Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/January 2005

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[edit] Space race

I was looking through some older COTWs and I thought this was one of the top 3 previous ones (not counting the two that went one to become featured articles). I think it is a good featured article candidate. (Not a self nom) →Raul654 02:23, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • I'll support. I rather like the timeline. Andre (talk) 16:20, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Quite comprehensive, plenty of references, visually pleasing and well written. CGorman 16:45, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Good article, on of the best-organised I've seen in a while. Smoddy | Talk 17:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support from contributor. violet/riga (t) 22:26, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. I believe this was nominated before, it would be worthwile to find this in the archieve and see if the previous objections were adressed. I think that at least one wasn't: what were the consequences of the space race to global economy and Cold War (the article doesn't even mention that financial burden of space race contributed to the Soviet Union collapse) and what technological innovations were adopted into other spheres of life (the article has just one sentence about dual-purpose technlogies...). In other words, this article is very POVed - it appreas to describe space race only as a technological event connect with space exploration, forgeting about everything else. Also, an abundance of one-sentence paragraphs is apparent even to me :> This has the potential to become featured, but needs to be fixed first. Finally, lead is too short. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:39, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I checked, and saw no evidence that this was a featured article candidate before. →Raul654 14:20, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
      • Then perhaps it was mentioned during CoTW or PR. I am pretty sure I saw them somwhere. Anyway, I am afraid those points are still valid, no matter where they were raised first. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:20, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • It *was* a COTW - that's what I said when I nominated it ;) →Raul654 19:25, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
        • In addition to the above (still valid), I just realized that section Funding compares NASA to RKA, whch was founded in 1990s, and sais nothing about the earlier Russian governmental space agency. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:43, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Agree with Piotrus. It is very unbalanced by largely glossing over the cultural effects and technological effects outside of the space race itself. Everyday life was heavily affected by much of the technological improvements that were originally done only for the space programs. I also went and checked, it was PR that Piotrus was thinking of and I made a very similar comment there that was ignored. See Wikipedia:Peer_review/Archive_2#Space Race. - Taxman 23:47, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
    • Also, is it really generally accepted that the space race ended in 1975 as stated in the article? I thought people were still calling it that well through the 80's. If it is agreed by everyone that it was over in 1975 what is the 'Recent developments' section doing in the article? Is the deaths section comprehensive? Was Apollo 1 the only deaths NASA had during the space race? The mention of Laika is incorrect. According to Laika she didn't not make it back alive because the technology wasn't sufficient for that, but because she had already died well before the craft could have made it back. And the above is still not in the article, the only mention is a too short section tucked in the 'Other successes'. The space race was not just about aerospace and the cold war, it had far reaching effects. - Taxman 16:34, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Object. I started to do some copyediting on this (very informative) article. It gave me a headache, and I stopped after but one section. Single-sentence paragraphs abound throughout, as do sloppy punctuation and painful constructions ("this class of satellite 'meant that' tracking systems no longer ...."). I will do some work on these areas, but haven't the expertise to organize the "big picture" as to just WHAT the topic of the article really is: It has to be decided whether this is about "space races", or about THE "Space Race" which is alluded to in the lead. I would suggest the latter, with other "space races" as background.Sfahey 00:20, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Sfahey, this article should be about "the" space race. There really has been only one, and as such there really is no "generic" term "space race". Paul August ☎ 01:47, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
The article is now clearly about THE Space Race. Would someone be so kind as to change the title so both "S" and "R" are capitalized. I imagine the easiest way to do so is to recopy the whole thing into a "new" article, but I've only been at this a few months and don't want to mess up and erase the whole dang thing somehow. Also, take another look at the current text; I believe the "German influence" section is too lengthy, but otherwise I would vote "support" at this point.Sfahey 03:37, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
That's not exactly how it works, but don't worry, I fixed it. The article is now located at Space Race →Raul654 03:56, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The article has been retitled (thank you, "Raul"), made more about the "race", had the lead expanded, and the sections reordered. There is still some reambling about the German contributions, but that is a minor objection. Sfahey 20:39, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. I find this article lacking in information about the social implications of the Space Race, especially the ways the Space Race was portrayed in both the Soviet sphere as well as the Western world. Páll 20:27, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] American football

Self-nom. I believe this is a great article, and with help and suggestions I'd love it if this made the main page on February 6, 2005 - Super Bowl Sunday. Rhobite 06:44, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

  • Not a vote, but I would expect this to be In the news on Feb 6, and therefore not the front page FA. Mark1 07:42, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I expect that Super Bowl XXXIX will be the bold item in the news, not American football. Although with the bias on ITN, we'll be lucky if it's listed at all. Regardless, is there a rule against featuring an article which is in the news? Rhobite 21:57, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • Super Bowl XXXIX would presumably mention American football at some point; and yes, there is (a rule against featuring in the news articles on the front page, not against them being featured articles per se). Mark1 01:38, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • The general principle is that we shouldn't link to the same article twice from the main page. In practice, that means that the featured article should avoid being newsworthy, because if it is, then it is likely to be redundant with In the News. →Raul654 19:58, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. 1) Lead section too short. 2) References seem insufficient; books should probably be added or at least to "Further reading". 3) Order of the section is strange. "Development of the game" (or "History") should be one of the first, popularity certainly not. I would roughly expect the following parts: I) History II) Rules III) Current status. 4) The explanation of the rules is not very transparant, and difficult to follow. Resectioning, with appropriate summaries of all rules must be done here. 5) Several of the poitns discussed in the "Beyond recreation and entertainment" perhaps do not belong in this article. Either way, they should have a source mentioned. 6) External links contain "random" links like "anabolic steroids" and "1903 football game". These are only marginally interesting to the article. 7) There is nothing about history after 1912 or so. We need at least a few names of great football players, and a link to a list of them. And when was the Super Bowl first played? What about all those other "Bowl" games? Jeronimo 07:59, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Responses: 1. Lead sections should in general be 1-3 paragraphs, read Wikipedia:Lead section. We worked hard to trim down nonessential information from the lead section, but I suppose we could put back a paragraph if people want. 2. Yes, we need more references. 3. I think the rules need to come first. Are style objections like this one actionable? 4. I can't imagine how this could be done. The rules are complex, and we've already simplified them a bunch - read American football rules if you want to see the stuff which was taken out. Simplify them any more, and you are removing meaning. 5. I agree, the "beyond" section could use a little work. 6. Agree re: steroids, disagree re: the 1903 game, it's a video of an old game of football - what could be more relevant? 7. Agree, we need more recent history too. Thanks for the suggestions. Rhobite 21:57, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments, here are some replies. 1) Yes, it should be 1 to 3, but it is only 1 now, and the length should be longer when the article is, since it should summarize the contents, not just the topic. 3) They are actionable, but also debatable. I still find it strange to read about defunct leagues before I know when and how the game came into existence. 4) I'm not asking to simplify the contents, I'm asking to reorganize it. It's messy right now. 6) A 1903 game video may be relevant, but so is a link to any video or picture or piece of text about football. The sites presented here should allow the user to find out a lot more about the game. If you think the video is particularly interesting to use in the encyclopedia, upload the file and place it here (if copyright etc. allows for it of course). Jeronimo 20:27, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Two of the images are from http://www.sxc.hu and, looking at the terms on that site (http://www.sxc.hu/info.phtml?f=terms) they are not compatible with Wikipedia's requirements. —Steven G. Johnson 08:14, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
    • Please re-read Stock Xchng's terms of use - they depend on each image, and in general they are compatible with Wikipedia. The photo of the ball has no usage restrictions, so it is definitely compatible with Wikipedia. The tackle photo is free for noncommercial use, so it isn't compatible with Wikipedia. I removed it from the article, so do you have any more objections? Rhobite 21:57, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • The terms of Stock Xchng include things like, "Selling and redistribution of these photos (individually, or as a whole) without written permission is prohibited." This is not compatible with Wikipedia. The author of the ball photo wrote on her entry, "Feel free to use what you see!" but "use" is not very specific — for example, it could be read as saying to Stock Xchng "feel free to use this image under the terms you posted for all uploaders", or "feel free to use this image, but I don't grant you the right to redistribute it". Please realize that the default under US copyright law is to grant no permission at all; without an explicit grant of permission, especially for both commercial and non-commercial redistribution (contrary to the Stock Xchng default), I don't see how we can use the image. (Feel free to try and contact the image author for permission, though!) —Steven G. Johnson 05:35, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
        • Directly under the photo of the ball, it says "There are no usage restrictions for this photo." This is effectively a public domain license - clearly compatible with Wikipedia. I really don't understand this objection. Rhobite 20:59, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Article is overly dominated by the rules and mechanics of play, much of which would be better handled in separate articles and summarized here. For example, the detailed analysis of fourth down strategy and the long list of different penalties are definitely excessive. To better balance the article, the development and history certainly could be expanded. Right now the section stops at 1912 by saying, "The game had achieved its modern form", which is incredibly simplistic and at best only true in terms of the technical details of point-scoring and field dimensions. Also, in spite of the heavy rules orientation, article entirely omits any discussion of equipment - how do you mention a face mask penalty without even having discussed that players wear helmets? (They only get mentioned in passing later, talking about injuries.) Even the unusual shape of the ball itself is only addressed in the caption of a picture; the evolution of the ball needs to be covered in the history section. --Michael Snow 21:46, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object . Having two images in the intro causes the article to be ugly when viewed by my browser (Mozilla Firefox). The second photo (CSU v. Air Force) appears on top of the table of contents which is rendered as very narrow and long. This is a minor fix. More serious is the fact that article, except for a mention of the field size, completely neglects the most popular variant, high school football. Dsmdgold 13:47, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - looks good to me! --Daniel11 13:08, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cassini-Huygens

A very informative article, with pictures, references and many subarticles. Note that the mission is still continuing, but so far - as I have been watching the article for several weeks now - it is almost daily updated with current info. It would be nice to have it featured soon on the front page - to show that Wiki can have FA class articles about current events, something no traditional encyclopedia could ever accomplish. Comments? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:23, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Abstain: Great article but I can't help but think that it is incomplete while the mission is ongoing. When the results are published and the is article updated to reflect them I'll support it, but for now I'm still trying to decide if the addition of these results, which will happen at some point, would make significant changes to the article. violet/riga (t) 17:23, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. This is a no-brainer in my opinion. The subject (the mission itself, rather than simply its findings) is very well covered. Should anything happen now, someone could add a few lines about it, but it won't change the article all that much. Phils 21:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object - Too much editing and new information being presented in this article. Thus any version we see now and vote on now will likely be very different in the near future. This was the same reason why the FAC for 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake failed. --mav 23:36, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • If the article is FA-worthy now, is it likely to became worse? FAs articles are not protected, and they are often further improved after passing FAC. We don't know everything. Any article considered 'extensive and uncontroversial' now can require major revision tommorow, as new facts are discovered. By saying 'it will become diffrent (read: expanded) in a few weeks' I can argue against *any* article. IF an article is good for FA today, it should be FA, no other IFs, BUTs and WHENs. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:54, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object For the same reason mav gave - ongoing event articles are too problematic. Khanartist 23:44, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
  • Object Ongoing event should not be made featured articles for fairly obvious reasons. --Circeus 23:15, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. It's a great article. Mav raises a good point, but I think I ultimately have to disagree. FA articles are still open to editing even though they're already recognized as good. If this nom should fail, however, I would definitly support it (again) at the completion of the mission and the full results of the mission are available. Just informally: Would everyone basically agree that that'd be a good idea?-SocratesJedi | Talk 11:53, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. I'd love to see this as a featured article, but not yet. We need to wait until after new information has stopped flooding in. When the rate of editing slows down it will be possible to take a good look at the article and see what needs to be done to polish it. It's great that Wikipedia can come up with good extensive articles on current events almost as they happen, but for us to present these as our very best work we need to wait a few weeks at least. This article already is featured in a way, because it's there on the front page in the "In the news" section. Once it's no longer in the news we can see about making it a featured article. — Trilobite (Talk) 12:59, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - It is comprehensive, as of now - I don't think it can be regarded as incomplete just because more information will become available in the future. And the rapid, collaborative and continuous growth of an article like this (and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake) really show the very best that Wikipedia has to offer, in my opinion. Worldtraveller 18:21, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Has a current event gained FAS before? I read this otherd ay and thought it was brilliant. I support.--ZayZayEM 01:11, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I know this isn't actionable, but we have to wait until the event is over. Things are changing to quickly for this article to remain complete. Nice article very informative, but I don't know if it will stay that way when the new content is inevitably added. So I'd say an Object for now. Why the rush anyways? BrokenSegue 05:37, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC) changed my mind Support now. BrokenSegue 02:22, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - Great article - why wait until it's over? Is any real science topic ever over. It's great now - it's new and fantastic stuff now and should be featured now! Vsmith 03:20, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The information that is available on the subject is presented quite comprehensibly. There's new information found on almost every subject and history is continuing to be made, but that doesn't mean we should "wait" to present current information. The best of Wikipedia (including FAs) should be continuing to change as new information comes, IMHO. We can't just keep on waiting for the history of tommorrow. Living people and evolving events still have a written history and new information on long dead events will continue to be found. Besides that, FA policy and guidelines don't necessarily say to wait, only that they should be: "comprehensive, factually accurate, stable, and well-written." It's about as stable as most FAs. Changes over the last month have only been minor grammatical and formatting changes. :) --Sketchee 04:16, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, if you can do something about the references! External links that were used in the article must be placed under a "References" section, and books also under "References". External links of interest should go under "External links". - Ta bu shi da yu 04:32, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The lead section is far too short. It has huge swaths of unwikified text. Not a single picture was taken by the orbitor or lander itself - they're all artists conceptions - it would be nice to have an actual photo that the probe produced. →Raul654 19:35, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
    • That's not true at all. The Phoebe, Titan and Jupiter images are all from the orbiter camera.--Deglr6328 21:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I stand corrected. →Raul654 21:06, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bulgaria

Well written and informitive article. Includes images, summeries of sub articles etc.

Not an objection. But I the article (I think) is below the standards that is expected of country articles. 1) The introduction can be much better/long 2) The Regions list should be shortened 3) More external links needed 4) Write a culture section introduction 5) Add more sections, _at least_ a Transportation and Foreign Relations. Just something you may want to consider... Perhaps you may like to go to Wikipedia:Peer Review ? Squash 06:07, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. Agree with squash. This article is lacking content on nearly all fronts, has no photos, no references, and the regions map has way too much whitespace. Jeronimo 08:02, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Although the current sections are well written, it lacks more topics such as sports, culture et al. For more information checking if what is required for a country to be a FA why don't u look at the countries that are now FA's viz- Belgium, PRC China, India? Nichalp 10:33, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Good article, but generally too short. History section should be expanded, for example. Phils 17:44, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • (from poster)Ya okay, I looked at the other country articles, remove this. I'll expand it then I'll re-candidate it.
  • Object. Instead try nominationg History of Bulgaria, which looks fairly complete and is well-illustrated (although references are needed). --mav 04:59, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Magic: The Gathering

Quite extensive. Perhaps it it a bit to long (~40k atm) and should be split into subarticles? Still, looks like a quite good FA material to me. What do you think? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:56, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. Zerbey 00:02, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. violet/riga (t) 00:29, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now  ALKIVAR™ here's my reasoning:
    1. intro section too long (shouldnt be more than 1 or 2 paras)
      Nonsense. The introduction is fine. Typically, an introction is said to be too long if it is over a page of text, and this is nowhere even close. →Raul654 02:15, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
      at 800x600 it does go over a page on screen, hence my reasoning.  ALKIVAR™ 02:43, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      I actually agree with Alivar. That lead section is actually too long. It needs a bit of shortening - not much, but this is still an actionable concern. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:47, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    2. history seems awful brief.
    3. game play should be shortened and split into sub articles, this isnt a HOW-TO article.
    4. is the section on secondary markets really necessary?
    5. artwork is very brief, needs to be beefed up a bit (I originally collected for the artwork, so did many of my friends)
    6. controversy should be spun off into a stub and expanded, theres been a lot of it and this brief mention doesnt do it justice in my opinion.
    7. needs a few more references
    8. external links are extensive and should be split into groups.
  • No opinion for now. I concur with User:Alkivar's comments on controversy, artwork and secondary market sections. The article is a fine one but needs re-sectioning and maybe emphasis should be distributed more evenly between the sections. But I disagree with User:Alkivar on references: it is absurd to add references that weren't used just for the article to look more "professional/credible". Could said user point us to specific statements in the article that could be questioned and aren't mentioned in one of the sources/external links? Phils 00:53, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    its not a matter of whether I question anything, but a 2nd source for a group of same information is generally a good idea for a FA, its not a "FAC requirement" but it is a good idea.  ALKIVAR™ 02:45, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I added the printed references checking on Amazon. I couldn't find any others - hopefully somebody else can. But 2-3 printed books is enough for FA I belive, and please note there is a reather extensive section of external links as a counterweight. As a (former, but...) player, I do think that the secondary market section is necessary, it is an important part of the game. The game play should not be shortened, but moving most of it to another article (Rules of...or sth like this) is a good idea. I agree with the other comments, though, they should be applied before this article gets FA status. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:50, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, although I do support making a sub-article for gameplay and controversies and expanding the artwork section as suggestions, as Alkivar suggests. I also disagree on references as Phils does. Cool Hand Luke 10:15, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment - not all references are sourced in this document! For instance, there is an external link to "Where have all the Demons Gone", but this source is not cited in the references section. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:47, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I still think this reads too much like a player's manual, and does not cover enough of the encyclopedic topics. Only a small mention is given to the controversy over occult topics, and not enough is given to the controversy over the encouragement of childhood gambling. Also, there is very little on the economy of what turned out to be a very expensive game- the Expense section should give some concept of the actual dollar values of expensive and rare. I think it would also be necessary to mention links to other collection games both of the time and of the current day (POG, Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh, whatever), and the impact that Magic had on existing Sports Card games (hint: it was large [1]. Finally, this article is missing a timeline. Though Magic is still popular in some sense, it does not have as large a following as it did in 1997. I think this article will always be incomplete without some sort of timeline chronicling the popularity and major events in the series. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 16:22, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Abstain. The article definitely needs more info in the history section, and it would be nice if some sub articles were created to carry all the extraneous info, but overall it looks fairly good. Hmmm... I guess it's just missing that je ne sais quoi that would put it over the edge. I'll change my vote to 'support' if someone addresses the issues brought up by Gorgias et al. Eric Herboso 22:38, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Steve Dalkowski

Mainly a self nomination. Has passed through peer review already and I feel is ready for FAC status. Further criticism is welcomed. :) Zerbey 23:54, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Need to change that "As of 2003". RickK 00:33, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • Is the current revision an improvement? Zerbey 01:06, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Erg. I guess. I'd still rather not see a year in there at all, but at least it's updated. RickK 01:12, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'll bow to experience :-D I removed the year entirely. Zerbey 01:17, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comment This may not be a reason to deny featured status, but the article is not very long.Jeff8765 01:50, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • It's grown a bit, what do you think can be done to make it better? Zerbey 01:18, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. 1) The quality of the picture is very low. 2) I'm not that happy with the trivia section, but I suppose it could stay. I'd rather see most of the trivia in the main article. 3) His career statistics are briefly mentioned, but I think a table is more suited for this. Mabye season-by-season stats are also useful there. 4) He is introduced as a Minor League player, but he played in the majors too. 5) More needs to be said on his throwing speed. 100 mph is mentioned - how was this estimated? 6) Are there any offline references or further reading? 7) All American units should be accompanied by metric units (e.g. 100 mph (160 km/h)). Jeronimo 08:47, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • 1) Trying to find a better picture but there's not many. I have written to the Orioles about it and am waiting for a reply (hopefully soon). 2) Could be done, but we would run the risk of creating an article full of anecdotes (which wouldn't be fair on him IMHO). I'll think on that one. 3) Yes, will do this. 4) Nope, he only played during one game in spring training (as mentioned), he spent the rest of the season on the injured list before being released. 5) Will research, haven't found any solid evidence of his 100mph other than third party accounts, this is discussed in the article. 6) Yes, will add these. 7) Will convert (was done for the French version). Zerbey 01:03, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • How is this picture? Zerbey 00:44, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Still not good, I think you'd probably have a better chance calling up Topps or one of the other baseball card companies and seeing if they would gift Wikipedia with a scan/copy of the image on his card.  ALKIVAR™ 18:24, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Working on that, the only other picture is from a sports magazine so that's copyrighted. Someone must have a decent free picture! Zerbey 18:37, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Runic alphabet

partial self-nom. I cleaned up the article, and added material to the point of re-exporting some to Older Futhark to take weight from the article. I think it's reasonably close to FA standard now & am prepared to act on suggestions for improvement. One thing may be that the images, while informative, should be 'unified' (i.e. they look hacked together). Another point is that the article makes heavy use of Unicode's runic alphabets codepage, and may not be rendered correctly on older systems, but I think this is not actionable (and I imagine most recent systems will support them). dab (ᛏ) 16:05, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. Nice article with professional illustrations. Squash 23:10, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • The article looks very nice, but for some reason I cannot see the runes themselves. I think this could be a major problem for the article (unless it's confined to my computer (Windows XP + Firefox 1.0), but I fear not). Jeronimo 10:11, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I use Firefox 1.0 under GNOME on Fedora Core (Linux) and I can see the runes just fine. In other words, it's your operating system.. Squash 10:23, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Firefox under debian also works fine. 68.237.137.57 05:55, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry, but the issue of Unicode glyphs cannot be ignored. I have checked this article on multiple different systems, and it doesn't display correctly half of the time. Even on next generation systems, you have to install the correct fonts to see it (for example, Mac OS X, known for its excellent font set, is unable to display the glyphs with a standard install - you have to install extra fonts). I suspect the situation is similar on other OSs - I know it is on Windows, for one. I will support this article if a short notice about glyphs is put on top of the page, possibly linking to a suitable freeware set of glyphs, or when the most important glyphs (ex.: in the part about translitteration) are converted to images. After toying around with my font manager, I got the fonts to display correctly. This article now has my support. We can't do much more than add a note at the top. Phils 10:31, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. I can't see the runes either (using IE 6.0}, and we can't require our readers to change from the vastly most-used browser to read our product. RickK 00:32, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object I also use Firefox 1.0 under windows XP ... they dont show here either, I also tried it under IE but they dont show there either. This should be fixed ASAP, I see no reason that if we can have the WikiHiero syntax we cant create a WikiRune syntax. I think as a prerequisite to this becoming a Featured Article we need to impliment a WikiRune syntax.  ALKIVAR™ 00:49, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • we do have wikirunesyntax: it's called Unicode (why create new standards?). Btw, what is WikiHiero syntax? dab (ᛏ)
  • found [2]. wow, someone went to a lot of trouble here, very nice (btw, someone should take pity on Hieroglyph, it's a horrible uncategorized stub). You see, the difference is that there is no Unicode standard for Egyptian hieroglyphics yet. There is a proposal so far [3], and once there is an official standard, Unicode hieroglyphics should map to HieroWiki somehow. Runes, otoh, already have an official Unicode assignment, and their implementation (some 80 signs) is peanuts compared to Hieroglyphs (some 2000 signs). dab (ᛏ) 10:21, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Except the problem is that it is not cross platform functional by default, A good 70% of web users (IE still claims 70% of the market) cannot see the runes in the article except the images. This workaround would work despite platform or browser. As such (and as you stated yourself a mere 80 signs) this would be a rather simple fix that would have a large benefit.  ALKIVAR™ 23:52, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
yes, I agree, it would be nice to render them as images. I'm just saying, we don't need to invent a syntax, we'll just render the unicode glyphs, and serve the image instead of the unicode entity. dab (ᛏ) 11:33, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
perhaps you dont understand what i'm talking about then... because that is EXACTLY my point. serving the image instead of the unicode. just done in a style like the heiro's, heiro format is <hiero>X-X</hiero> i'm talking about being able to do <rune>gar</rune> to display 1 gar, or <rune>gar-ger-gar</rune> for a sequence of gar ger gar.  ALKIVAR™ 23:02, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
you don't understand what I'm talking about: You say: let's implement something that serves an image for <rune>f</rune>. I'm saying, no, it's better to implement something that serves an image for the correct, official &#5792;, or the option to choose if you want an image or ᚠ. There could also be a wiki-specific syntax, additionally, i.e. <rune>f</rune> and &#5792; would be equivalent, resulting in either an image or ᚠ. But since that's about a software upgrade, this discussion doesn't belong here anyway, and I'm happy to let this nomination rest until we have some solution along these lines. dab (ᛏ) 15:22, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The article is good, but most ppl cannot see the thing it is discussing, this is a major fault. I'd also like to see the runes, but I get the '?' - using Mozilla 1.7.5, and I configured my comp to see Japanese and many other alphabets. Unless this can be fixed, perhaps we should consider using images instead of text? The current top note does not give a good solution for solving the problems - I donwloaded and isntalled the new fonts from the note...now what? :>--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:02, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. I can't see the runes either on Firefox 1.0, it's probably because I don't have a proper Unicode font installed, but most readers of the article will not one installed either. Maybe someone who has a Unicode font installed could take a screenshot of the runes and post the image to the article.Jeff8765 01:53, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
ok, fine. I accept the article will not be featured because people's browser do not render the runic unicode codepage. They are rendered out-of-the-box on my Firefox-on-KDE-on-Debian system, and I thought implementation would be more common, but I realize this implementation may be a reflection of Linux' geeky DNA. The images are there to help people who do not see the unicode runes (they would be superfluous, otherwise). Now, our policy, or at least common use, is to use correct Unicode, regardless of whether the majority of browsers supports it yet. We have the option built into wikimedia to render as graphics mathematical formulas, for people who cannot render math-xml. It would be an option to render as graphics (server side, automatically) uncommon unicode glyphs, until their implementation is more widespread. As I said above, I consider this objection unactionable, because it should be solved consistently, WP-wide, and would require a software update. But I agree that the article is not very nice without the runes, so I guess I'll have to withdraw the nomination.
But, since we are here, are there any other suggestions, based on, you know, article content? dab (ᛏ) 10:09, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Poor grammar. At random: that can impossibly all be due to chance; Roman legions, that started to migrate out of Israel. Mark1 05:08, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
the "legions" relative pronoun: granted (and changed). The other is part of a correct sentence (not 'poor' but arguably 'involved' grammar): "There are some similarities to other alphabets of Phoenician origin that can impossibly all be due to chance". But I'll go and re-read the rest of the article now. dab (ᛏ) 11:24, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
No, the first example is not correct. There's quite a lot of this: Their angular shapes are usually interpreted adapted to the practice; There are some inscriptions containing clues for medieval belief . The whole article really needs a copyedit by a native English speaker. Mark1 01:47, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I smoothed out the roughest bits now, but feel free to help. dab (ᛏ) 15:08, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Considering the average quality of articles on Old Norse stuff on Wikipedia this is actually pretty good. It still isn't thorough enough or well-referenced enough to merit FA-status. Maybe I'll work on this in the future. -- Haukurth 02:05, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
imho, anything more thorough would have to go into specialized articles, like Elder Futhark: There can also be Younger Futhark, Anglo-Saxon Futhorc and Dalecarlian runes articles, you know. Also, note Template:Runes where articles on individual runes are linked. dab (ᛏ) 15:27, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'll be a bit more specific. This is a fairly large subject and I think this article either needs to be longer or to have a better sense of proportion. The parts on the magical and modern uses of the runes should not cloud the essentials. The reader needs to get a better sense of the widespread use of runes as a fairly mundane writing system in common use in Scandinavia for hundreds of years. Now, the article doesn't neglect that but I think it needs to privilege it more. Leaving aside this complaint I'll address some specific accuracy questions in a new comment below. -- Haukurth 23:20, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Lovely article, I will certainly support when I can see the runes. I don't see them in Mozilla 1.6 for Mac OSX, nor in Safari 1.0.2 (those are the penultimate versions, don't know whether the very latest ones would work). Very frustrating. Welcome back with it when the rendering problem has been solved, dab! Meanwhile, I have a comment, not for content but pedagogics: I find the Origins section a bit confusing, but this can probably be pretty easily fixed by someone who understands it fully (=not me). The first theory of the origin of runes, of descent from a Phoenician alphabet, is so strongly privileged ("from which they are probably descended", "cannot possibly all be due to chance" ) that it comes as a surprise when other theories are also presented as possibly viable. Logic seems to demand some adjustment of the relative endorsements. Also, it's less than helpful to mention the third theory by name (the "West Germanic hypothesis") and not the others: for the ignorant reader this means staring at the second and third paragraph for a while, trying to figure if they're about one or two theories (the answer does emerge). If the theories all do have pet names, it might help to use them, I think. The relation of the "popular field for scientific speculation" paragraph to the theories already presented isn't clear to me. Does it refer to all theories except the Phoenecian descent, or only to nutjobs like Rudbeck? (It's OK, he won't sue.) If to all (since, again, the Phoenician theory sounds irrefutable), could it come earlier? Bishonen | Talk 22:23, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Accuracy problems. The quotations from Hávamál have a faulty translation attached. In the first strophe the reader would probably guess that it's the spear that's dedicated to Óðinn but this is an impossible translation. It needs a comma after the word "spear". As for the foots of the tree I'd prefer it had roots as in the original. Now, this translation is actually misquoted from Carolyne Larrington. As well as quoting Larrington accurately her name should probably be noted somewhere. For a comparison of the accuracy of various English translations of this part of Hávamál see my external article here: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/reader/runatal.html

I also have a problem with this clause:

"Runes are a popular field for scientific speculation, and many other theories have been advanced, e. g. a claim by Olaus Rudbeck Sr in Atlantica that all writing system orginate from proto-runic scripts."

Since this is the last theory mentioned in the origins chapter and the word "scientific" is attached the reader might get the sense that the Atlantica is a recent scientific work and not 17th century fantasy.

For the record I can see the runes without problems on a recent version of IE. -- Haukurth 23:20, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Atlanta, Georgia

This is my self-nomination. I think that it should be placed as the featured article. Do you have any support, objection or comments? --219.77.51.74 06:37, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object Focuses too much on lists and not enough on actual desbribing of information. It is fairly comprehensive but try adding descriptions of the most important neighborhoods and a general description of the metro area. Try switching some of the lists more to a sentence format. bob rulz 07:27, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Constructive comments: I think the lead could be streamlined and do a better job of getting the reader interested in reading the whole article. The transportation portion of the lead would fit better as its own section below. A little more could be said about the airport situation (completely rebuilt with the underground links between the terminals) and the MARTA subway is worthy of more details, and better direct us to the separate articles on each. One thing which seems missing is Atlanta's extensive network of Interstate highways, which along with some of the transportation content of the Business and Development section would fit well under a new Transportation section. I enjoyed the article, and with some improvements, it would make a good featured article. Vaoverland 07:33, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
I've added info on the interstates and made a new transportation section. Sayeth 16:00, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
I like the changes in lead and new Transportation section. I think the blurb about the attractions Underground Atlanta and Centennial Olympic Parkwould go better under the Culture and Recreation section. Another photo or graphic or 2 would liven it up a bit. Maybe a map? Just ideas. Vaoverland 17:21, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
I've hated the one pic there for a while and had plans to add some better city images (skylines and such); the weather just hasn't cooperated very much with me when I've had time. I have other things I've needed/wanted to do to revise the article as well; guess I should move them up in priority now.  :-) Autiger 17:01, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Added a new downtown skyline pic that is less cluttered with foreground noise. Autiger 17:22, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support (Qualified). I think before this nomination is accepted, the over-long 'Other' section needs re-factoring. The subsection 'Atlanta in Film and Television' could become a section in its own right, perhaps with expansion to cover other artistic references (literature, painting). The very long list of famous Atlantans probably ought to be delegated to a list article. -- Chris j wood 12:11, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've split off the list of famous people to a new article: List of famous Atlantans. Sayeth 16:00, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
The recent changes have addressed my concerns. I think this is a good article well worthy of FAC, and my support is now unqualified. -- Chris j wood 12:54, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, though I don't particularly like the story of all the capitals of Georgia - that belongs in the history of Georgia. The Atlanta article just needs mention that it's the 5th capital of Georgia, in my opinion. --Spangineer ∞ 03:06, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The history section now reads better, but the 4th paragraph is still indecipherable. Several one-sentence paragraphs dot the rest of the article. Someone has disfigured the article by going on a linking binge. I believe that internal links should be relevant to the subject of the article, which "romantic", "mountain", "fall", "car", and dozens of other underlined nouns are not. There are many duplications between the text and the lists, as in the "attractions" section. And for what it's worth, Stone Mountain, for one, is not in Atlanta.

Sfahey 23:49, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've de-linked the bulk of the common words (something that had been bugging me too). Obviously, Stone Mountain is not within the city limits of Atlanta proper, though it, as well as things like Six Flags over Georgia, are certainly considered Atlanta attractions being in the metro area. Much of what is considered to be part of Atlanta lies outside the official city limits in unincorporated areas. Perhaps it should just be clearly denoted what is a suburban attraction when appropriate? Autiger 17:22, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Is the 4th paragraph you referred to the capitals of Georgia paragraph? If so, that's been mostly deleted and the rest has been incorporated at the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction paragraph. The current (as of Jan 21) fourth paragraph is the Civil Rights paragraph, which reads fine to me. Sayeth 15:33, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
Yup, it's been fixed/moved, and my vote changed.Sfahey 20:48, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I'll finish what "Autiger" made a fine start at, fix a couple of goofy one-sentence paragraphs, eliminate the aforementioned duplications, and justify this vote change which I wanna get in before the deadline. Sfahey 02:38, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • 'Support. The article really wasn't ready for FA status when first nominated (e.g. the history section ended with Atlanta burning). Now, however, it's much better. Sayeth 17:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Or should I vote having worked on it? Agree that it wasn't originally ready for FAC. Autiger 04:07, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment The sports and educational institutes sections lack content. There's nothing to say the state of education et al. Listing the institutes is not a good idea. Similarly expand the sports section detailing their passtimes. Nichalp 10:27, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. A large part of the article looks quite good, but the remainder consists mostly of lists. I would like to see some of the lists (especially the shorter ones) converted to prose, or at least with prose added to the list. For example: instead of just listing the NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL teams, why not write two or three sentences about them. Other lists, especially ones that are probably incomplete (such as "Atlanta in fiction") should probably be moved to a separate article (as with the "famous Atlantans"). Also, some of the sections which have now only lists (f.e. education, sports) should have content besides those lists. As a minor point, I think a map of the Atlanta metro area would be a good addition. Jeronimo 12:34, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree with Jeronimo - this article is very, very list heavy. →Raul654 18:50, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
    • I've 'prosified' the Sports section. Niteowlneils 20:25, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • The problem with the longest, most tedious list is that it repeats items already described in "Culture and Rec". I already wore myself out fixing the links and some other defects. I hope someone else will fix this flaw (without messing up the attached footnotes). The next note appears to be a reasonable request, yet hardly grounds for "object". Kudos to reviewers who correct, rather than just identify, faults. Is it assumed that only nominators themselves will do this? This particular one has been conspicuously absent in the process, yet the nomination is still hanging in there. Sfahey 01:20, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oh, what the hey. I'm snowed in, so I went and purged the worst of the lists, by moving stuff into the various sections. Please take another look, objectors. Sfahey 03:49, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Looks much better already! I still would like to see the "Atlanta in film and tv" section move elsewhere (a single appearance in Futurama, although funny, is not interesting enough for this article). I also think the education section could be rewritten to prose (went well for the other lists). Jeronimo 08:49, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Okay, "Atlanta in film and TV" is now Atlanta in fiction Sayeth 23:35, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • object please cite sources, e.g. in the introduction making it the 9th largest metro area in the US. is probably from the US census, a note with a reference would make that clear without disrupting flow. Mozzerati 20:45, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)
This article has been clinging to the bottom of this list so long now that I even found time to fix this last objection. Whatever became of the guy who nominated this thing to begin with? Sfahey 03:49, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • moderate strong objection The article is less than comprehensive, and I have a hard time seeing why it is a superior article to what has been written about other major American cities like New York, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Seattle, Washington etc. The article also has few quotations, and I think its history section needs to be must better developed. Its geography section mentions nothing of different parts of Atlanta, let alone neighborhoods. The Atlanta article is a good article, but it is far from being an overachiever as other featured articles are. Finally, it lacks pictures. User:dinopup
  • Comment: I made a template for U.S. Cities, Template:USCityBox, and so I've used this. I found the city seal and uploaded this: probably not the best image, but should do for now. Information on the seal should be added to the article. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:41, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Firstly, I agree with Dinopup about the geography section. Secondly, there's quite a few cases of unimaginative wording at the starts of sentences (i.e. the sports section). Thirdly, educational institutions could be prosified. Fourthly, the Rambot information is particularly obvious here, and could really do with a rewrite from Rambot-speak into English. Fifthly, the culture section should probably be renamed to tourism or the like, and an actual culture section created. Culture != landmarks. Ambi 06:23, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"Attractions, events, and recreation" Niteowlneils 17:39, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I read this and think it's a well written article on an interesting place, and should be featured. Just as a note, I am not (except for my field of study) affiliated with MIT in any way. Zaha 21:49, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comment Given the problems we have with academic boosterism in Wikipedia, I think that it is probably not a good idea to feature an article about any college, as it will undoubtedly be construed as support for the institution and not merely for the article. If one college is featured, I fear that will evoke a competitive spirit among supporters of other institutions. And not in a way that will improve the articles.
Lets make it clear that topic is not a reason to not feature an article. You have pointed out POV problems with it, and that of course is a valid reason to not feature an article. Any article that meets all of the featured article criteria can become a FA. Some may then be marked so as not to appear on the Main page, but that is an entirely separate issue. I have never looked into the details of the mechanism for that though. - Taxman 14:06, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
Point taken. For the record, I personally think the MIT article is adequately NPOV at the moment—but only adequately. That is, it doesn't have a POV problem, it's just not a shining example of Wikipedian neutrality. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:25, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I have not yet seen any college or university article that I think truly exemplifies "Wikipedia's best work." To my way of thinking all of them have at least borderline NPOV problems. I liked the MIT article better when it contained a discussion of MIT's suicide rate. It wasn't a very good discussion, but at least the issue was mentioned. The current article does not contain the word "suicide" and is generally light on anything that might be construed as negative or critical.
All of the college articles I've looked at have this problem, not just MIT. In the Dartmouth article, for example, at one point someone tried to insert "allegedly" into the sentence noting that the film Animal House was based on Dartmouth College. The Dartmouth grad from whose stories the screenplays were adapted, and the film's director have both stated that it was based on Dartmouth. There's no "allegedly" about it. It's just that the film doesn't portray "Faber" College in a flattering way.
Since I bleed cardinal and gray, and know that the Institute Has The Finest Professors, I won't vote—but I trust I've made my feelings clear. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:44, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Broadly the same views as Dpbsmith. I am not in any way affiliated with MIT. --JuntungWu 01:07, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, it's odd. User:MITalum doesn't have a user page, didn't file an email contact, and doesn't seem to respond to queries on his talk page. Perhaps he'll comment there. He seems to have uploaded the images and carefully entered copyright notices complete with circle-C symbols such as "Photograph taken by Jackson Frakes. Copyright © 2002 by Jackson Frakes." Some of them are fine, others (such as the photo of the Eastman plaque) are perfectly illustrative but don't look as if they were taken by a professional. It seems possible that MITalum, Jackson Frakes, and a recent Course XIV grad with the surname Frakes but a different first name might all be the same person, but it's curious that he hasn't cleared this up. Like many people, he may have thought that since clicking the button APPEARS to implicitly acknowledge release under GFDL that there wasn't a need to say this explicitly. I'm going to try to contact him via email. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:58, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Update: User:MITalum responded on my talk page to confirm that he is Jackson Frakes, and all of his photos are thus GFDL. His only remaining problematic images are Image:MIT-brassrat.jpg and Image:MIT-stata.jpg, the latter of which is currently not used in any article. —Steven G. Johnson 22:36, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
        • Good. (The recently graduated non-Jackson Frakes has responded to my email saying "sorry. I've never heard of Jackson Frakes or 'mitalum.' wish I could be of more help."). Dpbsmith (talk) 23:12, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object ; 1) many opinions are quoted without any source "There is a refreshing lack of so-called "weed out" classes" (one at random) 2) many unclearly attributed phrases "perfect fit in many peoples' eyes" 3) "also consistently ranks among the highest in nationwide reports" please list them
    • Comment By all means list them, but, please, on the Talk page, or in References, not inline in the main article. One of the ways in which these articles get out of balance occurs when someone puts in some appropriate value statement that is in fact generally recognized as true... such as (say) "Harvard is one of the leading universities in the United States." Someone else says, in effect, "prove it," and the next thing you know the article leads off with three of four long paragraphs about U. S. News rankings and numbers of Nobel prize winners and selectivity, etc. etc. There are many cases where the general reader needs to know something that is a partly-subjective-but-widely-agreed-on value judgement. In such cases, the appropriate thing to do is to put the simple statement in the article and the buttressing remarks in a footnote or on the Talk page or somewhere. When the reader sees something like "MIT is a leader in science," this is an important fact about MIT and it deserves to be there. The reader needs to know that the statement is verifiable and not just the opinion of the contributor. And the reader needs to be given the means to verify it and the ability to judge the credibility of verifying references ("U.S. News and World report? Bull! That's just college presidents stroking each other..."). But the supporting references belong somewhere where they do not interrupt the flow of the article. We now return you to Mozzerati's comment... Dpbsmith (talk) 21:07, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
footnotes with links to correct studies would be appropriate in this case; talk page should be for more or less active discussion (IMHO/IMnsHO??) Mozzerati 22:51, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)
4) general non specificity "For some years past" 5) almost nothing negative is said about MIT. MIT has been implicated in cooperation with Microsoft which has been found to have been involved in illegal market monopolism[4]. 6) there is no mention of ethics investigations; almost any large scientific instituation has gone through such. What were the most important ones where the scientist was found to have committed fraud? Who was let off? Why? Have there been any serious claims of whitewashing?. 7) As a large American institution, there must have been some interaction with race. What level of discrimination was practiced and when? Was there any segregation on campus? 8) there is no mention of control of intellectual property by the institute and, for example, why Stallman had to resign his post in order to continue the GNU project. Some other comments (not objections yet until I find specific examples) C1) language is a bit gushing in places; more neutral language would help. Lack of boredom is more important to me though. C2) this is very close to 32k, by the time my other comments are incorporated, I will probably object that the article is too long and should be split. Mozzerati 19:18, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

[edit] Business continuity planning

Partial self nomination. Rewrote, expanded and improved the article and had a couple other Wiki peer review. Article ready for FAC status discussion. Revmachine21 06:41, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. No references (further reading is not the same thing) and none of the facts are cited to the sources they came from. Please read the featured article criteria before nominating an article. If it does not meet one of the basic criteria such as references, please do not nominate it. 2.) BCP is not "a methodology to create a manual" as the article now says it is. It is a methodology to set up a plan for how to continue business to the greatest extent possible after various contingencies. The manual is evidence the method has at least been attempted. nm I fixed that. 3.) BCP has a lot of overlaps with the risk management process, but this article doesn't even consider that link. That is just one example that shows this article needs more solid research to good sources before being FA quality. - Taxman 16:55, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object 1) no examples of BCP in real life. 2) No examples of failure of organisations which did not do it and had problems because of it. 3) No examples of failures of organisations which did do it. 4) no comments on risk acceptance and the impossibility of completely protecting against all disasters. 6) extremely focused on small business / office scenario, what about BCP for large factories? Does the BCP methodology not cover that area? 7) what about other ways of doing it? 8) please add copyright notice to your diagram. 9) please add comparison to methodologies used in Japan and Taiwan where a disaster like 9/11 is considered relatively small and massive earthquakes are expected to be handled effectively. 10) please consider linking citations in the text using a system such as that proposed at Wikipedia:Footnote2. Overall, this article looks like it's going in a useful direction.

[edit] Disaster

Partial self-nomination. Rewrote this article in support of my other main area of contribution, the business continuity planning article. Have had a couple of other Wiki's take a look at it as a part of the peer review process and the article is now ready for review in this forum. Revmachine21 06:37, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object,

1) underwikified
2) some existing links point to wrong article; links to biological when it should link to biological disaster or biological terrorismExisting terrorism and hazardous materials links should be enough.
3) contains too many lists and small sections, should be turned into prose. Not comprehensive.
4) Doesn't cotain pictures, shouldn't be hard to find a few. I've added two pics
5) Doesn't contain references (if you used the external links as reference, just say so.
6) contains at least one duplicate link within the text (emergency supply kits). removed them as far as I can determine.
I'll do some work on it if I can find the time. Mgm|(talk) 09:56, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Also needs a history section listing major disasters in history starting with the extinction of the dinosaurs and Pompeii and ending with 9/11 and the recent Asian tsunami. And contains too much technical jargon when preparation and survival is discussed. Mgm|(talk) 10:37, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. No references and not nearly enough facts cited to sources. Again, please make sure article meets all of the basic criteria before listing. That way we can focus on articles that do meet the criteria and can pass. - Taxman 17:11, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Architecture of Btrieve

Self-nomination I split this off from Btrieve, which was featured a little while ago. I have attempted to get it to featured article status and have already placed it on Peer Review for comment, with noone responding. I'd like to try to get this to FA status. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:00, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Note that this is the same person who nominated Autobiography promotion and publicity for deletion. I've never even heard of Btrieve before. That said, on a cursory glance it looks like an OK article. Everyking 08:02, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, if you are concerned about it, please place it on VfD, as I did to your own article. I don't see what that has to do with anything. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:06, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm just curious as to what you think the difference is. Near as I can tell the article you nominated is more notable than this. I'm not going to VfD it, because I think it's a perfectly good article; that would be disrupting WP to make a point. Everyking 17:35, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Neutral. It seems like a OK article, not bad and not too fantastic. I just don't think that people who never heard of Btrieve (I don't either) would understand the article. Squash 09:18, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object for now. 1) As other already point out, a bit more context is needed. This is not the Btrieve article, but we should be introduced to it briefly - just a link to the article won't do. We need to know that Pervasive is the company that made the product, who Kyle & Harris are, etc. 2) This appears to be about the architecture of version 6.15 only. If indeed so, the article title should reflect this, or more on previous versions should be added. 3) More context/links/explanation for database specific features is also needed. People reading this article may know a little about software, but nothing about databases in particular. For example: explain what a b-tree is (briefly). 4) There are many "top level" sections here, but many of them have only one paragraph of content. This suggests that either a) more information is available on these topics, or b) the sectioning and organisation of the article should be improved. Jeronimo 11:45, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • OK, I've changed the first line to try to introduce it really briefly. I've noted that Pervasive sell it. The second point I don't know how to address: nothing much really changed as far as I know in the architecture and I do cover stuff before then. I will do something about info on b-trees. I'll look into fixing the structure and organisation :-) This is more feedback than I got from peer review! Ta bu shi da yu 13:06, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • The article has already improved - I'll await your further changes. Just a note: my commentary on b-trees was just an example. As George Stepanek points out below, there are more terms that could use a brief explanation. Jeronimo 07:20, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. This article desperately needs more diagrams to make the concepts clear. B-trees? Illustrate with a diagram. Doubly linked key list? Diagram. Variable-tail allocation table? Diagram. Pre-image paging vs Shadow paging? Diagram. Etc. GeorgeStepanek\talk 22:20, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tank man

It is short - only about one and a half screen of info. But...what else can we write on this subject? It seems pretty comprehensive for me. And the photo is excellent. What do you think? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 02:39, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

regarding the controversy over the photo, I have contacted Jeff Widener's employer to see if I can get him to give us permission. I will update you all on the results.  ALKIVAR™ 04:01, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Jeff Widener directed me to Chuck Zohler from the AP NY photo library (who said this was a legitimate fair use over the phone).  ALKIVAR™ 06:08, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Nice find! Although short. Neutral Squash 02:55, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object - As a contributor who helped write a fair amount of this article:
    • other sources say he was killed by firing squad a few months after the Tiananmen Square protests - "other sources" = weasel words. Who says this, exactly?
    • The citation style is awful. It uses superscripts which point to footnotes which point to external links.
    • It could use more information on other people who have been suggested to have been tank man.
    • Also, since this article discusses Wang Weillin in depth, it would greatly benefit from an actual photograph of him. →Raul654 03:02, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, I still think the article's title should be "Unknown Rebel", as it seems to be the more commonly accepted way of referring to him, and "Tank man" just sounds stupid. Other than that I have no preferences either way. -R. fiend 05:48, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, it's good enough for me, although I wish it was longer. Everyking 08:08, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The thing about short articles is that if they are truly comprehensive then the topic can't be all that notable, and if they are on very notable topics they can't be all that comprehensive. If this particular person / incident is truly important separate from the rest of the Tienanmen Square events of the time, I'm sure there has been more written about it that we can source (I'm thinking especially of international reaction, including sanctions etc, statements from international organizations and leading commentators). If not, and this incident only provides a striking visual to the Tienanmen Square uprising, it's mostly an interesting side note to the main event and not the stuff of FA in and of itself. The article as it is does not sustain itself. Another concern of mine is that the photo is copyrighted fair use -- my impression was that we as a community are uncomfortable with that status. Bantman 17:52, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The photo is a copyvio. "Fair use" does not mean reproducing any photo we want. Is is for the purposes of review? No. Is is an insignificant excerpt that will not harm the value of the original? No. So what are the grounds for fair use? GeorgeStepanek\talk 22:13, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, I actually thought it was a kind of a photo review - at least as close to a review as we can get still keeping to an encyclopedia article. The fact is, the article would never exist without the photo - the article expands on the person in the photo and the reaction photo caused all around the world - so the photo is essential to the article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:47, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Then we need to get permission to reproduce this photo. You can't just say "we need this photo, therefore it must be fair use." GeorgeStepanek\talk 04:53, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Of course there is a quick work around for this, just find a TV news broadcast that used this image and get a screencapture, those are deemed fair use (due to reduction in quality) :)  ALKIVAR™ 02:59, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Aren't all images of historical importance available under fairuse? This image may fall under this category. BrokenSegue 03:25, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I suggest: to subtract (support - object) votes and nominate it as featured article in case it has the highest positive score from all other candidates. I suggest to keep the article in front page for 3 days if nominated otherwise keep it away from the featured article candidate list for 2 months. Minimum voters participation in this poll I suggest to be 12 in a 3 days period. Iasson 14:25, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Uh, no - we'll treat this candidate just like we treat all the others. →Raul654 17:28, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. If this man is indeed one of the "100 most important people of the 20th century", it should be possible to write more than just 3/4 of my screen about him. Why was he so important, who did he influence, etc. One could start by adding in a bit more background on the Tiananmen Square protests. Jeronimo 08:05, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Van Allen radiation belt

I just found this article with the random page function. It is well-written, informative, interesting, and has an image. As far as I can tell—I am no expert—it is also very complete. I would like to see this article make it to FA status. Jordi·✆ 09:47, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object for the moment - there is a lot of interesting detail in here and it's mostly well written but there are a few points I think should be addressed:
    • Occasional awkward wording eg Qualitatively, it is very useful to view this belt as consisting of two belts around Earth, the inner radiation belt and the outer radiation belt. - why not just 'The belt consists of an inner and outer belt.'?
    • Over-capitalisation of section titles
    • Somewhat under-referenced - only 3 refs, and specific positions attributed to Tom Gold and Alex Dressler are not obviously sourced. Also, some more journal or book references as opposed to web references would be more trustworthy.
    • The apparent cold war claims about nuclear testing seem bizarre and are unsourced - I'd suggest they could be removed altogether.
    • If an article for Sherwood Machine does not exist, a 'See also:' pointing too it seems redundant
    • I feel the section about space elevators is over-long and contains much that would be better in the article about space elevators themselves.
    • Contradictory information about surviving a passage through the belts - did Apollo astronauts really receive 1% of a fatal dose? Reference? How so, if 1mm of lead shielding would block all belt particles as stated in intro? Also, how does this square with the claim that one could live for months, even at the most intense part of the belts? Worldtraveller 17:29, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Good article, but can use a little expantion. The pharase in lead The presence of a radiation belt had been theorized prior to the Space Age - should be elaborated with the history of the discovery - who theorized, when, who opposed, etc. Some printed references would be nice. I also added a first category - astronomy - but it surely can use a more detailed one. Still, those are minor objections and I expect I will be able to change my vote soon.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:40, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. invasion of Afghanistan

Seems well written, doesn't seem very POV. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:18, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Some maps would be nice. RickK 06:23, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • I wonder where all the references and external links are, theres none that I can see. Squash 07:38, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object to the current title. I see that there has been extensive discussion on the talk page, but the result is still a page which is misnamed: a substantial part of the material deals with the activities of UK forces and Afghan rebels, while the description of the event as an "invasion" seems inaccurate. Mark1 08:08, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Do you have a proposal. How about the addition of "...and ongoing/ensuing conflict" to title?--ZayZayEM 06:53, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I have no proposal, and given the amount of discussion which has already gone on about the title, I think it would be entirely futile to offer one. I'm afraid it's down to the authors of the article to come up with something accurate and which they can all agree on. That hasn't happened so far. Mark1 07:09, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object strongly. In addition to the above comments: 1) Several pictures are uncredited. 2) The article seems to end about a year ago, but the conflict didn't. 3) Apart from the "Military operations" section, the article seems poorly structured. "Nature of the coalition" is messy and incomplete. "Casualties of the invasion" mostly contains short "news flashes" that are mostly irrelevant to the conflict as a whole. It is not necessary to mention every single casualty, accidental strike, etc. The World War II articles will not mention every exploding tank either. If you really think it is necessary to mention all this, do so in a separate article. After that, the sections are all short, incomplete, randomly placed. In general, their contents should be integrated in a "history" subsection, which outlines all major events. If emphasis is required on specific subtopics (eg diplomacy), the sections should be expanded a lot. The "Slogans and terms" section is completely useless (save perhaps for the fact that many US stations used such ridiculous slogans), and doesn't really belong here. Jeronimo 07:38, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Morality and legality of abortion

I was pleasantly surprised by this article. I expected to be walking into a viper's pit of POV angst, but what I found was a well-written, informative and engrossing article. I found very little (if any) POV in most of the article. [Or at least, I thought there wasn't much.. your thoughts?] I started reading the philosophy section at about 5:30 in the morning and was really tired at the start, but by the end I was alert and really very interested in the whole topic. I think it's one of the best pieces I've seen on Wikipedia for awhile so I thought I'd nominate it and give it a shot a FA status. Take a read and tell me what you think about it. Cheers, -SocratesJedi | Talk 11:48, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object: Sorry to use this one but it's got a lot of US-bias. Needs internationalisation. violet/riga (t) 11:59, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Not only that, it needs a lead section too. Object. Johnleemk | Talk 12:01, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Agree with violet/riga, and I'm also worried about a wiki page on a subject like this being inherently unstable. I mean, when you went there, you were pleasantly surprised; when I did, five minutes ago, I got this: "First off, it's just plain wrong. Okay, now the blah, blah. The morality and legality of abortion are controversial topics...". This may be seen as unfair to people who've worked on NPOV'ing the article, but I just worry about having a featured article that needs watching and nursing at intensive-care level.--Bishonen | Talk 20:14, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Abstain: Sadly, this subject is too controversial, unless the page is protected it will be constantly vandalised. It must NEVER be on the front page for that reason. This is a subject that reaches people's souls, it should not be treated lightly. Giano 21:00, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. In addition to the NPOV/Vandal & US-centrism issues — a quick ctrl+F search for "murder" didn't come up with any mention of abortion in relation to attacks/killings of pregnant women resulting in abortion of the foetus. This is often used in the pro-life campaigns.--ZayZayEM 01:16, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object for reasons already given. If this does ever become a FA, I agree that it shouldn't be front page featured. -Sean Curtin 01:18, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, but could do with more discussion of non-US attitudes. I think that the achievement of coming up with a balanced appraisal of such an emotive topic is something worth celebrating. Even if we have to protect it, let's get it up there on the front page. We should not censor ourselves. GeorgeStepanek\talk 03:52, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think it would be great if all main page articles were protected for their day of glory, and a couple or days afterwards while they are still mentioned on the front page. Serious "would be" editors can always make comment onthe talk page or return later. Giano 10:05, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree. The level of vandalism on Main page features is unacceptable and unnecessary. Filiocht 12:46, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
Also agree, its been a long time since I've seen a FA that was improved much while on the main page. FA's are simply much better now. - Taxman 13:04, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object on the grounds that it's controversial an issue - the logistics (i.e., protecting, vandals, etc.) do not make it worthwhile. I haven't been around for a long time but I think I've learnt enough to know that this is a very big issue. --JuntungWu 16:02, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
My understanding is that objections must include an actionable criticism. "The topic is too controversial" is not actionable. GeorgeStepanek\talk 23:54, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Karaoke

Self-nomination. Give comments. 219.77.52.194 11:43, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. (1) Can we not have anons nominate articles? (2) Some stuff on the prevalence of Karaoke in Europe would be nice. (3) references. --JuntungWu 13:38, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Juntung, I don't think anons nominating is going to kill us. However, can you be more specific about what is lacking? I'll put this on peer review if you like. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:59, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • This particular anonymous user appears to be User:Cheung1303. Cheung and all the anons who appear to be him currently have 6 nominations here of the 21 here, and are seemingly making no effort to address objections to their nominations. Many of his nominations have not been realistic, being way short of comprehensive. It gets a bit irritating wading through so many futile nominations. Anyway, in terms of this particular article, it's quite an interesting read but as it states in the introduction it concentrates on East Asia, so is not yet comprehensive. Also a few bits of POV here and there, such as describing the film Duets as reasonably well researched.

Therefore I object Worldtraveller 16:34, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Basically my concerns were that User:Cheung1303 was nominating articles using anon IPs. My concerns are better elaborated by Worldtraveller and CGorman. --JuntungWu 01:57, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. 1) I agree with the above that 6 out of 21 is a bit much and that there has been no effort to fix objections on other articles. 2) Many sections are too short - the section on mobile phones for example scarcely amounts to two lines (and im viewing it with a relatively large text size), 3) There is no See Also, or Print/Books section at the end of the article, I may not have a personal interest in Karaoke; but I am sure there are many books on it such as self help books and history/origin books on the topic. Overall I don't think that this article is even close to FA status. CGorman 21:19, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. It was me who asked on the article's talk page for help in a complete refactor of the piece; clearly, I can't think it's ready for FA. I've been a karaoke singer for 14 years now, and almost none of the article's comments on current practice reflect how things happen here on the west coast of Florida. I'm forced to assume, therefore, that it's much more a regional thing than might be obvious on it's face. Please: no, not yet, Raul.  :-) --Baylink 22:24, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bossa nova

This is the featured article candidate. I support it in some degree, do you? 202.40.210.164 01:43, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. 1) An article about music needs one or more sound samples to get featured. 2) It could use some pictures too - I can think of a famous bossa nova artist performing, or the cover of a wellknown bossa nova album. 3) Contents need a copyedit, text is not very fluent at times. 4) Most sections could use a little more content. 5) Are there dances associated with the bossa nova? If so, this needs to be discussed. 6) References are needed, preferably including some paper references. 7) The list of Bossa Nova musicians is not very useful this way. It would be better to discuss a few of them in the text, and possibly link to a List of bossa nova musicians or so. 8) It is clear from the article that bossa nova music is popular in Brazil, but this is not discussed in detail. Also, what about the rest of the world? This is only touched upon briefly. Jeronimo 07:29, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See some additions as of March 14, 2006, which may help people develop a more informed page.

[edit] Rio de Janeiro

I would like to nominate this article as the featured article. You can support, object or comment on it. 202.40.210.164 01:20, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object strongly. Please go to Wikipedia:Peer review first. This article is well below featured standard. We have: no history section, no politics section, no references. Many of the topics that are discussed need more attention and better sectioning (a section like "miscellaneous" is of course terrible). In addition we could use a map of the city, and of its location within Brazil. Jeronimo 07:21, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Object. I agree with Jeronimo. This is not a good faith FAC nomination, and (along with other noms by the same user) is verging on abuse of the process. Please cease and desist so that it does not become necessary to implement controls on nominations. Bantman 07:33, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
    • I am concerned that all of these nominations seem to be from User:Cheung1303. Since I've noticed a transport enthusiast on some obscure Hong Kong newsgroups going by that handle (and User:Cheung1303 is a transport enthusiast), I'll see if I can find a way to talk to him. I think he's a kid. --JuntungWu 13:35, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree with the above observation that this is borderline abuse of the system. If it continues, I think we should consider removing his nominations on sight - all they do is suck up time from editors that could be better spent on other nominations. →Raul654 15:59, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
        • Note that deleting Cheung1303's inappropriate posts on sight proved the only way to get through to him when he was repeatedly uploading copyvio images. That doesn't bode well for his ability to follow instructions here, I'm afraid. —Steven G. Johnson 18:36, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
          • I don't know what Cheung is trying to achieve, but he certainly has no interest in getting articles up to featured standard. I agree that frivolous nominations should be removed. Mark1 02:50, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with the above. Not an awful article, but surely would need to cover a lot more to be FA quality. Can we just remove this one now instead of waiting? - Taxman 00:25, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dallas, Texas

Self-nomination. Do you agree with this nomination? This is to let everyone know such an important city. 202.40.210.164 08:03, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. I only gave it a quick scan, but the People of Dallas section stood out as a weakness, both in writing and in citation. Where is this information coming from? The Other Facts is rather...inclusive. The history is rather scattershot, and needs to be collected into one section. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but that is one hell of a lead, about five grafs long, much of it the aforementioned misplaced history. Needs a bit of a work. Khanartist 08:19, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
  • Reluctant object: There's a lot of work here and it seems to be very complete and thorough in content, at least to one who has never been there. But the information seems a little disjointed and needs to be better brought together under each section heading. There are many statements such as "Dallasites are said to consider themselves more sophisticated than those in other parts of Texas" which need to be supported. And "Because Dallas and Houston are the two major economic centers of Texas, they enjoy a friendly rivalry" an example or two of this rivalry would be useful. I would have liked to have seen some written references in addition to internet links. Are the residents of Dallas really called Dallasites? (it sounds a little unfortunate to a European ear!) but if that's what they're called so be it. I'm sure the writer knows Dallas well, but he has to prove to those who don't that what is written is true. Giano 09:27, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Not as it is. I want this to become a featured article eventually, but the article needs a lot of work. The second half of the article is entirely lists and much of it shouldn't be. For example, it needs a full-blown history section, not just a list of important dates. I've been trying to get the ball rolling on a rewrite, but it's not there yet. RADICALBENDER★ 22:47, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • If its still on PNA it really shouldn't be here, no?--ZayZayEM 01:10, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] East Rail (KCRC)

I hereby nominate this article as the featured article. Anyone have any support, objection or comment? --Cheung1303 08:57, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. Too short. No references. Mgm|(talk) 09:38, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Mild object. This is much better than some of the other Hong Kong railway articles that have come through the nomination process, but it could still use some improvement: a) add a system map, b) the article uses several terms that are familiar to railroad hobbyists but not to the general public (i.e. "narrow gauge" and "standard gauge"; they are linked, but a short definition would be helpful), c) what gauge was it when the line was narrow gauge (I know that 3 ft is the most common in North America, but 1 meter is also quite common elsewhere), d) add a few more photos of current and historical operations, e) there are some phrases throughout the article that are a little jarring (i.e. "passing loop" instead of "siding", "the line was doubled" instead of "double tracked"), f) does the infobox have to be blue? g) tell us more in the article about the railroad's operations (i.e. how much freight and how many passengers are hauled in a year) h) Cite your sources. slambo 12:35, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Err... what they said. Too short. Lingo. References. Blue?--ZayZayEM 13:07, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object:Being too short should not be a standard reason to object - but here it is too short, lack of references aside, there must be loads more information that could be supplied - longer history of construction, historical background, reason for construction, any famous engineers involved?, monumental bridges? costs, finances - there must be something a bit more interesting about it than this, if it is to be a featured article. Giano 13:58, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Is this article just about a rail line itself (ie track), or do trains run on it? I saw mention of some in the box, but no text. How about some details about rolling stock, motive power, etc? Any individuals involved, officials, etc., and how is it governed? Vaoverland 17:35, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. What's with that UGLY blue infobox? And I renew my objections to multi-colored fonts. RickK 22:11, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Still Object Obviously, our suggestions for improvements fall on deaf ears for Cheung1303. I see no improvements, let's get this article off the fac deck, folks, and stop wasting our review time on it. 05:19, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tobacco

Well written and fairly comprehensive article about tobacco, covering its history, use and details about it. Has images, references, a good amount of detail and does not appear to be controversial. I only just came across it, but it appears to me to be one of the better articles I've read on Wikipedia. Mistertim 04:19, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Support, although I feel that the History section could use more content-- the introduction of tobacco into Europe was not without controversy and attempts at strict legal regulation or prohibition. Edeans 05:41, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I had not previously contributed to this article, but I agree with Edeans's comments. In response, I have enhanced the History section with some information about John Rolfe and the Colonial period in Virginia. I don't' have the information mentioned about the negative response in Europe, but that would help round out the History portion of article. Regarding the period since colonial days, although the tobacco companies in the U.S. have consolidated considerably, and appear to have taken a lower, profile in light of all the litigation, Philip Morris USA is still the largest employer here in Richmond, Virginia. I am not quite sure how to fit that information in, if it belongs in this article at all Vaoverland 08:29, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
    • I like Vaoverland's edit to the History section. Rolfe was a major player in tobacco's early export and promotion. I added a paragraph on one of tobacco's most notable and strident early opponents, King James VI / I. Further contributions are still needed, though. Edeans 19:52, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Minor objection. I think the history section is still too short. If the history is expanded, I'll be happy to support. Mgm|(talk) 09:45, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Tobacco is more than a nicotine source. Nothing on tobacco as a GMO/bioreactor.--ZayZayEM 13:03, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Object I concur; this article does a good job of discussing the cultural aspects of tobacco, but it needs better information about its properties (chemical and biological), and especially the objection mentioned above (should explain why tobacco is commonly used to research plant diseases/GMO).--Confuzion 07:57, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Minor objection. I've been a major contributor to the article, so this vote may not count. This objection may be contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia, but I've been quite pleased with how the article has evolved over the years. Featuring it could well call down legions of additional viewers, including hard-core ideologues from the pro- and anti- cigarette smoking camps. I concede that it could also have a positive effect, but I suspect that the small number of students of the history and biology of the plant and its culture will be overwhelmed by a shouting match. --Ben 21:16, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object This is well-written and interesting, but it needs a References section and some inline references. Also, there's no information about the health effects of using tobacco. I know there's another articles on tobacco smoking, but even so, there should be something in this article too. I would definitely support it if those two issues were addressed. SlimVirgin 12:56, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The history section is too short and talks only about what happened in Europe and US and only until 1883. How did it get from Europe to other places of world? Legal issues on tobacco like the taxation and the state monopoly are mostly missing as well. Revth 23:31, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. No references. Further reading is not the same thing, as that title is ambiguous as to whether the resource has been used for material and fact checking of the article or if it is just made available for more information for the reader. Also agree with the ommisions in topic coverage that SlimVirgin and Revth have pointed out. Finally, a minor point is where does the quote set of in the snuff section come from. It needs to say where it is from, otherwise it is just confusing nd incomplete. - Taxman 19:31, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Needs more on Native American usages, including ceremonial usages. And what's up with the headers with nothing below them? RickK 06:29, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
I've just finished fixing the header problem. I expect to flesh the culture section out quite a bit in the next week or so. Ben 02:54, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Macau

previous FAC (18:19, 26 January 2008)

[edit] Russia

previous FAC (04:36, 22 January 2008)

[edit] Singapore

The abovementioned article is informative and detailed, covering many aspects of the country and backed up with many good images. - Mailer Diablo 14:20, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. Johnleemk | Talk 15:15, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, though the writing style of the second paragraph of the history section is noticeably different than that of the rest of the article. --Spangineer ∞ 22:36, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support violet/riga (t) 23:45, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object for now: the single reference given (oddly given as one citation, but referring to several sites) does not, I presume, account for all the information in the article. Also the lead is inadequate: it needs an extra paragraph summarising the material in each section. Mark1 07:44, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, would still like to see more general and quality references. Insufficient references. Even three is borderline if they don't verify nearly all of the material in the article. Also an inconsistency I saw: The climate section notes "with no distinct seasons." and the next paragraph starts "The climate of Singapore can be divided into two main seasons,". For one, which is it?, and for another, citations to sources would help in cases like this and others. - Taxman 14:45, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
    • For the above two objections, I've checked and added references where the figures can be verified. The climate section has been corrected for consistency. - Mailer Diablo 09:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • That is better, but please format the references as in Wikipedia:Cite sources. Also it wouldn't be hard to get more reliable print references from the library I wouldn't think. - Taxman 13:52, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
        • Done. Mailer Diablo 16:24, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Doesn't that encourage people to include references that aren't used? That's not the objective, is it? violet/riga (t) 16:29, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • Of course not. The reference can be added after the fact if an editor uses it to check and verify the material in the article. That is the only way it can be acceptable. Mailer Diablo, can you confirm you actually read the added source and that it substantially agrees with what is in the relevant section? A general reference for the country as a whole would be ideal as there are still areas of the article that do not seem covered by the listed sources. - Taxman 20:00, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
            • For online references, they can be found in the 'External links' of various main sub-sections of the article and occasionally on the text itself. Except for a few outdated figures (like population) that I've changed or if my eyes missed anything out, the data should have been verified. I'll try and trace for more sources at best. :) - Mailer Diablo 20:13, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
              • You can also cite them directly in the references, as it's not obvious they were used if they're in the external links section. Johnleemk | Talk 13:47, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
            • Sorry but I do think that some editors will abuse it by seeing a references FAC objection and just stick them in to appease people. violet/riga (t) 11:51, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There are only links at the bottom to Communications in Singapore, Education in Singapore, Foreign relations of Singapore, Military of Singapore, Religion in Singapore, and Tourism in Singapore. These should all have their own sections, with the links to the main articles. Neutralitytalk 07:03, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
    • Done. Johnleemk | Talk 14:45, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Thanks, great work. But I'd also want some mention of J.B. Jeyaretnam and Michael Fay before I support, so I still object. Neutralitytalk 03:43, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
        • Done. - Mailer Diablo 09:18, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • Thanks. But the article has two issues that remain. First, the article should mention something (one or two sentences) about Singapore and the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake. Secondly, the "communications" section needs to be expanded (and a separate "media" section should also be made). Sentences like "The print media is dominated by a company with close ties to the government" are a bit vague; surely The Straits Times should be specifically mentioned. I still object. Great job on responding to voters so far! Regards --Neutralitytalk 16:55, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Singapore's one of the most important ports in the world, but there's no description of the modern port in the article. Also, land reclamation and fresh drinking water issues are too important not to be mentioned somewhere in the article.--Confuzion 09:02, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • There's something about the land and water issues now. Johnleemk | Talk 14:45, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Minor objections to the revised geography section: the section (and the main article linked to) should be called Geography and Geography of Singapore, since climate is one element of geography; also I would require some convincing that the northeast and southeast monsoons should have capital letters. Mark1 07:50, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I fixed the titling and linking, but I'm not sure why we capitalise the monsoons; we just do. In Malaysia they're capitalised in our Geography textbook, IIRC, so it's just convention here, I guess. Johnleemk | Talk 08:19, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support I liked the sectioning, with the ability to go to the various separate articles if the reader wants to learn more. The article made it easy to learn about the city, when most of my previous knowledge was the bad press the Michael Fay vandalism and caning incident got a few years ago. Good job, here. Vaoverland 21:09, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object - The panoramic picture at the end doesn't have a source and looks like it's been scanned from a book. I thought there was no need to mention Michael Fay except in Laws of Singapore but if Neutrality and Vaoverland wants it then so be it. Other than that it looks good. --JuntungWu 11:20, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Left a message on uploader (Mjanich)'s talk page and see if he responds. --JuntungWu 11:21, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Incidentally, a small panorama at the bottom of the article isn't doing much good anyway. Regardless of the source, I think we could stand losing it. Mark1 03:51, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Agreed. Removed. Johnleemk | Talk 14:15, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • In which case strong support. --JuntungWu 15:56, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • The Michael Fay case was and still is for most people the cause for most of what they know about modern Singapore. It also represented the biggest diplomatic issue between the US and Singapore in recent years. So yes I think it is worth mentioning, even while taking into account that not everything should revolve around US affected issues. - Taxman 13:37, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The present page is still rather messy. There are purple patches of prose all over, and some are unnecessarily detailed while others sketchy. This is still very far from a featured article, unless someone do some judicious copyedit in my opinion. Mandel 09:48, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disneyland

recreated from incorrectly archived nom at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Disneyland
  • I believe that Disneyland should be a featured article on Wikipedia simply because of the vast attention to detail that all contributors have put into it. It is one of the finest and most informative articles on Wikipedia without becoming too daunting. It is not biased, with opinions rarely seen. There is information about it's creation right through to what is going on immediately now. I think it deserves credit, and I think the best way for the article to recieve credit is for it to be featured on Wikipedia's main page.

Andy, 9 January 2005, 13:18 (UTC)

  • Object. No references and far too short lead section for an article this size. Johnleemk | Talk 13:24, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object: needs totally resectioning - it's currently quite confusing and some top-level headers are far too short. violet/riga (t) 14:31, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. It needs a lot more work, which I've been putting into it today, but there's still more to be done - it contained much redundant information and duplicated information in List of current Disneyland attractions, and contained a bit of POV-ish text. - Brian Kendig 03:24, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm starting to agree with what you are saying. When it has been drastically cleared up, I'll apply again. By the way, what does POV mean? Andy 17:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • "POV" means "point of view," or text that's subtly or overtly subjective. See WP:NPOV. - Brian Kendig 02:23, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support There has been quite a bit of collaborative improvements done on this article since it was nominated, although discussion about improvements has been on the article's talk page instead of here, and a couple of related articles also got written and/or improved in the process. I believe that the POV stuff has been addressed. It's worth an fresh look and maybe a vote if you looked it over and withheld judgment earlier, as I did. After, all , let's not forget, it all started with a mouse. <gr> Vaoverland 05:13, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linux

I am suprised that this hasn't pass as "featured article" the first time round. It may not be the best technically written article [5], but it is definitely the most entertaining to read. Squash 02:38, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  1. Enjoyable to read
  2. Long article
  3. Addresses a variety of things
  4. Wikilinks to long related articles
  • Support Nominator supports. Squash 00:51, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • And also a frequently-changing platform for all sorts of personal crusades. Object. Almafeta 04:27, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Not actionable == Therefore invalid.  ALKIVAR™ 06:28, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I've got to object to this one, much of the article reads more like apologetics than a neutral treatment. There is also a great deal of unreferenced material in there. iMeowbot~Mw 14:58, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Unreference material. Have you got any examples? Squash 02:59, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, as a regular contributor. It's a continuous edit war and attracts the sort of open source advocate who thinks POV is something like FUD and is therefore something he couldn't possibly do. Specific objections: 1. hagiographic. 2. In dire need of criticisms section that will survive the advocates. 3. In dire need of stabilisation in a way that will survive the advocates. Needs to be structured so obviously correctly that it will survive the advocates. Should be much longer in general, I suspect, though that's not specific enough to be actionable. Also, it failed a nomination a few months ago. - David Gerard 23:07, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - Constant edit wars happen on many articles, that should not however be a reason to deny FAC listing.  ALKIVAR™ 06:28, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Edit wars are a sufficient anti-FAC reason. These articles display the best of wikipedia, Edit wars are not the best of wikipedia.--ZayZayEM 08:56, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Every single article to reach the mainpage ends up with some sort of an edit war, sorry but to deny it simply for that fact is idiotic.  ALKIVAR™ 02:33, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • No they don't. Many get vandalized a bit or a lot, but that is very different from edit warring. Many get vandalized hardly at all and have no edit war to speak of. And edit wars after being placed in the most prominent place on one of the top 100 sites in the English language is a different thing than being in an edit warring state while being nominated. More simply no ongoing edit wars is one of the criteria by which to decide whether an article should be featured or not. You should read those. Finally, if you want your opinion to be heard and valued, you would be better off not calling someone's opinion "idiotic". - Taxman 20:28, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
          • Taxman is correct and ZayZayEM is incorrect. Being prone to edit wars does not, in and of itself, disqualify an article from being featurable; however, being the subject of a current NPOV/accuracy dispute is. So if the contributors to a particular article are able to hammer out their differences, there's nothing to stop a particular article from being featurable. On the other hand, David seems to think that this article has problems with exactly that. →Raul654 05:42, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Agree with David Gerard. Saw some additional things too: all of the references are to pro Linux resources. That shows through in the positive POV in the article. Citing statements to sources to avoid POV especially on contentious points, is part of what is needed to reach NPOV. Also, besides the intro and saying the word free sofware, nothing else I saw in the article covers the GPL and the implications caused by the kernel and much of the rest of the distribution being licensed that way. That point doesn't need to dominate the article and we must be careful that it doesn't, but it should at least be covered with a paragraph or so. Perhaps it should be mentioned in the lead section as it is one of the defining characteristics. As mentioned, simply saying it is free software and linking to that is not enough. - Taxman 16:29, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object' "Usability and market share" seems like a POV screed. For instance, we have the following: "However, argued advantages of Linux, such as lower cost, fewer security vulnerabilities, and lack of vendor lock-in have spurred a growing number of high-profile cases of mass adoption of Linux by corporations and governments for specific purposes." I see no qualifications of who those high-profile mass adoption cases are, I don't believe that it's correct that there are fewer security vulnerabilities (I was under the impression there are just as many, only they are fixed faster due to being open source). This bit has no information about KDE or GNOME, which makes a lot of sense due to the fact that these are very usable now, and the GNOME project has software guidelines and has done user testing, while KDE is very easy to use and keeps getting easier. Under the "Support" section there is no information about LinuxCare or other Linux support options, or anything about highly-qualified support staff. There is no section about Linux certifications. There is no section that gives a run-down of the main distributions like Debian, RedHat, Gentoo and Slackware (for instance). There section on software development doesn't seem to cover kernel development or libraries. The history section is missing a whole bunch of info on the history of Linux, such as the Debian project starting, the Mindcraft trials, the starting of RedHat, the Andy Tanenbaum vs. Linus Torvalds flamewar, etc, etc, etc. Overall, too many objections for this article as it's not complete enough. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:18, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hmm... I'll have to agree with you on the POV issue Squash 02:59, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Logo programming language

Having used LOGO in the past in elementary school, I feel that this is an appropriate featured article due to its length and comprehensiveness.

  • Object. The examples are nice, but are they encyclopedic? One or two should be enough. Furthermore, a bibliography is not the same as references. Last but not least, more on the history of the language is needed. Johnleemk | Talk 13:37, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] David Irving

Self nomination, an extensive and detailed look into his controversial life and work. GeneralPatton 03:02, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(Previous nomination is here). Mark1 04:39, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support An important and interesting article, comprehensive, well written, and highly readable. I would personally like to see more inline references; for example, where it says Irving referred to the judge as "Mein FŸhrer," it would be good to see a link to a newspaper article about that, but that's just my preference. Slim 06:10, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Doesn't mention his activities during the Hitler Diaries affair of 1983 which are extensively described in Robert Harris' book "Selling Hitler". What about his activities with the Clarendon Club and the Focus Policy Group? And then there is this sentence:
In 1977, Irving released his most notorious book, Hitler's War, the first of his two-part biography of Hitler, the 1991 edition of which could be read only at the desk in the British Library's Rare Books Room, a space reserved for literature the librarian deems pornographic
For one thing, as any BL reader will tell you the Rare Books Room is one of the main reading rooms and is far from "reserved for literature the librarian deems pornographic". For another, it does not appear to be true that a reader may only consult the 1991 edition of Hitler's War in the Rare Books Room, not from this catalogue entry at least which shows a standard Humanities classmark. Dbiv 14:42, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It doesn't say that the Rare Books Room is for pornography. It says that there is a desk in the Rare Books Room that is reserved for material the library deems pornographic, and that Irving's Hitler War had to be read at that desk. The source is Prof. Richard J. Evans in Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust and the David Irving Trial, as follows: "I was startled to find that the 1991 edition of Hitler's War could only be read at the desk in the Rare Books Room of the British Library reserved for literature deemed by the library to be pornographic," (from the Basic Books paperback edition, p. 31). For those not familiar with Evans, he's a professor of history at Cambridge and was the chief expert witness for Penguin at the David Irving libel trial. Slim 15:41, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
As written, it does say that the Rare Books Room is reserved for porn. The libel trial also shows that, if this observation was ever true, it has long since ceased to be as Prof. Evans accepted that the 1991 edition of Hitler's War was now as available to BL readers as any other book. There is the distinct whiff of POV here, as indeed is throughout the article. Dbiv 15:54, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
No, as written, it doesn't say that. It says: "In 1977, Irving released his most notorious book, Hitler's War, the first of his two-part biography of Hitler, the 1991 edition of which could be read only at the desk in the British Library's Rare Books Room, a space reserved for literature the librarian deems pornographic (Evans 2001)." Where has Evans written about it being as available as any other book? If you have a source for that, then put it in the article after that sentence. What is the POV that you feel you are seeing throughout the article? Slim 16:07, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
"could be read only at the desk in the BL's Rare Books Room, a space reserved". The room is a space reserved etc. This badly written sentence says that the Rare Books Room is reserved for porn. I never said that Evans had "written about it being as available as any other book" but he did so testify in the libel trial: see transcript, day 18, page 111: "Q. You say that, when you went to the British Museum Reading Room, you asked for a copy of my book Hitler's War, and it was not in the public shelves. Is that correct? A. No. It was on the public shelves. Q. It was on the public shelves? A. Well, I mean as I say, it was available to everybody who had access to the British library." (see source which I know is Irving's site but the trial transcripts appear genuine and unaltered). As far as POV, the article is full of it: to pick three examples, "in reality the book was an attempt at character assassination", "Irving mis-represented various incidents .." and "for the most part it was an incomprehensible and tedious propaganda piece that read as though it had come straight out of Goebbels propaganda ministry" (the latter reporting the views of unidentified others). Dbiv 16:21, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Could you please present me the evidence that the opinion of the majority of mainstream historians does in fact differ from those quotes? GeneralPatton 16:47, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
it's now been rephrased into "In 1977, Irving released his most notorious book, Hitler's War, the first of his two-part biography of Hitler, the 1991 edition of which was for a time at British Library available only at desk reserved for literature the librarian deems pornographic in the LibraryÕs Rare Books Room (Evans 2001)." GeneralPatton 16:37, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You implied above that you're familiar with the Rare Books Room, so you presumably know which desk Evans is referring to. The "space reserved" refers to the desk, not the Room. If you feel the sentence is awkwardly written, by all means change it. You're citing transcripts which appear to contradict what Evans said in his book, yet he wrote the book after the trial. It should be easy enough to sort out though. All we have to do is ask him, bearing in mind that Wikipedia can only published what has been published elsewhere. But perhaps the contradiction has been resolved elsewhere, and perhaps Evans can enlighten us. You don't say which book you're referring to regarding the character assassination. The misrepresentation of incidents can hardly be described as POV: Evans carefully documents Irving's misuse of material. As for the last statement about the tedious propaganda piece, it's fine if it's quoting others, but there should be an inline reference, which was the point I made above. But NPOV doesn't mean you're not allowed to quote people who express their POV, so long as they are reputable sources. And in Irving's case, because of the libel trial, his misuse of material can hardly be doubted, and the sources could hardly be more reputable. Slim 17:08, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
I am familiar with the BL as it is now. Before 1999 it was much different, based on several different sites; since then it moved to a single building designed by Colin St. John Wilson. Also I don't consult pornography at the BL (I have better things to do there) so I don't know exactly where the mucky books desk is, nor where it was before the move. Evans clearly put in his witness statement that he was required to consult Hitler's War at the mucky books desk, before writing his book about the trial. The quotes I gave are examples of POV from the David Irving article - look for them yourself. Dbiv 02:04, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Focusing too much on the Rare Books Room. Just to restore the topic. Are there other objections? As Dbiv mentioned above, "Doesn't mention his activities during the Hitler Diaries affair of 1983 which are extensively described in Robert Harris' book 'Selling Hitler'. What about his activities with the Clarendon Club and the Focus Policy Group?" Peter O. (Talk) 00:08, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
No problem, I'm working on Clarendon Club and the Focus Policy Group as well as Hitler's Diaries materials. GeneralPatton 01:27, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The article is clearly a defamation, most of the text supporting Irving is "in quotes", even such things as "from Hitlers point of view" and Keegan's quotes, but stuff discrediting him is without quotes. All links under article (except his homepage) are of "big nazi conspiracy" type, but there are a number of supportive websites, which are not presented. Anti-Irving books have links and ISBN numbers, none of Irving books have. However, the most critical errors in this article are not those little POV problems, but the way facts are messed up with irrelevant propaganda. This should be divided into two parts, one dealing with facts about David Irving and another named David_Irving_Controversy. In the last one we can deal with Deborah Lipstadt and such, without forgetting to mention how many millions of dollars and first class lawyers went into defeating David Irving who represented himself alone. 14:20, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Could I request that the anonymous objections above and below this are not counted? These anons have no edit history other than to make a couple of pro-Irving edits. Irving himself has a reputation for monitoring references to his name on the Internet and rebutting anonymously. SlimVirgin 01:04, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. As Keegan points out he is (in the German WWII area) most knowledgeable man living, one expects such people to be a bit eccentric. None would object if some professor studying Roman Empire would wear funny robes or talk in latin sometimes. So why mix his biography with such emotional stuff? I would qualify this as a smear job.
  • David Irving's objectionable agenda, and intellectual dishonesty in support of such, go far beyond the bounds of being "a bit eccentric". Irving is a historical revisionist (i.e., a bare-faced liar) who has been objectively discredited (in a court of law, as well as the court of academic discourse) as a historian, and is about as worthy of intellectual deference as David Icke. Claiming that that's just one opinion is an error of omission much like claiming that evolution or spherical-earth geography is "just a theory" no better or worse than the alternatives. Acb 00:45, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Well-written and comprehensive. I find these POV objections ridiculous; most people in the discipline do think Irving is disreputable. Saying that most people think he's a fraud is not at all the same as saying he is a fraud -- it's just that you'll be hard-pressed to find many people who've gone on record as supporting him. Madame Sosostris 04:50, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object It's the subject not the article that is being promoted in this repeater. There are many better vitæ in Wikipedia. --Wetman 02:06, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dungeons & Dragons

I'm nominating the D&D page because I feel like having just had its 30th anniversary, this gaming classic needs to be featured in order to spark new interest in it. Feel free to destroy this idea if you don't like it. --mathx314

W00t, yeah. Let's do it.--68.81.70.59 01:16, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I guess thats a Support  ALKIVAR™
  • Support with conditions... it desperately needs a proofreading, I know there are spelling mistakes. it also could probably stand to have some of the subsections spun off into their own articles (its huge).  ALKIVAR™ 01:24, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Desperately needs more references (though some of the external links are helpful in this regard). Remember that Wikipedia does not publish original research, so personal knowledge from an ill-spent youth does not qualify.  ;-) Of course, the game books themselves are good references for the rules and publication history, but there are lots of statements about the economics, public/customer perceptions, Gygax's motivations, etcetera, whose sources are unclear to me. —Steven G. Johnson 02:01, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Agree with above comment on copyedits, in particular the annoying switching between D&D and DnD, and references. Also: 1) it is unclear whether the manuals listed existed for each edition. 2) The article is very D&D-centric in that it is big on D&D's influence on other RPGs but not the influence on D&D of other games. No mention of the revolution of gaming mechanics in the early 90s that made 2E THAC0 a game-stopper and led to numerous revisions in 3E. Was the decline in 2E D&D a result of market share loss to other games or a loss of popularity of RPGs as a whole? The end of "controversy" doesn't mention the influence WoD and horror RPGs like Cthulu on the Book of Vile Darkness. Or how semi-generic systems like Palladium came up with the idea of multiple games using one system and led to D20. There doesn't seem to be any mention of the criticisms of D&D within the gaming commmunity about "roll-playing", alignments as an unrealistic constraint, etc. 3) More specificity in place of "featured just a few character classes", "many purists...did not like" and "on some level CCGs... owe a respectful nod", or references would be useful. 4) The departure of the founders of the game is a major event. Why did it happen? 5) No mention of the short-lived comic book series "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Forgotten Realms" by DC, or the collectible trading cards. BanyanTree 04:57, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support but only after rework. It is a very good article now, but I don't think it one of Wikipedia's best until more hard work goes into correcting the copyedits and references. Johntex 19:10, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, great article with tons of information on a large subject. Copyedits couldn't hurt. — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:19, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support!!!--Dapsone 01:21, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Abstain, same reasons as Alkivar and Johntex. I did some resectioning, the article is good, but I cannot support it *until* they are adressed. History and legacy might be merged altogether, and critisims should be perhaps moved up and given some contrarguments?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:52, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I have to disagree that history and legacy should be merged... they are two unrelated things. history is its development, legacy is what it has influenced since its creation, in other words History -> D&D -> Legacy -> XYZ. I feel those should be kept seperate.  ALKIVAR™ 02:09, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Almafeta 04:29, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Good article on a somewhat maligned game. 129.177.61.124 09:56, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Was all this made up out of thin air? References are a basic criteria for featured articles. - Taxman 20:45, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object until references are added. Masterhomer 06:09, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object: aside from other good reasons already raised, the article fails to cover how the mismanagement of the D&D brand bankrupted TSR. -Sean Curtin 06:43, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. Someone has moved this off of the Featured Article Candidates. Is this intentional, or simply an act of vandalism? --mathx314 22:43 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support and Comment: D&D definitely deserves featured article. It was intentional, however I do not know why. LordMooCow 08:40 3 July 2005 (GMT+10)

[edit] Web traffic

Article has undergone significant changes over the past months and is now at least getting towards a featured article. Was on peer review where Johnleemk was the only person to respond, commenting about the lead section and references – both have been updated though I do worry about all-web references. violet/riga (t) 22:23, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Example graph of web traffic at Wikipedia in December 2004
Example graph of web traffic at Wikipedia in December 2004

Otherwise, an informative article.

Jon, Conqueror of Men | (Talk!) 23:18, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • While I agree partly with that objection I must say that in order to show a graph of web traffic it had to be about a site, and choosing any other site than Wikipedia might show bias. I went with the thought that this instance of self-referencing was acceptable. violet/riga (t) 23:43, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • google any MRTG graph... find a site that was slashdotted and graphed the traffic... theres lots of other alternatives that are not self-referential. Examples:[6] [7]  ALKIVAR™ 05:07, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Since the graph itself doesn't reference Wikipedia perhaps the caption could simply be changed to "Example graph of web traffic at a popular website". violet/riga (t) 12:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • You should by no means worry about all web sources, provided those external links have been used as references—used as sources for the facts in the article. (I'm more worried about the hints that sometimes seem to creep into reference discussions, that books are the only really solid references, no matter the subject.) Only, if you want to be sure of meeting the rather strict referencing standards that seem to be on the way in for Featured articles, you need to do them up a bit more. There are three proper places for them: 1. In the text, if they're being invoked as evidence for a particular point. (Alternatively those could be footnotes, but I wouldn't go there.) 2. In a section at the end headed "References". This is the vital one (Taxman will look for it! :-P), where all links should go that have been used more generally as sources for facts and factchecking. In my opinion any references from 1) should be repeated in this section, too. 3. In another section at the end headed "External links". This is for links that are not sources, but that you recommend as useful/interesting further reading. Use 1) and 3) if they're appropriate; always use 2). Format the links according to this MOS section. For links in the "References" section, note especially the requirement for retrieval dates (that impresses the hell out of people, and then they won't bother to check 'em ;-)). Finally, don't lose the useful comments on the sources that you have now, make room for them, too. Hope this helps.--Bishonen | Talk 00:36, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Apparently not, sorry if it was over-technical, or confusing in some other way. There is still no distinction made between sources and further reading, and the reader doesn't have any way of telling which is which. I have to object on that score.--Bishonen | Talk 11:22, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I was leaving the article alone until other people commented, which they appear not to want to! I've played around with it and split it into References and External links – let me know if you think that is better or if there's anything further that you suggest. violet/riga (t) 12:47, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • No, that's it, it's lovely. It's very nicely done, even without the retrieval dates. If you want to go for orgasmic perfection, see the reference at the bottom of the Wikipedia:Cite sources page for a plain example of retrieval dating (the reference itself, not the style guides that it links to!). Not sure what the dates you've added are, but "retrieval" (=the day you looked) is the only safe websource dating.--Bishonen | Talk 14:20, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • The dates given are when the article was written/created. I've added retrieval dates on there too, though they have had to be approximate. violet/riga (t) 19:49, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I would also like to see some more work from other Wikipedians on this article, but I would also vote for it to be featured as it is.--AAAAA 04:24, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Space Race

Very complete take on an important chpater of the 1960s and 1970s. DAVODD 07:02, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

  • Overall, very good. One comment, though, the References section uses a different format than the norm (as shown in Cite your sources and used in Template:Book reference) that doesn't include the publishers' names. Other than that, Support. slambo 11:21, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: This VERY GOOD article was nominated just last month as FAC, and narrowly lost out due to more than one reviewer noting there was little or no discussion of the broader implications and results of the "race". I had done a lot of the work responding to other (at the time glaring) problems in the article, but stopped short (for the time being) of those last fixes. A question was also raised as to the thoroughness of the "deaths" section. Sfahey 16:28, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, for the same reasons the last nomination failed. The article is incomplete - the sections on the economic, technological and political consequences of the space race are either brief or nonexisitng. The fact that the article does a superb job in discussing the history of the space race is not enough for me. And even the history is still buggy - comapring 1990s Russian Aviation and Space Agency to 1958 NASA would be rather funny - if this wasn't a supposedly reliable encylopedic article. See also Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations#Space race for the previous nomination objections. Until they are resolved, this article cannot be featured. Note: I could support the article if it would be a 'History of the space race' subsection of some other, major article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:57, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. There is a lot of great stuff in here, but some work seems necessary. In addition to Piotr's remarks: 1) Until the "Funding" section (which could be better named), the story is chronological, but after that there are some "intermezzi", which kind of disturb the storyline, even though it is still mostly chronological. I would think it is best to keep the first part purely chronological, and put the summarizing or general stuff at the end. Maybe this means just moving a few sections. 2) "The most definitive "end" to the Space Race might be considered to be the joint Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz mission of 1975." - a bit more on this is needed. 3) Some sections are ridiculously short. "Notable scientists" only mentions two persons by name, and "The legacy of the Space Race" consists of a single sentence. 4) I think the "Recent developments" and "Additional "space races"" sections do not belong in this article. They might belong in a space race (lower case) article, or else in the history of space travel or so. Jeronimo 20:26, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Despite what others said, I think it is good enough.. Squash 09:54, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Jeronimo's advice is sound and very well taken, but I'm confident that the active editors will be able to resolve the said objections-- all of which are pretty minor, in time for feature, so I'll vote to support now. 172 02:07, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, for the record. I agree with Sfahey, Piotrus, and Jeronimo. Just failed a month ago for the reason that it is not close to comprehensive on its subject. - Taxman 15:10, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] United Kingdom corporation tax

Self-nomination. No comments from peer review, or from a shameless bit of advertising on Jimbo's talk page, though I did receive his best wishes for the article in return:) Would welcome all comments needed to make this a FA. jguk 16:19, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Object, I think the first thing you need to do is move it. I see that it started life as a stub about corporation tax in general, with the UK situation only an "example", but was shorn of non-UK material (admittedly there wasn't a lot of it) by you on December 4. I can't say I approve of narrowing a general subject in this way. Was there any particular reason why you took over the general article, rather than create a specific and appropriately named UK article? It's fine to have an article about ct in the UK, but not so fine to imply that being in the UK is part of the definition of ct. Heck, what am I saying, "imply"? Your first sentence defines the concept of ct as "a direct tax levied in the United Kingdom". That's not a correct definition.--Bishonen | Talk 21:18, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • The reason all the old material disappeared is because it was either incorrect or of little value. Austria, Germany, France and the Netherlands have taxes with different names, which do not belong under "corporation tax" (I have moved the older article to corporate tax). Admittedly some other territories, such as Ireland, also have a tax called "Corporation tax", which don't yet have an article. I would have no objection to renaming the article UK Corporation tax, however, if that were the general consensus. Do you have any objections other than the name (which can be easily dealt with)? jguk 15:41, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Well, I'd be interested to see more practical info in the reference section about how to access your refs. Are those acts and documents available online thorugh the Inland Revenue website (or otherwise)? I wasn't able to get anywhere on that website itself--admittedly that could be me (it happens to me at lot). But it seems to be necessary to register and then await some sort of code sent by snailmail. It looked to me like this cumbersome registration process would only work for UK residents ("The Government Gateway uses the postal address registered on the Inland Revenue systems to send you confirmation of your User ID and your service Activation PIN"), and without registration there was nothing doing. Could you explain to me if I just got lost, and there's a better way? If the site is only accessible to UK residents, and the other references are only available through the site, you would need to acknowledge the fact and add some refs for international readers, naturally. But I'm very willing to believe the problem comes from my limited Internet skills, please clear it up for me.--Bishonen | Talk 16:25, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • I've improved the links (so that where something is available online, there is now a link to it). I've changed the link to the Inland Revenue website too: it now points directly to the corporation tax section. I think you must have been clicking on the bit to register to pay corporation tax (which is very decent of you, but may not be necessary:). ) jguk 17:14, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • But I wanna! Sheesh. OK, now they're lovely references, thanks. I'll leave the objection about the name, to tip other people off to think about it, but I'll remove it later if nobody else sees a problem there.--Bishonen | Talk 17:34, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. It's actually interesting up to the detailed schedules ;-) - David Gerard 14:47, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I think it should be mentioned somewhere that for a long time, the small companies rate of Corporation tax was kept in line with the base rate of income tax. Otherside, support. Dbiv 15:39, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I've added a new subsection to the history bit that covers rates, including the pegging of the small companies' rate to the basic rate of income tax, jguk 21:39, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • The redirect at Corporation tax needs to be taken care of--Jiang 03:30, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I thought I had dealt with it. Maybe you could comment on the talk page if you think more needs doing, jguk 21:12, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object for now - an excellent start, but (from a quick review) there are some significant holes: (i) nothing about loss relief (particularly group relief); (ii) nothing about the expanding effect of recent ECJ judgments in recent years (e.g. amendments to group relief in response to ICI v. Colmer; Hoechst and Metallgesellschaft finding that ACT was discriminatory soon after it was abolished; and amendments to thin capitalisation and transfer pricing in response to Bosal Holdings and Lankhorst-Hohorst) and the potential ramifications of upcoming judgments (particularly the Marks & Spencer cross border loss relief case); (iii) example calculations would be helpful to explain how the marginal rate regimes work to effectively "catch up" on the corporation tax due; (iv) nothing on the new rate for non-corporate distributions (under which small companies effectively pay 19% on profits distributed to individuals, reducing the tax advantage of trading through a small company); and (v) the electronic references are fine, but surely there should be some paper references - there are dozens sitting only a few feet from me right now.
I've been away over the holiday period, and would really like to give the article a proper review when I have time over the next couple of days. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:38, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • (i) I've added something on group relief (please feel free to simplify/tweak). Loss relief more generally is too complicated for a short article - I've added a link to a more comprehensive article, which can be written up later. (ii) I've added a section on ECJ judgments (iii) Don't know what you mean here by "effectively "catch[ing] up" on the corporation tax due" - though I'm seeing if I can add an example computation in (iv) have now made a reference to this under "Rates" (v) There's so much on the net in the world of tax, I haven't found anything I can only source for which I can't give an online reference - and most people find these more useful. I could refer to Simon's, but those who would read it are already aware of it. (vi) Let me know the outcome of your review - or just make the changes to the article yourself (it could do with more active contributors to it), jguk 21:25, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Democratic peace theory

Self-nomination. --Neutralitytalk 03:33, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • I read this one a while back and, while it does seem well-written, it also seems a bit short to be featured. I'm torn. Everyking 04:57, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Good article. Support. Andre (talk) 16:17, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The article needs to be much more up front about how dubious this theory is. Statements like "Using some 2,000 cases of war or other armed conflicts, the Correlates of War Project did not find a single case where the theory did not hold" makes the theory sound rather impressive but this result was achieved by defining away all instances where one democracy fought another. For example, they didn't count wars between democracies within the same country such as the American Civil War or the Croatian War of 1991, or cases where a democracy went to war before its first change of government, such as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, or undeclared wars like Operation PBSUCCESS. And so on. The theory is a lot like the No true Scotsman fallacy. Another "anti" argument points out the scarcity of democracies before 1945 and the very few international wars since 1945 and notes that a theory based on a handful of events may not have much predictive power. Anyway, the mere falsity of the theory shouldn't rule out the article being featured, but the article — and particularly the lead section — needs to present the "anti" position as fairly and as neutrally as the "pro" position. Gdr 19:21, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
  • Weak Object (15% over Support)
  1. The article rates low in an online readability test. (See Readability test)
  2. Shocking (for a FAC) Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test Index (A US Government standard) of only 47.2 (Most articles should be at least 60 at very minimum). It is not easily to be read by non-college people. I assume this as 0-30 is the college graduate score and 60 and above is general public.
  3. There are 59 (48% of article) short sentences (14 words). 30% (37 % of article) long sentences (29 words) which is not consistent at all.
  4. 2288 words, I think it is fairly too short for an article such as this one. I think it can be expanded a little bit more and more accompaning picture. Squash 23:01, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I don't know why you're talking about reading level, Squash, but I can read it just fine, and I'm not a college student. I'm in eleventh grade. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|User:Premeditated Chaos/Sig]] 01:04, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. Having taken IR 101, and written a paper making many of the same arguments, I agree strongly with Gdr. Noah Peters 06:33, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)Noah Peters

[edit] 1999 in music (UK)

Thought I'd nominate a slightly unusual article. This is primarily a chart summary of music in the UK in 1999 (that and the 2000s years have been started to date). Mostly worked on by an anon (81.155.151.132, now going under the name Ultimate Star Wars Freak I believe) after I created the chart tables and did a short summary. violet/riga (t) 22:17, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Support - Good idea, this is what all 'Year in music' pages should look like! David 5000 22:48, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • object While an OK article, it only has one reference and is at least half lists. --[jon] 23:20, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • With regards to the number of references, well that is the only one! All the information comes from that single reference or from the linked articles (ie. Westlife etc). The second point, well I think that there's enough of the writing for it to classify as a featured article. violet/riga (t) 23:36, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Bush Me Up 00:27, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Its okay-ish but with statements like "...it was necessary for 1999 to be a memorable year in music" and "Fusion kings, the Chemical Brothers knocked Jamiroquai off the No.1 slot..." it osunds more like material for SmashHits Magazine than Encyclopedia FA status. Also fallacy in the second sentance; I don't know Wikipedia's official line – but 2000 was the actual end of the millenium not 1999.--ZayZayEM 08:41, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm aware that the anon that expanded it greatly has used some "magaziney" language and am cleaning it up slowly. As for the millennium ending, while not technically 1999 it is popularly 1999. If the writing style were to be improved would it have your support? (I'm off to do some more in a second) violet/riga (t) 14:19, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Removed what I believe to be the remainder of that type of language - if there's any more then please feel free to just delete the sentence and I'll sort it out. violet/riga (t) 15:56, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Better... But I'm still objecting. Same reasons as before. Additionally insomniac mullings ended up with wondering if this should be 1999 in Pop Music (UK) it seems rather focused on official mainstream charts and popular music.--ZayZayEM 06:24, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Longest word in English

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is not the actual word. Sesquipedalia phobia is the true Fear of Long Words. The Hippoptomonstroses was added later as a way to make the word longer. Hippotomonstroses is huge water horse, and is in no relation to the actual fear of long words.

Fascinating article that is unique to Wikipedia and could only have been created with much deliberation and compromise that is at the core of any good Wikipedia article.--The_stuart 20:29, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. No references, mediocre lead section and inappropriate bolding of words. Johnleemk | Talk 05:25, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, for the following reasons: jguk 10:29, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
1. The bit on "constructions" seems to be a long self-reference to Wikipedia.
So, should I hunt up a dictionary or paper encyclopedia that uses the word, and reference it instead? --Carnildo 05:07, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If you can find one - I'm not aware of any one of those longer than "antidisestablishmentarianism" being used in practice, though I'm quite prepared to be proved wrong.
The main point of that section is how long words can be constructed. Using "contraneoantidisestablishmentarianalistically" from Wikipedia is just a convienient source of a long composite word. --Carnildo 08:20, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
2. Doesn't "antidisestablishmentarianism" relate specifically to a 19th century movement against the disestablishment of the Church of England?
Changed --Carnildo 05:07, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
3. All the places names but one aren't English - and then, what about English place names outside the US? Or if the US one is included as it's the longest English name in the world, say so.
4. Still can't work out why "Sesquipedalianism" deserves a mention. If you want to mention really long words in ancient languages, look at Aeschylus first.
Self-referential humor, mainly. It's a notable long word used to describe long words. --Carnildo 05:07, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
5. The sentence "a more likely clinical name for the fear would be sesquipedaliaphobia" is untrue. "-phobia" is Greek. "sesquipedalia-" is Latin. A clinical name for such a fear (if it existed) would just use Greek. No piccis (could have one of Mary Poppins or Big Bird, for instance).
The whole Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia paragraph is there because I got tired of removing it after each time some kid finds the article. If you could suggest a likely actual name for the fear, I'll replace sesquipedaliaphobia with it; or I could just remove the entire paragraph. --Carnildo 05:07, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Sounds like you think it should be deleted. I agree with you, it doesn't add anything for me. I haven't done any Ancient Greek for nearly 15 years, so I can't help you with a properly constructed word.
Removed. --Carnildo 08:20, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
6.By the way, there are references throughout the article (eg to the Guinness Book of Records, Shakespeare, etc.) They just need to be consolidated down the bottom. Mind you, an act and line number for the Shakespeare might be interesting too (or perhaps a longer quotation to put the word into full context).
Wikipedia:Cite your sources says that in-text citations are acceptible. --Carnildo 08:20, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Neutral I like the article, but there are no references and not a very good introduction (as Johnleemk said). I shall stay neutral on this. Squash 09:44, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object I don't think this article is very informative. It's bulky, saying what could be said in a few words in many. -GregNorc (talk)

I would think that pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis deserves a mention. It's also called Black Lung.

[edit] Kardashev scale

(self-nomination) I put this through peer review with no response. I believe it needs some more work, nothing very major, but I do not have the time right now to do it. Basically, I would like an opinion as to if this is to featured article specifications--in that does it need more work. My gripes and grievances are listed on the to-do list on the article's talk page- please look at it, in the "copy" of what I originally posted on peer review. I know this is nonstandard, but basically, I want to know if no one responded on peer review because the article was up to spec, or because they were not interested. Well on to the discussion.

[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 01:21, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Revised by --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 00:40, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC) so it did not take up so much of the page.

Please check the article's talk page.

  • Object - no lead image (hardly any images at all); the lead is far too long and detailed. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:53, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Are you objecting on the idea that the first section really should be split into 5 (I think it should, see the talk page)? Or are you objecting because there is too much information? --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 00:53, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • Images added and then removed, I can't win! --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 17:56, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • Images addded
      • Lead shortenned, second half move to its own section, more appropriate due to the nature of applying the Kardashev scale to human civilization, whose type does not yet exist. Has the page been fixed to your satisfaction? --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 03:31, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Neutral. Object. 1) The "hypothetical futures" section seems to be original research. 2) The "Current values" table and calculations report ten or even thirteen significant digits, which conveys false precision. 3) The calculations after the table need to be explained better. 4) Overall the article seems to be a mix of science, science fiction and unfalsifiable speculation. Maybe the science and the fiction should be split into separate articles. PRiis 20:30, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC) PRiis 20:58, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • 1) I broght together many souces. A lot of people say this stuff, just that it is all over the place, from Issac Asimov to Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking. That is why there are so many sources. That reminds me that I have to include Stephen Hawking's life in the universe cd as a source, it has a large discussion of hypotheticals by Hawking himself, but not in relation to Kardashev Scale, but into information expansion and anthorpic theory, but along pararell lines of discussion of net energy needed to maintain sentient being status (sentient beings are both entropic and anti-entropic) grows on a exponential scale in relation to the real information or technology produced by that being and not by its biological needs. 2)The lowest I can see going is to the thousandth decimal place, the percision is there because we are talking about a number that is 10^18, derived from values that are much smaller than it. You can know something to the trillionth place, especially if you are measuring it by in units that are one trillionth the size of what you are expressing it as in the end product. (ie. You can say there are 0.254233 trillion tribbles, if you have a report saying that there are 254,233,000,000 tribbles. Similarly, even though we are calculating using so-called exact values of the population, we are taking it to a percission where if we are off by 200,000 watts per person in energy consumption, and 10 million persons in the total population, changes would not be reprsented until appoximately the 13th signifcant figure if dealing with values in the 10^16 range. Note that, if the Kardashev scale value was closer to one, this type of percision would be inapproriate, but in the midsection of this logathmic scale, it is specially appropriate due to the statistical values we know. 3) Could you help me clean up the calculations, I though a page of explaination was enough. Also, from information I found, unfortunately we may not know what the true value is for 2005 due to changes in China's infrastructure (Three Gorges Dam) and the questionable numbers coming from a redeveloping Iraq (ie, do you count energy that was never consumed). 4) It is a mix of science that has been co-opted by science fiction. The specualtion is clearly noted, in my opinon. --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 02:56, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • Sorry, maybe I was too terse. Let me clarify. 1) Section 4.2, Hypothetical futures: you should probably say who--specifically--thought of this scenario and assigned the values to each step. If that person is you, then it's original research. So the way to resolve this would be to cite where the information in this section came from. 2) Significant figures: it's the number of figures in the mantissa that matters. Your example above has six significant figures whether you express it in nanotribbles or exatribbles. World population estimates have an error on the order of 1% according to the UN. I don't know what the error on the energy production estimate would be, but I'd guess it's on the same order. No answer you derive from these numbers can have more precision than that. Including more significant figures is just misleading. I'd guess three significant figures would be right, but I assume you did the calculations so you can say for sure. 3) I'm referring here to the calculation after the table, where, apparently, you're estimating the mtoes for years 2004 and 2005. I can't find the page of explanation for these calculations that you refer to above. I'm just saying you should state what you're showing in these calculations without forcing the reader to figure out what they are by trying to see what numbers match with what. Whether those calculations even need to be included at all is a separate question. 4) Maybe this is not actionable--I'll defer to the opionions of others on this. But look at Fermi paradox to see how this sort of material can be handled. PRiis 18:37, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • 1) I will put in the sources for each part, since I have now seperated them and made them into tables, making sources much easier 2)I will defer to you on significant figures. That said, I would go to the thousandths place (0.814 for example), which still delinates differences between years. 3) I was using page as an exagerative word, I misunderstood you, I was refering to the calculations as an explaination itself, but I will annotate them, or remove them, if others agree to the removal of 2004 and 2005. 4( I will look into the fermi paradox page --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 19:11, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • 1)sources added to hypothetical futures--[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 20:26, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • 2)Fixed current values table 3) Provided explaination --[[User:Ctrl build|Ctrl_buildtalk ]] 20:51, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

*Support: This article meets all the main criteria for being a featured article - it is exceptionally informative and easy to read, even for the layman, it is comprehensive and well written. As for accuracy, there is no apparent disagreement in the talk pages, and it contains Italic textmany references as well as numerous explinations on errata by the chief contributor. It has a concise opening and table of contents, and contains well made graphics. All while being on an utterly fascinating subject - it is a great example of a featured article. Jeffrey O. Gustafson 7 Jan 2005

  • Object. Article has improved a lot but it is still a mess. (1) I have tried very hard to understand the diagram at Image:Development-Diagram.gif and I have failed. What do the axes represent? What do the coloured areas and lines represent? The image description talks about features like "rotating triangles" and "red curve" that I cannot identify on the diagram. You can see at Image talk:Development-Diagram.gif that I am not the only one to have trouble. (2) The images in section 2 don't appear to illustrate the text. (3) The numbers in the table in section 5 have ludicrous precision. (4) Wikipedia is not a forum for speculation, nor for original research. We must include only verifiable claims. Because speculation inherently cannot be verified it is necessary to identify who is responsible for each piece of speculation. For example, section 1.1 says "predictions are from what seems most likely given current trends in research." That is no good: "what seems most likely" is someone's point of view. This section must say something like, "Professor X proposes the following timeline" and cite the paper where he or she proposes it. Section 2 needs to name the most notable people making the arguments for and against. Section 3 says "given the fact that there must be a transition between civilization periods for each level". I don't think it's a fact, but rather someone's theory. Whose is it and what do they mean by "transition"? And so on. Almost every paragraph has speculation masquerading as fact, or weasel words like "Many individuals have pointed to". Gdr 20:22, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
Who reposted the nomination? I self-nomed a few weeks ago, but not this time. --Ctrl buildtalk 15:15, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It was posted by User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson on 2005-01-07 [8] Gdr 18:37, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)

[edit] Kowloon Motor Bus

Self-nomination. Welcome to respond. --202.75.80.6 05:20, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. Too short(10 sentences), one line lead section. Surely there can be more detail/info put into this article. --Aqua 07:53, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Can't be called comprehensive. Expand and include more information with references, please. Mgm|(talk) 10:45, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Instead of nominating one of these articles every other day, why not concentrate your efforts on getting one at a time featured? If a nomination fails, work on it for a few weeks, then try it again. Everyking 11:24, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Too short, not comprehensive. Also, lead section needs work. Jacob1207 21:31, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Object. Agreed. mathx314 20:10, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Concur with Mgm, Jacob1207. The bus network itself is notable as Hong Kong's biggest one but this needs A LOT MORE WORK. --JuntungWu 12:55, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I've added cleanup due to Vaoverland's concerns. --JuntungWu 08:57, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The statement that this company the largest bus company in the world is simply untrue. Laidlaw has more than 10 times as many buses. This also seems to be a very small article for such a large company.Vaoverland 08:07, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Solidarity (UK)

Self nomination. First attempt to nominate an article. In relation to the nomination criteria:

I believe the article is comprehensive for the topic.
The article has been checked for accuracy against a variety of sources.
I'm not great at evaluating if the text is well-written.
Uncontroversial: despite some worries about NPOV on first draft, a number of different editors have come through and NPOVed it.
Best work, "what Wikipedia offers that is unique on the Internet," this article provides an encyclopedic entry for a minor left-wing group. This kind detailed encyclopedic treatment of minority interests is central to Wikipedia. An account like this is unique on the web: alot of people reproduce Solidarity pamphlets, but few sites discuss what it was in historical context.
I think its got a sufficient lead section.
Images are inappropriate for the article: despite a fast and loose copyright policy on the libertarian socialist left, all Solidarity images are still formally under copyright, and the organisation no longer exists to change its licenses. If someone would like to locate a public domain hedgehog image, that would be appropriate.
Headings are in. References are in. I believe it to be in style.

Looking forward to your critique. Fifelfoo 03:43, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. No references. Needs further ilinking after lead. Could use some pic as well. A signinfact part - at lest 25% - of the article is quotes, half ot which are not attributed clearly. This need to be fixed and the article itslelf expanded, so it is no longer just a quote repository. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:52, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object agree with previous and I would like to see a history section as well.

Mgm|(talk) 10:57, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

  • Object I've been fiddling with this on and off and I agree that it's far from finished.--Paulanderson 13:04, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ericsson

I want to put this article as the featured article. You may support, object, or comment on it. --Cheung1303 02:58, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Object. Sketchy history, little on social importance within Sweden. Little current information. Fifelfoo 03:25, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object lacks current information, costumer and sales numbers (if possible), and writing isn't brilliant. For example: "Ericsson's mechanical repair shop was started together with his friend Carl Johan Andersson." Which suggests his friend got started. This needs major expansion and copyediting before I support it. Mgm|(talk) 10:48, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
Object. How can this be featured article material - that is an example of a top class company article - when it does'nt even have the new company infobox which is now in use (see Aer Lingus, Bank of Ireland, C&C for examples of the infobox). CGorman 12:35, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Same objections as CGorman. --JuntungWu 12:54, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object The lead is far too long. The statement about cellular market in the 1990s is written in the wrong tense (as if the 1990s is the current time period). History section just ends in the 1960s: only one sentence after first half of 20th century! Perhaps some of the excess content from the lead section would help here. Didn't this company get involved with General Electric's 2-way radio business in the US late in the 20th century? And, are there any graphics available to help round this article out? The potential seems to be here with an interesting subject, but it's not up to featured article status yet. Vaoverland 06:57, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Light Rail (KCRC)

I hereby put this article to the candidates for the featured article. You may discuss the points. --219.77.53.79 07:08, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object, no references and no mention of number of travelers who use these tracks. Mgm|(talk) 08:43, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object because a) the lead section is way too short when you consider the length of the following sections; b) as this is the English language wikipedia, the system map in whatever language that is really doesn't help very much, the map shown in the English Wikipedia should be translated into English (is there a system map that shows the routes' locations in a more geographically accurate manner?); c) the list of stations could be greatly simplified to remove the table as almost all of the stations for each branch of the system has basically the same information (as it is, the table is a large blob in the middle of the article) slambo 21:24, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. I really thank you for giving me permission to discuss it. Too many red links, and I really don't like the colored fonts used. RickK 22:17, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The rainbow fonts are hard to read and go against what is in WP:MOS. The article is way overlinked (e.g. every occurrence of Tuen Mun is wikilinked). The table and the map run into each other at low resolutions. The article could probably use a spelling/grammar check (for example, I found an "especialy" in the first paragraph). JYolkowski 00:41, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Main image is unsourced and possible copyright violation. —Steven G. Johnson 04:28, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Same grounds as Slambo, RickK. Agreeing with JYolkowski except for the rainbow fonts part. Stevenj is also probably right regarding the copyright of the image. I have some KCRC picture that I took awhile ago that I could upload, but I'd rather work on the MTR article first. --JuntungWu 12:57, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Portugal

Partial self-nom. Underwent several improvements. Great article. Extremely interesting.--212.113.164.102 21:44, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • object no history section; culture and history sections both too long (need to be cut in half)--Jiang 00:16, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. Needs a proper summary of Portugese history, not just directions to History of Portugal. Dbiv 00:50, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Neoplan Centroliner

I want to suggest this article. Anyone have comments? --Cheung1303 09:17, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes. There's no point in discussing the article itself, since the images that illustrate it are blatant copyvios which have been uploaded again and again in defiance of Wikipedia policy, a behavior for which Cheung is currently being RfC'd. One of the images in the article, Image:KMB APM1 int.JPG, is actually mentioned by name on the RfC as being taken from Gakei.com, which has a conspicuous statement on its site that "ALL photo images were taken by GAKEI, who retains the copyright privilege over them. You are NOT welcome to show any of them to the public in any form or by any means without his permission IN ADVANCE". Cheung's relationship to "Jeffery" who has taken over uploading the same images (claiming to have photographed them himself) is discussed there, too. The users at the RfC seem to be in some despair at not getting through to Cheung about how wrong it is to upload copyrighted images and putting misleading tags on them. Raul, is it possible to just remove this nomination because the article is actually illegal?--Bishonen | Talk 23:44, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Not in depth enough compared with Mercedes-Benz_450SEL_6.9. Also the copyright issues mentioned by Bishonen. It's not difficult to take a picture of a Neoplan Centroliner (I just rode on one this morning) - so there's no reason why this issue cannot be solved. Also the english copy needs some improvement, there are grammatical issues. --JuntungWu 06:45, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Still oppose. Not in depth enough in terms of chassic, engineering stuff. --JuntungWu 09:39, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Neutral. Note that the images in this article, although initially suspected because of their similarity to earlier copyvio images uploaded by Cheung1303, were later accepted to be original images by User:Jeffery by the complainants on the RfC. I have no opinion on this article itself, but I thought I should clarify this. —Steven G. Johnson 01:40, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose I love buses, and have owned a Neoplan bus. I thought this article would tell me all about a particular Neoplan bus product. Instead, it seems to mostly focus on who bought them, how many, when, and colors chosen. I feel there is very little detail about the bus product itself. I would be glad to revisit the article when it is rewritten to be more comprehensive. Sorry, but for now, I feel it doesn't measure up to fac standards. Vaoverland 08:23, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] HMS Conway (school ship)

I know schools are somewhat dubiously notable, but I think this one is fascinating. Not only was the school housed in a ship, it then sank! Dunc|☺ 00:02, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Even if it's fascinating, what's that got to do with anything? Everyking 01:30, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, though I'm inherently biased as I lived near where it sank for several years and know the story well. Fascinating, indeed. Dan100 15:53, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I renamed the article to HMS Conway (school ship) as "school ship" seems to be a description, not part of its name. It would be nice to have some material about Conway's operation as a school — what was the curriculum etc. (But if there's nothing specific to say about Conway then it would be better to expand the school ship article instead.) Gdr 18:06, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
  • Comment. I spent a week at a course at the former HMS Conway in May 1987 (it's now being used by Cheshire County Council). The article is about the school and after the ship sank in the 1950s it was built on land. So calling it a 'school ship' may not be entirely correct. Dbiv 15:07, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Ojbect. In need of copyedit; grammar is poor in sections and text is somewhat choppy and nonencyclopedic in tone. Bantman 01:36, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Diplomacy

I was looking through some older COTWs and I thought this was one of the top 3 previous ones (not counting the two that went one to become featured articles). I think it is a good featured article candidate. (Not a self nom) →Raul654 02:23, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. Article is confusing about the history of diplomacy, especially the practice of sending vs. receiving emissaries and how this was used by different states. Mentions Ottoman and Chinese imperial practice (expecting everyone to come to them) in the same breath with Milan's refusal to host French emissaries. --Michael Snow 06:24, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, no mention of the highly interesting diplomatic practices in medieval Japan. Neutralitytalk 03:37, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The history section is barely sufficient, but the main section is way too short. No mention of diplomatic protocol. I had a course in this 2 years ago, and while I cannot recall the details (will go look for the book), I am pretty sure this article just barely scratches the surface. And the referece section should be expanded, we have an one guide book (which I doubt was read by anybody writting this article) and a history book covering period from 1648-1815. Definetly not enough. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:56, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Same grounds as Michael Snow, Piotrus. --JuntungWu 12:59, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Culture of Greece

I was looking through some older COTWs and I thought this was one of the top 3 previous ones (not counting the two that went one to become featured articles). I think it is a good featured article candidate. (Not a self nom) →Raul654 02:23, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. Inadequate lead section. Article is also heavily skewed towards Ancient Greece, in spite of the introductory lip-service paid to the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, so it can't possibly be considered properly representative of the subject matter. --Michael Snow 06:29, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, even though I contributed to it. Several sections (particularly "Art and architecture" and "Philosophy, science and mathematics") need more content on the Byzantine and Ottoman periods and on modern Greece. --McMullen 22:28, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, I also made some (minor) contributions, but agree with all the objections above. Filiocht 09:00, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] League of Nations

A bit of a self-nomination. This article is the outgoing Wikipedia:Collaboration of the Week and has improved tremendously. AndyL 08:07, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I have also made a bit of a contribution to the article, and I reckon it fulfills all the requirements. Smoddy | Talk 18:09, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • 'Abstain. Progress. Keep up the good work. Object. I am impressed with how the article improved, and I am fairly certain I will support it in a few days, but there are few things that still need improvement: 1) section 'Criticisms of the League' needs to transform from bullet points into normal paragraphs 2) more references then one would be useful 3) This section should be merged (or put after) with 'Failures' section , preferably around 'Demise of the League' (which could use a little expantion), to keep the logical flow of the article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:51, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Have added a couple more references. Those and the websites listed below are all I used in the page - obviously I cannot speak for others. User:Smoddy | Talk 20:30, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Multiple one and two sentence paragraphs show areas that could stand to be expanded into full ideas or simply need to be merged into other paragraphs. It breaks up the flow of the text too much. - Taxman 15:52, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • What more is needed? If you can be a little more specific, I'll try to address these issues you have. Thanks. Smoddy | Talk 16:16, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Every one or two sentence paragraph could stand to be fixed. It's not necessarily that they need more information, but either expand them or merge them in with the nearby paragraph so they are not haning out on their own. Some people disagree with the need for elimination of one sentence paragraphs in writing, but I have never seen a wikipedia article that is not better by the near elimination of one sentence paragraphs. - Taxman 19:03, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Web traffic

Article has undergone significant changes over the past months and is now at least getting towards a featured article. Was on peer review where Johnleemk was the only person to respond, commenting about the lead section and references – both have been updated though I do worry about all-web references. violet/riga (t) 22:23, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Example graph of web traffic at Wikipedia in December 2004
Example graph of web traffic at Wikipedia in December 2004

Otherwise, an informative article.

Jon, Conqueror of Men | (Talk!) 23:18, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • While I agree partly with that objection I must say that in order to show a graph of web traffic it had to be about a site, and choosing any other site than Wikipedia might show bias. I went with the thought that this instance of self-referencing was acceptable. violet/riga (t) 23:43, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • google any MRTG graph... find a site that was slashdotted and graphed the traffic... theres lots of other alternatives that are not self-referential. Examples:[9] [10]  ALKIVAR™ 05:07, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Since the graph itself doesn't reference Wikipedia perhaps the caption could simply be changed to "Example graph of web traffic at a popular website". violet/riga (t) 12:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • You should by no means worry about all web sources, provided those external links have been used as references—used as sources for the facts in the article. (I'm more worried about the hints that sometimes seem to creep into reference discussions, that books are the only really solid references, no matter the subject.) Only, if you want to be sure of meeting the rather strict referencing standards that seem to be on the way in for Featured articles, you need to do them up a bit more. There are three proper places for them: 1. In the text, if they're being invoked as evidence for a particular point. (Alternatively those could be footnotes, but I wouldn't go there.) 2. In a section at the end headed "References". This is the vital one (Taxman will look for it! :-P), where all links should go that have been used more generally as sources for facts and factchecking. In my opinion any references from 1) should be repeated in this section, too. 3. In another section at the end headed "External links". This is for links that are not sources, but that you recommend as useful/interesting further reading. Use 1) and 3) if they're appropriate; always use 2). Format the links according to this MOS section. For links in the "References" section, note especially the requirement for retrieval dates (that impresses the hell out of people, and then they won't bother to check 'em ;-)). Finally, don't lose the useful comments on the sources that you have now, make room for them, too. Hope this helps.--Bishonen | Talk 00:36, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Apparently not, sorry if it was over-technical, or confusing in some other way. There is still no distinction made between sources and further reading, and the reader doesn't have any way of telling which is which. I have to object on that score.--Bishonen | Talk 11:22, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I was leaving the article alone until other people commented, which they appear not to want to! I've played around with it and split it into References and External links – let me know if you think that is better or if there's anything further that you suggest. violet/riga (t) 12:47, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • No, that's it, it's lovely. It's very nicely done, even without the retrieval dates. If you want to go for orgasmic perfection, see the reference at the bottom of the Wikipedia:Cite sources page for a plain example of retrieval dating (the reference itself, not the style guides that it links to!). Not sure what the dates you've added are, but "retrieval" (=the day you looked) is the only safe websource dating.--Bishonen | Talk 14:20, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
          • The dates given are when the article was written/created. I've added retrieval dates on there too, though they have had to be approximate. violet/riga (t) 19:49, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • I would also like to see some more work from other Wikipedians on this article, but I would also vote for it to be featured as it is.--AAAAA 04:24, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] September 11, 2001 attacks

I think this one is an easy pick. It is a very lengthy and professional article about an important subject. --Dmcdevit 08:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. Its been over three years and the article has settled down substantially. It is unquestionably well written, informative and unbiased, so I give my support. CGorman 20:15, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object: The title and first sentence use nonstandard punctuation. The standard when writing dates in the format of "month day, year" is to set the year off with two commas, or a comma in front and other appropriate punctuation following. Sources include the style guides of The Associated Press and The New York Times, "Working With Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors", Webster's New World College Dictionary, and many more. Further, Wikipedia:Manual of Style says: "If a word or phrase is generally regarded as correct, then prefer it to an alternative that is often regarded as incorrect." (For anyone who disagrees with me, note that I am not attempting to change the page now. I am only giving my view that needless nonstandard punctuation is a disqualifier for featured article status.) Maurreen 20:18, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I don't have to hand any of the sources Maurreen selectively gives but this doesn't sound right to me. I think she, and her sources, confuse "On September 11, 2001, hijackers...", where the second comma is needed, with "September 11, 2001 was a..." where it is not. Why would it be? The whole of the date is the subject of the sentence. "2001" is not an apposition (as in "My mother, Maurreen, used to say 'use two commas') nor a parenthesis. In the example we are considering the whole of the date describes "attacks" and the same considerations apply. I have to say that voting against a featured article because it doesn't use the punctuation you favour in its title is a poor reflection on you.Dr Zen 23:33, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Object to the objection: Many US sources use the punctuation Maurreen considers "nonstandard" (see [11]). She even forced two votes on whether to have the comma that she wants inserted inserted, and lost them both. It's ridiculous to oppose an article becoming a featured article just because you want a comma where most people don't, jguk 23:22, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      • Perhaps we should just move this to Attacks of September 11, 2001? Neutralitytalk 03:43, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
        • That works for me. There are a number of options possible that would sidestep disagreement about the comma. Maurreen 04:39, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Maurren, are you sure you're right about the second comma? As I mentioned to you a few weeks ago, I can't find a source that backs you up on this, and the link you gave for a Google search (at least the ones I read) don't seem to support your view. I've checked the AP, CP, Guardian and Globe&Mail style guides, and they also don't seem to support a second comma in this context (though I may have missed it). Can you provide an actual reference for this (with page number and edition, if it's a style guide you've got to hand)? I do vaguely remember that this way of writing a date used to be taught in American schools, but I'm not aware that anyone continues to use this rule, and if they do, my guess is it would now be regarded as non-standard. For example, would you write: "A Washington, D.C. man" or "A Washington, D.C., man"? Slim 23:23, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
        • Have also just checked Bill Walsh's Lapsing into a Comma (which, admittedly, is not very good) and Strunk and White. Can't find anything there either. Slim 00:04, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

Maurreen, thanks for supplying these references. I'll reply to you on your Talk page, but in brief, one or two of the examples you give below are arguably different usage, and the rest are definitely different. The AP reference might fit, but it doesn't give an example. Slim 00:01, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC) Slim asked for details on the references. Here they are.

  • AP stylebook (The one I have handy at the moment is from 2002), page 166, under "months," second paragraph: "When a phrase lists only a month and a year, do not separate the year with commas. When a phrase refers to a month, day and year, set off the year with commas."
Doesn't give an example though?
  • New York Times stylebook (1999), under "dates," page 101, first paragraph: "When day, month and year are given together, use a comma after the day, and use a comma or some other punctuation after the year: "He said he left Ho Ho Kus on April 16, 1995, to return to Burkina Faso."
This is arguably a different usage.
  • Webster's New World College Dictionary, fourth edition (2001), page 1673,"comma" section: "A comma is ordinarily used: … 5. To set off the main elements in an address; a title following a person's name; and the year if the month, day, and year are given. … The letter was dated July 14, 1987, and was mailed from Paris."
This is clearly a different usage. This would be US usage whether you generally use a second comma or do not.
  • "Working with Words: A Handbook for Media Writers and Editors," by Brian S. Brooks, James L. Pinson, and Jean Gaddy Wilson (2003, published by Bedford/St. Martin's), page 164, second point under "Always Use a Comma": "Use a comma before and after the abbreviation for a state following a city, and before and after a year following a month and date: … On May 2, 2002, the two giants in the field met." Maurreen 06:19, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This is nothing like the disputed usage.Dr Zen 06:40, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Looks good to me (Maurreen had missed a small number of genuine punctuation glitches, which I've fixed - sheeesh, seems like some can't see the wood for the trees). It's a nice article that doesn't spend too long on any one bit of it, with lots of links off it. (I should declare that I have done some work on the article some weeks ago - but it looks a lot better since I last saw it.) jguk 23:37, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support just to spite Maureen's vote. The title is fine. Everyking 00:33, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. No "sources and further reading" section. Neutralitytalk 03:44, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • Huh? That title for a section is entirely ambiguous as to which resources are actually used as references and which are just there for more information for the reader. Why would you ask someone to create that ambiguity? But I agree the article needs references and citation organized in a section at the end as per the featured article criteria, especially Wikipedia:Cite sources. I'll leave my vote below for clarity. - Taxman 23:39, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, inadequate references, and they really could stand to be noted at the end in a references section too. - Taxman 03:57, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support This is a wonderful article, very comprehensive. I would agree with Taxman that it would be useful to have separate "sources" and "further reading" sections, but that is not an objection. Blue 10:50, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. JOHN COLLISON (An Liúdramán) 13:12, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Excellent article, now that it's been copyedited, but I think the lack of references .. did the writers REALLY just know all this stuff? ... is too big an omission. It can't be too hard to fix this in time.Sfahey 22:48, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, because this is an excellent article and I don't want to be a pain about details, but there are several issues that should be looked at.
    • (1) It needs a references section and more inline references. There are only five inline references (as links) in the article, which isn't enough for a page this size. For example, these claims needs references: "Reportedly, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the attack's mastermind, wanted to remove at least one member -- Khalid al-Mihdhar -- from the operation, but he was overruled by Osama bin Laden" (and the sentence needs proper dashes) and "Shortly after the attack there were reported popular celebrations in some countries by people opposed to U.S. policies in the Middle East , however several of these images are suspected to have been staged" (not the correct punctuation for however, and you need a comman after attack);
    • (2) "In 2004, the U.S. government commission investigating the attacks officially concluded . . ." and "The official panel investigating the attacks reported that . . . " Why call it "the U.S. government commission" and "the official panel" rather than give it its proper name?
    • (3) It needs a copy edit, as there's some odd English e.g. "New York City lit the Empire State Building in purple and gold, in a sign of saying thank you for having the U.S. national anthem playing at the Changing of the Guard." In a sign of saying thank you? And "The great majority of Muslim political and religious leaders condemned the attacks - virtually the only significant stand-out was Saddam Hussein." Stand-out?
    • (4) The red links should be removed.
    • (5) And finally, is it appropriate to use al-Qaida instead of al-Qaeda? As it was an attack on American soil, and American usage dominates elsewhere in the article, the American transliteration of al-Qaeda should probably be used, especially as it links to the Wikipedia article on al-Qaeda, which is transliterated the American way. But that's a very small point. These are all small points, and I don't want to object on the basis of them, so this is just a request that some of these issues be resolved. I may do some of the copy editing myself if no one minds. Slim 23:48, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
Just did some copy editing myself. I left al-Qaida as it is, as I don't want to be dragged over hot coals by the Brits. :-) The only remaining issue (for me) is the references section, but that's not an objection. Slim 06:57, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The lead section is formatted into a thin column of text, with an image on the left and Template:Sep11 on the right. The image should be rt aligned with Template:Sep11 made into a footer. Some listings in the #See also section such as the 9/11 Comission Report should be incorporated into the text. --Jiang 05:41, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object - agree with Jiang. --mav 07:13, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Vaoverland 08:38, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Leo Ryan

Self-nomination. I found this article a stub and pretty much built it with me own two hands. Subsequent user contributions have made it tip-top. Well-researched, with picture and links, and plenty of citation to the People's Temple articles. Wally 23:38, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • Object, Ryan's life and activities apart from his visit to Jonestown are hardly described but I want to thank you for covering the Jonestown affair so well. Andries 13:48, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Update: three two new links added, courtesy of Everyking. And the note about Ryan's earlier work is valid; although he is known almost solely for this, it would do to flesh out his earlier life. Had a hard time finding specifics, though. Wally 16:57, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Update to the update: I added an additional link and expanded Ryan's early life. Give it a look. Thanks for all the input! Wally 18:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but I don't think it will do. There is only one paragraph about Leo Ryan's activities as US Representative other than Jonestown. Jonestown takes up almost two thirds of the article. There is in it the foundations of a featured article but it's not there at the moment. Dbiv 15:18, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. I have just done an extensive copy edit run, but it probably needs more. I have never heard of the word codel, and it is not defined. If there is a mention of CIA involvement in the Jonestown Massacre, and the article mentions that there is evidence of such, and a conspiracy theory on the subject, this should be addressed. The amendment is also a red link and should be explained. RickK 22:35, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

This is an article in progress, but it has already won acclaim from multiple news agencies (e.g., theUK Guardian, the ed-tech Insider). It manages to be npov despite a flood of potential scammers and conspiracy theorists, and is (I believe) more comprehensive than any other freely available overview of the subject. Well written, well illustrated, well linked to wikinews and other news sources. A model article. +sj+ 08:13, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Objection - Thanks, but it IS already in the current events section, so makes no sense to put it up as Featured as well. Maybe in a few years as a restrospective. -- Nils 11:27, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yahoo News is linking: see for instance http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041230/hl_nm/quake_disease_dc&e=14&ncid= and look in the left-hand-side menu under Related Web Sites. On the other hand, Nils has a very good point... featured article status should be to give prominence to very well-written articles that would otherwise be overlooked, and this article is hardly overlooked at the moment. -- Curps 11:47, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I saw that, we've been on their list of 'related links' from the very beginning. It is complimenting. Still, I will be seriously impressed once the BBC starts to refer to us. ;) -- Nils 21:47, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. This article cannot be comprehensive until the disaster can be properly assessed. Right now we don't even have a good estimate of how many are dead and not all places affected have been reached yet. Johnleemk | Talk 12:12, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Agree with Johnleemk. Way too early for featured article status. Dbiv 12:37, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Much too early and still in flux. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 13:31, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object: I was going to nominate it myself in maybe two or three months but this is way to early, the article still has like ten edits an hour. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 14:51, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)
  • Support. This is a very impressive article, a fine example of what Wikipedians can do. I reject the notion that featured status should depend on anything beyond the article itself, such as external events in the world. The most we can ask is that a featured article is of the maximum quality we can expect at a given time. Everyking 15:20, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Too many ideas are floating around about splitting, merging and rearranging the article(s). violet/riga (t) 15:27, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. This article shows off Wikipedia's value as a world-class resource for following current events. The current state of this article rivals (exceeds?) the quality of any other coverage I've seen online. - Jpo 15:59, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
  • Object - "Comprehensiveness" is not the issue here since we have featured articles on many topics that cover living nations and persons (that is we don't yet know all there is to know in the future about those topics so we must only draw upon info as it is uncovered through the news). The real issue is that this is a very rabidly changing article and this instability means that we cannot really vote on it yet since what we vote on will very likely be fairly different in the near future. I'm sure in a month or two things will have settled down to the point where a successful nomination could be done. --mav 17:29, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object - While the article is quite impressive, I'm inclined to agree with what others have said - comprehensiveness is a valid objection because it's still too early to assess the impact of the disaster; and (although it is not an explicetely stated FA criteria) the article is too unstable at the moment to have featured article status. →Raul654 17:48, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
  • Conditionally Object - Agreeing with many other posters, I object to it because not only are details not fully known at this time, it IS too unstable. I would say, wait till about the 6-month or 1-year anniversary, and put it up then, when more is known and it can be done in memory of the victims. Ral315 19:46, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I disagree about this not being comprehensive; comprehensiveness is when everything that is known about the subject is covered, regardless of how much is known, and I think this article is close. However, I agree about the lack of stability. Object. Fredrik | talk 19:58, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object for now - too early and too redundant. But I would support it perhaps a month from now. Terry 20:50, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object Fantastic article, just too early. When most of the information is confirmed and the body count finished, I would support it. 68.239.239.47 21:41, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Similarly. On the other hand, I'd like to see some way for us to feature this on the front page. Soon. Can we maybe make an exception to our usual policy? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:43, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
No. --Your humble featured article director.
I agree with Raul654 on this one, particularly after the long run of the "donate to support flood victims" bos on the main page, but feel free to seek out support for making an exception, Jmabel, if you feel strongly about it. --yet another wikipedian against dictatorship
Just keep it in the current news section where it is right now. That works fine. -- Nils 21:47, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree. This article will continue to receive more attention than any other for weeks. When it becomes stable, it will probably be considered the best article on Wikipedia. What higher status could we give it? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 10:24, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support It is my understanding (and I am relatively new, but...) that "Featured Articles" are meant to recognise articles of outstanding quality. Nothing more and nothing less. The 2004 Indian Earthquake article, in my opinion, exemplifies a high level of Wiki editing that deserves to be recognised. Even if it is a current event, that does not mean it is not a quality article and if that alone is what we should be judging...Then clearly this article deserves such status. Comrade Tassadar 22:15, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now It's a very good news article now, one I (as a minor contributor) am proud of. But it'll be even better encyclopedia article a month from now, and thus more clearly deserving of "featured" status. Tverbeek 23:40, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object as for now. As many of the earlier contributors to this page I agree that having it as a featured article will only serve to be redundant. Even though I recognize that the article is of high quality it will be even better in a few months.--Dunord 13:01, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • comment "redundancy" is not an argument. If it is FA material, FA it. Nobody will be forced to make it FAotd anytime soon. That it is still an 'ongoing event' is a more valid objection, but I do hope it will be featured soon after the dust has settled somewhat. dab (ᛏ) 16:52, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now* There is no point on having this article be on both current events and featured article at the same time. Maybe once the event is not so current.--Hello5959us
  • Object. Article is changing too rapidly, and some areas (the external links section comes to mind immediately) still need work before it's really one of the best articles on Wikipedia. Beginning 01:47, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. This article is a miracle and shows the best of what Wikipedia means to the world. Tom - Talk 16:14, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. How can this even be considered when the article is still changing every minute? I agree with Beginning: work is still needed. If anything, as I said on the article's talk page, some serious copyediting will be required once the commotion subsides and the text of the article "stabilizes". A featured article should be about how good an article is technically, not about the concept of Wikipedia, as good as it may be. Redux 17:55, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. We've done a lot of structual work on the article yesterday and today and I think we're now on the final version, barring smaller on-going edits. Dan100 19:59, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Not so fast. Looks great, but needs a lot of fine tuning.
  • Support The really final death toll will never known. The article is already very good. --ThomasK 04:55, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object
  1. Too early to become a Feature article as it it constantly changing
  2. Needs to go through grammar, spell, readability test.
  3. Is not complete, the death toll is not even near complete yet.
  4. Is already on the Wikipedia main page and has been like that for like a week. Making it a featured article and displaying it on the Main page is redundant.
  5. Even Raul654, the Featured article director says "No" Squash 05:33, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 The death toll will never known as complete.
  • 4 Yes, that is a matter to consider.--ThomasK 17:29, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object for now. Comment: On the other hand, I would like to read something like "The making of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake article on Wikipedia". This article IMO shows the power of Wiki - the frenetic edit pace in the first 48 hours resulted in an article that was more comprehensive and more up-to-date than most of the news sources. (On a tangent, does this signify anything for the Cooperation vs Competition debate?) As time went on, the article evolved - the individual country sections were spun out, the emphasis shifted from the casualty toll and providing emergency numbers to discussions on rebuilding and rehabilitation. Quite symbolic, in a way. --Brhaspati 21:29, 2005 Jan 5 (UTC)
  • Support. The article is excellent, and shows how quickly and effectively Wiki can respond – its greatest advantage over other encyclopaedias and net resources. Don’t wait for it to be perfect, because you will miss the effect. Banno 07:19, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, Too early. Djadek 10:16, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comment: It's nice to see so many people chiming in. I think this touches on some important confusions in FA selection. Please offer actionable objections. "Too early" is not actionable; neither is "not comprehensive -- not enough information is currently available". I welcome someone to suggest a policy change that says that articles in flux or about rapidly changing subjects are not featurable -- a change I would oppose strenuously -- but until then, a brilliant article about a half-known subject should still be marked as brilliant. We are getting better and better at covering these fast-changing topics, and to me the purpose of FA is to produce a list of every article on WP that is guaranteed to take someone's breath away with its excellence, and make them tell their friends about it. This article, for instance. Here's a summary of the objections mentioned above. 1. "already on the main page under Current Events; it would be redundant to put it there as a Featured Article. 1b. Wait until the 6-month or 1-yr anniversary, and then "put it up" when it can be done in memory of the victims.

Misunderstanding of what FAC is for. This process does not decide what will go on the Main Page at any particular time; it identifies excellent work.
2. FA status should give prominence to well-written articles that would otherwise be overlooked; this article is hardly overlooked at the moment.
Misunderstanding of what FA status is. It should identify all excellent work, regardless of its prominence. Think of a "booklet of featured content," for instance; this should include all of the best work in WP.
3. Article is not stable, in flux; getting 10 edits an hour. What we vote on will be different in the near future. 3b. There are too many ideas floating around about splitting, merging, rearranging the article. 3c. ...even though this is not an explicitly-stated FA criterion
Not actionable; related to how actively people are working on the article, not how good it is. If the article fluctuates between good and bad, then there is reason to complain. If people are constantly making it better at 10 edits an hour, and it's already featurable, that is not a good or actionable reason. No featured article is the same six months later; but it is still featured and usually still of the same high quality.
4. Not comprehensive. We don't yet know the 'full' death toll. It's still too early to assess the impact of the disaster.
Not actionable. Inconsistent. We can have a FA about the kennedy assassination even though we may never truly know what happened or how.
This is a strawman arguement. The Kennedy assassination is 40 years old, and yes, we *can* fully assess the impact of what happened, even if what happened is unclear. On the other hand, the tsunami is a week old, and no, we cannot assess what the impact is. You want a way to fix it? I say "Wait until we can and then add it" - this is, indeed, actionable. →Raul654 22:13, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
One can never perfectly assess the impact of an event. There's always more data to be gathered, current or historical, more statistics to be run, more cause-and-effect arguments to be analysed. And just as we can put a large frame around the K. assassination and present what impact we know of, we can also put a large frame around what is known about the tsunami, so that the raticle is correct even while it has recognized gaps in precision. Do you have a preferred metric for identifying when the impact of a disaster is "assessible"? +sj + 00:03, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
5. It will be even better a month from now.
Not actionable, save by protecting the article. True of almost every featured article. FAs aren't perfect; they aren't even supposed to be the "top 1%" of articles; they are just the articles that rise above a certain high bar. We should strive for every article in the pedia to reach featured status some day.
6. Work is still needed. Needs fine tuning. Copyediting; grammar, spelling, readability. see Talk: page.
Great points; the more specific and actionable, the better. Please clarify: where does the article need tuning, and what kinds of grammar and readability problems does it have?
+sj + 22:07, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

test

[edit] Quebec French

Bits of self-nomination. This article is one of the best collection of specificities for Quebec French I've ever seen, including quite a lot of books. It shows just how much different European and Quebec French are: nearly as much as American and British English. --Circeus 22:05, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Whole-hearted Support. Being a fluent speaker of French and having lived in French Quebec, I can safely say this is an article of outstanding quality. Extensive research was obviously done and the subject is well covered. Phils 22:28, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Looks like good, thorough work. Everyking 00:19, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object for now. The one para history section is completely inadequate and the separate history article does not look long enough to warrant a separate article. There are also many single paragraph sections and one sentence paragraphs, which is real bad form. I suggest getting rid of the mini section headings and combine that text into larger sections. This would also reduce the size of the TOC, which is overwhelming ATM. --mav 04:34, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • The history article certainly looks lengthy enough to warrant a separate article to me. Not to mention there's lots of room for expansion. Everyking 04:56, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • My main point was that the info at the Quebec French was not nearly enough. --mav 05:02, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. A lot of statements are made with no attempt to make them more accessible to someone not already familiar with the subject. Examples include the article didn't even note Quebec is a province of Canada until I edited it, it still gives no notion of what a oïl language is, where Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine are and why the dialects there are considered distinct. The lead section seems to intimate they are not even included in Quebec French, while later in the article says they are regional variations. Other than the accessibility and a bit of inconsistency, it looks very good and has a lot of great information. The accessibility doesn't need to be fixed by wholesale changes, just the addition of more inline explanations of terms and concepts to help those not already experts in the subject. Also, the external links used as references need to be properly formatted as in Wikipedia:Cite sources. - Taxman 04:32, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. There were lots of sweeping "superlatives" ("invariably" this or "so very" that) which seemed unjustified, and in any case kept this from reading like an encyclopedia article. Also, what's going on with the "standardization" section? The second paragraph is one huge, tortuous sentence, and it leaves one wondering what is the antecedent for the "effect" which begins the next paragraph. Why no vote? 'cause once I got into all the linguistic symbols in the later sections, i didn't know WHAT was going on at all. And I SPEAK French!Sfahey 21:08, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Template:French dialects belongs as a footer. The dialects have no chronological order. --Jiang 03:31, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • I think the alphabetical order is fine. All listings of language varieties across Wikipedia are in alphabetical, not chronological, order AFAIK. I'll see what I can do on the template. --Circeus 16:42, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Even if minor fixes for form could be made here and there (I'll see what I can do) it has nice, proper substance and is an interresting read. Quite factual (I'm a native speaker myself). - Coren 04:09, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Qualified support. The "Linking" section is completely unexplained (I asked about it on the talk page a while ago and got no response), and the superlatives mentioned above should be toned down. Then I'd be happy to see it as a feature article. - Steverapaport 09:27, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The sections on Phonology and phonetics, Morphology, Grammar and syntax are quite complete and were evidently written by people who know their stuff. However, there is no way for me to validate the all this information. There may be innacuracies that only experts in the field could point out and correct. As for the rest of the article, it contains (as mentionned by others) a few "showstoppers". The history section is very small indeed. That is because I wanted to first write the full History of Quebec French article and from that write up a summary (or let someone else do it). The standardization stub doesn't reflect my understanding of the issue, which is very political and still debated at the current. The Regional variations section is full of out of context details and would need to be fixed and expanded greatly before it is presentable. I personnally think we have a lot of work to do still. By the way, for those interested in the subject of Quebec French, there is currently a very interesting series of two articles by Marie-Éva de Villers (author of the Multidictionnaire de la langue française) in Le Devoir. The articles present the results of a study which tried to establish the real norm of Quebec French by comparing all the words used in newspaper articles published in Le Devoir and Le Monde for the year 1997. The second and last article was published today (January 5, 2005). Very interesting read. -- Mathieugp 17:03, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Luis Muñoz Marín

This is a partial self-nomination. This article is very interisting dealing with one of the most important political figures of Latin America in the 20th century. Very complete, should be a good featured article. user: Coburnpharr04 December 29, 2004 11:00 PM ET

For being so important his article is very short. There also are no references. --mav 06:08, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Munoz's life is extremely important but I find it unneccesary to have details of his marriages and his sons in the article since they are irrelevant to what he did for Puerto Rico and in the end would add only a paragraph or so. I have expanded the lead section and references have been added. User talk: Coburnpharr04 05:15 pm, 31 Dec 2004 (ET)
  • Object. I concur with mav, there is no information about his family. I suggest that what he did for Puerto Rico is, in fact, irrelevant — that's fodder for the Puerto Rico article. What he did, period, is what matters — the man, not the myth. Wally 23:43, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sanskrit language

I didn't have any hand in making this article, but I just thought it was a very interesting and comprehensive article that covers a lot of ground. Good example of wiki.--24.251.234.191 10:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

weak object. A lot more could and should be said about the language, and it has been on my todo list for some time. But the article could be rearranged so that the missing parts (especially one-sentence parapgraphs) are delegated to (future) specialized articles, such as Sanskrit grammar. dab (ᛏ) 10:52, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Support. Comprehensive article. --ashwatha 20:44, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Object - no references. --mav 04:53, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object - no picture. Plus I agree with the above objections, which I don't think have been adressed so far. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:02, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Pictures and references have been added now. --ashwatha 15:50, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bidder's organ

I think that this page is ought to bhe nominated since I placed a great deal of time researching about this, although it's a small article (length-wise). By being one of the featured articles, this page can increase people's awareness about a special organ in frogs-which may really boost Wikipedia's standing as a knowledge bank.

Nominated by User:Matthewprc. →Raul654 10:31, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

  • Object, wikipedia isn't a how-to guide. So I don't think the dissection guide should be there. The article also doesn't help in telling me what the organ looks like. Mgm|(talk) 16:05, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Article is far too short and by no means FA material. Jacob1207 02:16, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object This is an interesting stub but it has a long way to go. The dissection directions could be rewritten to describe the location of the organ. A picture would help with this. Tiles 05:48, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Too short to be an FA. utcursch 06:14, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Too short to be an FA. Ta bu shi da yu 06:19, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Too short to be an FA. I moved some of my questions to the talk page of the article. I still think it's a potentially interesting topic and I might be willing to support (or to help improve the article further if some of the answers to my questions can be answered). This is a potentially interesting article, but it has to be more than a dissection guide (which could be rewritten for inclusion in a larger article). alteripse 14:41, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Agree, This is a nice article, and I personally think that this should be nominated. It states the organ's anatomy and physiology, which should be OK for a science or anatomy subject.
  • Agree. This is a very informative article about the least-known organ in Anatomy, and should be nominated. I also think that a picture accompanying this would be (gross to some people. It is better not to have any picture)

[edit] Volvo B10TL

I want to place this article as the featured article on January 2, 2005. Anyone have any discussions? --218.102.93.6 06:07, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Object. Is this article really comprehensive? Anyway, there are insufficient references. Johnleemk | Talk 08:43, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Seems a little thin, and I'm getting the whole vehicle geek thing here too. Also, note that the date of a featured article is not chosen in advance. --Dhartung | Talk 11:11, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Intro section too short; has too many short, choppy paragraphs (several of just a sentence); and writing is fairly technical and not accessible to laymen. Some stuff that is linked to, like the Octopus Card, need some explanation in the article to demonstrate their significance. Jacob1207 02:24, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)