Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Trafalgar/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Battle of Trafalgar

This should be WP:FA for 21 October 2005 which will be the 200th anniversary of the battle.

Has gone through peer-review:

I believe the article is extensive and comprehensive. The objections raised in peer review was lack of references, but so much has been written about Trafalgar (and much more has come out this year) that a "further reading" section of suitable books is more appropriate. Dunc|☺ 17:48, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

  • It can be a featured article, but the main page featured article is not supposed to conflict with selected anniversaries (or In-the-News). →Raul654 18:28, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • Where does it say that? I would have thought it a good idea to link anniversaries with FAs. Dunc|☺ 18:50, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
      • Well, it's not written in stone or anything (none of the "rules" governing main page FAs are; they're conventions I choose to adopt), but that has been the operating procedure for quite a while now. The reasoning behind it is something like this: we already allot 1/4 of the main page specifically for historic anniversaries. It makes no sense, then, to have the featured article doing the job of that section (nor does it make any sense to have Battle of Trafalger linked prominently from the featured article, and then linked again from the selected anniversaries). →Raul654 18:54, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
        • Well I think it makes plenty of sense to do so where appropriate. The link of the date to the event is important in this case because of the tradition of Trafalgar Day. It is the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar and it's probably going to be all over the British press. A FA and anniversary would not duplicate each other, they complement each other. The anniversary section takes just two lines, and on 21 October also mentions four other events. The lead section on Battle of Trafalgar, as would be displayed on the main page is much longer and goes into a lot more detail. Dunc|☺ 19:30, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
The idea sort of worries me... imagine a trend resulting in rather mediocre articles becoming FA in emergency mostly because of an anniversary; or more deserving articles not being featured because another "anniversary articles" gets in the way... I think that Raul's comments make lots of sense. Also, I rather like the idea of the encyclopedia being above as mundane contingencies as the news.
That being said, my feeling is that this article has lots of merits indeed. Rama 19:54, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm not saying that articles have any more merit because of their potential use as anniversary articles. Each article should be subjected to the same rigorous peer review before being featured. Neither should we get into featuring a particular article every year, just because it's on an anniversary. This anniversary won't come around for another hundred years (when it might be time to feature it again). And if I remember correctly, wasn't European Union a FA on an anniversary? Dunc|☺ 22:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm going out on a limb here, but my I suggest that if an anniversery article is used as a featured article on its anniversery day it not be mentioned in the anniversery section? That would free up space for another event to be mention in the aniversery section. TomStar81 20:49, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Selected anniversaries are selected based on relative majorness of the event. Since this is a very major event relative to what else happened on that day of the year, we need to have it as a selected anniversary. I also completely agree with Raul. Since the Main Page has such limited space, we need to absolutely minimize repetitive links and mentions of the same thing. Each section also needs to be stay distinct. --mav 17:24, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • object (light) ; I don't agree that the lack of references is justifiable just because references are common; the question is rather which reference actually was used to write this particular article. However, given your above position, I'm not going to call for proper references this time. Could you instead please fill in a bit more about what is covered in each of the further reading texts so that people know where to start reading for different areas.. Mozzerati 21:05, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • I can't basically say what references were used because I didn't write the article. Dunc|☺ 22:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
      • worth leaving a message on the talk pages of major contributors asking for that information. Also it's appropriate to just give the references you used when you were verifying that it is reasonably correct before nominating, even if these are just the ones you originally learned about the battle from yourself. Mozzerati 06:53, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's an engaging article, worthy of being featured. I'm no history buff yet found it a very enjoyable read. Maybe a little bit more on the battle engagement itself would make it even better. Adidas 08:03, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. There has to be a proper reference section like with any other FA. I have no objection to a "Further reading"-list as long as it's kept fairly short and lists fairly general literature on the subject. / Peter Isotalo 23:47, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
I have added a couple of references that I have used. The problem is that on a topic like this, there are so many books available and so many different editors of the page that it is impossible to know what everyone used. Its not as though there are a couple of standard references that everyone knows and can find. The library has shelves of books on Trafalgar (expanding daily in this bicentennial year) many of which tell much the same story. Dabbler 18:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)