to" in the English infinitive. This example, I think, is misleading.

And this statement:

"In the 19th century, some grammatical authorities sought to introduce a prescriptive rule from Latin that split infinitives should not be used in English." Um ... how can you split an infinitive in a Latinate language? Infinitives are all single words in that branch.

And:

"It is likely that the split infinitive originally entered the English language under the influence of French; at any rate, it first appears in the time after the Norman Conquest when English was borrowing very widely from French". Same problem—in French, infinitives are single words. An example or two would be nice. And the fact that split infinitives first appeared after the Norman conquest doesn't prove that French had anything to do with it. Before we talk about split infinitives, let's work out from what time was the infinitive in (Old) English expressed with a "to"?

This nomination looks as though it will be defrocked. Just referencing it will take careful work by a specialist; clearing up the other problems will be a further challenge. Tony 09:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree with Tony: historically the zu in German beschließe zu tun and the de in French decider de faire are certainly related to the to in English decide to do, though obviously the way these are used today diverge, and the traditions of analysing them in these languages are miles apart. So the comparison is valid, though maybe it needs to be handled more discriminatingly. But Tony is quite right that the argument from Latin is nonsense: Latin uses no such preposition (or whatever we want to call it) with the infinitive, so there is no precedent in Latin, one way or the other, and I don't believe the story that the prescriptive rule against split infinitives was inspired by Latin. The article on Linguistic prescription tells a different story (but then I wrote it). Parts of the split infinitive article sound like anti-prescription crusading, and most of it would benefit greatly from better references. --Doric Loon 22:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Doric, does "zu", then, mean "for the purpose of"? That's what I suspect, and if so, it's not a part of the infinitive construction. Tony 02:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

No, that would be um ... zu. Depends on the sentence of course: as in English, because the uses of the infinitive can be quite complex when you analyse them in detail. But in a sentence like When I couldn't find my key I tried to climb in through the window German has the exactly parallel infinitive construction Als ich meine Schlüssel nicht fand, versuchte ich durch das Fenster zu klettern. But I think we're getting away from the FA question - so if you want to talk more about this maybe we should continue in the article's talkpage. --Doric Loon 08:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

But coming back to the question in hand, I think Tony and I agree that this article is certainly not ready to be a featured article. --Doric Loon 08:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've put my thoughts on the split infinitive from a comparative linguist point of view onto Talk:Split infinitive#history. Please engage with me further there. --Doric Loon 21:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment I'd suggest changing "Probably the most famous split infinitive is..." to "One famous split infinitive is..." Gzkn 06:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations and accuracy of information (1c). Marskell 11:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Over the last couple of weeks, many of the above concerns have been met. The article has improved beyond recognition. I would now support FA status. My above reservations are therefore withdrawn. --Doric Loon 22:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Is anyone still working on this? Numerous cite tags, and mixed referencing styles in History section. Sandy (Talk) 07:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

What does "remove" mean? Remove FA status or remove review request? I think we should keep the FA status. This article is now rather good, and it is ceratinly impressively well referenced. I and a couple of others are still working on it, but at present there doesn't seem that much to do. --Doric Loon 10:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Remove means Remove FA status: if you are still working on the article, we can let the review run longer (the two week FARC period ended yesterday, and it wasn't clear work was progressing). Are you working on the cite tags? Also, the mixed referencing style in History should be addressed (some use Harvard referencing, while others use cite:php). Sandy (Talk) 19:36, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't really see your problem. There are not "numerous" cite tags - there were a couple of places where a superceded tag was left from an earlier stage of work, and I have just deleted those. There is ONE tag left, a theory that ought to be referenced, but so-far a source eludes us. As for the references, this article is particularly well referenced, and to me the references all look full and in proper academic style. If you are worried about commas and points, YOU change them - that would be more constructive use of your time than challenging the FA status on such flimsy grounds. But if you see anything substantial that needs to be done, please tell us. --Doric Loon 21:43, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstand the role of reviewers. The cite tags appear to have been addressed, but the mixed referencing style has not yet been fixed: is anyone working on it? Harvard style is mixed with cite:php - either system is fine, but please pick one style to use throughout the article. I'm still a Remove, unless the referencing and Tony's concerns are addressed. Sandy (Talk) 14:51, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove—numerous problems with content. Tony 07:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

That wasn't your most helpful comment, Tony. What exactly do you see as needing improvement? (But the best place for detailed suggestions is on the article's talk page.)--Doric Loon 10:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I recommended removal for the same reasons I explained in the review: problems with the content. You appeared to at least partly agree with me at the time. Here are more problems, taken at random.

• In the lead: "The construction is still the subject of disagreement among native English speakers as to whether it is grammatically correct or good style." Remove "among native English speakers"—it's unnecessary to drive home notions of superiority here. Ungrammatical: change "it" to "its use".
• "people frequently place adverbs ... before the bare infinitive, as in "She will gradually get rid of her teddy bears"), or in transformational-grammar terms from a re-analysis of the role of to.[5]". Where's the infinitive, please? The last bit, after "or", will float above most of our heads, even if referenced.
• "The split infinitive appeared after the Norman Conquest when English was borrowing very widely from French."—Reference required.
• "the majority of infinitives"—why not just "most infinitives"?
• "Then in Middle English, the bare infinitive and the infinitive after "to" took on the same uninflected form"—"Then" is suitable in a narrative register, and usually unsuitable in an encyclopedic one. Why not provide the approximate year or part-century?
• "was borrowing very widely from French. Other Germanic language such as German still do not permit an adverb to fall between an infinitive and its particle (preposition), but French and other Romance languages do. Compare modern German, French, and English:"—"Very" can be dropped. And why does French come into it at all? English is a Germanic language; comparisons with French are tenuous, since Norman French had little influence on the native English grammar; by contrast, it left its mark on the lexis.

I still strongly recommend removal. This article is far too messy to be a FA. Tony 14:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Tony, that's much more detailed. Half of this is very trivial points of style, and to be honest, you could have removed the word "then" yourself with far less effort than it took you to write two lines complaining about the stylistics of the word. I personally like the phrase "the majority of split infinitives", but by all means change it if it bothers you. Let's concentrate on content. You are right, I did broadly agree with you above, but if you do a "compare versions" you will find that the article has been largely re-written since then. All the problems we both saw there have been worked on. You raise four new points of content, but I don't agree with them. The relevance of French as a neighbouring language with a parallel construction and a history of influence in both directions is very obvious to me. The fact that French influenced English after the Norman conquest is such basic knowledge that it doesn't need to be referenced. In the teddy-bear sentence, the bare infinitive is "get", here being used as part of the future tense; I would have thought the parallel being drawn was pretty obvious. The re-analysis of "to" is explained at least twice in the article: it was originally a preposition, later it was perceived as a "verbal marker" (however one chooses to describe this). I really don't think the article is messy, but please do tidy up any "verys" which are annoying you. --Doric Loon 14:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Reviewers are under no obligation whatsoever to edit the articles they critique. You don't present a convincing case that French is a useful comparison. Just how did French influence English grammar, as opposed to the lexis? The fact that it's a "neighouring language"—across the channel, I guess you mean, is irrelevant. Basque and Spanish are "neighbouring", but couldn't be more different. Polish and German are neighbouring, and are significantly different. The world is full of linguistic discontinuities. What exactly is this "parallel construction" between Fr and Eng? Why is a history of influence from Eng to Fr relevant (as you imply)? A reference is required for the assertion that the "the split infinitive appeared after the Norman Conquest", not that there was influence in general related to the conquest. What is "infinitive" about "will get"?

And what does annoy me is not the occurrence of "very" in the article, or even your preference for several words when one would do, but your contention that half of the points I raise are "very trivial points of style". So, little glitches in the editing of a film that are allowed to survive into the cinema are trivial, are they? It's not a professional angle. Disappointing. Tony 15:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

OK perhaps I misunderstood what you think you're doing in critiquing this - I thought you were interested in contributing. I'm only going to answer your specific points in case you are really interested; I'm not arguing with you about the article itself. 1. There are strong areal features in which French and the Germanic languages influence each other in both directions. This goes far beyond lexis. The French perfect tense is borrowed from Germanic, the German pronunciation of the letter r is borrowed from French, and French influences on Middle English include the loss of cases, the plural in -s and a host of other syntactic and morphological features. In the case of the split infinitive, the article shows the close parallel between English and French, which is interesting even if they are unrelated, since very few of the world's languages have anything comparable. But the article points out that there is a possibility (no more than that) that they are indeed related: the preposition + infinitive construction may have been borrowed from Germanic into French and the French idiocyncracy of putting the negation in the middle may have been borrowed back into English as the split infinitive. I should say that is a significant point of comparison. 2. The English future tense (will get) is made up of an auxiliary (will) and a bare infinitive (get). That is the normal way to analyze this - check any beginner's grammar. The article cites scholarship suggesting that the position of the adverb in this (very different) infinitive construction could have been transferred to constructions involving the to-infinitive, thus creating a split infinitive. It is just a theory, but entirely plausible. I think the article explains this pretty clearly. 3. The article does give a reference for the split infinitve appearing shortly after the Norman conquest: it even cites the text verbatim. This is the Layamon passage, which is given in Middle English with verse numbers and translation - you can't reference more specificallly than that. Please read the article - the answers to all your questions are already there. --Doric Loon 21:56, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Beginners' grammar books or not, I can't easily accept this construction of the future tense as rooted in the infinitive. I go by [[Michael Halliday|functional grammar], which will have none of that. Thus, I think the line taken in the article is potentially POV. (English grammar is notoriously POV, which makes it hard to promote related articles to FA status.) When you say "It is just a theory, but entirely plausible.", you're hitting the nail on the head. I've learnt something from what you say about the French influence on English grammar, but can we have better referencing of these assertions? I'm suspicious about your claim that case was lost in English on account of the French influence. Are you sure that it wasn't the creolisation of Anglo-Friesian and Norse that did it, from the ninth to the 11th centuries? Tony 01:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I almost knew you were going to say that about the future. Quite right: there are different ways to analyse. Historically, of course, the "get" in "will get" goes back to an Old English infinitive, I think we can agree on that. But the loss of inflections means it is possible to talk about a base-form of the English verb and dispense with the concepts of infinitives, present subjunctives, imperatives etc for the modern language altogether. That makes sense for some purposes, for example for understanding how first language acquisition works in modern English, but trendy and fashionable as it is in some circles, it is neither the tradtional nor the most usual current approach. I don't think it's POV to use mainstream terminology just because there is an alternative, especially when the alternative would be less helpful in the context of the particular point which is being made.

Where's the proof that "will get" is derived from the infinitive? It seems counterintuitive to me.

And of course you are right that the loss of English inflections can have several causes at once, and since loss of inflection is in any case a general phenomenon in IE languages the question here is merely what accelerated it so suddenly, so OK, that wasn't my best example. But 11th century Englis was still far more highly inflected than classical Middle English. --Doric Loon 15:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Proof that the Norman influence accelerated the loss of inflection? I understand that it was the creolising process between the Anglo-Frisians and the Norse people in previous centuries.

• I still see problems of content in many places. For example: "in modern English syntax it is better regarded as a particle before a verb form"—I'd have thought the "to" was part of the verb form, not a separate particle preceding it.
• "Some are said to dislike the split infinitive on the grounds that it is not a natural construction in a Germanic language. This is a weak argument today, as standard English has many constructions novel to the Germanic language family. Also, while German and Dutch never allow an adverbial to fall between the preposition and the infinitive, Swedish does. However, given that the further back in history one examines the English language, the more typically Germanic it becomes, it is possible that the reason the medieval split infinitive never gained widespread acceptance was that it was still uncommon enough to sound foreign." False contrast: remove "However". I think the last sentence is drawing a long bow (too long for an authoritative encyclopedic article) and should be removed. There's no verification—just speculation.

I've asked a non-WPian expert on the history of the language—Dr Gary Symes—to comment on the article. Tony 01:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks as though he's going to take longer than I expected to respond. Over to you, Joel. Tony 11:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

He emailed me and said: "soon". Hmmm. Tony 07:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Eek, seven weeks. I guess one more can't hurt... Marskell 22:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Dr Symes says:

"I found the piece quite informative on the history of the subject, much of which I was not familiar with. The presentation of the arguments for and against is not especially cogent, & the section Special situations less than helpful. Overall, it is not very well written or organized.

As I expect with these sorts of things, the information is not all reliable. It says that the first known use of the term split infinitive was in 1897 & gives as reference, note 13, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2005–2006), s. v. split infinitive. Merriam-Webster are just recycling the info in the OED article, infinitive, sb., published in July 1900, which had the 1897 cite. OED notes that the phenomenon is also called cleft infinitive, a term which the Wikipeida article nowhere mentions. The OED cite for 'cleft infinitive' at 1893 mentions an article on the cleft infinitive published in the American Journal of Philology, which the Wikipedia article is ignorant of. The OEDS (1976) s.v. infinitive, sb., provides no earlier cites for either term, but has cites for the compounds infinitive-splitter (1927) and -splitting (1926).

My own view is fairly conservative; I do not usually split infinitives, unless it would be patently artificial or mannered not to do so. But it does not generally matter much; & thinking back, I seldom bothered to 'correct' it in student essays, unless it were particularly egregious. What the Fowler brothers said in 1907 remains apt."

The contributors may take these details into account. I guess the article should stay featured. Tony 02:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Please thank Dr Symes on all of our behalf. That is very useful. --Doric Loon 06:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The mixed reference styles (and lack of information about the references) in History still needs to be addressed.

• (Bache, 1869;[15] William B. Hodgson, 1889; Raub, 1897[16]) were condemning the split infinitive, others (Brown, 1851, lukewarmly;[17] Hall, 1882; Onions, 1904; Jespersen, 1905; Fowler and Fowler, cited above)

I could combine all of them into one ref tag for you, which would solve the problem, but the information on some of those refs isn't provided. Sandy (Talk) 00:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove At one time I was a devoted defender of the "Quit the split" cause. In the role of overseer of some of the future's newspaper copyeditors (COM 456 "Newspaper Copyediting" Purdue University, late 1980s) the editor in me considered it a noble cause. And I suppose it made me feel good; knowing stuff that separated me from the rabble.

This changed when I was challenged by a student to defend a finity of splits in some rather major newspapers. Come to find out, those who wrote the stylesheets had neglected to ask me before declaring the entire issue irrelevant. They seemed to say "split or not, makes no nevermind to us."

So: Is this article here to document the history of this specific usage, provide the current best thinking about the issue, or some combination?

This distinction is important. If the conclusion stays entirely within the history bounds (could even be contemporary; I am thinking teleology not chronology) these distinctions are critical and the focus ought to be about how we got to where we are.

The anthropological linguist in me asks that if we include some "how to " focus we need to lead with some version of "now even the experts agree that a split infinitive is not necessarily 'wrong' and a split infinitive does not in itself represent a grammatical error. Those who think it matters, don't matter."

As it now sits I'm not sure where the article lies along this line.

We live within a language that is itself living (unlike Latin, Old English or even Middle French). Today's wart might be tomorrow's bloom. We should only describe, leaving those areas or nations with Royal Appointed grammarians to decide what is proper for their own small and diminishing sphere of those who care.

The article does seem to imply that anyone splitting an infinitive is in error, with the jury still out over the magnitude of the crime.

If this is rather strictly an historic treatment we should ask whether the issue warrants so much attention. Even the uber-populous Wikipedia cannot feature the history of every twig. There are grammar usage errors of far greater consequence and there are parts of speech with pedigrees far nobler, or more interesting.

After all, we gain nothing by agonizing over the rights and wrongs about the 1960's grade school guerrilla actions over "ain't". It just doesn't matter.

My understanding of the mission of Wikipedia (I might have missed this boat as well) is to be an already-NOW resource for anyone who can grab a keyboard for even a few minutes. I have thought that Wikipedia is not trying to render redundant the host of small scholarly journals which do the truly important work (just to be clear, I intend no irony here) of working through mountains of material to make sense of some small corner of the world.

The semiotician in me suspects so much type has been devoted to the split infinitive because it has a cool, easily remembered name. It serves to stand for all that divides the stilted user of formal grammar from the rest of us, in a real sense not at all about grammar. Now that is a topic that still wants a good public airing! That will probably happen over in Ebonics land. Who is publicly campaigning over this issue? The split infinitive has never (to my knowledge) been the subject of a Broadway musical. ;)

I guess this makes it a candidate for de-throning. Can we insist that a featured topic matter, even if it is carefully documented and skillfully addressed? Roy 03:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, if you look at WP:FAC you'll see that an article's subject matter has no bearing whatsoever as to whether it can be an FA.--Zantastik talk 03:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, 1c requires factual accuracy. Tony 03:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course it requires factual accuracy. What I was suggesting is that the topic has no bearing on an article's FA-worthiness. An article on everything from the word "the" to an article on the 2nd world war can reach FA status, if it's written so as to meet WP:FAC. --Zantastik talk 07:22, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I can only say that I found working on this to be very interesting. This is something which everyone has heard about and people are curious to know what is behind it. We did not find it easy to put together the historical sections, because the information was not readily available (though the research had been done and with effort we could find it); is that not precisely the point of Wikipedia - to make the access easy when people want to know?

Since my own interests are in historical linguistics, the point of the article for me is to chart the history of the construction, and of the controversy. I didn't contribute much to the last part, but I don't think it really intends to make recommendations: just to describe how things were and are.

I would be grateful to know what part of the article gave you the impression that any of us working on it think the split infinitive is wrong. I thought we were successful in staying neutral on that. --Doric Loon 11:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Supply and demand

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Avsa and B&E. Sandy (Talk) 16:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

First time I'm nominating an article for FAR, so let me know if I've done something wrong. Anyway, the article is currently unsourced (no inline citations at all!) and the images lack captions. Also, what is Wikipedia's policy on how "textbookish" an article of this scope should be? Gzkn 06:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You are partially right about the citations, and I'll try to put some in if I have time. However, check Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines - the arguments in there suggest that much less inline citations are needed than one would expect; i.e. common economics knowledge, which could be found in dozens of textbooks (which is most of this article) do not need inline citations. Also right about the images. Aside, what do you mean by "textbookish"? AdamSmithee 09:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

"Scientific" "guidelines" is a disputed proposal (I stopped trying to get my dispute tag to stick). It has not received widespread review by most areas of Wiki "science", and is a continuation of an effort started on WP:CITE by a few math/physics editors to have different citing requirements for their articles. It has been explained to them many times that lowering their internal citing requirements could exempt their articles from FA or GA. It does not override WP:WIAFA or WP:V. Sandy (Talk) 14:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Lack of inline references and mixing reference section with external links is certainly a ground for defeaturing. In addition, there are small issues that should be addressed, like excessive bolding, or stub-sections 'Empirical estimation, Application in Macroeconomics'.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is insufficient citations (1c). Marskell 06:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Remove. Completely uncited, weasle words, rambling and unorganized. Sandy (Talk) 15:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comments Many problems besides just a lack of citations. Some random examples:
  • Examples of conspicuous consumption are clearly subjective, but might include the Bugatti Veyron. The social phenomenon often referred to as 'Bling' can also be thought of in this way. And it consumes demand and supply without error Some trivial examples (and Bugatti Veyron is a bit esoteric). Last sentence doesn't make sense.
  • If they do not move at all then they will stay in the middle where they already are. Does this need mentioning?
  • If you do not wish to calculate elasticity, a simpler technique is to look at the slope of the curve. Oh boy. Addressing readers is OK in a textbook, but probably not so much in an encyclopedia. Gzkn 08:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Remove. Apart from being completely uncited, as an economics student, the article fails 1.b. In my opinion, it neglects major facts and details; for instance, the "Supply" and "Demand" explanation are not satisfactory to me. As for If you do not wish to calculate elasticity, a simpler technique is to look at the slope of the curve...um, most of the times it's a really hard thing to do. The article assumes it is always obvious. Hmm, I might work on this article someday. Nat91 13:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove due to citation issues. Also, the intro isn't accessible to any reader (I couldn't fully understand it). LuciferMorgan 00:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Propaganda

[edit] Review commentary

Promoted as "brilliant prose", no WikiProjects appear to claim this article; no talk messages left. Sandy (Talk) 18:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The article does not have proper inline citations and despite having posted this issue in the talk page, not many citations have been provided. Yet, the article is tagged for a long time as needing citations and references, in each section. Others in the talk page seem to be agreeing to a review of this article. Idleguy 18:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment This is possibly the most detriorated FA I've seen yet: I don't think it meets a single point of WP:WIAFA. Sandy (Talk) 01:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Take to FARC where I don't think anyone will argue for it. Just one once-over shows many things wrong with it:overly long intro, mix of different referencing systems, serious spam event horizon problems, far too many images than I would think necessary (is a whole gallery of Nazi propaganda necessary?). Daniel Case 19:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Needs a general cleanup. Insufficient cites. LuciferMorgan 16:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. The lead needs cleanup (3-4 paras, per WP:LEAD). There is excessive bolding, way too many external links and worst of all, insufficient citations.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c) and general quality of the article. Marskell 06:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Remove. Still, the most deteriorated FA I've seen yet, not meeting any point of WP:WIAFA. Sandy (Talk) 15:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove I doubt this would even pass Good Article right now. Jay32183 07:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Still not improved as a lot of them don't have inline citations. The external links are tagged as spam but no attempts were made to clean them. Except the images which are abundant, the more important aspects are missing. Idleguy 08:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - it's simply not good enough to be a FA.--Aldux 17:44, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 00:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Super Mario 64

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Neutrality, Computer and video games, and Nintendo. Sandy (Talk) 15:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Previous FARs at Feb 06 FAR and July 06 FAR. Sandy (Talk) 15:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This article was nominated over a year ago now, and when compared with other such articles like Perfect Dark, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, or Half-Life 2 its certainly lacking in a number of areas. The development section - which should be one of the most important parts - is patchy and not very comprehensive. The course description is far too lengthy, I don’t think Wikipedia is supposed to be a game guide. There is also a profound lack of sources, in the introduction to the impact section, development, and in general. There is a large volume of good information about Mario 64 available on the internet and from other sources, and its disappointing that there are so few sources cited, and that much of the gameplay section is simply devoted to level and item lists.

There are also a number of weasel words here and there, particularly this one in the intro: “Super Mario 64 was considered so revolutionary that many consider to have set the standard for all later 3D platformer games and 3D games in general”. The source is from an author of a gamespot article, which does not represent the ‘many’ other voices out there. I hope that by raising these issues here the article might be improved, if not, then its FA status should be removed. Not the best game article, and certainly not the best of wikipedia IMO. Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo 05:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The mission section seems to be a repeat of the storyline section. The article can probably be thinned out by making one story section and not including story in the gameplay section. Jay32183 05:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I will try to work on this article, which I feel can be easily fixed, but will state now that before I was prevented from removing the unencyclopedic course guide by another wikipedian, and feel that they will again prevent this form being done. Judgesurreal777 03:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe invite the person into this discussion so it can be explained why the article can't be a "player's guide". Jay32183 05:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The course guide isn't inappropriately detailed. See WP:CVG -- it provides valuable context for the article. Additionally, there are certainly no weasel words. For some reason Super Mario 64 is often under fire for claiming that the game is revolutionary and a benchmark for other 3D games. It is widely considered to be such and this is fact beyond reasonable doubt. Certainly more references are always nice and we can get some. However, removing content is not the answer, and please let us debate the merits of any such removals before initiating them. SM64 has already been through a Featured Article Review and a Featured Article Removal vote and it survived both unscathed. Andre (talk) 20:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The course guide is very inappropriate compared with any other currently featured video game article. Most of the section on gameplay must be totally rewritten. Also, there are POV support statements in the intro praising the game with no references, too many game images in the "Course section" that are not needed, there are several uncited statements in the "impact" section. There is also a lack of comprehensiveness in the development section, and a strange section of quotes from people who have played Super Mario 64, but has little to do with its legacy. So you see, the article has to be improved significantly if it is to retain its status, and we should not kid ourselves about this pressing need. Judgesurreal777 21:27, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

No one's kidding anyone. I don't see the need for rewrite, nor are any statements POV or unsourced. We'll find more sources if we must. The level list is certainly not inappropriate. These issues have been raised in previous reviews, etc, and were determined not to be issues. Andre (talk) 22:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It has been brought up as an issue in this review, therefore, it will be dealt with. A list of levels is not important to the understanding of the gameplay, the story, the developement, or the critical response. Knowing that, it is not important to the article at all since those are the details that are needed. Jay32183 01:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Judgesurreal, this article needs a lot of improvement if its to retain its status. These issues were not properly dealt with in the last reviews, and its good to see that they are now. I've added some bits to the development section in the past, and I'll see if I can do anything to get it up to the standard required. The impact/reception section seems more like a gushing session to me (some it is unsourced - and probably incorrect - too), and the gameplay section needs a solid rewrite with the game-guide stuff removed. If it does end up losing its status, it might not be such a bad thing, as it will give prople an incentive to improve it. Kingston Jr. 01:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The list of levels helps show how the game evolved from earlier Mario titles. I fail to see how this does not contribute to the understanding of the development of the game. Additionally, the concept of free-roaming worlds full of things to interact with, explore, and fight is crucial to the understanding of the gameplay, and the level list explains this. Besides, those aren't the only categories of information allowed in a video game article. Articles on computer and video games should give an encyclopedia overview of what the game is about, not a detailed description of how to play it. Descriptions of areas in the game are certainly in the nature of an overview. Please read the WP:CVG guidelines in full. This is not game guide content. Andre (talk) 01:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Please consult any of the recent Featured articles in video games, all such material of the individual levels has been cut from the Star Fox articles for a recent example and moved to Strategywiki. I think this article gets put up for Featured Article removal is no fluke, it is because of the above problems and because there is way to much information about the individual courses. Judgesurreal777 02:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Just because someone removed the details and nobody objected doesn't set a precedent. Besides, none of the Star Fox articles are featured articles, although some of them are pretty good. Andre (talk) 03:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment - Any changes I make to this article have been blocked, and from analyzing the last two FAR reviews, Andrevan has attempted to obstruct those as well. This article, as any other at featured status, should not have bulletted sections instead of prose, and my attempts to make it prose have been reverted. Judgesurreal777 03:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

For some reason you seem to think that just taking all the text from the bulleted list and putting it on one line means you've created prose. Not so! There's really no way to take a bunch of peripherally related individual facts and weave them into good prose unless you have some kind of guiding idea for the paragraph. I'd be glad to see someone take a crack at it, but your change to get rid of the list just created a barely readable mishmash of individual thoughts. Andre (talk) 03:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Hm. This does need some work to meet the FA standards. I notice a number of minor issues that need fixing:

• series and caption aren't implemented in the infobox for some reason.
• No sources for release dates, or rerelease dates.
• No source for the claim that Super Mario 64 is going to be released on the Wii Virtual Console.
• The sectioning in "Tasks, aids, and obstacles" is unnecessary and somewhat ugly.
• Missing fair-use rationales on some images.

And some major issues, ones I'd go to FARC over:

• The course list is excessive, recapping the story again and lending little encyclopedic understanding.
• The development section is lacking in sourcing; I see lots of historic claims standing completely unsourced.
• The reception section is also unsourced. If I didn't know anything about video games, how would I tell the superlative claims made here from fannish peacock prose?
• Too many fair-use images; I see five images of Mario standing in such-and-such environment. Ditching most of the course list will help with this.

This needs work. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Man in Black nailed it, but I want to reiterate that reception is usually the most heavily-sourced portion of the article. It establishes the game's notability and makes all kinds of judgments on its importances, strongpoints, and flaws. Getting sources is a trivial task; just go to Game Rankings and blaze through all their listed reviews. I did this with Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon yesterday and apart from a little copyediting, that article now has an all-star reception section. Source this first, as it will give you sources for other assertions in the article. --Zeality 20:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Agreed with A Man In Black: this article does need work. There are too many fair use images: although I encourage the inclusion of the manual image, only one image is needed to represent the game's "environment" and only a couple necessary to represent different concepts. The course list is NOT necessary; Andre, you would be better served taking into account the advice of everyone here and making changes where needed rather than trying to defend it as a very old featured article. This is Super Mario 64, the premier 3D platformer. This certainly should be in better shape than it is now.

If you can't find ANY sources, I'm sure that I can help. I can dig up Nintendo Power issues around and on the time of the Super Mario 64 release, and I have access to various databases for academic journals and magazines. Just tell me what you need, whether it's regarding development or reviews in the mainstream press, I'll do what I can. --Tristam 01:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment - I'd love to work on this article, if it weren't for the fact that Andrevan will revert any changes I make. Judgesurreal777 21:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment We're hoping to create improvement in this article and we're not trying to bash the work of previous editors. Tristam, if you have the means to fix up the developement and reception sections, then I say go for it, you can't hurt anything by adding information from more, good sources and properly crediting them. I'd also like to point out to Andrevan that attempting to argue against change in the article will not be what saves it, and reverting good faith efforts will not accomplish anything. Jay32183 22:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been making some big changes. It's not there yet, but I think it's a lot closer. A Man In Black, would you mind looking over the article again? I think you can strike out some of your objections above. Pagrashtak 04:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The gameplay section is a lot better. Good job with that. Jay32183 04:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine, it's clear that I'm outnumbered in my opinion of this article, so I'm going to step back and let other people deal with it. Andre (talk) 17:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, not completely, but I'm not going to revert the removal of the course list this time. Andre (talk) 17:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well we don't want you to stop contributing. Your input is welcome, we just can't agree on everything, because that will almost never happen. Jay32183 18:31, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b), lack of sources (1c), POV (1d), and prose structure (2). Marskell 12:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Remove—The lead alone shows problems WRT 1a, 1c and 1d. Our articles must have a neutral, encyclopedic tone to gain authority, especially when describing commercial products.

• • "Super Mario 64 was considered so revolutionary that many consider to have set the standard for all later 3D platformer games and (perhaps overzealously) 3D games in general. Super Mario 64 was bundled with the N64 shortly after launch"—"so revolutionary" is puffery. Is "it" missing after "consider"? "Perhaps overzealously" sounds like POV intruding here; hyphen required, too.
  • "In going from two to three dimensions"—"going from" is too informal here, and you wonder whether the game itself moves between 2 and 3 D.
  • "It is acclaimed by critics as one of the greatest video games of all time.[8]" Is this more puffery? The reference is hardly authoritative (filibustercartoons.com).

If someone wants to do a fix-up job, fine: quite a lot of thoughtful work is required. Tony 14:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd help out, but I'm already getting the eyetwitches and it isn't even Black Friday yet o.O — Deckiller 01:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The "perhaps overzealously" was a recent addition which has been removed. However, as for the filibustercartoons reference, if you look you will see it is an aggregate reference that tallies known gaming publications. Andre (talk) 19:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Tony and sourcing. Sandy (Talk) 19:23, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
• Contest removal. It seems like this discussion was ended prematurely. Also, I think generally the lead section is fine -- encyclopedic and neutral. The issues are mainly nitpicking. Andre (talk)
  • Discussions generally aren't closed if good faith efforts to improve the article are being made. Jay32183 20:43, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Oops, hadn't realized this discussion closed. Jay32183 20:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. As per all above. This article isn't up to scratch, and needs to be rewritten and expanded before it will be.Kingston Jr. 07:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh wait, its already closed.Kingston Jr. 07:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] End times

[edit] Review commentary

Message left at Religion and Christianity. Sandy (Talk) 16:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Brilliant prose promotion, no original author. This article is poorly referenced, has an inadequate lead, does not conform to WP:LAYOUT, is poorly arranged with large chunks of white text, has a factual accuracy tag, has short choppy sections, is extremely listy, and has external jumps. Sandy (Talk) 16:20, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - This article is poorly referenced, has an inadequate lead, does not conform to WP:LAYOUT, is poorly arranged with large chunks of white text, has a factual accuracy tag, has short choppy sections, is extremely listy per Sandy's nom. LuciferMorgan 19:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Not happy with the prose at the clause level. "has evolved from use around a group of beliefs"—what does it mean? Deictics are missing in quite a few places, e.g., "has ensued following publication of"—THE publication of. Needs a good run-through. Tony 00:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing, LEAD, NPOV, section layout and prose. Joelito (talk) 14:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove I think there is no chance for this to be saved. Joelito (talk) 14:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Insufficient inline cites. LuciferMorgan 19:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Amount of work required to keep this at FA level is such that there's no way it'll all get done anytime soon. Badbilltucker 00:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. As it is now the article is faaaaar away from FA status. Per all above.--Yannismarou 22:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Lacking in-line citations, listy sections, and so on.UberCryxic 18:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hereditary peer

[edit] Review commentary

Message left at Emsworth. LuciferMorgan 12:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Another ancient royalty-related article lacking real references (has a section of external links), and also an obsolete image tag and some red links. Judgesurreal777 01:27, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I can notice the nominator is really going to town on Lord Emsworth's FAs, much in the same way I have with the Beatles Wikiproject. All I can say is if/when he eventually returns, I hope he has thick skin and continues to be a Wikipedian. As he isn't around, it won't cause him to improve the article as he doesn't even read Wikipedia at the moment! Onto the review... needs inline citations (1.c). LuciferMorgan 09:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Additional messages left at Peerage, UK notice board, and Middle Ages. Sandy (Talk) 14:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. I agree with LuciferMorgan's concern about Lord Emsworth's FA's. He wrote them before footnotes were generally available (the references/ system) or widely used. No fault of his own, had he written it today, I'm sure he would have done a good job with footnotes. The problem now, no one else is going to be able to readily footnote the article except Lord Emsworth. Does this mean the article is poor and needs to be de-featured? I don't think so. I think this article (and others) should be grandfathered in, at least for now. BTW Judgesurreal777, your comment "ancient royalty" reveals a lack of experience with the subject matter, I think we need to look at more than just footnotes. There is a References section, and the way things were done prior was that the works used in writing the article are listed in the References section, so we know which books he used to write it. I'm not sure why you say it's lacking "real" references" - this is commonly done in "real" published academic works. -- Stbalbach 15:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Judgesurreal777's tone is somewhat unhelpful. Re references, the article is/was little more than the distillation of the contents of the references given. You could add links that merely repeated the sources given but it would obviously take time and someone with the sources to add page numbers. I see no reason however why the reds can't be sorted very quickly and the img tags looked at. Alci12 15:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Question and comments Q:are redlinks a reason for review? I would have thought it was reason to fill the redlinks rather than a reason for potentially delisting the FA. The inline citations should be easy to provide as all the references have links to the online versions (apart from the 1911 EB which is online in several places anyway). And on a personal note, I wouldn't mind a slightly slower nomination rate of Emsworth's articles. Yomangani^talk 02:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't mind a slightly slower nomination rate of Emsworth's articles. I second that: Yomangani has put forward a good effort at salvaging many of these articles: it would help if they came at a slower pace, and we not overburden any one FA author with multiple noms up at a time. Sandy (Talk) 04:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: A serious concern was raised by User:Stbalbach about the lack of rules and documentation regarding older Featured Articles and citations. This discussion was deemed irrelevant by a number of "FAR regulars" and moved to the discussion page. Please see there for more information, which I believe is relevant to this articles FAR, and unfairly removed from this discussion. -- Stbalbach 19:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, please don't remove my (or anybody's) signature, Stb. I didn't say it was irrelevant--I said it was irrelevant to the content of this article. The talk page is sitting there and it's just the sort of thing talk pages are for. No one who wants to comment is going to miss it. Marskell 19:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree it's irrelevant to the this articles FAR. I've also restored your signature (below) - I removed it as a practical matter to avoid confusing the reader with TWO notes. -- Stbalbach 20:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: Discussion on citations moved to talk page. Marskell 19:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Criterion 1a. Needs a run-through by a copy-editor to qualify. Take the opening sentence.
  • "The Peerage in the United Kingdom includes over seven hundred hereditary peers, who hold titles that may be inherited." Includes? So there are other categories you're not telling us about? Or should it be "comprises"? "More than" would be nicer than "over", although not compulsory; similarly, consider using numerals for numbers of more than nine. Why not "inherented titles" instead of the cumbersome "titles that may be inherited". If only some are heritable, this should not be assumed here.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 00:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC).

That wording may have been a deliberate choice. For instance in France you could hold a heritable title without being a peer so the reading peer/title and though they are the same thing is not to be assumed in all peerages although it is true in this one. Alci12 15:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I have just noticed this list of Lord Emsworth's FAs which will presumably be up for FAR shortly. Even at the excessive pace that Judgesurreal777 has been nominating recently (one every 3 or 4 days), it will take a few months to get through them. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

He has a list? Real mad is that. If it improves the status of FA and the quality of the articles, I'm for it. Personally, I can't understand some others who rule quantity over quality. FA has higher standards now, so let's maintain them. LuciferMorgan 11:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a relief to know that someone is watching these neglected FAs, as the Projects apparently aren't. The number of deteriorated FAs written by Emsworth highlights the need to thoroughly reference FACs; it's much harder to pick up the pieces later, when editors move on. Sandy (Talk) 15:21, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• CommentIt's true, several of Emsworths articles have degraded significantly, and I hope that most of them will be saved. However, I really feel, so long as I do not nominate them so quickly that it balloons the FAR page, we shouldn't have a problem. Also, I have helped save Link (Legend of Zelda), Starcraft, tried to save Wario (which is GA) and am trying to give Super Mario 64 a good fixup to save its status, so I definitely don't want to just take away FA stars, for the record. Judgesurreal777 05:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

PS I'd also like to point out that it is the FAR directors jobs to decide when an article has had enough time. If Emsworths articles have a real chance of getting saved, perhaps they will grant them a little additional time. Judgesurreal777 05:18, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Note As long as work is being done on an article its FAR is left open. Joelito (talk) 14:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing and prose. Joelito (talk) 14:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Status? Yomangani has done some work on the article, but there are still broad patches of uncited text. Is more time needed? Sandy (Talk) 15:09, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove per Tony and Yomangani. Sandy (Talk) 21:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• I've had trouble tracking down information on the details of writs of summons and letters patent which comprises a good portion of the article, so I've stopped working on it. If anybody can cite those details, I can finish it off, but otherwise I'd say remove. Yomangani^talk 15:34, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Not enough work has been done to address the problems in the writing. I shouldn't be able to find sentences like "The ranks of the Peerage are, in descending order of rank" or "Thus, if the parents marry after the birth an illegitimate child may succeed to a Scottish peerage, but not an English, Irish or British one." (What does "one" mean here? Tony 08:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

One = peerage presumably the author didn't want to repeat the word. Seemed obvious enough to me. Alci12 19:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project MKULTRA

[edit] Review commentary

Talk messages left at Eloquence and Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants. Andrew Levine 00:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Another graduate of the class of '03. While I don't actually dispute any of the statements in the article, or the factual existence of the project, the idea that the CIA tested drugs on unwilling Americans in efforts to research mind control during the Cold War is a little hard for almost anyone to believe. Because of the extraordinary claims, the article demands an exceptionally high level and quality of referencing. Ideally, everything in the sections "Origins" and "The experiments" should be directly cited to the declassified documents and Congressional testimony. In fact, almost none of it is. Other sections are just as bad.

Select statements that badly need to be inline-cited to firsthand documents:

• "Gottlieb was known to torture victims by locking them in sensory deprivation chambers while under the psychedelic influence of LSD, or to make recordings of psychiatric patients' therapy sessions, and then play a tape loop of the patient's most self-degrading statement over and over through headphones after the patient had been restrained in a straitjacket and dosed with LSD. Gottlieb himself took LSD frequently, locking himself in his office and taking copious notes."
• "Fugitive Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger is reputed to have been a voluntary participant in MKULTRA while in prison."
• "Some subjects' participation was consensual, and in these cases, the subjects appeared to be singled out for even more horrific experiments."
• The entire "Canadian experiments" and "Conspiracy theories" sections.
• "Olson's son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to his knowledge of the sometimes-lethal interrogation techniques employed by the CIA in Europe, used on Cold War prisoners. Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries suggested Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window."

Also, the "In popular culture" section is a mess.Andrew Levine 00:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Flew under the radar with ten inline citations: it's too bad a month has to pass before this poorly-sourced theory can be defeatured. Extensive cleanup is also needed. Sandy (Talk) 02:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Even the modest 10 cites need a vast cleanup, as they're hard to follow. Has weasly statements, and needs a ton of inline cite work (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 11:45, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I don't like this long quote in the lead. Ans the "Popular Culture" shouldn't be listy.--Yannismarou 12:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment This article is pretty extensive, but needs more citations. This whole thing can be cited, but someone has to buckle down and actually do so. No discussion of this is present on the talk page for the article, which seems odd to me - it should probably have a section on adding citations. Titanium Dragon 08:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are factual accuracy and sourcing (1c), prose (1a), and section structure (2). Marskell 07:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. "Pop culture references" is listy, "Budget" is stubby and the whole article is not adequately cited. And, of course, this long quote in the lead I mentioned.--Yannismarou 18:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Remove. The article is in very bad shape: many uncited or poorly cited allegations, the lead is awful, the pop culture section hasn't been reworked, prose is still an issue, and none of these items have been addressed. Sandy (Talk) 15:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 19:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Article no longer FA

[edit] I Want to Hold Your Hand

[edit] Review commentary

Talk messages left at Johnleemk, The Beatles, and Songs. Sandy (Talk) 23:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this for FAR because;

1. Fails criterion 1. c. - ALL direct quotations need inline cites, and additionally factual info plus other info which can be considered original research such as commenting upon lyrical meanings, all need inline cites. LuciferMorgan 22:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Noting that this makes three FARs for Johnleemk (Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson and Get Back), in case he needs extra time on any. Sandy (Talk) 23:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Including this one makes 4. If he wants extra time, I hope it can get granted. LuciferMorgan 00:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I think it's only three - Horatio Nelson, Hold your Hand, and Get Back. Did I miss one? Sandy (Talk) 02:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh sorry, I thought the Horatio bit was two FAs, ie. Horatio Nelson and 1st Viscount Nelson. Sorry for the mistake. I hope he can have extra time though if he needs any. LuciferMorgan 10:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Apart from the referencing problems, I donot like at all this long quote in "In the studio".--Yannismarou 12:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I've inserted inline citations for most of the quotes. Extraordinary Machine 14:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I feel the "Notes and references" section would benefit if they were split and vastly cleaned up. In addition to this, the article still needs other inline cites. LuciferMorgan 18:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations. Marskell 10:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove if concerns I raised in my nomination aren't addressed. LuciferMorgan 14:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment A lot of inline citations have been added, but a bit more are still needed, as well as a thorough copyedit. Some of the prose is very fancrufty - sample paragraph (with no citations, lots of superlatives, and some awkward prose):
  • On 29 November 1963, Parlophone Records released to the United Kingdom "I Want to Hold Your Hand", with "This Boy" joining it on the single's B-side. Demand had been building for quite a while, as evidenced by the one million advance orders for the single. When it was finally released, the response was phenomenal. A week after it entered the British charts, on 14 December 1963, it knocked "She Loves You", another Beatles' song, off the top spot, the first such instance of the same act taking over from itself at number one in British history, clinging on to it for a full five weeks. It stayed in the charts for another fifteen weeks afterwards, and incredibly made a one week return to the charts on 16 May 1964. Beatlemania was peaking at that time; during the same period, The Beatles set an incredible record by owning the top two positions on both the album and single charts in the United Kingdom.
• With a bit of attention, this article could possibly retain its status. Sandy (Talk) 23:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove, issues raised above not addressed, citations, POV and possible OR still a problem. Sandy (Talk) 15:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delist today Some work done, though no specific editor has made a pledge to save this article and address all of the concerns. Since a month has passed, I think it should be delisted immediately. LuciferMorgan 23:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Lucifer, you've entered your Remove/Delist twice. Sandy (Talk) 15:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually I put my remove in once, and then said it should be delisted today. It's been four weeks and no work's being done - why do editors keep open FARs that have no work being done after the limit has expired? There's no point to it, and it's rather dumb. The FAR page has a few articles there with sufficient time left, so why clog up the page with expired FARs that nobody is working on? LuciferMorgan 16:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colditz Castle

[edit] Review commentary

Additional notifications to Germany, Architecture, and Geography. Sandy (Talk) 17:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

FAC nominator User:Alkivar notified [1], as well as two projects: WikiProject Military history/German military history task force and WikiProject Military history/World War II task force

Not exactly sure what to do with this one. It was recently split in two, with parts of it going to Colditz and most of it going to Oflag IV-C. Besides that, both articles have numerous issues:

• References—one inline citation in the Oflag article, and none in the Colditz article.
• Formatting—listy, unorganized image overload, and other more minor issues (failure to use  , unusual use of bold, etc.)
• Prose—could be worse, but not brilliant either—lots of passive voice and a few clumsy constructions:

Officers also studied languages, learning from each other, and told stories. Most popular of these stories were the embellished retelling of BBC broadcasts by Jim Rogers. Since mail was regularly screened by censors, and the German newspapers received by prisoners contained much Nazi propaganda, the only reliable information prisoners could obtain on the progress of the war in Europe was through BBC broadcasts received via one of two radios which were secreted in the castle. These radios were smuggled in by French prisoner Frédérick Guigues and named "Arthur 1" and "Arthur 2". The first radio was quickly discovered due to a mole, but the second would remain secreted away until Guigues returned and removed it during a tour of the castle in 1965. The radio hide would not be permanently exposed until 1992 during repairs to the roof.

So we're looking at 1a, 1c, and 2. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 16:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Spangineer, because of the split in the article, I'm not able to find an article talk page notification of the FAR ??? Sandy (Talk) 17:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Another issue: neither of the split articles is currently displaying the featured star ?? Sandy (Talk) 17:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This is quite a mess: it's still listed at WP:FA as Colditz Castle, although that is now a disambiguation. Sandy (Talk) 17:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The notification of the FAR is at Talk:Colditz Castle, which AFAICT didn't get affected by the split and is now technically the talk page of a disambig page. Neither of the new articles should display the featured star because neither of them has undergone the FA process. I'd say Colditz Castle should be immediately defeatured since the article that was featured no longer exists. Once the issues Spngineer brought up have been addressed, either or both of the new articles can be relisted as an FAC and go through the FA process afresh. —Angr 17:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Confusing, indeed: does anyone think we should also place the FAR notification on the two (disambiguation) articles? Have never encountered this situation ... Sandy (Talk) 19:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

At first glance, I don't really think the split was a good idea, because it disrupts the GFDL history of edits. Even though each edit is still at the disambig article, I think for something that was an FA at a point the history needs to be documented well so as to credit the contributors. Maybe if two articles is the right idea, some kind of article move / history merge needs to happen. As for the shape of the article just before the split, it could use inline cites. DVD+ R/W 17:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• COMMENT FROM ORIGINAL FA WRITER this article is now a pathetic mess. I move for it to be unsplit back into 1 primary article at Colditz Castle. This is the second time one of my FA's got butchered in a split. Graffiti my other FA lost its FA status due to being split and essentially hacked to shreds. Colditz Castle which I put a crapload of effort into does not deserve that fate. All in favor of unsplitting the article please post either a yay or nay below.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 20:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of how much effort you put into any article, they're still not your articles. I'd think an administrator would know better. Also, I'm not sure what you're talking about with grafitti. The prose is a bit weaker in some places than old versions like [2], but those wouldn't have been featured today either. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, first, Alkivar is an administrator, and second, even if he weren't, administrators have more powers and more responsibilities, but do not have more authority than non-admins. —Angr 08:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No, that was my point. He's an administrator; he should know better than to say things like that. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 13:07, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment we had this discussed in the military history task force and we agreed not to split it under any circumstances. Wandalstouring 20:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Asking the MilHist guys was going to be my next question, as the split appeared to be based on a two-person consensus, here. If the MilHist guys agreed it should not be split, I agree it should go back to its original, but the question of a lack of citations remains on review. Sandy (Talk) 20:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Yep, see here. Kirill Lokshin 22:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Note I have reverted the article to its former state. This is not the proper way to split.

The split should be to move info relevant to Oflag IV-C to the article by that name but keep a section in the Colditz Castle article with a

Main article: Oflag IV-C

. Joelito (talk) 21:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• It looks like everything is in the right place now: I'm wondering if Spangineer wants to re-summarize the issues with the current article? Sandy (Talk) 21:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It still uses subarticle formate, which is something I raised an issue with months ago. Colditz Castle/List of Colditz Castle staff and Colditz Castle/List of Colditz Castle escape attempts needs to be taken up to a main level article and have a decent context-adding intro written. Colditz Castle/Suggested reading needs to be moved to a non-pov title, like List of books about Colditz Castle. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The last of these should just be merged back into a "Further reading" section in the article; as far as I know, the article length guidelines are interpreted as not including such appendices, so the original reason for splitting it out isn't really applicable at this point. Kirill Lokshin 22:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Also Image:PicOf 4C Colditz.jpg needs a verifiable source, it says it was taken by a GI but it doesn't say how it got from him to wikipedia, so we can't trace it back. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comments. I come up with a prose size of 45KB, which isn't too long compared to some other FAs. I do see a lot of red links to articles that are not likely to ever be written, a serious lack of inline citations, what looks like an External link farm, and very listy article. There's a lot of repetition of "Colditz Castle" in the TOC, which goes against WP:MOS, but I'm not sure how to correct that given its other uses. The TOC can use some fine tuning per WP:MOS, there's alot of "the" in the TOC. Suggested reading is out of place per WP:LAYOUT, and should probably be a See also. Sandy (Talk) 03:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are references (1c), formatting (2), and prose (1a). Marskell 10:41, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove, issues raised during FAR, and lacking inline citations. Sandy (Talk) 23:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, no inline citations, some stubby sections etc.--Yannismarou 14:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per all three concerns I raise above. --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 02:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, per Yannismarou.--Aldux 17:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 18:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, per above. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lottie Dod

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Jeronimo, Bio, and Olympics. Sandy (Talk) 16:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Article has very few references, almost no inline citations, and outdated image tags. Judgesurreal777 02:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment WP:LAYOUT is all goofed up, with See also at the bottom, but including external links. All-round cleanup needed, in addition to citations. Sandy (Talk) 03:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Fails 1a. Here are random examples of why the whole text needs serious copy-editing.
  • "She won the Wimbledon Championships five times, the first when she was only fifteen, in the summer of 1887." She won it five times in the summer of 1887? That's what it says. Remove one comma.
• Second para starts: "In addition to tennis, Dod competed in many other sports, including golf, field hockey, and archery. In addition to other ..."—Clumsy repetitions.
• Why is "cotton" linked? Do we, or do we not, speak English? Why are the simple years linked? They tell me absolutely nothing relevant to the article, and should be delinked.
• "The two would meet again ..."—Journalistic use of the conditional; plain past tense, please ("met").
• "Although designated as a so-called "open" tournament,"—We don't need both "designated" and "so-called".
• "The Wimbledon final of 1888 was rematch of the previous year"—"a"?

Tony 11:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Lacks inline citations (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 23:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of references (1c) and images (3). Marskell 10:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove One edit since nom, no improvement in issues raised during FAR. Sandy (Talk) 23:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as per Sandy. Tony 08:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as above. --RelHistBuff 10:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Johnleemk, Bio, Peerage, UK notice board, MilHist, and Ships. Sandy (Talk) 15:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The number one issue: no citations at all, only a list of references at the bottom. Because of this it also contains a lot of weasel words, like "Some have speculated" and other places. The prose is hardly brillant: "Nelson retained consciousness for four hours, but died soon after the battle ended with a British victory.(See Nelson's last words.)" (bolding mine). So FA 1a and 1c are the problems here. Hbdragon88 03:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Two major problems:

1) no citations, or virtually none, on a subject who has been written about as much as any figure from that era!

2) a huge number of weasel words, very subjective. That is exactly and precisely why we use citing and source - quote directly and avoid this kind of problem! This has potential to be a very good article, if you cite it, and eliminate the weasel words. old windy bear 15:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The Titles of Nobility box at the end is a bit confusing (at least to this Yank). Two "Baron Nelson", both linked to Earl Nelson, with no additional dab info? Text mentions a 1798 Barony, but both Baronies in the box are dated 1801. Text mentions the two different Baronies, but not the box or Earl Nelson. --J Clear 22:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Baronies already corrected and I've sorted the Earldom and explained the succession Alci12 16:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Can you do something about the box at the end of the article? That was the bit that I found least self explainitory. Perhaps adding the appropriate "of xxxx" under the two Baron Nelson entries.--J Clear 22:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not obvious how that could be done briefly. The two as mentioned in the article are Baron Nelson, of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe in the County of Norfolk (1798) and Baron Nelson, of the Nile and of Hillborough in the County of Norfolk (1801) I will see what people can come up with though. Alci12 23:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

At least the dates in the box seem sorted now. Perhaps adding "<br><small>...of Burnham Thorpe...</small>" and "<br><small>...of Hillborough...</small>" to titles. Just enough to dab, but not the full title which I'm assuming distorts the box. --J Clear 01:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

With the stipulation that whatever gets done here shouldn't become a precedent, perhaps "first creation" and "second creation" or "remainder to heirs-male" and "special remainder" would be more useful than territorial designations to readers less familiar with the intricacies of the peerage? Choess 16:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The precedent was exactly why I was a touch wary of making an exception to the normal format. First and second creation might be best, remainder to heirs male / special remainder might still be confusing to general readers? JC may have a view here Alci12 18:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if you meant this JC, but I'd just like the Titles of Nobility box to offer the most succinct explaination of why "Baron Nelson" is listed twice with overlapping dates. As to precedent, I'd think you're only setting a precedent where there is a clear (pardon the pun) need for disambiguation. I went to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington to see what another example would look like. Is there some reason that the heading on nav box there is the linked Peerage of the United Kingdom and Nelson's uses an unlinked "Titles of Nobility"? --J Clear 21:26, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I did. The DofW is correct as I understand it, the Titles of Nobility header was designed to deal with circumstances where there are multiple titles from several difference peerages and it created a mess/made the boxes too large to have a headers for each type. However, it might offer the neatest solution here as the first barony was in the Peerage of Great Britain and the Viscountcy/second Barony was in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Amended this way it would look like Francis_Aungier_Pakenham,_7th_Earl_of_Longford If course you would still have two baronies of Nelson so you might still want the 'second creation' infra Alci12 09:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I have thought about the problem with the different Peerages (and the additional headers) and have created this User:Phoe/sandbox. The only condition is to divide the peerage succession boxes from the others. Greetings Phoe 10:27, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The infomation is clearer although the box formatting has suffered. Acceptable trade off, IMHO. --J Clear 19:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I pointed out to my co-editors over in Ships that the Nelson article has three redlinks to ships. Martocticvs has stepped up to turn them blue in the next few weeks.--J Clear 01:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree that it needs internal citations.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are weasel words and prose in general (1a), and lack of citations (1c). Marskell 10:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delist still no citations. Wouldn't pass a GA now, much less an FA. Hbdragon88 00:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove No inline citations, weasle words. Sandy (Talk) 23:40, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 20:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove as per above. --RelHistBuff 13:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Per above.--Yannismarou 14:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, no inline citations.--Aldux 17:51, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mary I of England

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Emsworth, Bio, Royalty, UK Notice board, Ireland, and Scotland. Sandy (Talk) 02:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

This article has no in line citations, and one of the images has an obsolete tag. Should be pretty easy to fix up, should anyone be interested... :) Judgesurreal777 00:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Needs inline citations (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 11:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - It was written before inline citations were available (a problematic template system). The author of the article is no longer at Wikipedia and no one else is going to be able to footnote it using his original sources. He listed the works he used in the References section, which is good enough for the majority of academics in the real world. Wikipedia's ultra-detail level of footnoting is at the extreme end of the scale in real world - it's perfectly acceptable to list works at the end of an article in just about every professional encyclopedia I've seen. -- Stbalbach 15:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. This article was already a FARC and passed. Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Mary I of England. Why is it being brought up again just 5 months later? -- Stbalbach 15:35, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
  • It passed because someone claimed the nominator hadn't given it enough chance after voicing his concerns on the talk page. I'd say five months is enough time for a chance, and it hasn't had any improvement in there. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Someone mentioned here that "inline cite requirement is not applied to FAs that passed before that requirement took hold." -- Stbalbach 15:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Once again, that is an old quote. Citations are required on FAs. Sandy (Talk) 17:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

As well as the references issue, it clearly fails 1a. Here are randon examples from the middle.

• Huge, winding snake: "Edward VI did not desire that the Crown go to either the Lady Mary or the Lady Elizabeth; consequently, he excluded them from the line of succession in his will, which was unlawful, because it contradicted an Act of Parliament passed in 1544 restoring the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth to the line of succession, and because it was made by a minor. "
• "was punished by having his ears cut off"—Why, oh why, do we need a link for "ear"? Do we or do we not speak English? Later, heart ...
• Lots of one-sentence paragraphs ...
• Stubby, blunt statements, such as "Mary did not have many successes."
• References, please!
• "see its article for more information"—What is "its" here? Clumsy internal cross-reference, anyway.

Should go into FARC. Tony 11:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I think I've cleaned up the overwikilink issue -- the only wikilink that isn't clearly relevant on first glance now is arms, which pipes to heraldry. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 16:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are in-line citations, images, and prose. Joelito (talk) 15:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Needs inline citations (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 16:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Article is lacking inline citations. Sandy (Talk) 23:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove—Pity; all this editing, but hardly any inline citations. In some places it's worse (e.g., the introduction of "Some authors say"—who?). Tony 09:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Citations are the main thing.UberCryxic 18:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ubuntu (Linux distribution)

[edit] Review commentary

Original author aware: messages left at Computer science and Linux. Sandy 16:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I brought this article to FA standard some time ago. Its structure has since deteriorated to the point where it's no longer a joy to read. Each paragraph now has a heading (!) and important points from the history section have been dumped in a "response" section at the end of the article. The table of contents is now unnecessarily cluttered as a result, and the formatting of references is inconsistent. If I start editing the article again, it is likely it will no longer meet the stability criterion. Please demote. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Last version that I was involved in and would endorse: [3]

Today's version: [4]

Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree: the article was nowhere near usual FA standard when it was promoted and drew harsh criticism for its rushed FA candidacy at the time. Significant work has gone into improving it since; the supposed header sprawl consists of one additional section within the article and two extra standard sections at the end (See Also, Further Reading). The current article is comprehensive and contrary to Samsara's claim is well-maintained. I see no reason why further progressive editing cannot take place after talk discussion, nor do I see any effort to start such a process. Chris Cunningham 11:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about how you felt the article was not FA standard, and how the changes made to it have improved it? I've added links to the two versions we would be discussing below, for everybody's convenience. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Sure.

• The lead is less advertish. It doesn't provide weaselly claims about having a lively community and then use external links to said forums' front page as a reference to back up the claim.
  • That's not even true. Check your facts please. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Leading from that, the references used are far more useful for supporting evidence. The old edit's references are primarily in the form of an Ubuntu site map. And there are far too many of them. Bogus references are unhelpful.
  • I see 35 references in the old version and 35 references in the current one. And they're mostly from Ubuntu/Edubuntu etc. So what's changed in that department? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• The features section doesn't have the ghastly technical fluff about sudo, and has significant tone cleanup.
  • If you look through the peer reviews and talk archives, you'll find that the "fluff" was specifically requested at one point. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• The package classification section is more coherent.
  • How? You haven't even resolved the concern about the table and the spoken version. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• The further reading section is properly marked-up as per other articles rather than hidden in the references.

My only real issue with the current edit in comparion to the old one is that it suffers from H3 creep. I don't have a problem with collapsing most of the sub-headers, and I certainly think that this is easy enough to correct that it shouldn't force ejection from the FA list. Chris Cunningham 12:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Blah. This article was clear and concise in its first life as an FA, even to non-linux users, but now its wordy, confusing and filled with linux-cruft. The headings on every paragraph (and some of those paragraphs are 2 sentences) don't even give the article a chance to flow in a natural way. Other than trivial formatting, I don't see much that has been improved. The "light-hearted nod" thing is more weasely and ad-like than what was in there before. Demote unless this thing regains its coherency. Right now its laying in bits and pieces on the floor. pschemp | talk 12:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Where are you getting this? "clear and concise"? The current version is shorter than the FA version! As for the light-hearted nod thing, I can't really see another way of explaining it; any suggestions? Chris Cunningham 13:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Without a citation, it is very clearly original research. It reads like some of those sitcom article where some Wikipedian gives their interpretation of what the storyline was intended to convey in a particular episode. Stick with the hard facts! What does the slogan have to do with anything, especially the lead? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It's trivial to remove the explanation if a ref can't be found. I'm failing to see why this was never raised in the article discussion, instead leaping straight to a delisting request. Chris Cunningham 13:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

If that was the *only* issue, you'd be right, but its not. Looking at the talk page and seeing the previous cries for blood the day this was on the front page certainly gives the impression that talk page discussion would be useless. But, what does it matter? You can defend it here just as well. Additionally, this is the best place to get eyes on the article that aren't normally involved. That reason alone is worth listing it here. pschemp | talk 14:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

After the talk page rage when it was originally frontpaged I went through and corrected things where I saw a need for improvement rather than trying to get the page delisted. I find it hard to assume good faith in the delisting petition here when the involved editors haven't made any recent effort to edit the article. Chris Cunningham 14:41, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe they would have if they hadn't had their heads bitten off by the "this is a crappy FA" club. Certainly that little club didn't assume good faith, but just proceeded to talk shite about an article that was just fine. I'm sorry your feelings are hurt about this being listed here, but its perfectly reasonable given the crappy quality of the article and the hostility of the talk page. Listing it here is a good faith attempt to get it improved and get some new eyes on it. If you choose not to believe that fine. Continue to complain by all means, I won't stop you. pschemp | talk 14:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's not forget that you would have never risen to the status of "steward of the FA" if it hadn't been for my efforts in making it an FA in the first place. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry? I don't feel that either of those comments was particularly civil. I'm continuing to edit the article in line with the criticisms received here, I don't imagine that the eventual decision to delist it or not will make a difference there, and it's far more worthy of my time than having pointed comments directed at me by a double-team of moderators. Chris Cunningham 15:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment While I won't comment on whether or not a previous version was better than the current, there are a few issues I have with the current version. Not all of the web site references have dates. There is a request for expansion in the article, which should be resolved. Articles do not get promoted with requests for expansion, so that is a key issue if an existing featured article goes under review. Jay32183 20:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Beyond the concerns addressed here, my biggest concern with the article is that it's awfully dull to read. The article hits all the bases, but seems more concerned with being terse than being informative. What's interesting about Ubuntu – not just which components does it include, but why they are important choices? What sets it apart from other distros? I hope the article can be fleshed out a little – as it stands, it's less insightful than most of the other computing FAs. Twinxor t 10:00, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Prose. This needs serious copy-editing. There's flab and awkwardness. Here are examples of why the whole thing needs work:
  • "Ubantu concentrates on ... freedom from restriction of use". Huh?
  • "a private company founded and funded by"—This is what Fowler called a "jingle".
    • It is, however, correct. Can you suggest a valid alternative? - Samsara (talk · contribs) 10:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Uh-oh, the dreaded "in order to" crops up. Please make them all just "to". Otherwise, I'll do a Hitler salute.
  • "In contrast with some other general-purpose forks of Debian such as Xandros, Linspire and Libranet, Canonical have stayed close to Debian's philosophy with Ubuntu and use free software most of the time rather than relying on closed-source add-ons as part of their business model."—Remove "some" (there's a "such as" already). "Stayed close to" is ungainly. How about a comma after "Ubantu"? "Most of the time" could be "mostly use". "As part of" could be just "in".
  • "and provided an initial funding of US$10 million"—Which word should go?

Tony 09:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are structure (2), stability (1e), and prose (1a). Marskell 11:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• A significant effort to improve thus far, but I feel that the task is not yet finished. There's an "unfinished" tag on the last section. Tony 12:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The editing activity you point to is solely to do with the release of a new version, and not at all with any active effort to address the concerns brought forward in this FARC discussion. - Samsara (talk · contribs) 16:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Stability is difficult to assess in the midst of change, but a high proportion of current changes are reversions and partial reversions. Parts of the article are not well referenced (two requests for citation), none of Tony's concerns about prose have been addressed, and the complaint about structure has only resulted in a proliferation of sub-headings, 2.1-2.4 being based on one editor's original research on what the aims of Ubuntu are.[5] More info on the actual aims may be found here. Still thinking strong demote. - Samsara (talk · contribs) 16:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Is there anyway you can revert to the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ubuntu_%28Linux_distribution%29&oldid=66851282 version, and keep whatever needed updates? Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 20:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • If I have support to do that, I'll do it as soon as I have a bit more time. If it's going to end in edit wars, I'm not available. - Samsara (talk · contribs) 21:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm with Samsara: if you can revert and improve the article, I'll support - otherwise, I'm a Remove per Samsara's commentary above. Sandy (Talk) 21:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I'll support a revert as well Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 04:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Strong oppose a revert. The original is no more worthy of FA status than the current and is now heavily out of date regardless of the numerous improvements made since. The nominee is well aware of the current editing situation and his comments are out of line. If it's to be de-listed so be it, but it's nothing to do with my having supposedly negatively impacted the article. Chris Cunningham 21:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
        • The original [...] is now heavily out of date regardless of the numerous improvements made since. This is what I mean. There is no more sense to his actions than there is to the above sentence. I'd hesitate to make such a comment if I hadn't tried to work with this editor for a while — unsuccessfully. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
          • Whatever. Bad faith and rank-pulling have been the hallmarks of all recent free software arguments with this moderator, starting with the out-of-the-blue nom for delisting of this article and continuing through random personal attacks on my talk page (and wikiquote too, now I think about it). Ego wars hurt wikipedia and this nom is a prime example. Continual efforts to engage action to improve the article have met with failure and reverting would further harm the article. Chris Cunningham 01:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
            • I'll just let that stand. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 01:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I think it would be counterproductive to move to such an old edit; not only do we lose five months of news, but there's been significant work in some areas of the article since then. I don't think reverting to this version would move the article closer to FA standard. Twinxor t 10:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
    • But that is not what's being proposed. What's being proposed is to revert the article and have someone go through the 500-odd edits since then to salvage any good additions. I've said I'll do it, but it's obvious that Chris' attitude of rabidly deleting references and material has not changed, and I have stated that I am not available if this is so. I just don't believe that others will be around to revert when Chris starts his attack on the new version, so the article will have to be demoted. It reads too much like an FAQ at the moment, and it continues to be unstable. With the increasing introduction of bullet points and subheadings, the structure suffers. I can see the road to salvage this article, but the road is blocked by some big boulders. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Samsara. Sandy (Talk) 14:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Ok Samsara makes a strong point, Remove Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 20:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Samsara as well. Jay32183 20:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lakitu

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at A Link to the Past and Computer and video games. Sandy 02:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I was wrong, THIS is the last pre-manual for writing fiction character article left. One inline citation, images without sources, and the major issue, no information on its conception and creation. Judgesurreal777 02:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, I don't think there is enough available source material to save this one, either. Pagrashtak 04:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think this is all there is to say on this character. The article was passed before inline citations were required, the images issue should be easily fixed, but the concept and creation info probably doesn't exist. — BrianSmithson 04:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Needs inline citations (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 18:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Please go through and place <fact> tags where you feel citations are necessary. The vast bulk of the article is sourced directly from the games, so no citations are needed for most of it. — BrianSmithson 22:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I started to place fact tags, but realized there was a problem with weasle words: apparently, a bit of, things like that. I could place fact tags, but it might help to first review WP:AWW and WP:WTA, remove the weasly text, and then see what statements still need referencing. Sandy 21:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Cleaned up. (I should note that I am not trying to "save" this article. But I do think it should be the best it can possibly be.) — BrianSmithson 13:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment This article sorely lacks an out-of-universe perspective. Like Judgesurreal said, the concept and creation section is just empty space. Aside from the 'writing about fiction guideline', the article just isn't comprehensive without an inclusive outside view of the character. Kingston Jr. 07:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
  • You're right that creation and development information would be nice, but that does not mean the article is written from an in-universe perspective. In fact, the entire reason I expanded the article in the first place was to make it completely out-of-universe (which it is). As I've said on the talk page, this article was an important step toward the creation of the WP:WAF guideline. Not that this should save it's FA status for it; just clarifying that there is little if any in-universe in this piece. — BrianSmithson 10:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations and comprehensiveness. Joelito (talk) 15:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I've said I'd be more than willing ot add citations where appropriate, but no one has said where they'd be appropriate. If a line says, "In Game X, Lakitu does this", there is no need for a citation, since it's part of the prose. As for comprehensiveness, Raul routinely promotes articles on fictional topics as long as they use the "best sources available". Again, no skin off my nose if this is demoted, but we should remove all the Pokemon articles too if this one gets the axe; none of them includes a "concept and creation" section either. — BrianSmithson 22:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I am very curious about that fact myself. Judgesurreal777 00:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Citing Raul the FAC director doesn't hold much weight here, indeed he promotes articles like bags of Smarties. Additionally if anyone feels an article doesn't hold up to current FA standards (such as possibly Pokemon?) they can nominate it for FAR. LuciferMorgan 09:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: A collection of primary sources isn't very impressive: this article violates Wikipedia's OR policy. And there is nothing listed for the concept and creation. If there aren't any secondary sources over Lakitu (sources outside of the game or game manuals), the article probably should not exist. If that's the case, Lakitu should simply be a footnote in some other "List of Mario characters" article. And no, I'm not picking on this article in particular; tens of thousands of articles under the scope of WP:CVG should not exist, including many of the articles I myself have created. EDIT: Unless proper secondary sources are cited (this does not include fansites such as mariomonsters.com), I will vote to remove this article's featured status. I would also recommend against violating WP:FUC #3. One or two images will suffice. --Tristam 07:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. It's not too badly written, but it needs a run-through by a copy-editor. Things like "Rather than harming the players, however, Lakitu aids them by starting each race, alerting them when they complete laps or drive in the wrong direction, and by hooking them and moving them back to the track if they go off course." Put "However," first so that the reader knows the angle from the start? (Same for "For example,", etc.) The three items have "by", nothing, and "by", respectively. Little inconsistencies like this subtly add to the difficultly of reading what should be a plain-sailing text. Or ...
  • "often employ Lakitu in some sort of referee or support capacity"—replace "some sort of" with simply "a"?

I'm sure these and other glitches can be fixed, since it's in Brian's capable hands. Tony 11:29, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Black hole

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Phil Boswell, Bryan Derksen, Dbundy, Space, Physics, and Astronomy. Sandy 16:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

This article was appointed into FA on 2004-07-30 (diff).

• First of all, there is a lack of references, even the reference list containst 404 links. Some direct citations aint inline citated as they should be.
• In several places, the prose is lacking logic, and when you read it, you get the feeling that they are repeating them self.

  From observations in the 1980s of motions of stars around the galactic centre, it is now believed that such supermassive black holes exist in the centre of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Sagittarius A* is now generally agreed to be the location of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. The orbits of stars within a few AU of Sagittarius A* rule out any object other than a black hole at the centre of the Milky Way assuming the current standard laws of physics are correct.

• The section "Mathematical theory" contains at first a formula, that is undefined (only later formulas is defined). The first formula is not explained what it describes.
• Most of the section "Alternative models" feels like OR.
• Also, on a note, that at the moment has been a edit war, that I think is still going on (see talk page for more info), therefore the page aint stable at the moment (don't know if this criteria is applyable to an already approved FA).

_→AzaToth 00:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment—I'd like to see an audit of the prose. Things like:
  • "above 1.44 solar masses"—"Above" is not the right preposition. Occurs a number of times.
  • "the first and second edition"—"EditionS".
  • "gave the solution for"—I know scientists get away with "give" in this context, but it's pretty inelegant. Produced? Provided? It occurs a number of times.
  • Back holes can't be avoided IN some collapsing objects?
  • "Shortly thereafter"—avoid the second word.
  • Too much usage of "some" and "certain", which are vague.
  • "Other observed effects are narrow jets of particles at relativistic speeds heading along the disk's axis."—"Heading"?
  • "is that any infalling matter will eventually"—Spot the redundant word.

Please don't just fix these issues; the whole text needs a careful run-through. Tony 09:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations and possible OR (1c), prose quality and logic (1a), and stability (1e). Marskell 11:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - diff since nom, no one seems to be working on it, the article is undercited and still has the aforementioned prose problems. Sandy (Talk) 21:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - Whole paragraphs of text lack citations. LuciferMorgan 21:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove—Difference since Sandy's last comment. Tony 07:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common Unix Printing System

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Ta bu shi da yu, Computing, Linux, and Macintosh. Sandy 14:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC) A message was left by AzaToth at Version 0.5. Sandy 16:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This article was made into FA 2005-01-19, with the changes to current as here (no specified revision marked thou). What I see mostly, is lacking in criteria 1a and 1c. _→AzaToth 10:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree and think that if all the "general" references were used as inline references, we'd be much closer to heaven already. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Given that this article hit the main page, I don't think that our featured article director Raul654 would agree that it isn't compelling prose. As to it not being factually accurate, please explain what parts have problems. Thanks. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:17, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

What your icon Raul654 thinks has nothing to do with reality, if he has something to comment, pleas ask him to comment here, otherwise it's totally unimportant what he thinks. but if you now refuse to read the article your self, the section "User Interface tools" lacks for the most part any references what so ever. _→AzaToth 16:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly urge you to modify your language, as you are flying very close to making a personal attack. Raul is in no way my "icon". I suggest you be more careful in the remarks you make, as they aren't particularly civil, or even accurate. Apart from a few issues picked up by Sandy (which I do thank her for!) there really isn't much to go on. AzaToth, you say that the article is inaccurate and not excellent prose. Please show me where the article is inaccurate. In the meantime, I'm going to have another look at the things Sandy highlighted. Overall, the article is, IMO, still FA worthy. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry for my language, I just got angry that you pointed out that if Raul made it into the first page one year ago, disqualify any future review. _→AzaToth 06:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

S'ok, but that wasn't my point. I don't think the prose is dire, and in fact it is mostly compelling. Factually it is sound. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, oops :), then if we go the the issue here, I reacted strongly as there are multiple places words like "easier" are used. In the section "Scheduler", thre paragraphs are starting with the word "The scheduler" createing a feeling of a list made into text straight away. The section "MIME databases" may be a violation of §4, as MIME isn't specific for CUPS. The section after ("Filtering process") contains a bit too many red links, also that section I can't find one reference for. Section "Compatibility" lacks prose, needs a major rewite. Section "GNOME" lacks references. Section "ESP Print Pro" reads like an advertisement. Section "CUPS web-based administration interface" contains too much POV. I hope this could be fixed, but as it is now, I woldn't call it FA-quality. _→AzaToth 10:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Ta bu, I can understand why your remark has drawn objections: I, for one, have had enough of bootlicking, or even the slight appearance of it. Tony 01:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Commment The prose could be smoothed out— random examples:

• With CUPS, it is far easier than before for printer manufacturers and printer driver developers to create drivers that work natively on the print server.
  • With CUPS, printer manufacturers and printer driver developers can more easily create drivers that work natively on the print server.
• The scheduler allows for classes of printers. This is a method of grouping printers together to allow applications to send jobs to the class, which then means the scheduler will pick the first available printer in the class and direct the job to that printer.
  • The scheduler allows for classes of printers; applications can send jobs to the group of printers in a class, allowing the scheduler to direct the job to the first available printer.
• There is a need for more inline citations—example: Apple Computer is using CUPS as printing system in their operating system Mac OS X from Version 10.2 (Jaguar) on. Converting the citations to cite.php would be helpful, as standardization makes it easier for new editors to contribute in the future. Sandy 23:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Fair enough, but none of these issues are big enough for the article to be removed via FARC. That is my main concern. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • It's very hard to read, because the prose could flow better, as in the examples I gave. Those were just some random examples, giving an idea of work needed on the prose. Someimes a new set of eyes on the copy edit can help: I'm not sure who's a good computer article copy editor though. I can't help because I don't know the territory. Hope it helped, Sandy 21:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• "ise" or "ize"? Choose one consistently. Stubby paragraphs fragment the flow of information. Successive sentence subjects could be bolded or italicised in running prose, if more explicit listing is required. Tony 14:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, Ta bu, do I really see that you said above: "Given that this article hit the main page, I don't think that our featured article director Raul654 would agree that it isn't compelling prose."? The way I feel at the moment (very disappointed in Raul's current performance as Director of FAC), I'm going to say that his judgement as to what is compelling prose and what is not doesn't appear to come into it much. Tony 14:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

With two rather strange calls in a week, perhaps Raul654 is overworked, or just too busy with real life commitments. Unfortunately, no one is infallible, which is why most Wiki decisions are based on community consensus. Sandy 17:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I abstain from commenting on FAC - all I feel is that FA stars are given out like bags of Smarties these days. LuciferMorgan 23:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I know exactly how you feel; Raul seems to want to keep up his 35–40% pass rate irrespective of what crap gets through. I think it's high time that the Director exercised more substantive judgement him/herself. Tony 15:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell 18:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient inline cites. LuciferMorgan 19:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment There are still numerous external jumps, and the prose still has some rough areas, needing a fresh set of eyes for a complete runthrough. There are redundancies ("The filter system then passes the data on to a backend—a special filter that sends print data to a device or network connection"), snakes ("After the pre-filtering is done, the data is sent directly to a CUPS backend (if using a PostScript printer), is passed to another filter (like Foomatic by linuxprinting.org), or is passed to Ghostscript, which coverts the PostScript into an intermediary CUPS-raster format (the MIME type is application/vnd.cups-raster), and organizational problems ("The backends are the ways in which data is sent to the printer" is found after multiple prior mentions of backends). I hope Tony will have a look and make some suggestions on the prose. Sandy (Talk) 14:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove No progress, issues not addressed. Sandy (Talk) 20:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment—It could do with a copy-edit, but I think that the prose per se is not bad enough to defrock the article. Admittedly, it was a cursory look. Here are examples of little problems:
  • What's "Fall of 1999"? Breaches MoS on two counts. Fall = autumn = March–May, for me.
  • "attempts at developing"—awkward. Try "attempts to develop".
  • "KDEPrint's main components", and other similar awkward uses of the apostrophe. Tony 15:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. The article has very few citations.--Yannismarou 18:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

• Can we hold on this one for maybe three days? This is just the type of article that can be sourced with weblinks, and it's not in terrible shape now. Marskell 06:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• We could hold but no one seems to be working on the article. Are you willing to work on the article Tim? Joelito (talk) 16:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• I was, but my time has proved limited and I've used it for the Polish-Soviet War. This can go, if that's the consensus. Marskell 16:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Albert Einstein

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Bio, History of Science, Philosophy, Physics, and Science. Sandy 18:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

This article was once FA but now when I look at it I doubt it would pass FA again. It is far, far too long, and some of the sections — the bits about his religion, political views, and "scientific philosophy" — look very amateurish and are not encyclopedic (the religion section is currently a bunch of unsynthesized quotes). The article has been in this state for months. It would be great if someone would sit down with it and try and bring it up to standards but so far nobody has bothered. Some sections are very good, and are very carefully sourced; some are not. I'm putting this here both to call attention to the problems with this former featured article as well as to prepare for a possible FARC if it isn't improved substantially. I don't think it is among the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, currently. --Fastfission 18:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

One thing I noticed straight away is that there's no infobox, which I thought was a bit strange for a bio. I'd do it myself, but I'm not sure how it's done. Otherwise it seems fine, even if it is a bit long. Terri G 19:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes are not required for bios; we've discussed it many times on that article's talk page and most people seem to think it looks better without one. Please don't add another one in. I think infoboxes in biographies are bad ideas unless someone is in an easily defined series (i.e. a president or something like that) because it makes the choice of what information to add either obvious (i.e. redundant stating of the birth and death dates, even though they are easy to find in the article lead itself) or arbitrary (children, family, alma mater, etc., which may or may not be useful info). (In any case, if the problems with the article were on the level of not having one template or another, that would not be a good reason for a FAR, IMO. The problems are deeper.) --Fastfission 19:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments It appears that this article has grown via piecemeal edits, with no oversight, since it's promotion. Besides everything already mentioned, some samples of problems throughout:

• A number of the websites used as references need to be examined per WP:RS; for example (there are more),
  • Science and cosmic religion.
  • Einstein and religion.
• The citations need work— here are a couple of samples:
  • ^ p. 671
  • ^ [1]
• There are external jumps, which should be converted to prose that is cited to the external reference (e.g.; Time magazine).
• There are numerous cite tags, and many more needed.
• Here's something that needs to be converted to a citation:
  • According to the authoritative biography by Pais (page 36, among others),
• Quotations should be moved to WikiQuote. Entire sections are not prose, rather battling quotations.
• Citizenship doesn't look comprehensive.

I didn't look at the prose because this article is in need of a major rewrite, reorganization anyway. Sandy 00:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

This is pacayune; one of the footnotes complained up has just been fixed; the footnote p. 671 is to the text "In the Schilpp book" (a referent which is unique, well-known, and previously defined.) Septentrionalis 03:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• And the rumour never dies: compare with User:Samsara/Debunking an urban myth: Einstein at school. I suggest permanently demoting the article because this problem can inherently not be addressed by any wiki. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Here's the link: Albert Einstein#Speculation and controversy. When did we start treating Britannica as a reliable source?! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia:Reliable_sources states: "Publications such as the Encyclopædia Britannica, World Book, and Encarta are regarded as reliable sources." Q0 23:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with the comments above, and the article generally seems to be a mess. Sandy, I have one question: when you say that "citizenship doesn't look comprehensive, what do you have in mind ? There are a few details that could be added, but as far as I know, the current version looks fairly comprehensive. Schutz 21:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comments.
  • "He was one of the formulators of the special and general theories of relativity." Um, last time I looked, he was the innovator.
  • "On 30 March 1921, Einstein went to New York to give a lecture on his new Theory of Relativity, the same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize." Odd back-reference from year to date.
  • "less-contested theory"—Shouldn't be hyphenated.
  • The heirarchy of the headings needs attention. Tony 09:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are length and focus (4), section formatting and general organization (2). Marskell 14:25, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - Certain statements still need inline cites. LuciferMorgan 13:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - the article is still undercited, a number of the references used don't appear to be to reliable sources, and some of the references can't be tracked down (an ibid to a non-specific source). There are still prose and organizational problems in the article, which appears to have grown piecemeal, and it doesn't appear that anyone is watching over the article or making an organized attempt to improve it. Sandy (Talk) 21:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove as per above. What a pity. And it's still easy to see problems in the prose, such as the following, which I've take from one short passage:
  • "instead focusing intensely only on what interested him"—awkward syntax.
  • "it's"—contractives not appropriate in this register.
  • Overuse of the retro-conditional "would" (e.g., "he would later describe", rather than just "he later described:).
  • "showed great mathematical ability early on." Last two words a bit informal.

And lots more. Tony 11:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chuck Palahniuk

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at User:LGagnon and Bio

This article is very good overall, however, two sections Writing style and Fandom completely lack references and are possibly OR. I hope this FAR process will facilitate the correction of these problems, I'd be very reticent for us to FARC it. Mikker ^(...) 00:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The writing style section is based on a series of essays Palahniuk wrote that are supposed to go into his non-fiction writing book. These were on his website, but are not accessible to non-subscribers anymore. The fandom info can also be found on his website, as well as some interviews. -- LGagnon 01:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Then reinsert them with the note that there's a subscription required.--Rmky87 23:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Heck, he's an author, so let's do him the courtesy of writing the article in excellent prose. Here are examples of problems. Don't just fix these points, though.
  • "and grew up living in a mobile home"—Spot the redundant word.
  • "His parents later separated and divorced, often leaving him and his three siblings to live with their grandparents ..."—"Often" is odd there.
  • "In his twenties, Palahniuk attended the University of Oregon's School of Journalism, graduating in 1986." No, "and graduated in".
  • "While attending college, he worked as an intern for National Public Radio's KLCC in Eugene, Oregon. He moved to Portland soon afterwards. After writing for the local newspaper for a short while, he began working for ...". OK, two of the three sentences start with a time-phrase. Why not be consistent? "For a short while" does not belong in an encyclopedic register (vague).
  • "had a short stint"—No.
  • A few idle "also" need to be weeded out.

Not good enough. Tony 09:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm surprised this is still an FA. No FA should have an {{unreferenced}} template anywhere in it, no matter how long ago it was promoted. Plus, as noted above, two sections are deficient and I would also add that the intro is too cursory. Either remove or rewrite to current standards. Daniel Case 20:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing and prose. Joelito (talk) 20:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove referencing concerns not addressed including the OR tag. Jay32183 20:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove—This is all that has been done since my last comment on 23 Oct. Tony 12:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Insufficient inline cites (1. c. violatiob). LuciferMorgan 19:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emacs

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at FePe, Computing, Computer science, Linux, and C++. Sandy 19:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

1:a, I dont feel the prose is compelling any more in this article, you get the feeling that it isn't the same author in the whole article (style changes all the time), also there is two sections titled License/Licensing, seems to much ambigious. 1:c, Some data added the last two years seems to lack source, the lack of inline sources aint a criteria, but this article could need some more. 1:d, The article are using subjective words like "powerful" etc. 2:a, the lead contains data, not refered more later in the article. 3, The only image is a screenshot at the top of the article, featuring a overview of the software in question, I would like to see more images featuring parts of the interface in action. _→AzaToth 19:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments. All of the above, the article is undercited, and a red-link in See also (?). Sandy 00:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The red link came from someone using {{prod}} and not dealing with the links to the deleted article. I've dealt with it now. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

When skimming this, didn't notice much in problems with the prose, although the combined authors seem to have a lot of personal experience with emacs, they have a lot of details down well. Yeah, the license/licensing should at least be moved together, probably combined. Overall though, the lack of sources seems like the biggest problem. Although the information is almost unquestionably right, it's not sourced, and I suspect one would find it hard to find quality sources for much of this information, since it's often a debated matter of opinion, for example, "Emacs is one of the most powerful and versatile text editors in existence." True, but not really source-able.

For screenshots, there's not much to see in Emacs, but I suppose a few more could be added; I think the sourcing is the most needed though. Prof Olson|talk 00:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), POV (1d), LEAD (2), and images (3). Marskell 18:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Diff since nom. The prose is not compelling, and reads at times like an elementary instruction manuel. ("Emacs supports the editing of text written in many human languages. There is support for many alphabets, scripts, writing systems, and cultural conventions. Emacs provides spell checking for many languages by calling external programs such as ispell.") There is a lack of citations (examples: "The downside to Emacs' Lisp-based design is a performance overhead resulting from loading and interpreting the Lisp code. On the systems in which Emacs was first implemented, Emacs was often noticeably slower than rival text editors." "However, modern computers are fast enough that Emacs is seldom felt to be slow. In fact, Emacs starts up more quickly than most modern word processors.") Sandy (Talk) 14:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Sandy's reasons. LuciferMorgan 02:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] F-35 Lightning II

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at PopUpPirate, Aircraft, and MilHist. Sandy 19:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite a while ago I posted on the F-35 talk page that it isn't FAC quality (see this). I posted the following reasons: "In the first place, the references are inadequate - there were several fact tags before I came along & I've now added further ref tags for 2 sections that lack references. Furthermore, there is at least one direct external link used as a ref (instead of a footnote). Secondly, at least two sections/sub-sections are very short stubs, I've added stubsection tags to them." Four editors responded that they agree with my assessment but, unfortunately, the problems have not yet been fixed. Mikker ^(...) 18:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. This is two FAR notifications for User:PopUpPirate in four days, which may make it hard for him/her to contribute to improving both articles. Sandy 19:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Thanks Sandy! I'm away till the weekend, too! I'll do what I can --PopUpPirate 20:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pointing that out Sandy... Honestly, there is never reason to panic about getting a FA demoted, so if PopUpPirate is busy I suggest we follow WP:NOT a bureaucracy and delay it for a week or so. The main thing is that it should got fixed... Mikker ^(...) 20:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments

• See also should be ahead of Notes and References per WP:LAYOUT (Wiki content first). A template might be useful for organizing the See also (sample at Tourette syndrome).
• Maybe manufacturing responsibilities could be converted to prose, telling the reader more about each item in the list.
• Can the information in the external jumps (e.g.; link Lockheed-Martin F-35 statistics summary.) either be incorporated as text referenced to the external site, or listed in External links? External jumps should be avoided.
• The article needs better inline citation; in addition to the cite tags there, here's another example:
  • Some of the partner countries have wavered in their public commitment to the JSF program, hinting or warning that unless they receive more subcontracts or technology transfer, they will forsake JSF purchases for the Eurofighter Typhoon, Gripen or Rafale. Sandy 23:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment/Oppose

This article needs references inserted in the various sections and tags removed and associated problems sorted out before it can stay an FA. Buckshot06 07:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are insufficient references (1c) and stub sections (1b and 2). Marskell 18:05, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. The issues raised at FAR have not been addressed, and it doesn't appear that anyone is working on the article. Sandy (Talk) 14:41, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove I compared the article at the time of its FA promotion with the version around 20 Sept, when some objections were raised on the talk page regarding its FA status. There was serious degradation in writing quality and neutrality, which included a lot of POV. While several editors are actively maintaining the article, it fails the stability requirement (FA criteria 1e), and consequently lacks neutrality (1d) and quality of writing (1a) at times. --Duk 20:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sid McMath

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Meeler, Bio, Politics, and Political figures. Sandy 19:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a great article, but it does not satisfy criterion 1c. No sources are given (unless one considers the Further reading section as the References section). Hopefully, editors will bring this article up to current standards. RelHistBuff 12:07, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Lacks inline citations (1. c. violation). The further reading section, in my opinion, is real hard on the eyes. For a further reading section all I want is a list of books, book chapters in anthologies, weblinks etc., not prose (whether this is expected I'm unsure). LuciferMorgan 17:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Interesting sample text:
  • For an intimate family portrait and a behind-the-scenes narrative, see First Ladies of Arkansas: Women of Their Times, by Anne McMath, ISBN 0-87483-091-5 (August House, 1989). A Ribbon and a Star (Henry Holt, Inc., 1945) is an eye-witness memoir of the Bougainville campaign by one of McMath's staff officers, Capt. John Monks, Jr., written immediately after the engagement. Monks later became a noted playwright and film producer. For a colorful local history of Hot Springs, Arkansas during the McLaughlin period, including the mayor's 1947 indictment and trial, see Leo & Verne: The Spa's Heyday, by Orval Allbritton, with a foreword by McMath, ISBN 0929604-87(Garland County Historical Society, 2003). For another perspective, see P.H. Ramsey, "A Place at the Table: Hot Springs and the GI Revolt," Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Winter 2000).
• This text is—rather than compelling encyclopedic content— a Further reading list. Direct quotes with no citation
  • His Democratic run-off opponent, a former attorney general, accused him of "selling out to the Negro vote."
• Specific facts with no citation
  • In a 1999 opinion poll of political science professors McMath placed fourth on a list of top Arkansas Governors of the 20th century.
• Uncited quotes from editorial opinions, with prose referring to See further
  • George Arnold, Northwest Arkansas opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, observed in a March 2004 column that, "If [McMath] had been able to take Arkansas further down the path to modernization and racial harmony, Arkansas history would have been quite different. Arkansas paid a big price when the public utilities muscled him out of office. [It is] still paying." See Further Reading, below, for continued utility pricing disparity in Arkansas compared to neighboring states.
• These are only a few samples of what is found throughout the text. With no sources, and a lot positive info about this politician, I wonder about POV. Sandy 23:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Retain: The text is drawn from the sources listed below and is digested and synthesized by the author. Given McMath's own life, it would be hard to be negative, and when the article was being composed I went looking for some anti-McMath sources. There weren't any that I could find. I have had no hand in writing even a single word, but I was called in very early to make sure that it wasn't a hagiography. From what I could tell, there was no way to avoid a positive tone, as every source had one. I suppose the Klan or some majorly biased Arkansas Republican group might have something bad to say, but they're not reliable sources. Geogre 14:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I don't think there is a FARC vote yet. The idea for the FAR is to get it up to current FA standards. The sources should be listed in a References section and there should be inline citations to the sources. RelHistBuff 15:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Correct: the current procedure allows for two weeks for review, followed by two weeks in FARC, if necessary. Sandy 21:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations and section layout. Joelito (talk) 15:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. McMath's Marine Corps nickname was "The Traveler", according to J. Mnnks, Ribbon and a Star, Henry Holt, Inc. NY 1945. This should be changed in the next edit.

• Remove No inline cites (1. c. violation) and the "Further reading" section needs a cleanup. LuciferMorgan 11:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Per above.--Yannismarou 11:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Remove per all above. There's a distinct lack of academic rigor in this article.UberCryxic 17:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Nobody is working on this at all, so defeature immediately since the month window has expired. LuciferMorgan 19:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

'Reader Comment' This excellent article, apparently by several knowledgable contributors working separately over more than 2 years, is precisely the kind of succinct, reader friendly product for which wikipedia strives. Although it has been read by hundreds of browsers over the past 2-plus years, none appears to have logged any significant complaint of error or mis-statement. If one who is a mere reader may do so, I would strongly urge that a less drastic yet more productive manner of dealing with lapses of source, form and lexicography would be to safeguard the article's featured status while urging in line referencing and source checking by readers familiar with Southern history and bibliography. Reader:Sam Hogg--No Handle.

• Comment The way to safeguard FA status is to repair the article and bring it up to proper standard. If no one works on it, then it still remains in Wikipedia to be enjoyed by those hundreds of browsers; it's just no longer FA. RelHistBuff 08:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

'Reader Comment' I see your point, without conceding that the piece is splendid as is and would suffer from "committee" beavering. It would be helpful if wiki contributors familiar with the area were encouraged to have a go at source verification, citation, etc. so as to steer the article into format compliance. Reader: Sam Hogg

[edit] House of Lords

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Emsworth, UK notice board, British Government, and Politics. Sandy 00:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

This article has no inline citations. Also has odd sectioning, with an "Introduction" section, and it also has obsolete image tags. Judgesurreal777 19:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The lead is insufficient and "Introduction" is a bad section header. Anyone else see the connection here? OK, now the lead is too long. Pagrashtak 04:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Lead section is rather long, and the article lacks inline citations (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 20:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The lead is not a lead: it's an entire article. The article is uncited, and the prose needs work. Example:
  • "Since then however, reform has stalled (see Lords Reform. The Wakeham Commission proposed introducing a 20% elected element to the Lords, but this plan was widely criticised. A Joint Committee was established in 2001 to resolve the issue, but it reached no conclusion and instead gave Parliament seven options to choose from (fully appointed, 20% elected, 40% elected, 50% elected, 60% elected, 80%, and fully elected)."
• The paragraph starts off with "since then", but the "since when" isn't clear; the prose throughout has parenthetical inserts as in this example, which should be converted to prose (the one given above doesn't have a close parentheses); the "widely criticised" isn't sourced, nor is any of the detail given there, and the passage has yet another parenthetical insert. This is typical of the prose, which needs a massage. Sandy 22:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Needs copy-editing. Here are examples.
  • "The Parliament also includes the Sovereign and the House of Commons (which is the lower house of Parliament)." (Second sentence.) Shouldn't that be "comprises", or are you keeping something from us? And can't the opening one-sentence para be merged?
  • Fourth para: can we have the years, rather than just the vague "in recent times"?
  • "There have been other clergymen appointed,..."—Should that be "Other clergymen have been appointed,..."? Same for the subsequent sentence, which is a twisting myre: "There have been no Roman Catholic clergymen appointed, though it was rumoured that Cardinal Basil Hume was offered a peerage, but refused, and accepted instead the Order of Merit, personal appointment of the Queen, shortly before his death."

Lots of work required. Tony 10:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c), image tags (3), and sectioning (2). Marskell 08:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Ahem, and 1a. Tony 13:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Someone mentioned here that "inline cite requirement is not applied to FAs that passed before that requirement took hold." -- Stbalbach 15:51, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

They may have mentioned it, but regardless, all FAs are held to the same standards. Tony 07:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Lacks inline cites (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 03:39, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Nobody is working on this article, so let's defeature it as the month window has run out. LuciferMorgan 19:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
• Remove None of the concerns were addressed. Joelito (talk) 20:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speech synthesis

[edit] Review commentary

Message left at Nohat. Sandy 17:40, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe this article no longer meets the Featured Article Criteria. Specificially, I am unconvinced of its factual accuracy due to lack of reliable sources. Don't get me wrong -- it's still a good article, and not far from feature-quality, but it's just not quite up there. Powers ^T 12:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It's actually a very long way from meeting current FA standards. Here are just a few of the things to be addressed:

• Lead is inadequate
• There are only TWO citations for the entire article
• The external links section is way too large, and reads like an advertisement list
• The entire article needs a heavy copy-edit, and there is even a tag to point this out
• Much information is lacking: for example, the real-world uses of speech synthesis; and the fact that current English-language synthesis always sounds like an American accent. There is MUCH more than this in the way of missing information.

All this needs to be addressed by one of the article's major contributors, or by someone else who knows about the subject. EuroSong ^talk 14:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment. A mess: I don't know what WikiProjects to notify. Sandy 20:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I've just carpet-bombed the about ten contributors on the history of edits page with the following message:

Hi there,

You're listed in the edit history of this article. I wonder whether you're able to help bring it up to FA standard again? Please see WP:FAR#Speech_synthesis.

Tony 06:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment. I agree with most of the comments about the poor state of the article. I might be able to contribute a little from the technical side, but I don't know if I have the time or the stomach for a complete rewrite. It also appears to be the case that the External links section is being abused as an advertising service.

--Ziusudra 20:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2), lack of citations (1c), copy-edit issues (1a), and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 13:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Major editing since nomination, but I find it hard to determine whether it's comprehensive—now it's kind of short for what is surely a major subject. For example, there's nothing on applications. Can we have some more input from the contributors, both WRT to the article's text and here? Tony 10:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• I edited it quite thoroughly, but I agree that it is probably not comprehensive, and it's still not sourced. (At least it is, IMO, no longer 'ugly'!) Reluctant delist. –Outriggr § 00:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I carpet-bombed quite a few contributors from the edit history yesterday. Let's hope for some activity. Tony 02:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Undercitated. If the adequate references are added, I'll reconsider my vote.--Yannismarou 12:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Can we hold on this one for maybe two days? I think this can be done up with largely net sources. If I'm not doing anything, I'll say so. Marskell 21:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Nothing much done since my last comment. My feeling is that this should be retained as an FA (only just), but more citations are needed, I think. for example:
  • When I see the wording "The two characteristics used to describe the quality of a speech synthesis system are naturalness and intelligibility.", I start to want a reference ("used to describe"). Otherwise, remove this sense and make it a generalised, common-knowledge statement. Just a smattering of references would do the trick, so that readers can grasp the verifiability of the text. Tony

And:

• • What is "tari ghaaan" doing floating at the bottom of one section?
  • There's n awful lot of "often"s—in places, one in each sentence. I've changed a few to "typically", and "commonly", "usually" or nothing are options too. Can someone audit for this overuse?

Uh-oh: I believe the Concatenative Synthesis section may be a text dump from here. It's a .edu site and I doubt they are copying us. Marskell 14:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

In which case, I'd go for a removal. Tony 06:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The original author of the article, Nohat (talk • contribs) is still active: it would be helpful if s/he weighed in. Sandy (Talk) 16:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to go remove in light of above. S/he's been contacted once--with a potential copyvio I don't think we should wait longer. Marskell 13:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove possible copyvio in addition to other issues. Sandy (Talk) 15:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Article no longer FA

[edit] Get Back

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Johnleemk, The Beatles, Albums, and Songs. Sandy 19:32, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this for FAR because;

1) 1. c. isn't met - as I've said before, ALL direct quotations attributed to the Beatles need sufficient citing, ie. interviewer, article's name, publication date, name of publication and issue number. "The Writing" section needs to cite a load of unsourced statements, as does "Recording in the studio and on the roof" section, "The release" section, as does the "Lyrics and melody" section - statements upon lyrical meanings and so on can be considered original research unless cited.

2) 1. b. possibly isn't met - the lead section makes reference to media controversy in 1986, but the lead should be a summary of the article. Perhaps there should be a section dealing with this controversy?

3) 1. a. isn't met - the "Covers" subsection and "Parodies" section are too listy which creates disjointed prose - it all needs to be transformed into smooth, flowing prose paragraphs which all cohesively gel, and also they could do with a short lead at the beginning of each section to tie it all together. LuciferMorgan 10:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Canonical reference for "The Writing" is the Sulpy and Schweighardt book cited in the references. I'm not sure how to convert this from the reference listing to an inline cite - anybody want to help with this? I'm working sources for the quotes. Raymond Arritt 17:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

You're right, the controversy definitely doesn't belong in the intro. In fact I'm not sure it's all that noteworthy. Existence of the "political" verse has been common knowledge since a Rolling Stone article published in 1970. Raymond Arritt 17:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

It has books as references, but not enough references are in the article. There are even some "Quote needed" things in there. --andreasegde 15:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

There also are a few factual errors; e.g., Sour Milk Sea was recorded and released several months earlier, not "later given to Jackie Lomax." I'll work on those. Raymond Arritt 17:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to LuciferMorgan for the evaluation. Fixing this stuff will make the article better. Raymond Arritt 17:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment To inline cite using a book one would use the author's surname followed by the page number under an inline citation section. Just a "References" section isn't enough by today's current FA standards. Check Dixie (song) which uses books to inline cite as an example. LuciferMorgan 18:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • That's a nicely referenced article. I personally would prefer "Abel, p.49" or similar, to "Abel 49" though. Sounds like a chapter from the bible! --kingboyk 18:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's difficult to know what "Nathan 248" means in the Dixie (song) article. The notes are copious, but where are they from? --andreasegde 18:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• Well I'd prefer "Nathan p. 248" personally like kingboyk does as one could then understand what is meant (he means Nathan page 248), so I'd recommend this. If you check the "References" section underneath the "Notes" there is a book by Hans Nathan listed - this is where the inline cite is taken from (page 248 of the book to be specific). If you need more clarification feel free to say. LuciferMorgan 19:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• Got it in one, LuciferMorgan. If the notes and references sections were put together, we can cite one source more than once. It makes the notes section shorter, but makes it more concise. --andreasegde 16:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I set up the sections and did a sample for the first book of how to cite page numbers using Notes and References: there are other books cited with no page numbers. The book is listed generally as a Reference, is referred to fully the first time used in a footnote, with subsequent footnotes as:

1. Sulpy, Doug & Schweighhardt, Ray (2003). Get Back: The Beatles Let It Be Disaster. Helter Skelter Publishing. ISBN 1-900-92483-8. pg. 84.
2. Sulpy & Schweighardt (2003), pg. 152.
3. Sulpy & Schweighardt (2003), pg. 153. Sandy 16:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• • • andreasegde, if you need me to be any more specific in my FA criteria concerns, then I'm only too willing to go into even more detail. Inline citations will go a long way towards helping the Beatles Wikiproject. Also, if work's being done on this article then I hope the admins will extend the allocated time for FAR/C. LuciferMorgan 17:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - In respect of the fact my criteria concerns haven't been addressed (no edits since the 13th), I'd like to see this moved onto FARC once the fortnight window expires. LuciferMorgan 19:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations, comprehensiveness and LEAD. Joelito (talk) 13:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove if my concerns raised at FAR aren't addressed (which also include 1. a.). LuciferMorgan 00:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Cryptanalysis - It would be much appreciated if the comments on featured article status were a bit less elliptical. It's hard enough to edit articles without first having to dig into what's meant by LEAD, 1(a), and so on. I'm sure this shorthand is well known to those who often do feature article reviews. But a few extra words could let the rest of us devote more of our time to editing the article instead of deciphering shorthand. Raymond Arritt 04:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - When someone references 1. a., 1. c., and so on, they're referring to 'What is a featured article?' to which featured articles are measured by. Find out what criteria such as 1. a., 1. c. etc. by reading the page, or even bookmarking it for future reference. I believe the lead has been raised as an issue due to the fact of the 1986 controversy, which isn't mentioned in the body of the article - I mentioned this in my FAR (Featured Article Review) nomination. Leads should act as a summary of an article. The lead could arguably be too short, though I'd gain consensus from other editors here to assess whether this is the case. If you read my original nomination (which you did as you commented 2/3 weeks ago) above you'll know what needs to be addressed in the article. LuciferMorgan 09:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• Reomove Poorly referenced with listy sections.--Yannismarou 13:24, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iron Maiden

[edit] Review commentary

No original author identifiable, messages left at Bio, Metal Music, and Music. Sandy 17:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC) Message left for PopUpPirate. Sandy 04:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

This must be such an old FA I could not find out, when it became FAC. My main problem is the total lack of inline citations. Some further problems are:

• The toooo long lead (7 paragraphs).
• The 5 external links in the lead, which are also not linked in the recommended way.
• The "Iron Maiden in popular culture" section which is listy.--Yannismarou 17:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Very few inline citations (which ideally should be converted to cite.php), doesn't conform to WP:LAYOUT, listy pop culture, lead has too much detail and is too long rather than being a compelling summary of the article, weasly uncited statements ("The album was generally seen as having dark, brooding songs that seemed more melancholy and introspective than usual."), and more weasly uncited statements ("In February 1999, Bayley left the band, apparently by mutual consent. The main reason for his departure was his inconsistent onstage performance - Blaze's voice was not up to the rigours of a full-on Maiden tour."). Needs a rewrite and citations. Sandy 18:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

• It was promoted a little over a year ago, around 10 August 2006. I've fixed the link to the discussion in the featured template if anyone would like to see it. While I'm here, I'll mention that the images claiming fair use need rationale. Pagrashtak 04:13, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Lack of inline citations are indeed a problem (1. c.). As a Maiden fan, I can tell a mile off most of this info has been taken from Mick Wall's official biography of the band called "Run to the Hills" - if anyone owns this and wants to help keep this article's FA status, then dust this book off the shelf and start citing. The critical comments on each album which Sandy has picked up on are also taken from Mick Wall's book (the author's own opinions). The lead needs a compelling rewrite indeed. The "Iron Maiden in popular culture" section is a trivia section in disguise which needs rewriting (1. a.). Also, the article fails to discuss Iron Maiden's legacy which means it isn't comprehensive - as someone who has done the odd music interview or two for a metal website, I can personally attest that when the discussion of influences pops up it's Iron Maiden that pops up the most. LuciferMorgan 09:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Further comment - I've converted some of the links into inline citations. Others need converting, but the problem is they either lead to dead links, or the content has changed. I'm trying to use the Wayback Machine, but it is currently experiencing technical difficulties - I'll get back onto this once it's up and running again. Could someone blanket the article with citation requests? If this isn't possible, could someone paste the article at my sandbox, and then blanket it with citation requests so that once the requests are fulfilled criterion 1. c. will hopefully be met. I'll have a go at converting the listy "Iron Maiden in popular culture" section into prose also, but any other 1. a. violations I'm ill equipped to deal with. Would this popular culture section be better entitled "Legacy", yes or no? LuciferMorgan 16:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I added some cite tags, but I always hate to blanket an article with cite tags, because it's hard to tell (without having the sources) if one citation might cover an entire paragraph, or if citations are needed for individual facts. I hit individual facts within paragraphs, and the end of the paragraph when I didn't find a particularly ORish statement within the paragraph. I only did a few sections: I'll wait to see if that works for you. Renaming popular culture to legacy sounds good to me. I wouldn't object to one book as a source if you make an attempt to verify any extraordinary claims with other sources. For example, if a book about a music group says "this is the best rock group that ever existed", I'd sure want to see another source saying the same thing :-) Sandy 17:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Thanks for your time Sandy, it's very much appreciated. I currently have a few things to do (life prohibits serious Wiki work), but since FAR is usually open 2 weeks this shouldn't be a problem. If you wished to blanket with citation requests, you could have pasted the article in my sandbox. I'll leave another comment when I've done further work upon the article - this one is utterly riddled with weasly statements, it's like reading a press release in parts! LuciferMorgan 17:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
      • If you'd prefer, grab a copy of my tagged version for your sandbox, and then revert my tags. No problem; whatever makes it easier for you to do the work. On the other hand, putting them right in the article may motivate others to help. Sandy 17:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
        • I'll leave them in the article, as indeed it may motivate others to help - needs a ton of cites, so it'd help, but if I got to it solo then so be it. Could someone give a serious look at the links I converted in order to make sure I did them correctly? Two cites are emerging slightly different under the "Notes" section. LuciferMorgan 17:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
          • Not sure I understand the question, as I didn't see a problem. Sandy 21:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
            • Check the refs under the "Notes" section, namely 4 and 5. Between the URL and the last accessed info there seems to be a gap, which I'm trying to rectify, can you notice it now? Can you help? LuciferMorgan 22:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
              • I tried a small change (punctuation inside ref URL), but there's still a space. I find it happens, don't know why, don't worry about it. Sandy 22:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
              • This isn't the only page with the problem, this bug should be reported in bugzilla. Michaelas10 12:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• Sandy, is there a reason you changed the "Notes" section so surnames come first and Christian names last? Is there a Wiki policy on this? I'm just curious. Are there any other comments you may have? LuciferMorgan 16:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I changed them to a bibliographic style that will make it easier to locate the reference that agrees with a footnote, alphabetically. I don't know that there's a Wiki policy; it's per citation style guides. APA style guide, MLA style guide, AMA citation style. Without alphabetical references, it's hard for the reader to find a book that corresponds to a particular inline footnote. Does this cause a problem, or do I need to be educated about another style? Sandy 16:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Why don't you let just the surnames? The reader can see the full name in "References". In "Notes" it is not necessary. I would also suggest to try to incoroporate most of the links of the "See also" section in the main prose.--Yannismarou 19:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Ah, I must have misunderstood your question. I suppose surname alone works fine. Sandy 19:30, 12 October 2006

(UTC)

• I was merely curious regarding the surname first, Christian last style. When I learnt how to inline cite, I used the Halloween film article as a guide. It's not that I disagree with it, just keen to learn something new. LuciferMorgan 07:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• • I noticed someone has added 2004 for the Mick Wall book - sorry guys, but that was the 3rd revised edition, whereas I own the 2nd one from 2001. This may cause confusion as the page numbers I'm quoting are from the 2nd one. Can someone help? I don't know what plan of action to take. LuciferMorgan 22:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• Anyone out there even care? LuciferMorgan 20:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

• • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_article/August_31%2C_2005 - is this possible to use as a guide for the lead section? LuciferMorgan 00:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

• I think that this with one or two more sentences would be a very nice lead.--Yannismarou 11:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The inline cites I add to the sentence just before the full stop, but somehow they end up appearing shortly after, after the full stops. Is some asshole messing with the cites? LuciferMorgan 00:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I got what you mean, but inline cites should go after the punctuation not before.--Yannismarou 12:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't get what you mean either by punctuation. Inline cites either come before the full stop of the cited sentence, or after. Which I don't know. If it is after, I'd like it on record it looks rather shitty and rubbish after the full stop, and falsely implies the sentence after is being cited too. LuciferMorgan 16:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Punctuation mark I mean. According to MoS (I don't know where it is exactly mentioned, but I am sure about that), the inline citation goes exactly after the full stop. You can citate within the sentence, if you definitely want to emphasize on something specific within the sentence. Does this help?--Yannismarou 18:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah it does, thanks. I don't like the style, but I'll grudgingly conform. I wish more Metal fans'd help with the article though - they're more a hindrance than a help. LuciferMorgan 18:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c), LEAD and section structure (2). Marskell 13:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - This was moved on within the fortnight exactly bar for one day when I've been (I admit only when I can, which isn't much) working on it, whereas others which have been left for dead have been left open for longer. I'm personally annoyed with that, but I'll defer. If I can address the concerns I will, though I don't recall any mention of criterion 2 at FAR. If I can't address the concerns, I'll vote Remove (a little gutting I can't spend more time on it, but it needs a ton of work). LuciferMorgan 18:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I suggest some more time is given to LuciferMorgan. We can wait here until the changes he has in minda re implemented.--Yannismarou 17:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - There's so much wrong with the article I have insufficient time to work on it unfortunately. I can work on it sporadically from time to time and try get it up to GA if its defeatured (which seems more viable right now). I'd also like it on record that Wikiproject Metal is the worst Project on Wikipedia, and gives people like me a bad name. LuciferMorgan 22:20, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove unless it receives a serious copy-edit. Here are examples.
  • "world-wide"—One word, please.
  • "(who did all artwork for the first 8 studio albums and first 3 live albums)"—Did all artwork" is a little crass for a professionallly written text. Please spell out numbers less than 10, unless there's a good reason not to.
  • "Eddie is also featured in a first-person shooter video game - Ed Hunter - as well as numerous books, graphic comics and band-related merchandise." Do we need "also" and "as well as"?
  • "Although Iron Maiden was a metal band influenced by Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, UFO, Yes, Wishbone Ash, Apocalypse, Queen and Judas Priest, the earlier music had undoubted punk overtones." Does the fact that they're a metal band need to be repeated here? I think your point concerns their influences.
  • "... original vocalist Paul Day became replaced by the outlandish Dennis Wilcock, a huge KISS fan who utilized fire, make-up and fake blood during live commitments." "Became replaced"? "Used", not the ugliest word in English, "ulitized". Is "commitments" the right word?
  • "A quartet in 1977's initial beginning,"—Huh? Lucifer, I can sort of make out the meaning here, but that's not at issue: it's the wording (Tony).

Tony 10:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment When someone agrees to do a gig, this is a commitment, so yes it is the right word. Also into 1977 they were a quartet, though this soon changed, all in the beginning of 1977. Personally, while I think it could do with a copyedit, I seriously fail to understand what is being highlighted in the last two points. The rest I can understand though, but it seems like Wikipedia wants the word 'was' used all over the shop - well feel free to use it all over the shop. I personally can't be bothered anymore. LuciferMorgan 17:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Can you suggest an alternative then Tony? Personally my copyedit skills ain't great. LuciferMorgan 17:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• I put a lot of effort into getting this featured the first time round. There's that much POV that keeps creeping in, and pointless lists... needs a lot of work... --PopUpPirate 17:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• I agree, damn Metal editors seem to put in the fancruft at every corner. LuciferMorgan 18:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Despite the small work I did on it, I vote Remove. LuciferMorgan 11:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Well, I do have a secret list of possibly good copy-editors, by topic area; but I tend not to give them out (might antagonise them to overuse them). A little research of the edit history may reveal one or two people who have the capacity and care about this article ...? Tony 12:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Taking into consideration the present situation.--Yannismarou 14:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. A salute to LuciferMorgan and PopUpPirate for their efforts to save this article: it's unfortunate that other editors undermined their commendable effort. Sandy (Talk) 18:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - There was just too much work to be done really as the weasly statements riddled the article, and other editors were more interested in minor little details rather than the article as a whole. Least it's looking slightly better, even though it'll lose FA. LuciferMorgan 10:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dream Theater

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Plattopus, Bio, Metal Music, and Music. Sandy 17:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

This became FAC in April 2005. I think the content is nice, but there are some style and prose problems:

• Inline citations: This article is seriously under-citated.
• Prose: Incoherent prose in some parts. See for instance the stubby paragrpahs in sections "1985 - 1990", "1991 - 1994" and "Cover songs".
• Listy sections: "Notes" sectionsis a trivia section. Such sections are no longer recommended. It should be trned into prose. "Fanclubs" and "Awards and certificates" seem also listy to me.
• Stubby sections: "Current schedule" is stubby.--Yannismarou 17:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Listy, short stubby paragraphs, inadequately cited, inline citations do not conform to WP:FN (I am going to test Gimmetrow's new bot for fixing the refs here), does not conform to WP:LAYOUT, some of the inline citations cite the group's own website, inline citations are poorly formatted, including external jumps, and the article needs copyediting, with tortured prose ("Some fans, however, missed the early bandˈs complexity that began to diminish from the bandˈs compositions, being replaced with prolonged virtuoso solos."). Sandy 18:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I fixed Layout, Notes, and References, still testing Gimmetrow's ref fixer, which got all but one of them. Also, found external jumps in the body of the article. Sandy 18:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments and clarifications. Thank you Sandy for your work on fixing the article so far, and thank you to Yannismarou for your concerns. Can you please give me some specific details about what you find lacking in the article?

• Inline citations: Could you add ^{[citation needed]} to specific passages you believe need citations? I will attempt to find some references for whatever is found, but as I go through the article it's pretty hard to find any conspicuously un-cited sources. I will also try to format the references to be uniform, I originally used the footnote3 format for citations and someone else changed them to the cite.php system, so I'm kind of unfamiliar with how that format works but I'll give it a go.
• Footnotes: Is there some rule I haven't seen that says you're not allowed to use a band's own website as a reference? If it confirms the information found in the article, I don't see a problem with linking to a band's official website.
• Prose: I completely agree that some of the prose sucks. I will fix this up.
• Listy sections: Notes section will be converted to prose. Fanclubs and Awards sections are lists, I don't think there is a better way to present this information.
• Stubby sections: Current Schedule is short because the band have not released much information about their current plans. A single paragraph is all that's available.
• Layout: Specifically which parts of WP:LAYOUT are not being followed?

Thanks again for bringing up these concerns. If you could just clarify them a bit more I will be able to start work on improving the article. plattopus^talk 09:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the sections to conform with WP:LAYOUT, but you might want to rename your section called "Notes", as that conflict with the Footnotes, which are typically called "Notes" in Wikipedia articles. It is reasonable to use a band's own website to reference something like the members in the band, but they are not an independent, verifiable source of other information, like songs hitting certain numbers on charts. Sandy 13:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I've replaced chart performance references with links to Billboard's new chart history website, and tried to clean up the rest of the footnotes. plattopus^talk 16:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The Table of Contents is rambling and overwhelming, reflecting a need to better organize the material; there are unattributed "weasly" statements ("Dream Theater is also noted for ..."); I'm not sure "Current schedule" is encyclopedic (WP:NOT Wiki is not a website or an advertisement); there is a section called Notes, which is confusing since Notes in Wiki is usually Footnotes - that section should be renamed to something encyclopedic assuming the content of the section is encyclopedic and not trivia; there are external jumps; and the article needs to be much better cited. I haven't looked at the prose. Sandy 21:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I've removed some headings to get them out of the TOC and re-arranged and expanded the Notes section, but IMO the history subheadings are adequate and not too stubby for the main article (you'll notice that History of Dream Theater is far more extensive). Layout has already been fixed and I can't spot any major prose problems (apart from citation issues, which I'll address later), and IMO the listy sections are perfectly fine as lists (they are, after all, simple lists of awards). The only real pressing issue as I see it is the lack of citations, but since I read through the article and take most of the information within it for granted, it would help me immensely if you could go through the article and add ^{[citation needed]} to any statement you believe lacks reference. I'm perfectly happy to go through and attempt to reference every statement you pick up, but I need to know which parts of the article need citation before I can do it. I hope the changes I've made to the article so far have improved it. plattopus^talk 15:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of placing ^{[citation needed]} tags at the end of multiple statements that I feel require support from credible sources. Hope this helps Wisdom89 18:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you! plattopus^talk 08:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggest FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c), prose (1a), section layout and content (2). Marskell 13:04, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove unless copy-edited.

"Dream Theater is a progressive metal band formed in Boston, Massachusetts by three students at the Berklee College of Music in 1985. In the 21 years since their inception, they have become one of the most commercially successful progressive bands since the height of progressive rock in the mid-1970s, despite being relatively unknown in mainstream pop/rock circles. Their two highest selling albums are 1992's Images and Words, which was awarded a gold record and is consistently regarded as a seminal progressive metal release, although it only reached #61 on the Billboard 200 charts;[1] and 2005's Octavarium, which reached #36 on the Billboard 200.[1]"

• • The opening sentence is on the long, complex side.
  • This ideas of using the possessive apostrophe for years should be nipped in the bud right now. Try "Images and words" (1992). Consider normal case for titles, not title case, which WP doesn't even use in titles.
  • "Reached only".

Then:

• "They are highly respected by many of rock and metal's biggest names, leading to collaborations between Dream Theater members and many other well known musicians." There's a problem with tense/time here.
• "Dream Theater also possess significant musical versatility, which has made it possible for them to perform with a very diverse range of acts. Some of their more notable touring partners include ...". Remove "also" and it's much stronger. Try "enabled" instead of "made it possible for". Remove "very", which is weak. Remove "Some of", since you've already got "include".

Tony 10:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. My concerns are not addressed. The article remains undercitated and the listy section is not turned into prose. Obviously, nobody cares to improve this article.--Yannismarou 12:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. The citation tags that I appended to a dozen or so sentences have not yet been dealt with. My vote will change only if such issues are resolved. Wisdom89 17:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Milgram experiment

[edit] Review commentary

"Brilliant prose" promotion, Psychology notified. Sandy 07:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

From the list of articles lacking citations, I did all I could trying to clean this article up, but I've hit the wall, and don't think it's FA material. Most alarming, there were several important inaccurate facts in the article (which had been there for years), so every source needs to be located and checked. I found and read a PDF copy of the original study and also verified the same numbers from another source: the numbers had been altered (a 26 to a 27, 65% to 67.5%), the article was reporting that an "actor" had been hired, when it was an accountant instructed to act the role in the experiment, and the article reported that Milgram polled psychologists, when he had polled Yale Senior psychology majors. Hence, every fact in this article needs to be verified and checked; it appears that most of what is missing may be from the Blass book. A large portion of the article is unreferenced. There is a large pop culture section. I didn't attempt to fix the prose, which is dull, but not worth working on if it might be inaccurate. Further, even if the facts are verified and the prose is polished, the current content is neither comprehensive nor compelling: based on some of what I read in one of the book reviews on the topic, there is much more that can/should be said about this experiment by someone knowledgeable in psychology. The article fails 1a) compelling prose, 1b) comprehensive, 1c) factually accurate (not fully cited, but more importantly, every fact needs to be checked), and 2a) lead, which I didn't attempt to rewrite because I don't know how much of the article is accurate. Sandy 07:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment An awful article, it's caught my attention from time to time but I've never gotten around to FAR nominating it - I'm glad someone has. Sandy has highlighted in depth all the problems with this FA, all which are serious problems that need immediate action - 1a, 1b, 1c and 2a are expected FA criteria. Huge work this needs. LuciferMorgan 16:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • And what you're looking at now is *after* I've added inline cites, and eliminated some OR and adverts/external jumps. Sandy 17:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment.The lead is not actually a lead. A listy section and an obvious problem with referencing. It's clear this article is right now far away from FA status.--Yannismarou 06:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Are you a one man band over the Science/Medical type Wikiprojects Sandy? Just curious. Many Psychology AS/A level textbooks cover the Milgram experiment, though I'm unsure if they would constitute a reliable source or not? LuciferMorgan 09:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I've been trying to enlist help for about six months over there: help is beginning to appear :-) I realize I could find the basic info to describe the experiment in my library, but what I can't do (without a psychology/medical background) is comment intelligently any further than that, which is what is needed to write the heart of the featured quality content that is missing - consequences and fallout and critical commentary. I can repair the article to a certain extent, but if some professionals don't weigh in, it's never going to be stellar. If someone doesn't weigh in, I'll get to the library to do what I can. Sandy 17:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - The "In popular culture" section would need a vast cleanup from its listy format into cohesive, flowing paragraphs. Also the section would need a brief intro which'd tie the whole section together. LuciferMorgan 09:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - The use of the word "participant" for subjects is inappropriate. It's insider jargon, and worse, it is intended to mislead readers as to the role of the subject. --Yath 21:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are factual accuracy and referencing (1c), dull prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), and sectioning (2). Marskell 13:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove The "In popular culture" section needs conversion into prose (1. a.), while other patches of text still need inline citations (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 11:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Referencing problems, listy sections and a problematic lead with a huge quote.--Yannismarou 13:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Has been bad for a long time - I tried correcting [6] some errors already two years ago. Haukur 20:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gramophone record

[edit] Review commentary

"Brilliant prose", no original author, message left at Albums. Sandy 14:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

An old FA which seems to be some way off the current FA standard. This article has no inline citations, it seems to have a problem with original research, and it has 3 maintenance templates affixed to it. --kingboyk 14:37, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Insufficient inline citations (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 18:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment External jumps, and a rambling table of contents: an indication of lack of organization in the article's growth over the years. Sandy 00:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• There is a image used under fair use without rationale, and another image is marked as both copyrighted and public domain. Pagrashtak 02:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are in-line citations, OR, tight focus, images. Joelito (talk) 17:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient inline citations (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 00:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove Some citations converted during review, and external jumps removed. The article has multiple tags, needs cleanup, lacks sufficient inline citations, and appears to have some original research, evidenced by uncited weasle words (example, "The "warmer" sound of analog records is generally believed on both sides of the argument to be an artifact of dynamic harmonics. It is thought by supporters of digital audio that the fans of vinyl got so used to it they think it is actually more "faithful" to the real sound. Audiophiles believe lots of harmonics are necessary for good sound, especially of music."). Sandy (Talk) 16:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kashrut

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Arj and Judaism. Sandy 14:51, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

This article has deteriated drasticaly since becoming a FA. It has POV issues as well as other disputes. It too long and has no subarticles. (It should bne noted that even being too long it isn't even close to being comprehnsive enough. It should have dozens of subpages.) It is very poorly referenced, and many of the statments in the article are true or false depending on what denomination of Judaism they are made from. (Which is POV in itself. It should say "Denomination X belives this"). In addition, the external links section is way too long. In short, this article has major problems. Tobyk777 04:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Two-and-a-half years since this became FA. If the original was indeed better, is it worth pulling it up from the history and trying a "merge-revert" (i.e., the best of the old, while retaining new material)? This would be initial step, and then citations would have to be tracked down, as that is the obvious absence. Marskell 10:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove featured status. Criteria for featuring have become a lot tighter, and the present article is not sourced, is overloaded with fringe nonsense and fails several other content guidelines. I would drastically cut down the "reasons for the dietary laws", as most laws have no satisfactory explanations and others should be dealt with independently (e.g. yayin nesech). I would increase the amount of factual information (e.g. what measures are taken to avoid milk and meat mixing) and reliable academic material as to the social/economic/political impact. David Macht should be mentioned, but not in a whole long paragraph (I have independently confirmed his notability). JFW | T@lk 15:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove featured status unless the article is significantly improved by the end of the review. It's just not up to par with other FAs. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 17:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - This is FA review, not FARC. Check the FAR/C guidelines before commenting. Onto the article... it has a lot of "so and so" says this, and "so and so" says that, but nothing to back up the claims. Inline citations (1. c.) are needed to address this. LuciferMorgan 18:11, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are POV (1d) and references (1c). Marskell 09:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Largely uncited, external link farm, mixed reference styles, dispute tag, and poor prose (sample sentence, "This is the same reason why the usage of the term "kosher-style" became frequently used in the food industry, from delis to restaurants, and even street vendors.") Sandy (Talk) 22:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove - Lacks sufficient inline cites (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 11:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Air Force One

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft and User talk:Neutrality. Marskell 13:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is well written, but it fails FA criterion 1c. There isn't a SINGLE sourced statement in the article. This seems to be common for articles that gained FA status back in '04, and as such I'm listing it here. ♠ SG →Talk 13:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. No citations, doesn't follow WP:LAYOUT, large unreferenced popular culture section, numerous short stubby sections and paragraphs. Appears to have deteriorated over time. (the other SG --> Sandy 13:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC) )
  • I poked around a bit: it has one inline citation, to HowStuffWorks.com, not a high-quality reliable source.

• Comment - Lacks inline citations (1. c. violation), and is stubby in places (1. a. violation). LuciferMorgan 19:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• Since Air Force One is a call sign and not a particular plane or type of plane, one should beware of sentences like "Each Air Force One costs approximately 325 million dollars." Other problems:
  • "Recently, president George W. Bush added a treadmill to Air Force One." - Never use "recently", as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Date and time.
  • "Whenever Air Force One rolls up to an event, it always comes to a stop with the left side of the aircraft facing gathered onlookers as a security measure to keep the President's side of the aircraft out of view." - I don't usually think of the President "rolling up" to an event. Is the left side of the aircraft really the "President's side", or just the side on which he disembarks?
  • "In the office areas, Air Force One has access to photocopying,..." Good, because Air Force One really loses it when she can't photocopy.
  • "... after the White House and presidential seal, it is probably the most recognized presidential symbol." Yeah, maybe!
  • I don't belive Image:Air Force One (film).jpg qualifies as fair use in this article.
  • The "Popular culture" section needs to be cut down.

Pagrashtak 03:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c), and poor layout and sections (2). Marskell 11:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove After about a week in FARC, it still lacks citations and the layout is still poor. Jay32183 20:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Per above+"Popular culture" needs rewriting.--Yannismarou 08:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. Issues raised in FAR not addressed. Sandy (Talk) 16:24, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove - Lacks inline cites (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 11:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Do you guys just read articles and comment about them, or do you actually fix things? Rewriting pop culture or working on layout would be a pretty simple fix, one I'm going to start on now, although I can't blame anyone for not wanting to find citations. ericg ✈ 17:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, it took me under 15 minutes to make several of the proposed changes. Noting problems is nice, but it often takes as long to fix them as it does to report them. ericg ✈ 22:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spacecraft propulsion

[edit] Review commentary

Another of the '04 FAs, this article has no references, inline or otherwise. The times they have a-changed, and this article shouldn't be featured as it currently stands. -Fsotrain₀₉ 03:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The Space Projects are all defunct, and there's no original author. I see LouScheffer and Wolfkeeper often in the edit history, so will leave notes for them. Sandy 03:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I have left a message for Aarichba, who shows up repeatedly and relatively recently in the edit history, and one for SeizureDog, who first proposed on the article talk page having it go through FAR. -Fsotrain₀₉ 03:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Fsotrain, besides the lack of citations, can you please list your other reasons for wanting to review the article, per the criteria at WP:WIAFA? Thanks, Sandy 03:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not just the citations. The problem is even more serious with this article. It has no references! No sources! Nothing!!--Yannismarou 16:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is what I call a quaternary article- it summarises the other (what I may loosely call tertiary) articles within the wikipedia. I personally do not believe that quaternary articles necessarily need sources, other than tertiary wikipedia articles; since the tertiary articles are nearly always well referenced. When you try to put a reference into a quaternary article you usually find that the best place to put a reference in the article is in one of the tertiary articles. :-) This means that a quaternary article will never reach FA status. :-( I consider this to be a fault of the FA process; not of the article. There's a similar problem with jet engine. We could fix the problem in either case by adding bullshit or trivial links; count me out on that, thanks. I just don't care enough about FA status to degrade the article quality or add duplication to the wikipedia so as to make FA status, it's a waste of my time. We need to fix the stupid process, than plaster mostly unnecessary sources over thousands of articles in the wikipedia (n.b. where they are unnecessary).WolfKeeper 19:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Precisely. The references section is simply a header and the {{Unreferenced}} template. There is nothing listed. But for another issue, I do not consider the prose brilliant or compelling. There are numerous ambiguous antecent/pronoun correlations. The overall tone is quite stilted. I do not have the technical knowledge to evaluate whether the article is comprehensive in its coverage, but a concern about this has been raised on the article's talk page. -Fsotrain₀₉ 18:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm unclear that people who don't understand an article are the best people to review it; that's possibly another problem with the FA process. Perhaps that also means that FA articles can't be on technical subjects; and indeed there seems to be few technical FA articles. Or perhaps FA articles must be for general understanding; that would argue that this article shouldn't be FA anyway.WolfKeeper 19:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The main problem with this article, and the reason why it seems so stilted, is because it is written mainly by a combination of engineers and science fiction fans - two very disparate groups. If this article is to ever gain FA status, it needs to be handled by someone who is neither.

Fen like myself tend to treat articles like this in a particular fashion: Write everything you know about everything you think you know. Engineers, and other people who deal with the nitty-gritty, write some of what they know about everything they know they know. This leads to a mish-mash of conflicting styles - broad sweeping statements with little backing, followed by detailed analysis of minor things, combined with short, sensible prose about the scientific fact behind the main points. Also, the engineer type people (almost done stereotyping, don't worry) are responsible for the lists - the fen are responsible for making them take over the article.

We need an independent editor who knows at least the basics of most of what is discussed to come in and fix this article up. Volunteers? Phædrus 22:22, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I think this article is savable if the editors are willing to add proper references (Wikipedia articles cannot be references for Wikipedia articles) and clean up the language a bit. I've noticed the number one reason articles get defeatured is that no one works on them after problems are pointed out. If you want to save the article fix the problem, don't try to change the rules to your personal agenda. Jay32183 21:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Right. Your agenda is that references are inherently good, regardless of quality or need, so it's important that the rules not change and that this must remain so. Would you say that's a fair summary of your position?WolfKeeper 22:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect. It is impossible for an article to be internally referenced. There is nothing stopping you from copying those references into this article other than your unwillingness to do so. I have no agenda here. The rule is references, this article has no references, therefore the article breaks the rule. You can fix it, you are just unwilling to do so. Just so you know, references aren't just for featured articles, they are actually required for all wikipedia articles. Jay32183 23:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

So... that's a yes, you do have an agenda, and you think wasting everyone's time in this way is a good thing. WolfKeeper 00:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Using FAR to point out that an article that currently has featured status doesn't have references is not a waste of time, the rules have changed over time and this is to make sure all the rules are being retroactively applied. Now there is no sound argument that would allow an encyclopedia article not to cite its sources. The only thing you've said is that you're unwilling to take any action except argue with people. If you want the article to remain featured add references and inline citations, if you don't want the article to remain featured then there's no reason to try to contradict the people pointing out its flaws. Every article on Wikipedia is supposed to have references, that is not my opinion, that is a rule of Wikipedia. Jay32183 00:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, you just made my point, again. You haven't pointed out any flaws. You've pointed out that it doesn't have any references. That's not a flaw. That's a process violation for FA status. What you haven't done is point out where it needs any references. Incidentally, there is a rule about not blindly following rules in the Wikipedia; but I have never, ever seen it applied for FA status issues; which should make you think about how much of a tick-box process it is, but probably won't.WolfKeeper 00:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Not having references is a serious flaw. You have made no point, because you haven't made a logical claim. Articles need references for verifiabilty, and Wikipedia is not a valid reference for Wikipedia. You're claim that the article doesn't require references doesn't have any supporting evidence, other than that you are either too lazy to do it or you don't care about the article. If there aren't any references how do we know any of this is true, how do we know it isn't original research? The lack of references is the complaint that the nominator made, either address the coplaint by adding references or stop complaining. Jay32183 01:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Uh huh. Still nothing then.WolfKeeper 01:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Downgrade - this summary article has no hope of getting enough references to justify keeping its status. I've seen it before with other similar articles. Summary articles do not FA make, they're too internally referenced. It doesn't have to make sense, it's the process.WolfKeeper 22:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's not easy for summary articles on technical subjects to have enough references to be featured articles, but it's definitely possible—see welding, for example. If you'd like more info on why citations/references are important, see User:Spangineer/inline citations. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 23:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• I've added some citation needed tags, hopefully that will inspire regular editors to add some references. As I'm not an expert on the subject I don't have the ability to verify the article myself, since no references are listed at all. Jay32183 01:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess I'll list some of the problems, then :-)

• The article is very listy, full of sections that should be converted to (hopefully compelling and brilliant) prose.
• Half of See also is capitalized, half isn't: it's strange to find such easy to fix items unattended to, giving rise to concern that no one has tended the article since it's "brilliant prose days" promotion.
• This is strange: "Below is a summary of some of the more popular, proven technologies, followed by increasingly speculative methods." Since there are no inline cites, we don't know if what was speculative two years ago is proven today, and so on. Speculative/proven according to whom, and when? Has it been kept up to date? Without citations, we can't really tell.
• Weasle words, which can be the result of an uncited article: example "The dissipation of waste heat from the powerplant may make any propulsion system requiring a separate power source infeasible for interstellar travel." May? Tell us more, give us a cite. Another weasle introduction: "Propulsion methods can be classified based on their means of accelerating the reaction mass. There are also some special methods for launches, planetary arrivals, and landings." Can be or are; tell us more. Another unexplained "may", along with a redundant *very* often here: "For some missions, solar energy may be sufficient, and has very often been used, but for others nuclear energy will be necessary; engines drawing their power from a nuclear source are called nuclear electric rockets."
• Prose issues: we find a section that begins "In addition, a variety of hypothetical propulsion techniques have been considered that would require entirely new principles of physics to realize." Strange way to start a section: in addition to what? (Content from a previous section.) Punctuation needs attention: "High thrust is of vital importance for Earth launch, thrust has to be greater than weight (see also gravity drag)." A one-sentence paragraph not incorporated into prose: "See rocket engine for a listing of various kinds of rocket engines using different heating methods, including chemical, electrical, solar, and nuclear."
• Section headings can use some work per WP:MOS; the word "propulsion" is repeated often.

Those are some ideas to start on: the article could benefit from some shine and polish, as well as some inline citations. Sandy 02:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The article needs inline citations (1. c.), and its listiness is rather awful in my opinion. By the way, only relevant references on Wikipedia are asked for and ones that are reliable, and inline citations remove original research and show people Wikipedia checks the facts. I state this due to the rather stupid argument above regarding how FA is "tickbox" and so on - the article needs work to maintain FA status and improve - either do the work or say what needs to be done for others to do it, otherwise you're wasting people's time here. This is FA review, not the FA process, so make criticisms on the FA process's talk page. LuciferMorgan 18:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
• Citation needed This article may need to cite sources, but I took the liberty to "be bold" and to suppress the "citation needed" tag for the following sentence : "No such spacecraft has yet been built, but many designs have been discussed." That fact looks like pretty common knowledge to me. Let's not add sources for every single fact in one article... Tovarich1917 20:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of references. Marskell 11:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• delist, it's perfectly possible for summary articles to be referenced, look at something like Australia or one of the country articles, both are heavily dependent on subarticles and only provide brief portions of their content, but each references the parts that it includes in the main article from sources listed in the article. Every article in wikipedia should be able to stand on its own; not everybody is going to have all 1.4 million cross references available. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 01:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I in no way consider Australia to be comparable. Australia is a discrete chunk of land on the Pacific rim. You can quote population, land size etc. etc. and reference that. Whereas these propulsion systems cover a very wide range. A more comparable article might be something far more general like Islands (it turns out that has no references either, I do not believe that to be coincidental). But even Islands is an inexact comparison because these propulsion systems are more wildly different than Islands are.WolfKeeper 21:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Uncitated and listy.--Yannismarou 10:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that 'listy' should be inappropriate for this kind of article; IMO that's just a facile level consideration of policy. There's an enormous number of different propulsion systems, with astonishingly different properties. Saying that this article shouldn't contain lists is, in my POV, in this case, inappropriate. To turn this around, would the article be really any better if we deleted the lists and/or turned the lists into text? I would argue strongly not. I think it would make it a horrible article utterly undeserving of FA status. Instead, doesn't that point to an FA process flaw, since useful articles that may be well worth reading can never be made FA? Isn't an encyclopedia supposed to be a reference work, not a 'good read'? Isn't this actually a good reference article for jumping off into the wikipedia? And isn't it very important for Wikipedia to have such articles? And shouldn't they be FA even if 'listy'? I would say so.WolfKeeper 21:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Remove No progress made on referencing article. Jay32183 13:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per my own nom., and the unfortunately lack of article improvement. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 16:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I have listed this article with the new Wikipedia:Article Referencing Drive. It's nomination there has received support. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 02:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)